She swallowed them. Swallowed ‘em right down. My daughter Kaley and I were working on a book together. I traveled the four hours to her place, and on day two of hunkering down in her apartment for a week of writing, I came down with an ick flu bug. A fever-running, cough-your-head-off, whine-for-days, eat-up-your-writing-time, will-I-survive-this flu bug. Also I sounded like Batman. My doctor assured me I would survive and told me what to take for the fevering, coughing, whining, and … [Read more...]
Driven to gladness
It looked like the sideview outline of a little robot ducky head. Sort of cute, really. I was shocked when somebody told me it’s the check engine light. That light doesn’t literally mean to check the engine, though, right? Because I feel like my engine is still there whether I check or not. Not that I would know exactly where to find it. If I found it, what then? I’m not equipped for car repairs, people. I once untangled my seatbelt. That exhausted the full scope of my car repair … [Read more...]
Christmas feels, Christmas fills
That Christmas feeling. All year long. Because Christmas movies. All. Year. Long. I have a high threshold for these things. I watch them all. So when Christmas rolls around for real, I get excited. Christmas movies—at Christmas! I’ve seen enough of them to know that to experience the season well, you have to fill it with the proper Christmas components. Christmas cookie-baking (spoiler alert: the secret ingredient is love), decorating the tree while singing loud carols (possibly falling … [Read more...]
Staying on the inside track
I already felt a little uneasy about the day. Then I heard myself say to a family member, “Oh, that train wreck has already left the station,” and I realized it might be worse than I thought. It was early so I figured the angsty, disconnected feeling might be because it was still not-enough-coffee o’clock. The fix? Iced coffee! It’s like the polar plunge of beverages. Me: Hey, freezer door dispenser. Could I have four ice cubes, please? Door dispenser: Sure. HOW ABOUT 8,000? The ice … [Read more...]
But wait, there’s more
Infomercials almost always worked at my house. When we were raising our five kids, I’m not sure a week went by without one of them running to me with some version of: “Mom! We have to get the Kitchen Magic Missile! It does the work of 25 kitchen tools!” I got such a kick out of the times one or another of my children could deliver the entire pitch in full-on sales voice. “It’ll make a smoothie. And it slices and dices. And who’s Julie Ann?” In all fairness, I didn’t know what “julienne” … [Read more...]
On finger food, solitude
I’m a people person. To the extreme. So extreme that I’m often that seriously annoying kind of people-people-people-y person. That one. That’s me. Every time someone tells me that it takes a village, it doesn’t even matter much what we want the village to do, I come back with an enthusiastic, “Yes! Bring me that village! And all the surrounding villages. Tell the villagers to bring potato chips! I’ll take folks from three or four villages over. And their finger foods. Village-fest at my … [Read more...]
A piece of my mind or true peace of mind?
I was tempted to give somebody a piece of my mind the other day. Really tempted. And then I thought, Know what? I can’t spare it. I have no spare mind-parts. No surplus of brain cells here. Why would I give even one away? I need the pieces of my mind. All of them. It’s mindboggling though, how some people seem to know exactly how to find our anger buttons. And then they also know how to push them. Stomp on them. Jump up and down on that anger button like it’s just the most mad-fun … [Read more...]
All the inward parts
I’ll just crawl under the pew now, thanks. Has it happened to you? Right at the pastor’s most dramatically silent pause: your hideously loud stomach-growl. I say growl, but remember those old movies when Tarzan yodel-yelled and in response elephants stampeded? That. You put your hand over your stomach—like that’s going to muffle anything. Then the thought dawns that if there was one wolf-howling-at-the-moon growl, there will likely be more. That’s when you try to bargain with your … [Read more...]
Scratching where it itches
I confess I don’t have the greenest thumb on the block. As a matter of fact, I was thinking it might be easier to just give up on all other greenery and grow a poison ivy garden instead. Except that at this point I’d have to start from scratch. Scratch? Get it? Anyway, I decided it would probably be better not do anything that “rash.” That’s because we really do have to be careful what we plant. We will reap what we sow. It’s right there in Galatians 6:7. And according to the verse that … [Read more...]
Tagged in His message
Have you ever been tagged—maybe trapped—in a group text? You’re begging your phone. Please, not one more notification. And your phone answers with: zzzzzt. Even worse, you go to bed early while the other 30 in your group have a night owl session. Get up the next morning, get your coffee, and get comfy. I know it’s your day off, but turn off that show you wanted to watch and don’t even think about reading a book. Because you have four thousand messages. I’m sorry, but I’ve got news for … [Read more...]
Part of this nutritious faith-life
I remember trying to cook up something new for dinner for my family now and then when my children were growing up. Everybody knows I’m not a cook. No one knows better than my kids. Our family’s reminiscing often goes like this: “Hey Mom. Remember that time you were trying a new recipe and then you found the word ‘blanch’ in it? So you poured us all a bowl of cereal?” I do remember. It probably snap-crackle-saved-their-lives. By the way, have you ever noticed that you can go eight months … [Read more...]
Loaded questions, loaded baked potatoes
My thighs as I’m trying on size 4 jeans: “What year do you think this is?” Me, groaning and straining: “All I had for lunch was a baked potato.” Thighs: “With six pats of butter and about a quarter pound of bacon on it, right?” Me, still groaning and straining—possibly crying a little: “Small potato! So stop asking questions and get…[groan]…in…[gasp]…there.” Hips and belly: “Excuse us. We also have questions.” While we’re questioning—and sort of questioning bacon—Francis Bacon said, “A … [Read more...]
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