Frost Cracking
It’s been so very cold here recently that my dear tree cracked from the extreme drop in temperature. It’s good to find this now, so we can patch up the wound and support our tree. We’ll see if it survives. Sometimes extreme situations break apart the sturdiest of things!
Scheduling the Writing
It’s that time again! A new book will come your way just as autumn artives. This means I have a manuscript due mid-March. This means that every other day (when I’m not on campus to teach and hold office hours) is a writing day. You schedule it like an appointment you will not miss. You sit […]
Sitting and Thinking
Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard several people talk about when they think. I hear two different people talk about how, when they gave up their phones, they had so much time to just think. They thought about what they needed to think about. I also heard about a man who devotes an entire […]
A New Semester in Unusual Classrooms
I journey across campus to peek into my new classrooms for this semester, as I often do, to imagine my new students in a new space before the first day of class. I always pray for the semester and for my new students, and visiting the empty classroom remains a ritual I love. But this […]
Just Cold
Things the -20 degree cold weather brings: a deeper appreciation of the warmth of a cat purring in your lap the kitchen heat of a roasting dinner the gathering of blankets and the warmth of daughters curled against me the shutting the door when the neighbors come in, as if pushing the cold out as […]
A New Favorite Soup: Chicken Corn Chowder
Fill the crockpot with a few large cans of chicken broth, a bag of frozen kernel corn, and the pulled chicken from a cooked rotisserie chicken (without the skin). Meanwhile, chop an entire bunch of celery and one onion, and sauté in a pan with a little olive oil and two tablespoons fresh thyme. Cook […]
Mostly Cutting It Out
I’m amazed at just how much writing never makes it to the final product. Writers often compile massive amounts of material. The manuscript comes about through paring down, cutting out large sections, and then trimming even more. Having too little to say isn’t ever the problem; it’s having too much. The reader doesn’t need to […]
Blessed Meals, Blessed Housework
I know it doesn’t have to be me. It could be someone else—a paid housekeeper, a spouse, or children trained to do the work of meal preparation and cleaning, but it’s me. Someone must keep the home. It might not be you, but it must be someone. Maybe it could be you. As it turns […]
Another Kind of Sixteen: Celebrating My Daughter
My firstborn turned sixteen today, and it turned out nothing like I might have pictured from my John Hughes movie upbringing featuring boys, parties, and some misunderstood teen just wanting to escape from her family. It turned out nothing like anything you’re imagining at all. And this is good. This is so good that, if […]
A Special Gift from an Older Woman
While standing in front of her grandmother’s house in Williamsburg in November, my daughter says hello to a passing neighbor on her afternoon walk. This neighbor—surely another grandmother—stops to engage Sarah in conversation. Sarah politely describes her studies as a high school student back in Pennsylvania. She learns that many years ago, this older woman […]