“I vow to love and honor you in sickness and in health.”  I blinked back tears as Dan and I watched the lovebirds celebrate their new year’s wedding.  And then, just as I was launching my own new year . . . I got sick.

Not terribly sick, but a monstrous head cold that has sapped the energy out of my first week of 2011.  I’m not a nice convalescent, I admit it.  I lament and moan and throw tissues on the floor like a big ol’ baby.  I sink into a pit of mucus-induced despair. (more…)

Here we are on the cusp of another year – time for my annual contemplative “Hope and Cope Report.”  Rather than making a stale New Year’s resolution, this is my tradition of intentional reflection.With 4 simple columns marked “Knowns”, “Unknowns”, “Hopes”, and “Surprises,” I fill in the blanks of the past year and create a new sheet with my best predictions for the coming year. (more…)

A friend noticed the brightly wrapped packages under our Christmas tree.  “You put the presents out before Christmas?”  I responded with “Of course, don’t you?”  There seems to be little consensus on the details of how one should celebrate the holidays. (more…)

My creative energies have been directed toward a lecture that I’m giving this week in South Carolina.  So I’m leaving you with one of my first blogs, but one that many of my readers have found touching . . . 

Harold is waiting to die.  There were six of us at his bedside in the county nursing home, leaning toward him singing softly, “Amazing grace . . . how sweet the sound . . . “  Tears in his eyes, he shook each of our hands saying, “Thank you, you don’t know how much that meant to me.”  Little did he know how much it had meant to us . . . ..how much he meant to me. (more…)

“What’s new?”  my friend asked.  “Nothing much” I answered.  And then I realized how very true that was for me.  After several years of major NEW (new home, new husband, new office, new family members), suddenly everything is notably not new. (more…)