you can read at my other blog.  Thanks for stopping by.

One of my favorite books that I discovered when my children were in elementary school and I had to work the book fair, is Sharon Creech’s “Love that Dog.” It is a sweet story of how a teacher uses poetry to bring a boy out of grief and teach him to trust his own voice. […]

I recently spent five days with my mother and my middle sister. Just the three of us, traipsing through northern New Mexico. We were all exhausted our first full day, so we slept in, ate and then took a walk around the resort where my mother had reserved a condo for us. As we were […]

Somebody somewhere is missing a rat trap. This morning, on the patio where our orange tabby usually consumes his kill, I found a few bird feathers and a large, sprung trap. With nothing in it. I’ve been wondering about this all day long. We joke about our wandering boy, my husband and I, about how […]

Earlier this week, I posted the following on Facebook: You guys, I’m officially an old, old woman. I just heard myself greet a 20-something young woman with “You look spiffy!” I need an intervention! To my surprise, this is probably the most engaged, non-photo, post I’ve ever had on my Facebook page as people both […]

There is a quiche in the oven. Okay, it is more like a breakfast casserole, but it is in the oven at 9:43 on a Saturday morning and it smells …deeee-vine. And in about 10 minutes, I anticipate the smell will creep downstairs and lull our houseguests up for breakfast.  And if not?  Then more […]

Grateful. That’s how I’m feeling tonight as I get ready to sleep. I’m counting my blessings instead of sheep, as the old song goes. And I have many. Friends who are talented and even if they weren’t, they are kind and lovely and make my life good and beautiful just by their presence. I have […]

Dear Daughters, Your father and I just came in from raking the side yard, hopefully for the last time this year. There wasn’t much left, but enough that we couldn’t, as much as I wanted to, leave it on the grass. I was going to let your dad do it all himself and stay in […]

Holy cupcakes, friends, have I got news! On December 5, after ten years, I will leave my current position with Meadville Lombard Theological School for … well I’m really not sure. I am filled with many emotions right now–and am so grateful for the loving and kind messages I am receiving from people I have met during my […]

There is a turkey to brine and a mother to pick up at the airport. A bed to make, a bathroom to clean–again. And breakfast–why do we have to do THAT every. single. day. But in this minute, I am sitting quietly in my chair, a cat at my feet and one behind my head, […]

I won’t have  much to say about #Ferguson today because so many are doing it much better. But I will ask you, my white friends and family to please consider–before you speak–about what it means to be black in America today. Before you say anything, please consider: our reality is not the same as that […]

I’ve been spending the last few days reading, watching, praying. I’m not entirely sure what I’m praying for, but am praying for this moment in our country’s history to percolate through white America and hear the hurt. Hear the pain. I think of Michael Brown’s mother, and the body lying in the street for 4.5 […]

I am thankful that today I woke up thinking of all the people who will gather at my house later NOT of a list of things I needed to accomplish. Faces came to mind this morning, not tasks. Let’s let that sink in for a minute because this is something quite huge for me: Thankful for the […]

It is nearly 11 am on a Thursday. I got up, gracelessly, at 7:10 and drove my daughter to school, which is part of the plan that I had made for myself so that I would not sleep the day away and wonder how my “sabbatical” slipped away from me. But last night I took one […]

I just found myself standing at the dining room window, in my bathrobe, holding a coffee cup, watching the elementary school bus stop across the street for the neighbor’s child. Staring out at the big yellow bus, clutching that warm cup, I felt myself transported over the years. How many years ago did I do […]

Heartbreaking. Heartbroken. It’s taken all day to get here, where my fingers hit the keys and my head and heart explode into a ton of tiny little details. Children. Killed. Again. Terrorism. Racism. Xenophobia. Fear. And then I read people crabbing about the stress of the season in the midst of all this and I […]

I think I have had some white friends “unfriend” me lately. Or block my posts. I haven’t looked hard enough to know for sure, but I see that some people’s posts no longer show up on my facebook feed. I’m guessing it is because I’ve been reposting a lot of articles about race that make them […]

I’ve just started reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, given to me as a parting gift from a beloved mentor. I’m taking my time with it because it is a memoir written in verse, stunning verse which stops me in my tracks for moments at a time. For example: “Welcome home, my grandparents say. […]

