Cheesecloth and Food Coloring

We put our heads together today and got creative. Literally. All of our agency’s employees were divided into teams and given a Styrofoam head to bedazzle, decorate, make gory, etc. If you’d have told me a week ago that I’d be getting my hands dirty not with front yard soil but with red food coloring (blood), cheesecloth (mummy […]

Towel. Thrown in.

I’m weary. It’s only hump day and I need a) a weekend, b) better yet — a vacation or c) a trust fund. Just kidding on that last one. The Lawn Surgery which I spoke of last weekend resulted in stitches which didn’t hold. A leak returned, and with it, my sanity quickly dwindled. My eyes […]

Goodwill.

When something is gone, we often mourn its loss: friend, a spouse, a prized possession, maybe something we had only for a short while but which made an impact upon us. I was thinking recently that I need to take stock of what’s in my closet, maybe some storage areas in the house. Time to […]

The Strawberry Field

When I was little we’d go to Disneyland once, maybe twice a year. Living a few miles from The Happiest Place on Earth is something most will never know — fireworks from the park were visible during summer nights, and the Mark Twain riverboat’s whistle could be heard during the quieter parts of the day, usually around dusk […]

The Stillbird

A few days ago before work, I squeezed in a bit of early morning watering in the backyard. My eyes drifted upward and I saw a hummingbird sitting on the telephone line. It was rare to see such a thing, as there are a few that enjoy flitting around the potted orange jubilee, savoring the […]

Lawn Surgery

A water leak resulted in the casa’s front yard being dug up today. OK, not the whole yard, but a house-to-sidewalk trench almost two feet deep. After nine hours, the scarred landscape was put back together. The yard took on a Frankenstein appearance, its battle wound quite visible. Crabgrass stitches held the lawn together, dirt […]

The Voiceless

I don’t actually remember this happening, as tends to be the case when something traumatic or core-shaking happens to me, but the story goes as follows. I was in fifth or sixth grade and had just started attending a Lutheran school. One day, for some reason, the topic during a class discussion turned to animals […]

Plan W

It’s nice to have one in mind, but sometimes Plan A just doesn’t work out. The first option might be the best in your head at the time, but maybe you’re meant to experience a little tough love, a bit of character-building until it’s your time. Really your time. A friend of mine is in a […]

Change your homepage.

Today is one of those days that feels extra heavy — I think it’s the abundance of soul-depleting news headlines that I’ve read. I often try to find a decent, all-good news site to hunker down in for a while, but my homepage is set to iGoogle, complete with a clump of shocking blurbs in the lower […]

Inspired creations.

I can’t not create something. It seems there’s always something brewing, something in the works. Maybe it’s a batch of biscotti, perhaps it’s one of these blog posts. Sometimes I’ll hear a song on the radio and give it a classical spin on the piano, full of ascending and cascading arpeggios that give a nod […]