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A Teacher’s Influence
When I was little, I wanted to be a teacher. My mom says I came home from kindergarten and made my younger brothers sit through rhyming words and math problems. Until the 3-year-old threw his pencil and announced he was done with school. I attended the same elementary school K-6. The place is full of memories of my brothers and me. I can still see the lockers, gym, lunchroom and a girl in the schoolyard. The school bell rang as the red rubber ball bounced into my square. A gust of hot wind whipped my ponytail. I tossed the ball into the bin and started toward the door of my…
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Simple Living this Christmas
I can’t stop thinking about Christmas. Probably because all of our children will be under our roof for an extended time. We’re spread across 3 time zones – in fact, everyone has a new address this year – so being together in person is a rare occurrence and gift enough for me. Usually, I pull out Christmas decor Thanksgiving weekend, but this year we were gone. After I unpacked, I went to the basement to get the Christmas bins. I saw partially unpacked boxes and open bins from our move. I couldn’t bring myself to pull out more clutter before I tried to organize what I had. I’ve had several…
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Grateful Hearts and Fertile Ground
We start most of our Thanksgiving celebrations with a game of flag football followed by donuts and hot chocolate. Then home to prep the meal. The side dishes that are Thanksgiving to me are my dad’s stuffing (I’m so glad I made this with him several times so I know how to do it), creamed onions (add homemade cheese sauce to pearl onions — perfect companion to turkey breast) and strawberry pretzel squares (really a dessert, but we serve it as a salad). After dinner, we each add a page to our Great Big Book of Gratitude. It’s fun to reread our blessings and remember who has been with us…