You will have to decide for yourself if the following is TMU (too much underpants), but I had a revelation that led to a resolution that I decided to share here and it has to do with my underpants. Perhaps I’m also doing this because the one other time that I wrote about underpants I […]

I am in a blogging group that is asking us to contribute our best/most viewed posts. In reviewing, I came across this piece, which I wrote on August 15, the week that Robin Williams died and Michael Brown was killed. The piece is housed on my other blog site and I found it important enough […]

Today the angels will come off the tree. The nativity scenes will be packed in boxes and the Santa flag will come out of the window. The stockings will be (or have been) un-hung from the mantel with care. When it is done, we will vacuum up needles and listen to my husband tell us […]

It’s a billion degrees below zero outside (Fahrenheit, of course) and I am safely cloistered in my own hermitage, which today I share with two daughters and three cats (so not so much of a hermitage). My lovely young women have offered to go forth into the weather to procure victuals for us. Partly because […]

I’m coming to find that this time of morning, after taking my daughter to school is a truly exceptional one. I’m especially grateful when I take the time to look up from one of my many screens to catch the morning sun hitting the church and steeple in my back yard. The picture above is […]

I watched you walk into school today, the first day of FINALS Your backpack was lighter than usual, filled only with highlighted study guides And, yet, your step was heavy heavier than usual I wanted to pull you back in the car and drive you away to someplace warm and tell you the TRUTH about […]

A few weeks ago, my husband handed me this lentil salad recipe he found in the paper and said, “do you like lentils? Maybe we could try this.”  In 26 years of knowing each other, you would think he would have figured out that I don’t eat lentils. Ever. Instead of saying, ewww, lentils, like […]

The coffee is almost gone and my brain is still moving slowly and my first thought is that’s not good. And then I wonder why it must move more quickly–and why do I make judgements at the swiftness or non-swiftness of my thoughts. Is it better to have my brain chugging along at maximum speed, […]

I think I bathed the cat to distract myself from all of the almost-started projects and from the little red book of lists. One of the things I told myself I was going to do with this “liminal” time (I used to hang out with theologians, I get to use language like that) is create […]

I’ve been on hiatus in my head this last week.  My husband left for a work thing on Sunday evening and returned home last night (Thursday). During that time my youngest daughter (and only other human inhabitant of our dwelling) had a variety of school- and work-related activities that kept her mostly away from home. […]

Maybe it is because I’m going “home” in a couple of days to begin the celebration of my mother’s 80th birthday, and maybe it is because I am actually dreaming again, but my father has been a part of my dreams this last week. It could be because when I was cleaning up a closet, I […]

I opened up the little red book of lists yesterday as I started to recover from the cold that took my days away. I was so pleased to see that some of the things on that list had been accomplished and that some others had lost priority in the wake of reading the book The […]

I woke with a poem in my head but it vanished on waking words about love … flighty and false and … gone I wrote another poem in my head while the cat settled in my lap his throat draped over my hand, his purring drumming into my knuckle and up through my arm Straight […]

(image from Bob Goff instagram account) So many inspirational quotes in my Facebook feed this morning. They are telling me not to fear, or that fear is my friend and that I’ll only regret the things I haven’t done. This, my friends, is not particularly helpful right now because right now I am holding court […]

The good things and the bad things break our hearts, but the pieces don't get lost under the rug, like a piece of broken teacup. They stay in place, fissures that rejoin and break anew throughout a life well loved. And if you aren't living a life well-loved, well that just might break your heart as well.

It's a lie we are told. Only a few people actually know what they are going to be when they are little and grow up to be it in the straight line that is education, job, family. It's a lie we are told that success means more, better, bigger.

With the exception of the last paragraph, this post was written on January 25, 2015. I'm not sure why I didn't post it then but just found it this morning and thought it might be worth sharing in the aftermath of the Oscars. I share it with you now, with love

once and again I understood that labels are what we put on people to make our own lives easier. #sexUUality

I was pouring my coffee this morning, alone in my house, and I heard this loud thwumping coming from the dining room. I walked around the fat cat in the kitchen to find the fluffy orange cat with his nose and paws under the piano and the third cat, the calico, sitting close by, anticipating […]

Oh, God, this world. You came in this morning and wrapped me up in your love, like a shawl that never ends. You reminded me to tap in, to connect, to find my center as the place where we all connect. Oh, God. This world. Someone here proclaims: “because there is no God” as we watch […]

Because not only does my humanness = mistake-making, it also = wanting-to-be-vindicated-ness.

