“Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort it is.” ~ Louisa May Alcott, Little Women Things that made me happy in February: Monday snow day for prepping sourdough and making homemade granola, the boys home from work and playing chess in front of … Continue reading Baked Bread & Sun
"There's just something about the way he sings. It makes me think of when it snows outside, and the fire is warm, and Podo is telling us a story while you're cooking, and there's no place I'd rather be--- but for some reason I still feel... homesick." ~ Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the … Continue reading Stacked Wood & Hearthfires
Lila Joy was born at home a week ago, all healthy and ruddy and dark-headed. I went for a visit Tuesday afternoon, and she was curled near my sister in a patch of sunlight on the bed, not so swollen as she'd been fresh out of the womb. It had been dark then, and the … Continue reading Looking for Some Light
I was surprised to meet Larry and Betty on my run yesterday, walking with their sticks down into the trees on Edgewood. Last winter, they hired me to fetch their mail and water their houseplants while they flew with the geese southward. Mrs. Betty is a gardener who does her best work in springtime, hedging … Continue reading Bunnies & Birds
"For the people who were shoveling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball... laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong." ~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Good things in … Continue reading Skates & Christmas Mittens
It happens every eight seconds, they say, but it’s no less weird and wonderful. I’ve never seen a baby be born, but my big sister has— twelve of them, actually. She earned her birth assistant’s certificate because she’d grown up the oldest sister, the babysitter, the Meg March of the family. As a kid, she … Continue reading Winter In Her Womb
“There was no trace of the fog now. The sky became bluer and bluer, and now there were white clouds hurrying across it from time to time. In the wide glades there were primroses. A light breeze sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool, delicious scents against the … Continue reading Summer Is Near
My friend who shares my name, Bethany Rose, called me last Tuesday morning from somewhere up in Minnesota, where she was bundled and walking her Great Pyrenees named Shiloh. “We’re experiencing a warm front,” she said. “It’s twenty-five degrees today.” I was planting a tray of lettuce on my patio in Missouri, because we were … Continue reading The Long Winter
Mom said it’s been like Miss Twiggley’s tree here lately— which might be my very favorite children’s book, about a funny lady who lives in a tree “with a dog named Puss and a color TV.” When a rainstorm washes the town away, the groceryman and mayor's wife and police chief and town dogs all … Continue reading Miss Twiggley’s Tree
I take walks, and the wind is the January kind. It makes the leaves chatter high in the trees and rattles the empty trash cans at the end of each driveway. The earth is brown, save for refrozen snow lining the ditches and furrows. Now is the only time in the year when I can … Continue reading Selah
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