Too Poor To Buy a Kid a Hot Dog

Yesterday I posted the details about the kids games and more BryonySeries will be running out of three to four tents on July 3 at the annual Independence Celebration at the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park Theatre in Joliet.

Of all the events we run, this one has the most meaning to me.

On July 3, 1998, I'd been a single mom for five months.

My house was falling apart.

My six kids ages 2 through 15 were undisciplined and unruly.

I had no steady income (but was working four different jobs around the clock, literally around the clock).

And I had reached a level of exhaustion I'd never thought possible.

My neighbor, a lovely woman (Sarah still calls her a second mom), also a single mom who was working three jobs (one was a longterm daycare from her home), mentioned Bicentennial Park was having fireworks and would I go with her?

She also wanted to walk and pick up a friend who lived on Jefferson Street, because she said parking would be terrible and it would take a long time to leave the park.

The kids thought that would be a great adventure. 

I don't remember if I'd brought the wagon to pull the youngest two, although I must have brought it.

I vaguely recall the walk down to the park and none of the walk back.

Did we pack snacks? Were water bottles a thing? I have don't remember that either. Wait, I have a murky recollection of my single mom friend with little baggies of snacks she packed. Probably little juice boxes, to. I think.

But I do remember sitting at the top of the hill near Bluff Street around twilight, when it was still too early for fireworks, too tired to move and too tired to even buy the kids the $1 hot dogs the park was selling at the event.

And yet, armed with the willingness to work hard and a strong desire to make a better life for the kids, somehow, somehow, I carved out anew life for us.

Volunteers came out to help my dad put that house back together. That included two single dads with their two sons each - and one of those dads eventually became my children's stepfather.

And Ron and I worked together to install discipline and order - and we remodeled his house while finishing mine, to prepare for seven people moving into it. So at one point, he and I were working two jobs each and remodeling two homes.

I developed two of the four jobs enough to let the two babysitting jobs and running the crew of kids selling newspaper subscriptions go. But Ron and I delivered newspapers in the middle of the night until the end of 2012 - and my fifteen-year freelance career turned into a staff position at The Herald-News in Joliet in January 2014.

The exhaustion remained for more than a dozen years until the five hours of sleep a night crept until four. I washing the mudroom floor on my hands and knees at two in the morning when the entire room spun. And I threw that rag down and said to myself, "Something has to give. And it's not going to be me." 

I meant it.

Today, I rarely get less than six hours of sleep a night and many times it's more than that.

Our neighbor passed from lung cancer about a decade ago, reuniting her with the infant son who passed shortly after his birth.

My kids - the six of my own and my three stepchildren - are loving, hardworking people of fine character and integrity, and successful in their own ways. I am proud of every one of them.

I wish future me could have sat next to dejected me on that hill at Bicentennial Park on July 3, 1998, and pointed out the spot my kids and I would be set up with tents, running free children's games and BryonySeries giveaways. I wouldn't have believed it, of course. But I'm sure it would have given me hope and encouragment.

So we are not just handing out free stuff and selling books at our tent on July 3. There's a huge infrastructure behind what we're doing and why we're doing it - and how we deliver the experience for those few hours.

Finally, while this last blessing might not be the most important one, it's still worth noting.

We can now buy all the hot dogs we want.

My First Christmas Address

In terms of money spent for Christmas this year, 2024/2025 was an extremely lean year for my family and me.

And in terms of some of the really expensive technology items I've seen my grandchildren want and receive for birthdays and holidays, well - I will never be able to meet those wants and expectations no matter what kind of year it is.

But the last way I want to present a gift is with an apology that it isn't more - or see crestfallen faces when something at receiving something insignificant.

So I put some very hard thought and time into Christmas this year, despite being sick.

On Sunday, I spent an entire day, wrapping and decorating some really modest gifts for all the grandchildren, which went into small Christmas bags.

But several days before that, I wrote this Christmas speech. If you can believe, the speech held everyone's attention. Two of my kids actually recorded it. 

And the excitement that followed when the paper started flying really surprised me. Not only did the mood remain elevated the rest of the day, I believe the speech set expectations (in a good way) for birthdays and holidays going forward, recementing the element of surprise and delight in giving, receiving, and sharing.

So if you need a dose of inspiration today, I'm including the speech in this post.

Happy Wednesday!

As a grandma with lots of grandkids and little money, it sometimes breaks my heart that I can’t afford all the expensive technology things my grandkids love and really want.