When you apologize and ask forgiveness (assuming you are being authentic), you are modeling humanity to your children.

So much depends he* wrote, but never told us what left it for us to bang our heads on that red wheelbarrow wondering about chickens We were suburban kids in the 70s What did we know of chickens We knew of cats and dogs and the occasional guinea pigs Except the next door neighbors with […]

Dear Parents of Small Children, I know. I get it. I was you. It is irritating to say the least. And right now when your hair is greasy and you have to poop but can’t because someone else just did and you are doing that little dance that says I just gotta finish this one […]

We moved from Tempe, Arizona to Northwest Indiana in February, 1996. I’ll let that sink in for a minute. We moved from the sunbelt to the snowbelt in freakin’ February. (Did I mention I grew up in Southern California and lived in the Southwest all of my life until that very February? This might explain my […]

Yesterday, when the sun was high in the sky, melting all the white piles throughout the town, I did what I’ve been meaning to do for a month now, but just never got around to: I went to the library! My first stop was the new non-fiction section. I was going with the sole (and […]

What if we gave them--and each other--a trapeze and a net rather than a chain and a peg?

I was brought here I appeared Like you Once was two separate things, but they joined forces and became me And every day, things get added to me labels, boils, burdens And every day, things get taken from me memories, loves, hair Or I shed them– seems much less violent that way I just appeared, […]

The ground is mush beneath my heavy step saturated earth, waiting for the sun to bake it But now, it is mush And so am I On the counter behind me a pineapple all green and waiting for me to peel it back and let the sun out It was warm for a day, earlier […]

I CAN do this. I WILL do this.

The sun has returned, but not the carnage, thanks to a little bitty bell.

We are waiting. The Easter ham is in the oven, warming. The sweet potatoes and rolls are cooked and wait to warm, too. But there is also asparagus, bright green, waiting to be steamed a reminder and a promise of Spring. It has risen. And still we wait. This week I watched from afar as […]

Sometimes a rant is a prayer ... and vice versa.

This hat, knitted twice, will it seems, be knitted thrice undone and done again

And I tell you about each of these things as if they matter, because, they do.

We get to define success for ourselves, and, therefore, we also get to define failure.

On her facebook page this morning, my friend Kari Kopnick asked “And how is it with your soul today, dear Facebook friends?” Without thinking, I wrote, my soul is open today. And before I could back out of it, my darn old soul hit “enter.” It is like Kari to ask those kinds of questions. She […]

We are finally working up to getting our kitchen and living spaces remodeled. We’ve been living in this “starter” home for nearly 19 years now. I suppose it is time. I’m back out on the deck on a glorious Saturday morning, knowing there won’t be many more days like this because … Indiana. Our house […]

I know you won’t know this if you only recently met me, but I really am photo-phobic. I usually hide from the camera by being behind it. Or, I put my children in front of me so no one can see the real me. But if you wade through my blog, you’ll notice I’m a […]

Finished reading a first-time novel of men and war. The old man’s voice comforted me. Beyond, I heard the pans that hang from above the window jangle against the panes and each other, an indoor windchime, it’s resonance low, beckoning me to a slower, deeper place of thought. The cat crawled on the afghan that covers me as I read of cold and pain. He purrs his rhythm into my bones, and sends waves of […]

The big orange cat spent the night out hunting But just now, he curled up on my chest and slept so soundly as if the scares of the night hunt had worn him out. The heft of him on my chest, and the rhythm of his breathing reminded me of all the mornings, afternoons, evenings, […]

Oh, here I am. The days have been lost on me. The nights, too, it seems, Even when sleep eludes I find myself full of nothing, Which, strangely, does not feel empty at all. I gave up on lists and tasks and ‘have tos” and “should haves” I’d say it was in an effort to […]

Some days you just have to open the curtains and let the sun shine on all the dust. So you see it. So you see yourself in the clutter and debris you have left behind and around and everywhere. And then you have to look up and see the picture you picked out for yourself […]

The thing about church is the insidious nature of how it works on you. Sitting alone in the sun, you hear of a death as you prepare for a celebration of people you would not know without church. Oh, yes, church is the institution, the container larger than any of those who enter it. You […]

