Celebrating 100 Days of Flair with. . . Fire Ants
Here I am, at the grand celebration of my 100th day of the “Live with Flair” blog, and the flair moment is. . . fire ants. I was secretly hoping for fanfare. Something big! Something extraordinary! Maybe I’d wake up to an elephant in my front yard or I’d find buried treasure. But it’s […]
Feeling Homesick at Home
Sometimes I feel homesick. But it’s not for any particular home or family. It’s the weirdest feeling. I’ll be sitting there, doing the dishes or folding laundry, and I’ll feel that something is horribly wrong. I’m in the wrong place, and everything feels sad, and I just need to take my husband and children and […]
Swimming Beneath the Geese
I’m swimming in a lake with my daughters, and another family nearby starts feeding the geese. Within seconds, a gaggle surrounds us. They come from every direction, leaving the shore and their organized formations across the lake. Our heads bob along in the water right against their soft, wild feathers. I’m so close that I […]
Can You Remember Your 8th Grade English Teacher?
I’m chopping romaine lettuce this morning, and all of a sudden, I’m back in 8th grade. It’s 1988. My teacher, Mrs. Guiles, tells the class: “You know you are in a nice restaurant when you don’t have to use a knife to eat your salad. You want to eat at restaurants that bother to make […]
Flair with Introverts
I’m learning that flair assumes many forms. Many introverted forms. Forms like puzzles and card games. If you hang out with my husband and his family, you learn these things. So I’m sitting at a card table. The children are playing Go Fish and War and probably some mysterious game called Solitaire. (My husband […]
Why Bother with Christianity?
If you can be happy without Jesus, why bother? I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’ve been thinking about all the happiness blogs people have sent my way. It seems that all over the world, folks find legitimate forms of happiness apart from knowing God. I know what this feels like. I know that when […]
Why You Need Artistic Friends
I’m an embarrassment to the world of arts and crafts. I’ve never even used a glue gun. But when you spend a day with an extraordinarily gifted artist, you have to enter her world. The artist enters the room wearing flip-flops decorated with bunches of green grapes–she made them for a wine-tasting party–and we all […]
A Stranger Tells Me His Secret
Many of my flair moments in the past 90 days occurred during conversations with strangers: the tired woman at the grocery store, the neighborhood boy, the hard-working Amish man, the precious waitress who gave my daughter a bad day mantra, the mean people at the drive-thru, that wonderful unknown woman who gave me the complement […]
10 Things You Learn About Life When You Go to the Beach
1. Don’t have lots of stuff. The sand gets in everything, and it’s a lot to manage when you’re tired. Less is more. 2. Listen to older and wiser people. Grandpa knows where to park and find the best spot. He had to do it before GPS and iPhones. 3. You need protection of […]
The Picture of the One-Eyed Cat
Here is my one-eyed cat. He likes to lounge around with his best friend, Snowflake, who I think looks like an upside down skunk. She’s the one who pulls the yellow rope around like a dog. Anyway, the point of this. . . Jack has one eye. He was a wild cat who injured himself […]