Posts by Jennifer Dougan
Unearthing Thanks (and a special Audio for You)
Can you see them? The condensation-dripping plastic ziplock bags hanging from the clean dishes rack. And I’m not sure if it’s just the frugal missionary kid in me that still washes plastic bags, or the trying-to-go-more-green-girl in me who is sad about too many plastic bags floating in the oceans, but nonetheless, three bags hang…
Read MoreThe Chicken and the Egg in a Bedroom of Silk Sheets
I’ve seen the chill creep right up through a marriage — seen it in others and watched it frost up my own. I know firsthand the battle to restore romance, one choice at a time. And while experts are right that hostility shrinks up desire, experts also point out this powerful hope: any relationship can…
Read MoreThe Lie that’ll Ruin Your Sex Life
(This is the second post in the series, Let’s Talk about Sex. The first is here.) Photo Credit: Flickr user Milena Mihaylova, Creative Commons cc license You’ve crept up to me quiet and said it in hushed voices. In conference hallways, outside workshop doors, or pulling me aside at retreats and MOPS groups, you’ve swiped…
Read MoreOf Sex and Cheesecake
He mentioned it casually while he was lacing up his shoes on a red hallway rug, and I can’t remember how it came up. “Why doesn’t the Church talk more about sex, Mom?” My twenty-one year old had to leave for work so our conversation was short. “Well, your dad and I do, and our…
Read MoreFor When You Don’t Feel Like You Fit and You Just Want to See the Cover
A cement mixer rumbles and churns on white-washed sidewalk. Grey rivulets swirl silver along the gutter. I step off the sidewalk, afraid of falling stone, and sidle beside trucks and cars parked out from the two-story metal scaffolding and men in hard hats, until I reach Spyhouse Coffee’s entrance. Photo Credit: Flickr user Neil Moralee,…
Read MoreThis is When It Strikes You Most
In the whispering crack of my door opening, I wake and feel him tiptoe near. “Mom?” he asks and I know. “I’ll be right there.” Photo Credit: Flickr user Daniel Gies, Creative Commons, cc license He pads away, hands out to navigate the dark room and hallway. I hear his door open and shut across…
Read MoreHow Your Voice Translates Across Chords and Courtyards
Twenty of us scraped chairs on shiny wooden floors then settled legs still. My paper plate sagged with food: a tangy key lime cheesecake slice with frothy whipped cream lay next to a smooth plain cheesecake piece topped with blueberry crisp. Sweet corn and pepper cowboy caviar salsa slid juices across the plate and soaked…
Read MoreThe Woman in the Woods
Like an M. Night Shyamalan film, the title emerges: The Woman in the Woods. Photo Credit: Flckr user Nick Kenrick, Creative Commons cc license At her wooden desk layered with papers and folders, Morgan studies criss-crossed characters of Mandarin Chinese. In isolated pieces called radicals, she sees the term for female, and other radicals multiply…
Read MoreWhen You Find Yourself Red-Faced and Hot at the Woodfire
In between sticky smores, sandy swimsuits, and splashes in the crisp Mississippi River headwaters, it washed off: the weight of everyday life. Hamburger hobo stews wrapped in tin foil oozed steaming carrot and potato juices. We smelled of wood fires and mosquito repellent. Hiking through bogs on wooden boardwalks, slapping mosquitoes, hypothesizing which “leaves of…
Read MoreGrab Your Ugly Socks!
With a clatter and a crash, the phone slipped off the treadmill dashboard, careened off the moving belt, and skidded to a stop in the carpet behind me. I glanced left and right. Lithe joggers ran in precise form, their arms knowing how to cycle in smooth arcs, not flailing wildly like mine. Photo Credit:…
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