But then I read this article last month called, “Why the Best Gift You Can Give Your Grandchild This Christmas is a Book.” And this paragraph really stood out to me.

If there’s one thing grandparents understand, it’s the fragility, the brevity of life. We need to keep giving books as if we missed the memo that ‘technology rules.’ We know that big, sullen teenage lump really wants something techie, or cash — mostly cash, and that you are just a means to providing the latest gadget. But teenagers are sullen and oafish because they’ve learned a thing about life, so you can play them at their own game. Keep handing over books.

And this got me thinking. Yes, I know reading is often presented as a chore, something we “should” do that really isn’t very fun, like eating raw broccoli instead of chocolate chip cookies. We all know kids need to read to become successful students and successful adults in the business world.

Well, that reasoning would turn me off reading, too.

And the more I thought about it, the more I felt bad for kids who prefer technology over books and reading. And I feel especially bad for kids who can’t read, struggle with reading, or hate to read.

Because the non-reading kids are missing out on so much.

I really feel bad for kids (and adults who used to be kids) who haven’t spent hours of their childhood reading.

I spent hours of my childhood reading because I had a mother who’d bought a subscription to the Weekly Readers Children’s Book Club, where we got a book in the mail each month.

And I had a father who used to read those books to my sister and me until we were old enough to read books ourselves.

I feel bad for kids who didn’t grow up having a father who made up tunes to sing along with the ditties in the books, “I’m the gift bear for the king. I won’t stop for anything!” or the snake’s song in the “Crows of Pearblossom” (for those who didn’t know Aldous Huxley wrote a children’s book):  I cannot fly; I have no wings; I cannot run; I have no legs. But I can creep where the black bird sings And eat her speckled eggs, ha, ha! And eat her speckled eggs.”

I feel bad for kids who never felt the rejection the Witch of Hissing Hill felt from her witchy customers (who came from miles around to buy one of Gizelle’s cats)

Far back in the hill country is Hissing Hill.

It's a bare lonely spot, with one twisted house

and a tall fir behind it.

Once upon a time the hill was aswarm

with black witch cats.

Cats arching their backs on the rooftop,

cats chasing up the fir tree,

cats yowling on crooked fence posts,

cats hissing in every corner of the shackly house.

And all of them black, black, black.

Her cats were the witchiest, the wickedest, the very worst, wonderful witch cats in the world…until the day one of those cats birthed a yellow cat named Gold.

“Now Gold was yellow and Gold was nice, but she had a bit of mustard in her yellow for spice.”

I feel bad for kids who never met Little Devil when he got sick or tasted the hot spider soup his mother made him (“Wait for the gloom to come, my son!”) or took the advice of his best friend Fritz, who said Little Devil was sick because he wasn’t doing enough good deeds (Ollie ollie zonka choo!).

I feel bad for kids who’ve never met Stevie and his Seven Orphans or played impossible hide and seek or tasted “salty” beet greens or had to obey dinner rules that included no more than one elbow and one knee on the kitchen table in “Good Ole Archbald.”

I feel bad for kids who never saw golden windows from afar, longed to be part of the Knights of the Silver Shield, met Marty from Mars, or felt the longing Danny Drake had for a dog named Bozo – and since their house was too small for a dog, Danny instead brought home mice, frogs, and ants – all named Bozo. Spoiler: Danny eventually gets the dog.

I feel bad for kids who never experienced “earning a playground” or accomplishing a “five-dollar yard,” who never cheered for Bunnyboy when he saved the columbine, mourned with King Charlemagne at the death of Roland the Noble Knight in battle, felt the fear of meeting Grendel the giant in the celebration hall for a fight only one would win, or saw the miraculous pitcher with their very own eyes.

I feel bad for kids who never saw Curious George make a fishing pole from a mop handle and  wall hook and then bait the hook with a slice of cake and who never left Old Bohemia with Nanka and to learn – in America – that a pancake is sometimes also a hat.

I feel bad for kids who don’t know that one is the engine, two is the boxcar, three is the covered hopper car. I feel bad for kids who never survived nearly drowning because the terrible Miss Dove wouldn’t let them get a drink of water in class.

I feel bad for kids who never experienced the world from the vantage point of the Poky Little Puppy and his four siblings after they dug a hole under the fence and went for a walk in the wide, wide world through the meadow, down the road, across the green grass and up the hill, one after the other.

