Stick Horse Cowgirls

I got an email this morning from a client who has been dead at least six months.  We’ll call him “Peter,” which is not his real one.  Seeing his name pop up in my inbox was eerie.  I knew immediately that it was not a “real” message and, sure enough, it was one of those that is sent out to everyone in your inbox advertising sexual enhancers or weight loss or some such—I don’t know which in this case since I do not open these. Still, it was odd seeing Peter’s name, especially in this early-morning fog before my coffee.  It felt momentarily like a message from the grave from someone who had not been ready to pass on from this life.  Like a stilled voice trying to cry out to be remembered. Indeed, he had not been ready.  He left an eight-year-old son for whom he and I fought hard.  His death had been out-of-the-blue, young.  He need not signal from beyond for me to remember Peter. But, I am digressing—my ADD.  There are many rabbit holes I...

We’ve lived a long time in the woods—or at least near to the woods.  The forest comes up close to my house on two sides and from there stretches miles back over hills interrupted only with dottings of civilization.  Hearing the night forest sounds when the weather allows open windows is one of my favorite things about living out here. One of the sounds I love is that of the whippoorwill bird, who sings only at night.  For those of you who live out of his range, you can hear one at this site .  Scroll down to the section on “call” where you will find a recording. Normally I hear the whippoorwill from the darkness of the forest.  Lately, however, I have had one calling on my back utility porch.  His song is loud and from so close fills my den.  That porch is the point of my home which is nearest to the woods, the steps being but maybe 50 feet to the thick trees.  Hearing him so close made me think about the whippoorwill’s impact on my son. Whe...

I think I have a decent vocabulary.  I love words and don’t often run across English words that I simply do not recognize.  I may not know the definitions off the top of my head when it comes to the more obscure, but I usually at least recognize the word.  But I ran across a new one this week. I was internet-stalking Suzanne Somers the other day… er , I mean, I was snooping a look or two at her estate high on a mountain overlooking Palm Springs that is now being offered at a reduced price of a mere $15 million.  It sounds lovely. I don’t think this picture really captures the place: The estate has several buildings and has ten bedrooms and 11 bathrooms.  As you can see, it has a marvelous kitchen: and beautiful outdoor spaces: It has a pool and, for the performing arts, an outdoor amphitheater.  What more could one want? I was really living it up vicariously when I got to the part that said one of the unique things about the property is ...

It was this tree that started me thinking this spring….. Yes, it is a tree I see every day as I drive into my property.  It belongs to my neighbor, Mary. This is a poor picture to depict its grandeur. It is starting to green, and I really wish that I had photographed it just a few weeks earlier, when there were no leaves to soften the stark branches.  Against the blue winter sky, its perfect shape has inspired me all winter.  It is what has caused me to think (overthink) about nature’s perfection. But it was this photograph that put me over the top and made me want to write in this blog again and say to you, “ Do you see the perfection, the planning, the genius of our world ?”  I do believe that nothing we do enhances it.  In fact, everywhere we touch, I’m afraid, we diminish God’s initial handiwork.  Just look at that little baby giraffe photographed against his mother, pondering the world.  Is there anything we can do to match this? I s...

  It’s much more difficult than I ever thought it would be to write what I really want to say.  I hamstring myself with fear of revealing too much, embarrassing myself or others.  I’ve often wondered if others struggle with this too.  Do I want to limit myself to writing about a slick veneer of life as seen through rose colored glasses, or do I want authenticity —even if sometimes it’s a little angry, or whiny, or questioning?   I don’t want to air all my dirty laundry publically, but I will say that my 40 years of marriage hasn’t always been rosy.  We’ve struggled through difficult times—our own  selfishness, even boredom at times.  We’ve endured the stress of rebellious, out of control teenagers.  We’ve sat in the emergency room of hospitals, with life and death circumstances before us for two of our three children.  Despite the difficult times, thankfully we have had trust  and common faith to sustain us through the r...

How was your Christmas/ New Year holiday?  See if you can top mine…. Two weeks before Christmas and the arrival of six family members from half a continent away my dishwasher went out.  No problem.  I went to the Home Depot and purchased one, arranging for it to be delivered the next week—just in time for the boatload of dishes that fifteen people would make on Christmas Eve night. Disclaimer: The above is NOT my sink—only what I feared! One week before Christmas we had a windstorm that lasted at least 24 hours with straight-line winds that prevented me at one point from opening my car door.  Strong enough that they snapped our electric poles and caused me to be without power for four days.  Please recall that without power out here in the country, there is no water…pump, remember? This necessitated two nights in the local Hampton Inn so that I could be presentable in Court the next morning. It also meant that the dishwasher could not be insta lled...

My now- grown son likes to remind me of a “scam” we used to run on him when he was young.  We put a special calendar up on the wall just to record his good behavior.  He would earn one of those gummed gold stars on the calendar for each of several specified good deeds. He now tells us that he paid great attention to the opportunity to fill those little calendar squares up with the shiny stars.  It caused him to eat way more green beans than he would otherwise have eaten (which would have been none).  It was responsible for many more beds made without asking.  It just, generally, served to achieve parental purposes at very little cost to Dad and me. Son now says (good naturedly), “ I can’t believe I fell for that!  All that effort for a stupid star!” And we both wonder why it worked like it did. I was reminded of this the other day as I played my latest time-waste game on my I-Pad – Bedazzled .  I become mesmerized by this game, trying to line u...