Lumpy Batter

Accepting Grace Good muffins come from lumpy batter. As a beginning baker, I struggled with this truth. I wanted to mix the flour, the sugar, the eggs, the milk–everything–until the batter was silken and beautiful. But perfect batter makes for crummy muffins. Instead, I had to learn to stir everything together just until all the ingredients were […]


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Sailing Away

March, 2010: Aboard our Boat Profound Grief, Profound Faith Saturday Rich and I attended a memorial service and committal at sea for our friend Clay. His wife and my husband have worked together for 24 years. Clay fought cancer for a year and a half before being called home on August 23. He was 50 […]


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Out on A Limb

 Tall Eucalyptus with Brittle Branches Why Birds have Wings, and We Don’t Last week I watched as a crow lit on a branch high in this tree, outside my office. The limb gave way under the bird’s weight. The crow rode down about fifty feet, still perched on the falling branch. No more than ten feet from the […]


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Late Bloomers

Our Wedding Day: Kevin, Rachael, Cadence, Elaine, Jeffrey, me, Phil, Rich, Ayden, Ryan, Jordynne, Rebecca, Jeff A Full Three Years! Three years ago today Rich and I exchanged marriage vows. Life has brought us quite a collection of milestones in the past 36 months: October, 2007    A dear family friend dies    We’re evacuated from […]


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Forecast: Showers and Sacrifices

Foreground: Judi, Elaine, and Rob Background: April and Janice Love Rains! It reigns, too, of course. But at a baby shower–especially a baby shower for my own daughter–love saturates the air. Saturday we gathered at the home of Elaine’s parents-of-her-best-friend-since-she-was-three to celebrate baby Sawyer’s arrival, expected later this fall. Our hostesses, Janice and her daughter-in-law, Nici, […]


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