I feel bad for kids who never felt the discontent of Scuffy the toy Tugboat (Scuffy was sad. Scuffy was cross. Scuffy sniffed his blue smokestack. “I won’t sail in a bathtub. I was meant for bigger things”). I feel bad for kids who never learned about boundaries on their behavior with Tootle the Train and “red flags waving,” or felt the loyalty of Mike toward his steam shovel Mary Anne, a steam shovel that could “dig as much in a day as one hundred men can dig in a week.”

I feel bad for kids who didn’t know that Mr. Willowby’s Christmas tree came by special delivery, full and fresh and glistening green, the biggest tree he’d ever seen.

I feel bad for kids who do not even know that where they walked to school each day, Indian children used to play, all about their native land, where the shops and houses stand. and the trees were very tall, and there were no streets at all, not a church, not a steeple —only woods and Indian people.”

I feel bad for kids who never slept beneath a sidewalk with Booker T. Washington or watch him sweep a floor so well that its lack of even one speck of dust earned him a college education. I feel bad for kids who never hung out with George Washington Carver as he invented face powder, shampoo, shaving cream, hand lotion, insecticides, glue, charcoal, rubber, nitroglycerine, plastics, and axle grease all from peanuts.

I feel bad for kids who were never “snowbound” with John Greenleaf Whittier or who never slept in the house with James Thurber the night the bed fell, or who never got deathly ill in the drenching rain the night the last leaf fell.

I feel bad for kids who’ve never felt the heart-stopping terror of Pew the blind pirate tap-tap-tapping his way down the sidewalk, who’ve never stolen a hot air balloon with other escaped prisoners only to be blown off course and land on a mysterious island having to fend for yourself with these strangers, or felt sorry for the frog who was in love with the jailor’s daughter, who knew in his little frog heart his love for her couldn’t not work because he was a frog and she was a woman.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I love reading books. And I like writing books, too.

Uncle Tim helps write some of my books. And Aunt Rebekah takes all the writings and turns them into books.

You’re probably not too curious about what we write or why we do it. You’re probably more curious about what’s in the little bags – and maybe disappointed that we don’t have many gifts to give this year.

But circling back to the beginning of my Christmas speech, “if there’s one thing grandparents understand, it’s the fragility, the brevity of life. We need to keep giving books as if we missed the memo that ‘technology rules.’”

Last year we had lots of gifts for you under the tree. This year, a lot of money went to pay medical bills.

So this year, we have some smaller gifts for you that we hope you’ll like.

And I am giving you the option (and you don’t have to do it) of picking out one book that I wrote (note: most picked out two, actually...surprised we even wrote and published books) to take home with you.

           You can read it or give it away or throw it away.

If you can’t read it by yourself (or if you don’t want to read it yourself), I can read it to you, a chapter at a time, over a video call. This way, we can enjoy the story together.

And if that sounds like a boring gift, I don’t care.

It’s not only what I have to give this Christmas; it’s what I WANT to give this Christmas.

I’m giving the gift of self, of imagination, and the opportunity for us to experience something together you can’t get anywhere else.

Merry Christmas!

P.S.: Copies of this speech are available to take home upon request.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Count the Wins or Count the Losses?

So is this cup half empty or half full?

As I've previously written and certainly more than once, our family has experienced an unrelenting slew of challenges and emergencies since the second half of 2021, enough that we often struggle to keep up with them and the rest of life.

I think that 2024, for many in my family, has just blurred past in discomfort and actual pain. It's hard to believe 2025 is on the horizon.

One day in October, while in the midst of several of these events, Rebekah and I waded through some very neglected BryonySeries paperwork. With the end of the year in sight - and having no idea what else might befall us, given the history - we had to address it.

As we backtracked through the entire year and recorded our successes, we finally paused and looked at each other, asking, "How?"

How did we have such a good "book" year when everything else (including us) was falling apart? 

On Saturday I received an award from the community for my features writing with my fiction works being acknowledged as well.  I was one of ten people being honored that evening, so the ceremony was several hours long.

I was also on Day Ten of some of the worst and absolutely unrelenting back pain that I've ever experienced. And it definitely showed in my eyes in the "selfie" Timothy took of us at the end of the event.

But when I'm passed this challenge as well (as I'm sure I shall be - because I'm not at the time of this writing), I'll remember the event more than the pain.

So our really horrible year wasn't completely horrible. We just can't feel those facts yet.

