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 …
The lighting of a spark
During the 20 years that I homeschooled, there are only 6 years that I taught all four of them. Does this surprise anyone else, or is it just me? Now for fifteen years of the total twenty, there were three or four kids at the house; it’s simply that all four were not always “in …
Caterpillars on the move
Today the caterpillars were on the move. They were booking along the pathway. One after another racing along…until I came to the ones that were still. So maybe that’s why they were moving so fast. Maybe they need to go fast enough so they don’t curl up and stay forever on the path. They need …
Hard goodbyes are better than Can’t-wait-to-get-out-of-here-s
I was 24 and I stood in the empty parking lot next to my loaded car. The wind blew my hair into my face as I glanced around the place that I had called home for the past nine months. I had worked to the end of the school year. I had finished. I hadn’t quit. …
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 …
When that little kindness wasn’t little
Once upon a time a young dad and a young mom were busy changing diapers, folding laundry, picking up toys, reading books over and over again, and making meals for a four. a three, and a one-year-old. Occasionally they remembered that it had been just the two of them once. They knew it in their minds but …
Words are my jam.
I like to speak them, write them, listen to them, and read them. I have a college degree in words – they call it Communications, which also happens to be the name of my top strength in Clifton Strength Finders. My love language is Words of Affirmation. I have always loved the smell and feel …
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, …