Tales from a Mid-Lifer

  • Teenage Privacy…Is it OK to spy on your teens’ texts? Internet history? Surf their social media? Yep!

    Is it okay to look through your kids’ bedroom drawers? Read their texts? Surf their internet history? When my children first began high school, I had more interest and opportunity to do all of those things. They were still figuring out what was acceptable and what wasn’t. I was extremely…

  • Christian Differences

    Evangelical Christians do not usually make the sign of the cross across their body. Catholics always do. My husband and I grew up doing so until we changed churches after we were married. Recently, as we prayed over a holiday meal, the people eating at our home thought it wasn’t…

  • My Empty-Bucket List

    Throwback Thursday 5/31/2013 For many years, I’ve conducted an activity with my college students, asking them to create their own version of the famous “Bucket List”.  I warn them that the list should not include professional goals necessarily, but rather focus upon the “really neat”, “exciting”, “extraordinary”, places, events, activities,…

  • Wordless Wednesday – Oscar Wilde

    “Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.” (Oscar Wilde)

  • Attention Brides-to-Be and those: “Serious about my Boyfriend”

    Apparently, Christmas is among the most popular times for marriage proposals. I heard about a few of them over the holidays. Then, Valentine’s Day is just up ahead. That got me thinking… The following statements contain things that a few mid-life women I know wish they had asked themselves and…

  • Choose My Battles?

    Last week my husband suggested that I more carefully “choose battles” with my twin 16-year olds.  Spending so much time together during the summer apparently had me criticizing them about “stupid things”. While I might have dismissed my husband’s comment ;), I was convicted while reading a statement from Ruth…

  • 10 Things I Believed at 25 That Proved False by 45

    Ahhhh, to be 20-something… Like most during those years, I had very definite impressions about how my life would progress. I would eventually learn, and after serious resistance – accept – that life has a way of detouring, surprising and wearing down a person, leaving a few disappointments along the…

  • My face through my son’s hockey helmet

    Throwback Thursday: 5/23/13 My son’s wide, blue eyes beamed through the cage of his hockey helmet, and I noticed he was really looking at me.  I was standing over him in the Emergency Room, as he lay on a stretcher, still in full uniform from the concussion he suffered an…

  • Nike? No thank you, Dad

    Last summer when my daughter’s sports season got underway, my husband surprised her with a new pair of super-cool field hockey cleats. They were hot pink and this child loves anything bright. I mean, these cleats were a visual delight to any female teen and her friends would have coooed…

  • On the day your first child gets their driver’s license, you’ll want to do something nice for yourself

    I didn’t think the day would really be about “me”, as a celebration lunch was in order for the new driver, followed by a few more stops for extra driving time. Yet, it was a surprisingly sensitive day for me. I quite unexpectedly felt needy, self-conscious… I craved a vacation…

  • Moms of Teen Boys Be Encouraged!

    I got longer than most Moms.  More hugs, more “I love you’s”, more devotion from my son than any other Mom I know.  That was, until he turned 14 years and two months old.  In one overnight sleep from Tuesday to Wednesday, an uneventful week by anyone’s standards, my son…

  • Paris

    Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf