It’s almost that time of year again when we work on our halo, Lent. How cool is it that the Church gives us so many opportunities in our everyday life that stretches and disciplines us on our way to sainthood. No, I didn't always think this way, but I'm getting older,...
Today was an unexpected joy. A dear friend was celebrating her birthday and had invited me to tag along with her sisters for a spa day. I need no excuse for a spa day, and was happy to join them. We were all around the same age and had an uncanny number of similar...
Today is the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The perfect family that sets the bar high, yet attainable for us regular folks, too. There were days when it felt like nothing was going right. Having never been a mother before, each day was a new...
Have you ever been confounded by how something turned out? Confounded? What does that mean? To be perplexed by situations or people that do not meet your expectations. That hardly sounds like a gift. As Christians, we can assume life should be a walk in the park, and...
You never know what cartoon characters you’ll encounter at the airports these days. Today, my flight had Plum Pudding, of Strawberry Shortcake fame, and Mercury Moon, from the Manga series. Really? No, they’re fictional characters. However, these mature women...
Was all of Phoenix at the airport today?
Every dad has them. My dad used to make statements that both baffled and challenged me. "Hold her Newt, she's heading for the barn." I spent years wondering who Newt was. When I finally rode a horse, I understood. If I apply that to myself in real life, it translates,...
Grant me an artistic license as I step far off my normal path and recount a recent event in imaginative terms rather than its gritty reality. I daresay you will eventually get the point if you remain focused as it meanders through familiar paths, recalling perhaps...
Excitedly, she handed me a book entitled Five Little Monkeys to read out loud. Our three-year-old granddaughter then crawled into my lap. As I started reading, I realized I had never seen in print this familiar childhood tune about the monkeys who fell out of bed....
Getting old is happening faster than I imagined. I knew we would; it's what's supposed to happen in life if all goes well. I'm not suggesting I'm shocked every morning at the wrinkled old lady who greets me in the mirror. But I am. Oil of Olay, you lied to us. As a...
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that humans, starting at a very young age, tend to gather stuff. I observed this firsthand with my grandkids and any child I’ve had the good fortune to spend time with. “Mine,” shouts the toddler, and thus begins the desire to...
Retirement has allowed us the freedom to bounce back and forth between locations inhabited by our children and grandchildren. Sometimes, we fly; other times, we take the long, primarily gorgeous route. We're talking about eight delightful hours, just a scant twelve...
“If you don’t stop and wait for me, I’ll turn around and go home.” Those fateful words burst from my lips, as a new bride. I was in unfamiliar territory and being pulled downstream in a river of Koreans at Kimpo International Airport- Seoul, S. Korea. My husband was...
It’s Mother’s Day once again. I am blessed to have celebrated over forty Mother’s Days. Before we had kids, we were guilty of making “my kid will never…” statements. Words we soon learned to eat. I discovered a clever kitchen towel a few months ago that read, “As soon...
It's ludicrous to think that each year I go through the same routine, with the same outcome and yet, grow no smarter. My story goes something like this. I want to get candles for the following year, so I take advantage of the after Christmas sales. I place them in a...
It's easy to distinguish when a child is happy or unhappy because they give clear signs which indicate their feelings. There are times when we could misread their emotions and cause further distress. Hence, the guessing game begins. Are you hungry? Does your tummy...
We had only been married a few months and lived in a third-world country under martial law. It was a great beginning for us to learn what we were made of, capable of, and willing to do for love. When the time arrived near our first Christmas, I wanted to bake...
We planned a mini staycation with several of our kids who lived locally. It seemed reasonable when we made the reservations months earlier. But that was before the out-of-state baptism was scheduled, and one week later, a triple baptism which included hosting the...
Most of my articles used humorous family tales to connect with my readers when I first started writing. I missed the lighter side and thought it was time to put the "fun-sucker" in time-out and bring out some humor again. My current senior state of being is an...
It’s summertime again. Memories flood back to a time not so long ago, when all our children played ball. We were living in Illinois and baseball is what you did with your children in the summer. If they could lift a bat…they could play organized ball. For...
August 2016 If you have never visited the southwest you might not think anything grows here that doesn’t have a thorn. Our yard, like most in the desert, is a mixture of stone, grass, succulents and tropical plants. Now it goes without saying that water is a rare and...