The three of us walk to Harper’s ballet class on what feels like winter’s end. “It’s hotter out here than it is in the house!” Hadley exclaims running ahead of us. Harper follows her, skipping. She’s wearing rain boots, pink tights, and her black leotard. Harper calls it a “leotart,” and I don’t correct her just as I didn’t correct… View Post

You read something that inspires you, and you say, “I want to do that! I’m going to do that!” So you begin. Sure, “A devilish return” and “first epic novel” seem like contradictions but never mind that. You know your first sentence will set the tone for your entire “first epic novel,” so you want to get it right. You… View Post

Are you reading Wearing God? Goodness, it’s excellent.  Lauren Winner explores different ways to think about God – laughter, food, clothes, a mother. I want to go back to the narrator in her book Still and tell her, “Just wait.  You’ll find Him again. And you’ll see He was always there, perhaps just in a different metaphor that you couldn’t see.”… View Post

Hadley has many goals, and one of them is to be the President of the United States. That has never been an aspiration of mine. Luv-a-Bull? Yes. If I could add Luv-a-Bull to my list of accomplishments that would be top-notch. But since this is not Hadley’s dream, I tell her about my friend Laura who also wanted to be… View Post

One summer, my family spent an afternoon riding bikes on Mackinac Island. During the eight-mile ride, I noticed several piles of rocks ranging from just a few stones to almost three feet high. I learned from the brochure I carried in my bike basket that these are called “cairns,” and they’re used to mark trails by hikers and bikers; mostly… View Post