Seven years ago today, our big black and white boy, Data, was living his best life as an only cat, receiving all our love. We had just moved to Nebraska from Missouri a few months before, and were settling in. Then one night the forecast was for temps below zero, and we discovered a tiny…

Our new church held a game day on Saturday, and we played the (Still)Newlywed Game. Mel and I volunteered to be contestants, and come to findout, at 28 years of marriage, we had been together the shortest amountof time. So here we were, competing against older couples who had a lotmore experience. I’m not a…

I was sitting with one of my best friends yesterday having tacos when she got a text telling her that her house had just sold. I mean, it wasn’t even supposed to be on the market until today! I knew she was putting it up for sale, but I thought we might have at least…

    Elaborate celebrations seem to be increasingly popular these days, and I admire those who cook all day for family members and friends to have a traditional meal. There is comfort in that tradition, and who doesn’t love a good Thanksgiving meal?    We’ve done this often in the past, but with Mel’s job taking up many of…

After months of excitement, Mel and I attended a very important class reunion of mine two weeks ago back in Missouri, where we both grew up. I had a small class of 44 members, and a great many of us grew close and kept in touch often after graduation. That closeness became obvious when we…

Have you ever had a perfect day? We haven’t been to the zoo in over eight months. That’s been okay for us, since…you know, it’s Phoenix. But now that the weather has simmered down a little, and is only getting into the 80s, we’ve emerged from our hibernation. Yesterday we were needing an animal fix,…

I sing beside Christina in our church choir. She has a beautiful voice but is reluctant to sing solo. Last week she asked our church for prayer because she was going into the hospital for clinical trials—I discovered she has stage 4 colon cancer.  So I prayed for her until Sunday night and then asked…

I was trying to catch my mother’s attention in a crowded room one day. I called “Mom! Mom?” and since probably half the people who heard me were moms, I attracted the attention of every mom in the room except for my own. So I finally called her by her actual name, and lo and…

Did you ever do the color chart that tells you whether you’re a summer, winter, spring or autumn? I am a winter, apparently, because those colors listed under the winter chart are what look best on me, according to the friends who attended a little party I had decades ago. Orange was definitely NOT on…

How was your weekend? We had a great time Saturday with our friend and best-selling novelist, Kristin Billerbeck, fighting freeway traffic to play for a few hours in Scottsdale. I’m glad Kristin drove. She’s a city girl from the Bay Area, whereas we are country bumpkins who grew up on Missouri Ozark farms and don’t…