Yesterday I had my head in the lavendar bushes pulling at the thistles that had grown up and through but not taken over. This is a yearly task since the City replaced our old foliage and dumped dirt loaded with thistles all along the lavender and hydrangeas. The thistles found the hole in my jeans […]

Okay, y’all, it’s pretty simple, so we’re going to spell it out: If you feel you cannot be politically correct, then be polite. If you feel uncomfortable calling someone by the name they ask you to call them because you have always called them something else (as if you have been in some uber-intimate relationship […]

I wrote an entire post this morning that got lost because I forgot to close the browser before opening it. So, the two lines of bad stuff I wrote yesterday is all that was saved. This morning’s post was epically good, if I do say so myself. Best stuff I’ve written in weeks (because I […]

I honestly didn’t think I could do physical labor any more. Too old. Too fat. Too lupus-y. But in the last month, I have tackled things I didn’t think I could start, let alone finish. I sit here today with arms still aching from scrubbing deck furniture on Friday, but able to acknowledge my ability […]

I’m preparing myself for a garage sale. On Saturday, I will go to the Porter County Expo Center along with thousands of my friends I haven’t met yet and set up a booth for the largest indoor garage sale extravaganza, or whatever. I have been collecting things, not only from around my house, but from other […]

How the day should go is not yet how it has. A cup of coffee consumed Three or more articles read about parenting, racism, tiny houses and Muslims rebuilding traditionally Black churches Around me is the stuff the stuff of garage sales that needs to be tagged and organized and moved from here to there […]

“Recalculating Route” says the voice from the GPS to tell me I have veered from her plan Which is better than when she reminds me repeatedly to make a legal U-turn Because I have made a decision, decidedly and not just whimsically threw out her advice on THE best path to where I’m going. I […]

How do you start something new? I’m not asking theoretically, but in sincerity. How do YOU start something new? Do you plan first, make a list of resources, do your shopping and follow a recipe and make sure you have all your ducks in a row? Do you jump in feet first, then figure out […]

So, in pondering my own question about process as well as some of the answers from my last blog post, I hit on a way of describing my process of “starting” a new venture. I’m like the lion or tiger or other big cat who stalks it’s prey, circling from a distance until the circle […]

It is the very smallest thing I can do, remind you that the world you and I live in, dear white friends and family, is not the same world that Keesha and so many other loving mothers live in, including the mother of Sandra Bland.

Perhaps it was the dinner of three frozen (then microwaved) chicken taquitos and a bowl of fresh peaches (followed by a Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA) which all occurred AFTER painting a basement bedroom, but I woke up this morning from a dream that featured a priest (deceased), the Property Brothers, and a wiener dog. […]

What is it you need today that will not only buoy your flagging spirit but propel you toward the next right thing. What are you longing for? A word? A picture? A sunrise over brilliant waves of orange and blue? What will roll the tide forward? Create the balance you were told exists? What song […]

If I ask you What is your heart’s most secret desire? Would you hear me if I told you it isn’t so secret? You wear your desire like flaming red lipstick that may or may not be your shade but still makes you twitch, at the thought that it is not and now you are […]

I originally posted this on my old blog last year, August 15, 2014. I was reeling from the death of Robin Williams by suicide and by the death of Michael Brown and the events in Ferguson. I just reread it and thought it was worth a new look–I hope you do, as well. ___ I […]

Here's something I learned in the trenches: I was a better mom because other women around me challenged my way of being a parent. Sometimes they did it with care and concern and sometimes they did it snarkily and to my face.

We have been inhospitable. Waiting for the kitchen faucet to be replaced in the whole remodel. Waiting for things to be set and secure and … perfect. We have not invited you in. And I miss you. The stories, the liquor, the food … oh, I miss the food and the way my friends tell […]

I don't forget in order to inflict pain which does not mean that pain does not happen or irritation or anger or outright hostility

I am getting ready to go spend the day in the garage with all my (soon-to-be) treasures. I can’t tell you how much I love this–how much of my soul has opened up to possibilities just by playing with glass, metal, wood and paint. Lots of paint. It is as if the day was dark […]

