And now, we rest. Leftovers tucked away in the fridge. Kitchen tidied a bit. Perhaps we have bid a fond farewell to our guests. And unless we are building up for a raucous New Year's Eve, we can simply rest. But in order to do so, we must fight the messages that resound both inside […]

My kids are grown ups. They are all partnered up and self-sufficient and happy and healthy and I love them to pieces. Two years ago, after watching me heroically and miserably try to pull off the magical Christmas I thought they still yearned for, they all approached me gently and said, "We have a proposal […]

Friends, if you live in or near the Cedar Valley, I want to personally invite you to a beautiful event happening soon. Blake Flattley and Tanner Olson are from Nashville and are bringing their music, poetry and joy to the area on September 21st. You can read more about them here and here and here. […]

Memorial Day is past; it is now officially "The Season of the Porch!" I have declared it so! We live in a very old home. The exact date she was built is sketchy. We have some books that came with the home when we purchased her almost 25 years ago, and they allude to the […]

A great German thinker named Meister Eckhart said, "God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting." I remember where I was when I first read this line. I was lying on my couch reading the book in which it was contained. Ever have one of these moments? The whole world […]

A brief thought or poem for the weekend, friends ... "Nothing is harder to do than nothing." (Jenny Odell, How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy)