Tales from a Mid-Lifer

  • 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

  • Desensitize My Kids?!

    Throwback Thursday from 5/8/2013 I was participating in a women’s prayer meeting at a church where I was relatively new. Until that day, I regularly offered prayer for others, but rarely requested any for myself. As my children began Middle School, I realized that it would take the proverbial village…