Oh, my friend, I have missed you. I missed your laugh, easy and loud, as well as the tender unfolding of your guarded heart. I forget. I sometimes just forget that among the very best gifts is the invitation to be genuine, unafraid, believed, heard. All these years of missing you I felt like I had […]

Yesterday, I saw a meme go by in my newsfeed that compared the noise being made about a black criminal (the meme's words, not mine) and a black man kills two white people on-air and nothing happens. A white friend posted it. They got several likes. I thought to comment, but didn't. Walked away and did the work required of me that day. But the meme stayed with me. My feelings of dissatisfaction about walking away nagged at me all day and all night. So, here it is, again and again and again, until it doesn't need to be said anymore:

His craft was not in getting the most OUT of his beans, but of providing the proper environment for the beans to release their best flavor.

This morning, it was Glennon Melton Doyle (aka Momastery) who had an occasion to re-post a post she had posted before because she knows what we all know but we all forget, just like she did: we don't often learn things after one lesson. Sometimes, when we are tired or whatever, we get the opportunity (!) to learn it all over again.

15 Greatest Words Ever Used in a Row 20 Syllables You Won’t Believe The Way These Words Flow Will Make You Cry Get the Tissues, the Words will be flowin’ You Won’t Believe the Words She Uses The Colors Alone Will Blow Your Mind If only the poet could benefit from click bait. Of course, […]

I keep flashing back to The Red Wheelbarrow on which so much depends so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. --William Carlos Williams I know, I know, I’ve said it before and I will say it again and again and again until I get it at […]

I'm done accepting people being shot as a part of the social contract of being an American. We are a civilized society: so lets start acting like one.

Stop, she said Why? I asked Because, she said And I looked where her eyes rested and saw what she did: A yellow and green weed rested and bloomed in the hospitality created where the cement cracked itself open. Photo credit: Dr. Wendy Longo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/wtlphotos/476680742/

She said hello and washed her hands while I stared in the mirror fixing my hair and lips. Hi, I said, shunning intimacy in a public washroom. I love your boots, she said and I smiled and said thank you as I grabbed the door handle with a paper towel. She smiled wider and a […]

What a lost opportunity to talk about race in small town America. Because as much as the officers do not want to be labelled racist (rightly, so--none of us does), their behavior in defense of the officer and in condemnation of the young man arrested is endemic of the deep well of racism from which this nation drinks.

When the music stopped and we looked for chairs did we pick the one we wanted or the one that was just there? I tell myself it was more fun to be out of the game than in it, in a chair–wrong color, wrong fit. If the game is to rush toward something you don’t want, I […]

There was this moment last night when I started to unpack my old kitchen into my brand new one, and after I’d bought the cleaner and the special cloths to make the sink sparkle but hadn’t yet done so When I noticed the tiny scratch in the small sink and then another miniscule etch–almost like a […]

I’m not usually a food blogger, but I love food. And I love to cook. Friends on my Instagram and FaceBook feeds have been subjected to my endless posts about the complete gutting and rebuilding of our kitchen. Yesterday, I got the go-ahead to use the kitchen again, as all that is (still) left to […]

A name flashes by with a photo attached and I feel the stab of anger, dismissal, rejection run through my heart first, then my belly, and then my head. Slow your roll, I want to say, as if I’m cool like that. Instead I hear my heart say “Whoa” Without an exclamation point. Who are […]

Pouring my coffee looking out over the empty church lot in my back yard I found myself thinking that perhaps it IS time for a Zombie Apocalypse. Hear me out. I would see them coming across that yard clear on their intent to eat my brains and turn me into one of them. Better that […]

and I use my waiting time counting my blessings and my outrages and my sorrows and my joys

‘Tis the Season for sweet dreams under heavy blankets and pets who seek comfort in the night. What a season! Filled with lights and song and sweets and savories and stories of light and love and holy wonder My red mug sets a mood the world won’t deliver unless I turn off the talking men […]

“Hark,” Harold the angel said then turned to me and said “Er, Hey! Listen! to the message I bring you and you and you” beginning to sound a bit like Oprah and those little cars “You get some peace, and you get some peace, and you get some peace! But not because you’re sitting there […]

We gave Fear the place at the head of the table and then wondered why everyone got so mad and started buying guns and decided the world was going to hell We forgot to look at the whole table who else sat there staring into the napkins resting on their laps afraid to make eye […]