log homes
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If you paint the door…
The front door has been a mess for years. And for years I have said, “The door must be redone before Thanksgiving!” And Thanksgivings came and went. And the door just got more and more mortifyingly ugly. Why, you ask, can’t you just redo the door? What is your problem? In the immortal words of Continue reading
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Things that go “thump” in the night
Technically, 5:20 a.m. isn’t night. But it’s dark enough for a six year old to ask his mom, “When is the sun going to let us know it’s morning?” And it’s morning enough for John to be getting out of the shower. But it’s dark enough for me to still be completely comatose. “Craaaaaack! Whump!” That Continue reading
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Not a bee, not a yellow jacket, and why is it out at night?
Enormous “bees” bounce off the glass of our front door. Dozens of them. Unlike moths, which flit annoying around light, or June bugs, which bump clumsily against the glass, these look threatening, like mutant yellow-jackets. They are so big they make a wasp look like a mosquito. They scare me. Yes. They scare me. Me, beekeeper wife, who takes a cocktail down to the bee-yard Continue reading
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Merry Christmas from Maywood!
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning… In him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1: 1-2,4) Merry Christmas to Continue reading
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‘Twas the week before Christmas
‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house No one was ready, least of all my spouse. Stockings are ready to hang in a few, But what will go in them, I haven’t a clue. Hubby’s off on his errands with traffic to battle In our ’99 Jeep with a muffler rattle. And Continue reading
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Countdown to Thanksgiving
For some people the upcoming days count down to serious Christmas shopping. Others are counting the days to shotgun season. For me, multiple checklists focus me toward the annual Thanksgiving crowd at my house. With about forty guests expected, the checklists–my marching orders–keep me from total panic. I used to spend a whole weekend making Continue reading
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Pets or Pests?
Why is it that a mouse in Shelley’s bedroom results in a cell-phone video of a screaming woman leaping onto the bed while begging her daddy to save her, but a hamster gone missing brings that very same woman to her hands and knees in her son’s room in a desperate search that, please God, will not end with dead Continue reading
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Smelling the roses…
“Life comes at you fast.” We all love those insurance commercials because we could all have our turn starring in one. Sometimes it even involves a big insurance claim, like for my daughter who recently went through labor with their first child while her husband dealt with a massive basement disaster. Other times, we get caught up Continue reading
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Hibernating
It is in the bleak mid-winter that I most feel a discord between the rhythm of the seasons and our bondage to the clock. Why can’t we hibernate in winter like the bears and the bees? We don’t need the entire winter, just January. Isn’t that why we load up on food at Christmas, so Continue reading
Slightly Off the Grid 