“One song from my playlist is the cost of admission,” I joked with my teenage sons as we headed to school. What started as a self-serving ploy to hear one less rap song at seven in the morning has turned into a highlight of my day. Almost always, my choice is a contemporary Christian song….
I looked at my daughter’s school days picture frame, and I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. It was time to fill the very last oval! School photo number twelve. Done. Admiring the completed frame, the cap and gown, and her beautiful smile, I couldn’t resist taking a trip around the photos. I…
Hey friends~ I wrote this article for a local magazine this month (Chadds Ford Junxion) and I wanted to share it here as well. Wishing you all a sensational spring! —————- In bright blue dry-erase marker, I write the current time on the window of the sliding kitchen door—a tremendously useful puppy potty-training strategy. This…
“Let’s replace some of our sadness with gratitude.” These words have reappeared and blessed my life countless times since I first heard them spoken. Many years ago, a friend shared this sentiment as she courageously spoke at her mom’s funeral. She reminded us that the flip side of heartbreak is overflowing love. As I quietly…
Cancelled. Postponed. Modified. We’ve all heard it these past few months. Sometimes it just makes my heart hurt—especially when the no longer happening event involves the kids. My son had a whopper of a cancellation this summer. His baseball team, taking the field together for years, planned on wrapping up their final season with a…
My intention was simply to straighten up the house, but that isn’t exactly how things played out. With full hands, I hurried down the basement steps to relocate some items to the kids’ craft area. I felt something slip through my fingers and hit the wood stairs, and it took me a moment to process…
I don’t know what it is about the grocery store, but this wasn’t the first time I had an emotional breakdown there. Years ago, during the week my youngest child started school, I burst into tears right there in the cereal aisle. That season marked the end of something beautiful—a decade of little ones at…
Wearing a blue face mask to match pretty much everyone in the place, I sat in the Emergency Department at a Cleveland hospital as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in America. My mom had some medical complications (unrelated to the virus) and landed in Intensive Care just as big changes were happening in our country….
I tiptoed out of my bedroom, trying my best to bypass the squeaky floorboards in the hallway. It had become an early morning dance to get down the stairs without waking her. I sat down in my “prayer chair,” alone and eager to greet the day with some peace and reflection. But just as I…
I made my way around the elevated track, circling above the exercise class in the gym below. Walkers in the right lane, runners in the left. We didn’t pay much attention to the blaring music and intensity beneath us. We each set our own comfortable speed. Lap after lap. Respectfully passing each other when needed…
