Getting dressed for Midnight Mass as a child holds many memories: the honor of being able to stay up past 9:00 pm, the anticipation of Christmas edging ever closer as the minutes ticked by, the excitement of seeing the neighbor’s silo adorned in lights like a flickering candle. But one memory stands out now: the ...
My husband loves magic. He loves to watch Penn and Teller on TV and just about any magician on stage. He even has his own bag of tricks. Each child had a magic-themed birthday party when they turned seven. Mostly for their dad. So ever since our son first started college in California seven years ago, ...
As Advent arrives, I’ve been slowly and reluctantly dragging out a smattering of Christmas. I opened a box of my favorite ornaments, the ones I had packed extra carefully. The plastic wrapping did not coexist well with the August attic heat. My treasures are ruined. The ones I had tried most intently to protect, I ...
Confession: Black Friday, Small-Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday are all in the books for this year. And my Christmas tree still isn’t up. This is primarily due to my new normal with heart failure. I used to spend weeks decorating, including three trees and a ridiculous number of seasonal touches in every room. Lately ...
I’ve always been a word nerd. Anyone else ask for a thesaurus for Christmas when they were in junior high? After that, of course, I went through the phase of using words I didn’t fully understand, just because they made me sound smart: ingratiate, spurious, turpitude. Truth is, I still wake up in the middle ...
As I scrolled through Instagram on Thursday morning, I noticed a post from my daughter’s friend, saying to pray for the victims of the shooting. I had been home barely 24 hours from visiting my daughter at Pepperdine. As quickly as my home internet could churn, I started googling for information. Of course, the unthinkable ...
Last week I pulled up to a stoplight behind a white Subaru and noticed a bumper sticker right away. I was rolling slowly up behind them as the words came into focus: “I love my spoiled, ungrateful children.” Wow. Not the worst bumper sticker I’d ever seen, but it certainly got me thinking. Who ...
The first contest I ever won involved a tiny clay sculpture I crafted and submitted to the Harper County Fair. I remember being very surprised that I had won a ribbon, considering I had only taken one art class. And I was sure the other entries came from professional artists. Empowered by that Reserve ...
Many years ago, a new-teacher friend of mine shared a story with me that has resonated more clearly since my diagnosis. She was on her first day of teaching First Grade. Back then, Kindergarten was only a half day, so First Grade was an even bigger transition for most kids. The morning went smoothly, ...
The summer after second grade, I wanted two things more than I wanted to breathe: to finally attend overnight 4-H camp like my older siblings, and to own a miniature dachshund. In the 70s, they both cost about $35, which was a chunk of change. I knew it, and my dad knew it, so he ...
