2022 Book Report

This post does contain affiliate links–if you click the titles below, I’ll get a small commission, and your cost stays the same. One of the best things I did this year was to get myself a library card and the Libby app. This has significantly increased my ability to read (and not to continue to

The Gift of Remembering

This article was published as part of the Our Rural Roots column for Progressive Farmer. For many people, the holidays are a joyful time filled with gifts, treats, and family.  But for those who have lost loved ones, especially those who have lost someone within the last year, the holidays can be really difficult.  I am

Breaking the Mold & Being Grateful for Your Story

Last year, I was honored to be a guest on my friend Bunny Terry’s “I Love New Mexico” podcast. How did I never put this in a blog post?! We had a great chat about chasing your own dream and being grateful your story, even if it might not look like what we think it

Old Friends

I read this quote from Shauna Niequist: “I felt profoundly grateful for the familiarity, for knowing someone across decades, for having the kind of history that allows for shorthand, shared language, a thousand inside jokes, but even deeper than that, an awareness of one another’s hardest days, darkest wounds, scars, and secrets.” I count many

Come On, Nana!

Last night, we stood on the porch during the storm and I was yelling “come on rain!” (Our house is very calm and quiet, obviously.) Harper started yelling, “come on, Nana!” I asked what she was saying. She replied, “uh, mom, Nana is in heaven sending the rain.” {Thanks be to God and to Nana,

Marky

We’ve been praying for the Runyans since the moment we heard the news. When my kids asked me about Mark, I told them he had the best laugh, gave the best hugs, and made everybody feel special. He always treated me like one of his own. My guess is that most of the “kids” in

God is Faithful

I saw a friend post a rain gauge with a glorious inch of rain in it this morning with the caption, “God is faithful!” Indeed He is, and we should post about it every time we have that full rain gauge. But it strikes me, the same is true when our rain gauge is empty.

Remembering Nana

The first time I met Ty’s Nana was Thanksgiving at her house when Ty and I had been dating about 6 months. I hadn’t been there 15 minutes when she pulled out a photo album full of pictures of wedding cakes she made and tasked me with finding the ones I liked. Ty and I

The Chocolate Bars

The kids’ school did a chocolate bar selling fundraiser. They got their boxes of 60 bars each and had big dreams about how many they could sell. I tried to temper expectations. Every elementary kid in town is selling them, we aren’t from here, we don’t have family around here… I didn’t want them to

Our Own Pharaohs

I am listening to Father Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year podcast in 2022. Today, he said something that completely stopped me in my tracks. We are reading in Exodus. The Israelites are slaves in Egypt. When Moses and Aaron try to get Pharaoh to allow their people a three-day reprieve to workshop in the