How do I love thee? Let me count the ways… Storybook, Lost Timber, and Horton Haven you each have a place in my heart From my first love to my current love From two weeks at a time to visiting for a day From cleaning bathrooms to washing pots and pans From leading cabins to …
Journey between two homes
We drove past the rolling Illinois farmland late into the night. The sky was warm with orange and pink. It was the night of the summer solstice, light lingering longer than any other day of the year. It reminded me of late summer nights in northern Minnesota sitting at the campfire when I wouldn’t realize …
Spring has sprung: A time for delight
The daffodils are gone now. They have given way to the flowers of the pink Japanese magnolias, the fluffy white flowers of the Bradford pear trees, the bright yellow vines of the forsythia bush, and the soft purple flowers of the red bud trees. The green grass is poking through the ground. Spring has sprung. …
A splash of color
The pink magnolia flowers have begun to open on the tree outside my kitchen window—a splash of needed color against the gray and dreary sky. The daffodils by the creek wave their bright yellow petals, reminding us that spring is coming. Our hope for warmer days and growing things is not in vain. The world …
An Unexpected Christmas
December 2010 was a memorable one. My husband had been out of work for 5 months and we were still knee-deep into the season of ‘being-anxious-about-every-single-thing-we -purchased.’ Should I buy this bag of coffee? Do we need it? Isn’t coffee a luxury? Will I regret buying this later? The time had finally come to decide if we …
Seven consecutive Mondays, five years in a row
It’s hard to put into words all that the cross country families have meant to me. We’ve mostly seen each other for seven consecutive Mondays in the fall for five years in a row. I’d like to wax eloquent about this —it is Jack’s senior year after all. But I can’t find eloquent words; actually, …