Welcome to my new website, I can't believe we're really here. It's been a long journey. One of my books is almost ready for Amazon so Scott is making me an author's website! Please bear with us as Scott gets this website finished. This is just the beginning, and we're learning as we go, but we are excited and wanted to give you a peek of what we're doing. The book isn't my memoir. That book is still brewing. And this novel may not interest you guys, but I'd love to have your prayers and thoughts and most of all, I want you to dream with me today. But before I get into my dream, let's start with yours. . . What do you dream about? What do you want to be when you grow … [Read more...]
What We Throw Away
I'm embarrassed to write this post, but I'm going to anyway because I think it's important. It's about what we throw away. The weekend was warm and our boys wanted to go to a swimming pool. Scott and I were hard at work on the farm. "No pools are open yet," I told the boys as I walked by pushing a wheelbarrow toward the garden I was planting. "Our pool leaks," they said. Their pool cost $17 dollars at Walmart last season. "Sorry, you can help your dad and I work some more or you can play in the hose, but do it around the trees. They need to be watered." Pretty soon I see the boys had improvised. Using an old tarp that didn't leak, they fixed their Walmart pool, and spent the … [Read more...]
When You Live With Regret
I remember it so clearly, that day I regret. I was seven years old sitting in a lawn chair surrounded by the poor Hispanic family from down the road. The Mendozas didn't have much, but they had each other, and were always together like a pack of puppies in our neighborhood. I don't remember their folks ever being around. Perhaps their parents were away working night and day to feed eight kids in that single-wide trailer on a hill across the road. The Mendozas taught me how to make tortillas on the stove top without burning my fingers. Salt, tortillas, and butter, that's all I remember eating at their house. At our house, I sat in my lawn chair with a bag of Doritos. I was handing … [Read more...]
When you really need an Easter calf
"You're a country girl, not a city girl," I told our daughter, Lacy, when she first left home. Her hair was long and brown, her eyes wide and blue as our country sky. At 19 years old, she hadn't been kissed yet. "We'll see," Lacy said with a cheeky grin as she climbed into her little Honda Accord and drove away. I stood in the driveway with tears streaming down my face and watched until her car disappeared down our back country road, until her dust disappeared across our blue country sky. Our blue-eyed girl was gone for several years. And in those years, she truly left home. In so many ways. For so many empty reasons. Last summer, Lacy returned with a broken heart. My mommy's … [Read more...]