children

  • Real

    There are experiences in life that you can never really prepare yourself for. When they happen, they become ‘Real’ and you find yourself touching the divine in some way…real joy or pain brings about a kind of wonder and awe that separates us from everyday life. As I get older, I find myself looking for…

  • Holy Saturday

    Sometimes pictures surprise you.  The one above, taken four years ago on a Holy Saturday like today, was one that escaped my attention until just recently.  That day, my daughter had my camera and she took dozens and dozens of pictures…this one seemed just kind of random to me until I looked a bit deeper.  The…

  • Gps

    I am direction-impaired. I often tell my children that my brain is actually really powerful in every area except spatial reasoning, because I have never been able to read a map or really visualize how routes come together. This, in contrast to my husband, who can go someplace he’s never been in the dark just…

  • Cookies and Tater Tots

    Each time I step into the my hometown elementary school to teach Kindergarten music, I’m hit with the smell of cookies and tater tots.  It’s a smell that brings me right back to the time when my kids attended this school, and it evokes strong memories of those long-ago days.  I can see my Kindergarten-aged…

  • For my Hometown Moms

    Every so often, at a school or sports event, I will look out at the sea of kids and realize the rare privilege we have. We are connected because we occupy one speck of a dot on a map and we are raising our kids in this speck, at this time. We’ve watched this batch…

  • Lessons from a Blizzard

    Now that we have thawed a bit, I have the time to note some of what were real blessings in the last few difficult days.  From Friday at 11pm to Sunday 8pm, we were without power, except for a bit provided by a small generator that Tim had the good sense to rent on Thursday…

  • Orange

    Amid the hustle and bustle of the preparation for Christmas, I had been finding myself a little breathless. Even though I knew I should be spending more time praying, reflecting, and enjoying the season, it seemed my mind was full of things to be done, tasks to check off. In every Advent sermon, I heard…

  • Blessings

    Ever since my children were in preschool, I have said a little prayer over them as I’ve dropped them off for the day.  In those early years, it was so hard to leave them in someone else’s hands.  Until they went to school, they grew in an environment that was controlled mostly by me.  School…