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Hidden somewhere in the sheets and pillowcases we purchased at my grandmother’s sale, a note from her:

Kind friend – before you wash these pillow cases, please soak them in cold water to which you have added 2 or 3 tablespoons of table salt for a few hours or the color will all run together. You will be glad you did. Thank you.

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On Labor Day our extended family got together, and grandma was there. She can barely walk anymore, although she did manage to get up out of her wheeled chair/walker and take a few unsteady steps toward the dessert table. Everyone protested (the stroke has limited her ability to swallow), but later I heard that one of my aunts helped her break up a rice crispy treat into tiny pieces. Continue reading “How My Grandma Tried to Reclaim the Washer I Bought at Her Sale”

My favorite season of the year is only two weeks away: the smell of burning leaves, frost on the grass in the morning, hot chocolate, and football. Sweatshirts and boots and waiting for the heat to warm up the car.

But it was a good summer. A great summer. And this got me thinking: what were your go-to blogs this summer?

Did you discover a new blog that knocked your socks off?

Did you faithfully read an old standby blog, enjoying every minute of it?

Let us know the blog(s) that got you through the dog-days of summer.

Recently I’ve had a few people ask me what I’ve been up to since moving back to Pennsylvania. I wrote a lot about the circumstances that brought us back here, and I explained that I was going to try to write for a living, but I kind of ended it at that.

Well, here are the projects that I’m working on, in no particular order: Continue reading “These Are My Projects – What Are You Up To?”

Open caskets tend to disarm me. There’s a disconnect in my mind when death takes the person and still leaves the body. There they are. There they are not. What if, when someone died, they just disappeared? What if they vanished, and the only things we had left were pictures or memories?

But in this case, my high school teacher Mr. Bassett’s body remained behind, and when I walked into the church and saw him lying there in his casket, it was…I don’t know what. Words do not easily escape me, but in this case seeing him there left me wordless. Continue reading “Of Caskets and Memories”

Anyone else out there love to be in control?

Most of the time I’d prefer to be driving any car I’m in – even last weekend, when I was showing a Navy SEAL around the area, it never occurred to me to let him drive (even though he had taken courses on driving backwards and stunt driving while shooting a pistol through the back window). Continue reading “Get in Over Your Head”

When I first met Jason, he had long curly hair and had already wallpapered his dorm room with Bob Marley posters. We couldn’t have been more different – he was a free spirit, a wild child, and I was pretty much a rule follower. But there was always something that drew me to him, some familiarity, like finding a long-lost brother (maybe it was simply the fact that we were born on the same day). Continue reading “Emails From a Christian in Exile: Christianity and Politics”