He pulled up for our first date in a 1999 Chevy Xtreme. If you're not familiar with this kind of truck, it's like an S-10, but it's built on a Camaro chassis, so it sits much lower and has some different moldings along the bottom. Everywhere we went for the next few years, we went in that truck. He bought it with the intention of someday making it a show truck, by reshaping the chassis, putting in a new engine, getting big tires, and other modifications. We've had a lot of fun showing it at...
about 14 hours ago • 2 min read
"Mom, my legs hurt again!" He said this with some excitement, knowing he would soon be even taller. I sighed, knowing what was going to happen to the grocery bill. It almost seems unfair, the pain that accompanies growth. But that's the pattern, anywhere you look. Farmers break the ground to plant a seed, and the seed breaks open and breaches the ground to reach toward the sun. Bodies stretch beyond what seems possible to painfully deliver a new life into the world. Even growth that takes us...
8 days ago • 2 min read
The other night I went to a middle school basketball game, and I noticed that though the focus was the kids on the court, a lot of the work wasn’t on the court. Look around the room: There are the ten players on the court, of course, doing their best, and others on the bench, ready to add their skills to the game. There are the coaches, pacing the sideline with scrunched eyebrows, flailing arms, and raised voices. The school administrators stand near the wall, hoping everything goes smoothly....
15 days ago • 2 min read
There are two kinds of people in this world: those whose favorite season is spring and those whose favorite season is fall. I get why people (in their wrongness) choose spring over fall, with the flowers budding, the grass greening, and all creation waking up and coming to life. It has resurrection written all over it. But fall... is glorious. Not to be outdone, fall boasts its own color palette with the tinges of orange, yellow, red, and even some purple scattered about. Spring may shout...
29 days ago • 2 min read
At my family reunion this past weekend, I kept finding myself watching my cousin's little girl. She's three and has that wonder about her that you can actually see. It's in her eyes when she walks into a room, like everything in it is still new and worth looking at. It's in her smile, unguarded, no calculation behind it at all. She hasn't learned yet to check a thing against a list of reasons it might not work before she lets herself consider it. I don't think she's unusual; other young ones...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
I am heading to my family reunion this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it, as always. Our theme this year is "A trip down memory lane." We're making the best goodies we grew up eating from our parents' generation: tea tassies, cracky bars, sauce cake, and banana croquettes (don't tell Deborah - she despises these and always had to make them, which rumor has it, she has to do again this year) and many other favorites, too. Fingers crossed for banana pudding - from scratch. We're...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
We've lost Dolly. That news hit haaarrrrd. I had "Jolene" stuck in my head and a strange, specific ache for a woman I never met, never spoke to, never stood in the same room with. That part surprised me more than the grief itself. How do you miss someone that much when the only thing you actually shared was a radio? But that's not quite true. I shared her faith, though mine likely looks different from hers. I shared her desire to be and do good in this world. I shared her desire to love and...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
I got new glasses this week. My prescription didn't change, but I wanted new frames that fit better and didn't keep getting in the way. When I picked them up, I expected to see exactly the same. For the most part, that was true; however the new frames brought some nuance and a slight change in depth perception, which I adapted to quickly. The world had not changed, my prescription had not changed, but the frame around it did. I've been turning that over for a couple days, wondering how...
2 months ago • 2 min read
I have something to tell you, and it's making me a little nervous even to type it: I’m going to a tap dance class. I wanted to do something that would get me out of the house, get me moving, and maybe make a friend or two along the way. I wanted a genuine, honest-to-goodness new thing, not a version of something I already know how to do. I had my first class this week. I was both excited and nervous as it drew near. I left early to make sure I could find the studio and get in on time. I stood...
2 months ago • 2 min read