I was trying to think of the right word to use. I wasn’t “surprised,” really, nor was I “thrilled.” That’s not the right word either. It should have been obvious, the sheer number, if I had sat down to think about it ahead of time. But when over two hundred people showed up at the
Many times we pray and ask God for something and then expect an instant answer. And many times He does offer a miraculous answer right away. But many times He does not, and we wait. While resting to recover from a medical procedure, I was watching a silly 1960s TV show called Gilligan’s Island about
There is a group of people who are forgotten “essential workers” in the list of obvious workers which include hospital staff, emergency personnel, and teachers. My husband is among these forgotten yet very much essential workers: bankers. Most bank employees have worked in office, with little chance of working from home, and continued to take
With Fall approaching, I’ve been thinking of my sweet mother-in-love and what a blessing she was to me and to our family. She had an amazing ability to turn “stuff” into art. I’ve never met anyone with the artistic talent and creative thinking she had. She could take some fabric, beads, and thread and turn
Forty-five years ago. Sunday marked 45 years since August 11, 1974, when the man I call Husband asked me to marry him. We’ve always remembered August 11th as a special, private date and talked about how our lives were changed after that day. We were married the following April, so young and so in love,
When thinking of someone who has influenced your life, you may consider a celebrity, or a religious or political figure. Or perhaps a close friend or family member might immediately come to mind. The choice usually has something to do with self-improvement or finding an exceptional role model. But how often does someone think of a
Sometimes life takes twists and turns that have surprising endings. Early on a recent morning my husband, Kirk, and our eight-year-old grandson were fishing in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. They had left before breakfast in order to get a good fishing spot in a place they’d had good luck before. When they arrived, they
I had the privilege of helping serve Easter dinner to over 200 people in an area of town where many homeless are known to take shelter and the general population is poor. All the food was donated; all was cooked by volunteers. Ham, potatoes, gravy, green beans, salad, biscuits, a table piled high with desserts,
Life with two Scottie dogs is anything but dull. Our current beasties are 8-year-old Mulligan (Mully), shown on the chair, and 3-year-old Iggy up top. We’ve had other Scottish Terriers over the years and we find that having two is better than one because they can hang out together. They sleep, play, and explore the yard
John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” And when it happens, it happens quickly and we don’t always notice, or take time to notice. Sometimes we have to digest what just happened; other times we just keep on going without stopping to think, act, or feel. Sometimes