When the summer heat peaked, my hydrangea bushes started to bloom again. I couldn’t believe their ability to keep going when it felt unbearable to be outside and you could hear the grass crunch under your feet. What was happening? We trimmed the new blooms, gathered them in a vase, and enjoyed the unexpected beauty.  I’ve joked before that my desire to purchase our quirky 1940’s home was largely based upon the two hydrangea bushes flanking the side of our porch. Everyone who stops by comments on their beauty. In fact, the first summer we lived here, there was a knock on the door early one Sunday morning. An older…

During one of our last summer days at the beach, I sat in my chair on the sand, sipping my coffee and watching the kids play in the water. Our typical sunny morning at the bay was overcast and slightly cooler than normal, but the water was teeming with wildlife. Inches from the kids’ heads, schools of tiny fish were diving out of the water and gliding back in without a splash. The kids couldn’t see them and had no idea what was happening around them, but from my spot on the sand I had a view of each one. It was fascinating.  Watching the fish that morning took me…

Five years ago, we planted a garden in the back corner of our yard; it barely survived.  Our tomato plants were the skimpiest, sorriest ones I had ever seen.  Cucumbers rotted before they were fully ripe, and the beans, well they didn’t stand a chance against my neglect.  Tucked away behind the garage, the raised beds were somewhat “out of sight out of mind.” It remained this way for four more summers.  Same spot, same neglect, same pitiful crop. So, last fall, when we were prepping the backyard for a shed, we decided to move our raised beds to the other side of the yard.  We nestled them against the…

She squeezes her eyes shut, folds her hands, and then ever so slowly lifts up her head, reopens her eyes, and locks her gaze on his face.  She sits quietly, waiting for him to speak.   “Dear God,” he begins.  She echoes.  “Thank you for my cheese.”  She repeats.  “Thank you for goldfish.”  Again she mimics his words.  He continues to name the foods on the table, the people gathered around it, and in her toddler voice she copies every phrase.  He ends with an “Amen,” but she keeps going, “And Jesus, and Bible, and,”— my personal favorite as of the past two weeks—, “Hallelujah!” My two year old daughter is…

I’ve been thinking lately about the stories we’ll tell when this is over.  I imagine us cozied up around fire pits, gathered around dining room tables, and lingering over church pews.  I imagine front porches lit up late into the night while the kids catch fireflies in the yard. I imagine we’ll squeeze as many people into our schedules as possible, forgetting about whatever fear we used to carry about hospitality and opening up our homes.  We’ll do whatever it takes just to be in the physical presence of friends, family, neighbors, and church communities.   What will we say? There will be funny stories, ones where we admit hiding soft…

I printed out bulletins and had the older girls set up children’s church in the dining room.  We gathered in the den—some still in pj’s, Bradley with a cup of coffee, and the kids in bean bags on the floor.  The sound coming through the TV was terrible, but we stuck with it, grumbling to one another to be quiet and stop moving around so we could try to hear the call to worship.  One kid asked for a snack right in the middle of the confession of sin, and another moved to his bedroom to play Legos. Live streaming church from our den during COVID-19 yesterday was an interesting…

In need of a little sunshine, and in an effort to rid our home of sweets after the holidays, I placed a basket of our favorite citrus on the dining room table.  I gave the kids permission to eat them whenever they wanted, and eat them they did.   We ate twenty pounds of clementines in January.   Finished all your spaghetti?  Sure, have an orange. Hungry before bed?  Eat an orange. Even our not-quite-two-year old often climbed onto the table and helped herself by biting right through the peel.  I tossed oranges to hungry kids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our Vitamin C consumption is through the roof. It’s amazing what…

It’s 2008 and I’m driving the bright blue PT cruiser they gave me at the rental desk.  I’m on the outskirts of Chicago, where I’ve just spent a long weekend celebrating Thanksgiving with Bradley.  I dropped him off at the barracks of the Great Lakes Naval base; they don’t let wives in to their bachelor quarters.  I’ll head back to the hotel for the night and then catch a flight home in the morning. At this point we’ve been living in two different states for almost five months.  I make the flight from Virginia, to Chicago O’Hare, about once every six weeks, but this is his final weekend off before…