The More Things Change

When I was in high school, my parents let me go up to a friend’s cabin on the lake for the weekend.  Four 17 year old girls, we drove to Watts Bar all by ourselves and set up housekeeping.  We built a fire and set up our lawn chairs around it and played charades.  I [...]

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Poetry Blogging

I only have part of this one by heart.  Reading the whole thing brings tears to my eyes.  Not just because of the moving lines, either, but because I don’t think most Americans today share these sentiments. The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride [...]

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Why My Kids Aren’t Allowed to Drive

Long before we had teenagers, my husband and I reached a momentous, counter-cultural decision: our kids were not going to be anxiously waiting in line at the DMV to get their licenses on their 16th birthdays.  Our kids were not going to be allowed to get their licenses until they were legal adults. Here’s the [...]

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Poetry Blogging

I’m sharing the following poem today which I borrowed from my friend Ikisha’s Facebook.  She says an elementary teacher had her class memorize it years ago.  I knew Goerge Washington Carver was versatile, but I did not know he had written poetry.  I like this one because it is simple and short enough to memorize, yet profound [...]

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Memorable Messes

Today on Facebook Mothering Magazine asked readers to comment on the worst messes their kids ever made.  Now, my kids make messes daily but I knew immediately that the worst one ever had–of course–been made by Jake and Teddy when they were toddlers. It was right before Christmas and I had been to the grocery [...]

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I’m tired of being a human doing

“Take time just to be; remember, you are a human being, not a human doing.”  I think I clipped it out of a Reader’s Digest long ago, and for years it hung insde the kitchen cabinet of my first house, along with similar uplifting sentiments:  “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look [...]

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What is Fair?

So the other day a friend posted this link on Facebook and I thought it was really interesting.  It was a talk about some of the differences between liberals and conservatives, and one of the differences was what value each group places on fairness. I was telling John about the video in the car on [...]

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Liturgical Music Redux: Bad Songs

You know, I think this blog is really good for me, because I get things off my chest here and then I don’t have to rant about them in real life anymore.  And I also think that’s why (aside from getting busy with the start of school) I lost steam on my Liturgical Music “Week.”  [...]

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Lifelong Marriage: Not for the Faint of Heart

The other day I was talking to my Aunt Joan and she mentioned that she and Uncle Jack will be married 60 years in December.  “I think we’re going to last,” she said.  She was only 16 when they married and conventional wisdom wouldn’t have given them much of a chance.  Her Aunt Bert gave [...]

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T.V. is not for me

In some class in high school, the teacher conducted a survey of the number of television sets each family possessed.  I remember feeling quite proud that my family had the most: five–one in the den and one in every bedroom.  One of my classmates had none–her parents, who were foreigners and known to be strict, [...]

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