Confession: Even though the month of April is history, I still want to share pictures of our Passover supper with you. For the past two years, we’ve chosen to celebrate a Passover feast with our children on the Thursday night before Easter, as part of remembering Jesus’ last days before death. My giant disclaimer fits […]
Congratulations, everybody. We made it through another Mother’s Day. All you dads thought of something heart-warming and appropriate to give your wives, or survived the humiliation if you did not. All you church leaders and Sunday school teachers avoided the fraught topics, or not, but at least it’s behind you. You women who wonder if
Thoughts after the holiday Read More »
I am aware that for every one of you who said “refreshing” on my last post, there were probably three or four who thought “alarming.” So thank you for being gentle. I’m not brewing up any more of it at the moment, and I wasn’t saying that doubt is a thing to be glorified or
Date night conversation starters Read More »
Confession: After I wrote about kids’ gifts, Claudia commented “Now what to buy our husbands…..?” Truly. So I made a flowchart to tackle that conundrum. Sorry I’m not more help. Click to view full size. To all of you, a merry Christmas Adam, which is what Kelly calls the day before Christmas Eve… And a Merry
What to buy our husbands Read More »
Okay, I’m glad you weren’t holding your breath waiting for this post, because first I got sick (that is, I fell unexpectedly into a vat of back pain) and second, my suggestions involve pretty basic stuff… the kind of classic, useful, and slightly educational gifts I love for my children to receive. If you like
Kids gifts under $15 Read More »
“To: GOD! From: Kelly! Dear God, I’m exitet For you’r Birth-Day, at Chrismas!! Love, Kelly” I know it’s terribly uncouth to mention the word “Christmas” too early, but I waited as long as I could. Could we just call it “The busy season of merriment and festivities that fast approacheth” for short? It’s coming. It’s
After years of angst about Halloween—how to avoid it, connect with townspeople through it, inoculate it, renounce it, blah blah blah, what was I so worked up about?—we’ve finally found a family tradition that we love. On the thirty-first of October, we welcome friends who might otherwise be alone that night—mostly the unmarried women we
October 31 tradition Read More »
When I began blogging four years ago, one of my first questions for you old-timers who were there was—How do you celebrate Easter? In my experience it is the almost-missed Christian holiday in the Mennonite church. All sorts of treats and traditions have grown up around our Christmases, including non-overtly-spiritual traditions like homemade candy, piles
Easter celebrations 2016 Read More »
Done with the ponderous, the swollen, the out of breath, I Endure the aching groaning shriek of my body as it brings Life into a fallen world. A child is born this day. I have never seen anyone so perfect. Her Velvet skin shines with the light of a world I’ve seen only in dreams,
Confession: I am slightly embarrassed. And extremely grateful. Today my son brought home a package he’d found in his locker at school. Inside the wrappings and quirky box and fun tissue paper was this. It’s made by my favorite potter (Alison Hershberger of White Hill Pottery), just like the one I smashed, and it’s large
The rest of the mog story Read More »
