Personal Writings

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Activities of the Nighttime

On my drive to Delaware tonight I saw something that surprised me as I was on 896 South at almost 9 pm, well past dark. I saw ahead under passing lights what looked like illuminated dust blowing around on the road. At first, I thought it might be smoke. As I entered into this dusty cloud I looked off to my right and about 20 feet or so from the road I saw four horses pulling a large, high-up, illuminated...

He Sustains Me With Raisins

I was feeling pretty discouraged in various ways when I went to bed last night. Partly situational, but a good deal of it was simply being absolutely saturated with listening to all kinds of podcasts and news updates this past week and yesterday, especially. I had over three hours of road time yesterday listening to this stuff, and then last night as I painted, I listened to more. It’s discouraging for a number of reasons. I awoke this morning gearing...

The Fire is Your Friend

One of my FB friends shared something I read tonight and I thought I’d start off with a re-telling of the story he shared. He’s a DJ, and he told the sad story of showing up early for a booked 70th birthday party and no one was at the venue nor was anything set up for the event. He called the client and learned that the person of honor had suddenly passed away a week ago, and everyone was at...

An Undivided Heart

Today marks another Valentine’s Day where I (and many others) find themselves in some condition of aloneness in this life–even those who are married may ultimately exist in this state of being for any number of reasons. Today also marks the beginning of Lent–Ash Wednesday. I like the idea of taking something up during Lent rather than giving something up. As I prepared for sleep last night, I thought that perhaps during this Lenten season I should daily take up...

Doves, Bacon and Staying the Course

Provocative titles can make the difference between whether someone wants to read a book, news story or blogpost. I was about to call this Doves, Onions and Staying the Course but if you read on, you will understand why bacon also came into my mind. Anything having to do with bacon may capture one’s attention! Not that this expression is particularly worthy of attention (it is my own musings) but hey, if I’m going to write about something in my...

Paparazzi Children

You would have thought that my aunt and uncle were celebrities, and in a sense, they were! As the four of us prepared to travel to Boonsboro, MD in March of 1996, I remember (vaguely) asking my oldest son (then seven years old) why he wanted to take his toy binoculars to this 50th Wedding Anniversary. He gave me some version of, “I’ll be able to see them if they are sitting far away!” So much innocence and all kinds...

Resolutions, Game-Changers and Sirens

Early tonight I went into my guestroom closet to pull out my Christmas decoration bin. It seemed a good time-filler and 5-minute task while I was waiting for my Dill Pickle Bread to fully bake. By pulling the big tub back out, I would be one step closer to taking it back downstairs and perhaps tonight or tomorrow removing all the Christmas ornaments. And then, maybe tomorrow or the next day, to get this pseudo-live Christmas tree dismantled and outside–clipperful...