My mother died 12 years ago today. I’ve been thinking about her more than usual, which means instead of five times a day, it’s ten times....

The only photos I have of my childhood Halloween are the two years I was dressed as a clown. My mother was an excellent seamstress, but...

I’m a little edgy the week between Christmas and the New Year, trying hard to “take time off” but also feeling a looming sense that I...

Yesterday we welcomed 13 new students for the fall session of our Refugee and Immigrant Sewing Enterprise. They came ready to sew, but...

Before we moved into our house last year, we constructed a long list of things we needed to purge and cable television was one of them....

A while back, before I lived in the non-profit world and realized how truly generous most people are, I decided to ditch the corporate...

Our middle child, Erin, started kindergarten at a large public school in a suburb of Tulsa. On her first day at Jenks East Elementary, I...

My proclamation a few weeks before Lent began – that I was giving up grumbling for the six weeks – was probably a relief for the people...

This blog post is about Nambia. Yes, I’m going there. Not literally, because there is no country of Nambia. In a speech to African...

Shims. These are little pieces of wood that you purchase when the floors in your old house slant in three different rooms. I know this...

This photo makes it clear (or it should) that we have not moved to the Rosedale house yet. It’s way past time for an update, so here...

On Friday, I’m leaving town. It’s not the best time for me to be gone because we run a retail shop and it’s almost Christmas. And yet,...

During our first and only showing of the Rosedale house, our realtor, Joy, ended it with an explanation about the structure on the corner...

The kitchen demolition at Rosedale started two weeks ago but I wasn’t there to watch since the kitchen really isn’t my territory anymore....

When I was five, we took our annual Colorado vacation in the hot month of July, and my mother left my packed suitcase with all my...

We bought a house last Friday. Kyle and I signed our names on eight pages of paperwork, confirmed the money wire, hugged the realtor, and...

But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious...

For months, I was adamant that we would not sell Dad’s house. I couldn’t imagine letting it go. It held all my parents’ stuff, and...

I absolutely hate goodbyes. Dogs are dogs, I know. They aren’t people and so there isn’t really a need to write a long, sad,...

I remember the sound of typewriter keys on Saturday mornings. Dad would finish his Sunday school lesson by typing his notes on the old...