Family
Grandson On Board
This week is Grandma/Grandpa camp at our house at Chautauqua Institution in New York. Liam, seven, our oldest grandson, is spending the week with us, going to Boys Club in the mornings and learning to be a naturalist in the afternoons. Today at 5 we’ll go to a special kids presentation by the Chautauqua opera…
Read MoreSpring Break
Some weeks lend themselves to saying very little on the blog. My youngest son and oldest grandson are visiting on spring break, and I’m having so much fun with them. Nothing beats catching up with family, and spring is SW Florida’s busiest time of year. Yesterday we stood in line for 30″ just to buy…
Read MoreLove at the Dollar General, A Thanksgiving wedding
While I travel this month I’ve selected some of my favorite past blogs to share with you. This one is from 2009 when our family celebrated a very special wedding at Thanksgiving time. I get weepy reading it. There’s an update at the end. They had been a couple for more than twenty years. Each…
Read MoreOld Friends, or Digging Through Trash Cans for Love
While I’m traveling in November, I’ve chosen some of my favorite blogs from the past to share with you. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed going back into the past to find them. This one, about old friends, is from 2009. I’ve been cleaning my study. Today I discovered…
Read MoreWho’s Perching on the Branches of Your Family Tree?
Last year I decided to ask for genetic testing at 23 and Me as a birthday gift. Have you done the 23 and Me test or a similar one, like the one at Ancestry.com? I already knew the basics, but I thought it might be fun to have more specifics. I hoped that something I didn’t…
Read MoreGone Hiking
I’m writing this before I discover what Hurricane Irma has in store for Florida, which is clearly going to be life-changing for many people in my home state–and possibly Proman and me. In the meantime we’re taking a long-planned hiking trip to the Utah parks to celebrate Proman’s recent birthday, and I’m practicing what I…
Read MoreThe Family We Inherit
My son-in-law’s mother died this week. We knew it was inevitable, and she died surrounded by the people who loved her. She was too young, and she had too many contributions left to make, but I take comfort in the wealth of family who were there for her at the end. Her life will be…
Read MoreFour Tips to Make the Holiday Season Count
Greater Good Science Center. Really? I didn’t remember “liking” any such institution on my Facebook page, but now these interlopers were sending me updates. Just as I was about to send them to “unlike” purgatory, the link itself caught my eye. Gratitude vs. Materialism. Okay, now I realized who they were. GGSC researches emotional and social well-being and…
Read MoreLove Finds You–An Interview With Author Serena B. Miller
**Congratulations to Paula, commenter #2, whose number was chosen at random.org and will now receive an autographed copy of Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio. Thanks to everyone who “chatted” here with Serena while the giveaway was in progress. Some years ago I received an email from another minister’s wife, an aspiring author. She wanted…
Read MoreMothers In Law and In Our Hearts
I’ll confess these days I wince when I hear mother-in-law jokes. I wince because I am a mother-in-law times three. I have three wonderful in-law kids, and our family is enriched three-fold by their addition. I’m hoping to be a completely different kind of punchline at the end of my life. As goals go, that’s…
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