Essays

When my baby looks at me with a look of absolute love and adoration it can, at times, make me a little uncomfortable.   I say to her, “Now calm down there little baby.  You haven’t really gotten to know me. I am far from perfect and have many, many, many faults.” She...

Advent never goes as planned for us.  Never. Not a single Advent. Not a one since we’ve started celebrating Advent. That doesn’t stop me from planning again each year.  Maybe there’s something about Christmas Carols, Christmas decor everywhere and the air almost...

One of #3's assignments last week was to illustrate the poem he'd memorized called 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. It was a love story that started with a courtship in a little pea-green boat and ended in marriage. It appears #3 got something entirely different out of...

Following the birth of my most recent baby, I wouldn’t stop bleeding.  Anxious medical personnel weighed Chux pads and injected me with various medicines to stop the hemorrhaging, but to no avail.  The blood kept flowing. The doctor found some placental pieces left...

While pregnant, I started a book by Saint Theresa of Avila on contemplative prayer called The Way of Perfection.  It was a book I’d bought years ago but hadn’t finished because I’ve had oatmeal-brain for the better part of a decade.  It is a little known fact that it...

I wrote a book last summer.  I experienced the very rare phenomenon of having all of the stars perfectly align in my life so that I could sit and type out a book.  In my case, I was sitting and scooching around on the floor to keep babies out of trouble while I typed...

When I was young, I dreamed of going into the newspaper business, becoming an ace reporter and eventually, after years of hard work, winding up with my own nationally syndicated humor column.  I wanted to be the Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry of my generation. And...

  I like to listen to Dr. Ray Guarendi’s radio show in the morning when I’m making breakfast and doing dishes.  One such morning, he talked about complaining and how most people do entirely too much of it. He suggested we try doing less of it. I reflected on...

Sometimes a major spiritual battle in your life is over a couch. Years ago, after finding ourselves drowning in debt, we went on the Dave Ramsey plan.  About a year into the Dave Ramsey plan, our couch died a miserable death. What had once been a presentable,...