My husband and I had the honor of officiating our eldest son’s wedding this summer. After the ceremony, all one hundred guests gathered under an enormous tent in our front yard where tables laden with hundreds of sunflowers and cosmos, heaps of perfectly prepared barbecue, and ice cold root beers awaited them. We toasted, feasted,…
Jennifer Garner is my new hero. On the Ellen show, she faced rumors concerning her “baby bump” with confidence, poise, and style. Smiling triumphantly, she said, I do [have a bump]… I am not pregnant. I have had three kids and there is a bump. From now on ladies I will have a bump. And…
It’s hard to admit when we’ve done something wrong and hurt another person in the process. Really hard. In fact, it’s easier to point our finger at another source than to own up to our role in the matter. Have you ever noticed this tendency in yourself? You know you’ve got to apologize because it’s…
Parenting requires so many decisions, it can sometimes become mind-numbing. How to respond to discipline issues, what to do about kids’ friendship struggles, which sports to encourage them toward and what other activities to enroll them in. We have so much information and so many opportunities at our fingertips, it can be hard to sort…
Years and years ago I read an excellent little book (more like a booklet) called The Tyranny of the Urgent. This was in the days before cell phones, email and text messaging. I remember being struck then by its simple message about how we should stop diverting our attention from the important to take care…
Do you remember the vultures in Disney’s 1967 Jungle Book movie? The Beatles look-alike, sound-alike characters? I often think of their patter, “What we gonna do?” “I dunno. What you wanna do?,” when I think of the indecisiveness that can creep into motherhood. If your answer to the question: “what do you want to do?”…
My hair fell out on a Friday; I was enduring breast cancer treatments. To prove his solidarity, my husband attacked his thick, silver hair with an electric razor that was as out of control as our lives appeared to be. Friends and family members of cancer patients suffer, also. They often struggle with fear and…
I noticed something interesting as we made our way through New Orlean’s restaurant scene last spring, and it’s transforming the way I think about my writing career: the highest rated restaurants were known for one good dish. New Orleans is an old city, and many of the highly rated dining establishments have been around for…
What dreams do you have for your writing life? To publish a book? Become a best-selling author (with your dream book)? To change the world? Writers are dreamers. Whether we write fiction or not, we live in a world of imagination. We imagine our readers and how our words will entertain them, move, them, inspire…