So guess what I got in the mail this week?
It’s real, folks. After a long…long path here, Permanent Markers releases October 5. (Grab the first chapter free via the right-hand sidebar of my blog, if you’re game.)
So guess what I got in the mail this week?
It’s real, folks. After a long…long path here, Permanent Markers releases October 5. (Grab the first chapter free via the right-hand sidebar of my blog, if you’re game.)
Thanks to Steven Helmick, a principal of a school of over 1000 and an educator among the top eight Arkansas’ 2014 teachers of the year, for lending his expertise to this list.
My eleven-year-old put into words what likely more than one American has been thinking about the tragic and troubling events of January 6. “2021 was supposed to be better than 2020! We’re only six days in!”
And then there was my 16-year-old’s assessment. “If we were describing the U.S. in terms of health, I’d say we’re spiking a fever.”
While living in Uganda, my language acquisition developed to an equivalent of that drunken-sailor lurch of a new toddler. That is, my ability to speak resembled lurching, grinning, and occasionally falling on my rear.
And of course just because you can speak a language doesn’t mean you use it in the same ways. I’d occasionally get weird looks for wishing someone Merry Christmas (Seku Kulu enungi!) in December. Apparently Ugandans keep this phrase pretty much for Christmas day.
My father is the broad-shouldered, strong, internal teddy bear type, with fingers like sausages. In my childhood, he was a Midwestern farmer. In his spare time, he donates his mad skills to car repairs of missionaries, single moms, people like that. He’s that kind of guy.
And it’s common for him to come back into the house with blood zigzagging down his leg or seeping through his shirt.
This week, my family and I shoved in the car ski boots and a sled and carefully calculated food to feed a family with three teenagers. In the 2-hour drive through the mountains, cell service dropped abruptly about twenty minutes in. Our friend’s cabin, swaddled in 3 feet of snow, has no internet (brilliant!), no reception, and is primarily heated with a potbelly stove.
The plan originally seemed dicey. My friend with cancer is declining. And after this trip, my husband leaves for two and a half weeks.
I loved sharing with you last week a little snapshot of my life.
Alas, my manuscript is due MONDAY to Zondervan, so my little heart has been written out. Tonight I wanted something calm and pretty and open and blue, like an ocean.
Sometimes my microwave feels like a microcosm of my life.
To clarify: Not like this cute, peaceful stock photo.
At dinner each night of November, see if your family can collectively think of 10 more things you’re thankful for. Keep a running list.
A vase filled with your list written on slips of paper, or written scrawled on kraft paper doubling as a Thanksgiving tablecloth—complete with Sharpies or crayons prompting guests to add their own.
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