Archive for May 2012
Tearing Down Walls in Marriage: One Woman’s Story
“Here’s your assignment for the week,” the counselor told my brown-haired friend. “Touch his arm.” My friend couldn’t believe it. Sitting in the counselor’s office, she hated to hear this advice. “Husbands need lots of touch,” the marriage therapist reminded her. “This week, I need you to touch his arm.” “It took me two or…
Read MoreGuest-posting over at “Chasing Silhouettes”
I’m guest-posting over at my online friend and writer Emily Wirenga’s Chasing Silhouettes website today, a “place of hope and healing for families and caregivers on the eating disorder journey.” Join us there to mull over “How to Be Beautiful” and feel free to leave an encouraging comment. If you are visiting here after my…
Read MoreDandelions, Thistles, and How Do You Grow Faith?
I bike to my new yard, a yellow child trailer bouncing along behind me. This is it! The new home. Earlier, a friend, in black “blinged” flip flops, and I, in brown bejeweled sandals, walk in measured paces across the knee-high grass. Counting feet and meandering mildly-haphazardly through the dandelions, we guess at the dimensions…
Read MoreKid Bedtimes and Gathering Storms
Grey clouds blanket my evening sky. Wind-tossed trees are now still and a heavy mugginess descends. Swollen drops pockmark my deck, and then nothing. Like silence before the curtain rises, the yards wait quietly. A slight breeze stirs the leaves and a distant car muffler hums and fades away. Silence again. My three year old…
Read MoreBuckling Into, Not Buckling Under
He sits belted in familiar confinement. Spying his worn blue car-seat downstairs earlier, he had heaved and tugged it partway up the stairs, clunking, crashing, and grunting until I helped him. “You want your car-seat upstairs?” I asked, surprised. The child seat had been left in the entryway temporarily, in between car shifts. “Yes! Tant…
Read MoreDad’s Driving
Photo credit Buttery salmon-avocado sushi pairs with spicy-sweet sliced ginger on my tongue. A delicious aftertaste spurs me eagerly on to the next slice. Mmm, fabulous. Scalding mint verbena tea from the coffee shop here scares me just seconds away from it touching my tongue and I lower the cup, preferring to wait. I dropped…
Read MoreRomantic Gift Ideas Like a Dead Goat & Key Lime Pie
Photo credit “Oh, by the way,” as I kissed his cheek hello, “you bought me a slice of key lime pie and a coffee for Mother’s Day. Thank you,” I grinned. My man smirked at me, slightly quizzically, as I walked in the door from studying at a bookstore coffee shop last night. Now I…
Read MoreA Mother’s Day Body Scrub
Okay, I admit. This is an older picture, but it looked a lot like this today. Strolling down suburban side streets my daughter and I explored and dreamed. Clambering to the top of a patriotically red and blue jungle gym we leaned against the breeze and sucked in the warm summer air. Passing boxy little…
Read MoreAnd Then I Saw the Smoke
A verse has been tumbling through my mind since I read it a few days ago. One of the words was unexpected and I have been puzzling through how it works. And then, while driving this week, I saw the smoke. A towering four-story black smoke cloud tilted off-kilter from the horizon. The rest of…
Read MoreSnakes, Church, and How to Be Beautiful
Photo credits A song on Sunday sent me into snake ponderings. The worship song surged around me in the church pew and I lifted my writhing three year old onto my hip. Unaccustomed to being with us in the service, he was a whirl of energy and motion. Hanging off the chair with one hand…
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