2 Recipes You Need for the Valentine’s Party: Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies and Olympic Truffle Valentine Brownie Bites
My daughters both sign me up to bring brownies for the class Valentine’s Party. I decide to have a baking day and try some new spins on old brownies. First, I find this gem: Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies Then, I discover something fun: an “Inside Out Brownie.” […]
A Cure for Self-Consciousness
If you’re going to go public–through writing, speaking, or teaching–you’re going to battle self-consciousness. It’s a terrible state of being; self-consciousness is an acute (and often painful) preoccupation with self. You evaluate yourself based on how you think others perceive you. You’re constantly worried about how you’re coming off to people. You feel judged and inferior. […]
The Cat Says Relax
It’s very hard not to relax when a lazy cat lives with you. She stares you down until you curl up beside her on the bed. She makes you feel guilty for moving. And when you tell her you have things to do, she looks away, exhausted by the mere mention of your activities. So […]
Downcast and Disturbed? A New Question to Ask
I’ve realized something new about idolatry. As I read the scriptures, I see that David connects being downcast and disturbed with somehow not hoping fully in God. He writes in Psalm 43:5, “Why so downcast, o my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God.” For most of my Christian life, I’ve […]
Writing: “Small details intimately observed.”
As I prepare a writing lesson, I think about Mary Pipher’s statement that “all animals, carefully observed, have things to teach us. So does every person we encounter.” On her chapter on diving into the writing process, she quotes Ernest Hemingway when he says, “If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated […]
I Do Love Shadow
I consider the beautiful shadows that mark the backyard this afternoon. A shadow means the light has shown down upon that thing. It intercepts it and it enjoys it. As a result, shadow.There’s been some light here. This dark thing is how we know it. Instead of despairing when a dark time comes, I ask instead […]
Back to Just Looking
Ice covers the neighborhood today. I walk my daughter down the road to visit a friend. We notice how the ice on the street freezes in beautiful patterns as it surrounds the gravel and dirt. The freezing rain soaks us through as we plow on down the hill. It could be miserable, but it’s not. […]
Much Later in Life
As I keep to the writing task, both fiction and nonfiction, my daughter reminds me that our favorite Little House book series was not published until Laura Ingalls Wilder was well into her sixties. On my bedside table, I have the lovely book, Watership Down that Richard Adams wrote in his fifties. Frank McCourt wrote Angela’s […]
In Case You Were Wondering If You Should Write it Down
As students work on personal essays over the next few weeks, we consider what we might pass on. We offer our life experience to others–the pain, the beauty, the joy, the despair–to provide insight. Mary Pipher explains that “with personal essays, we turn our own lives into teachable moments for others.” Why shouldn’t we do […]
An 8 Year Old’s Dream Superbowl Food
She wants to bring her own appetizer to the party. Something she made, that she will think is delicious, and that everyone will gobble up. She won’t even try my crab dip. The crab dip has her concerned that this party won’t have any food she’ll want to eat. “OK,” I say. “What will you […]