Aspirational living or Getting practical
I often get so busy living life, that I forget to stop and take in the long view. I wrote a little bit here, about taking the time to examine what I want my life to look like, and then taking some...
View ArticleEternal spring
On Monday, I wrapped up my short-ish series on writing. There are infinite topics we could talk about, but they’re already discussed around the web by people with far more authority than me. I thought...
View ArticleThe coming season
I shut my computer with a snap and a sigh. I knew the application deadline passed a few days prior, but seeing it in black and white felt like reading the death announcement of my dreams. It was my own...
View ArticleTry-hard days
I measure the success of a holiday weekend by the number of pages I manage to squeeze in reading during daylight hours. My husband measures the success of a holiday weekend by the number of man hours...
View ArticleFashioned for this work
I began my brief career as a nurse, with no vision, apart from survival—my own and that of my patients. Fear drove me, rather than love for the work. In an attempt to find a job that didn’t suck the...
View ArticleCommunity and finding your place in it
It’s gone a bit quiet on the East coast front. The kids spent the last week in summer camp, and I spent it sitting around with a book in one hand and the best conversationalist in the world holding the...
View ArticleWhen life wants to bully you
A friend and I talked recently about a couple we know struggling with significant work/life balance issues. We sympathized and tried to brainstorm a few ways to help them, until we finally concluded...
View ArticleOne Word: Embrace
Happy New Year! I’m welcoming myself back to real life this week with a loaded schedule of errands and miscellany. Over the last few days of the break, I fueled up on books and tea and Downton Abbey in...
View ArticleTop Tips for wandering with purpose while still coming home for dinner
She sighed when she said it, “We have to put down some roots.” Then a soft, slow exhale. Being a kindred spirit, I read a thousand words in that one low breath. She feels the need to stay put somewhere...
View ArticleTeach Us
“Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.” ~TS Eliot I don’t regularly follow the traditions of the church calendar, so Ash Wednesday snuck in on the coat tails of the flu and strep...
View ArticleA Decade of Delight
My husband came in the door, and within a few minutes of catching up, I told him I was probably, almost definitely, with some degree of certainty going to quit writing. And also–if we’re talking about...
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On Leslie Knope and Wholehearted Living
Most mornings, I run on the treadmill in my basement rather than leave the house at an ungodly hour in the biting cold. The basement is dark and cold too, but it has the added advantage of a small...
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Friendship: An Unfolding
She fixed her soft eyes on me across the café table. “Tell me about your kids,” she said. All she had to do was ask the question, and my maternal floodgates opened, spilling deep and wide. So few...
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Hiding God’s Word in Our Hearts: Scripture Memory Cards
As a kid, I attended a Christian school and participated in weekly Bible classes. We memorized scripture in exchange for good grades. On weekends, I followed the line of children filing out of the...
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Now and Forever
“Forever is composed of nows” ~Emily Dickinson I find myself quoting Emily often these days. By most accounts, she was a woman who lived a small, secluded life, and yet through her words we see a...
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Walking One Another to Safety
The old man stood on the side of the road shaking a cane at passing cars. Cars traveled at top speed and not one of them stopped. One swerved a bit to avoid hitting the man, and as I passed on the...
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On Leaving Well and the Courage to Stay
My husband left his job with the company that’s fed us and clothed us and provided everything we needed for the last seven years. He has a new job near the City, in a new to him industry, one that...
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One Word 2016: Restore
Over the past few years, rather than making resolutions I will never keep, I choose a single word to guide me through the next twelve months. Sometimes it works, and I return to my word time and time...
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One Small Way to Steward Your Life Well
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” ~Prov 29:18 Some time ago, Christie and I met for lunch in a little village in the middle of Pennsylvania. After lunch, we strolled through an eclectic...
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How to Gather a Life
The week we moved into our new, sparsely-furnished rental house in London, I realized I needed something of my own to make the place feel like we lived there. Without something of us, it looked as if...
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