Obviously, no one is going to feel elation when going through health emergencies and grief.

And yet - blessings are often interwoven among the thorns. And when the storm passes, it's nice to see the rainbows.

So is this cup half empty of half full?

Should I be sad I only have half a cup left to drink?

Or should I be happy because I have drunk deeply of really good coffee - and I still have half left to enjoy?

Faith and Midnight

We never expected to wind up with two cats with cancer.

We're grateful to everyone's whose prayed, thought good thoughts, and sent out healing energy their way.

Today's blog seems the best way to update everyone, since both cats had some medical stuff these past few weeks.

Yes, they are both alive and stable. It's not that kind of update.

Midnight

Midnight came to us at four months of age. Someone had thrown Midnight away along with her siblings. Christopher discovered them, rescued them, cared for them, and found homes for all except Midnight because she was "skittish" and no one wanted her.

So I named her Midnight and picked her up from his house when she was sixteen weeks (that's the short story).

Well, Midnight was skittish because she was sick, underweight, and fighting amongst the bigger cats at Christopher's house for her food. She had ear mites and tape worms, and I didn't expect her to live.

Our veterinarian would not spay her until she was free of heartworm segments. For months, Midnight had regular deworming treatments and we regularly submitted stool samples for testing. Midnight could not be spayed until she was tapeworm-free.

Well, one night she was nine months old and the temperature was eighteen degrees below zero, Midnight dashed out of the house at one in the morning as we were leaving to deliver newspapers. We circled back several times, calling out, "Midnight" all around the yard in the middle of the night.

Around four in the morning, Midnight crawled out from under the deck with three cats and she was not cold at all. I'm sure you know where this story is going.

Ron wouldn't hear of breaking up the family. He named the kittens Faith, Hope, and Charity, and we now had five cats instead of just our rescue cat Frances.

Charity used all all nine lives in three years.

Hope died in July two days before my birthday.

Fast forward to the last couple of years: Midnight's had three surgeries in two years to remove aggressive spindle cell sarcoma tumors from her back. Each time, they've regrown more quickly than the last. She'd barely recovered from the last surgery when the growths reappeared. They grow larger every day. I now call them "Tina Tumors."

The insidiousness of spindle cell sarcomas is that the part you see is not the evil part. These sarcomas finger out and and out, typically with the lungs as their destination.

After consulting with Midnight's primary, oncologist, and surgeon, we learned that, even at eighteen, Midnight is a great candidate for additional surgery. All her bloodwork is perfect. She does have a grade one heart murmur that isn't always detectable. The heart murmur is not a barrier to more surgery.

However.

The next surgery would need extremely wide margins with the goal of removing all the tumors, going into muscle and part of her spine. She would need radiation five days a week and spend most of her days for eight weeks waiting in a cage for those treatments.

None of this will cure her, although it may buy her time. But what kind of time?

Midnight is terrified of all of it and she was shaking hard when Timothy had to leave her for her CT scan.

Oh, and she also has feline gastrointestinal eosinophilic sclerosing fibroplasia with two lymph nodes involvements.

Midnight can't decide for herself, so we decided for her.

We decided no more surgery for Midnight unless one of her tumors rupture or become necrotic. The surgeon said he could still remove the affected section should it happen as a palliative care option.

The heartbreaking part is that Midnight, at eighteen and dealing with all of this, is still Midnight in personality and activity level. And she may still be her regular Midnight self when it comes time for euthanasia if the reason for euthanasia is this cancer.

The good news is that these tumors have not traveled to her lungs so far. They do seem located despite their rapid growths. Both Midnight's primary and her surgeon feel confident she may die from something else.

So Midnight has joined her daughter Faith in palliative care.

Faith

Faith, as you know, was diagnosed with small cell lymphoma in early April 2022. After much soul searching and multiple opinions, we chose palliative care (for many reasons), which her oncologist said would buy her two to three months.

Chemotherapy treatment, if Faith responded to it, could have theoretically bought her two to three years. 

Well, Faith has lived two and half on palliative alone. At the time of this writing, she is sitting next to me on my desk chair, chin on my arm, and meowing at me when I look at her.

But.

Faith is slowly losing weight.

She needs her anti-nausea medicine daily now - and has Zofran as a backup should she vomit or start eating and drinking less again. Fortunately, we haven't needed it yet.

She was treated for dehydration again a couple of weeks ago.

She is hiding more.

And she looks like an older cat.

Well, Faith is now an older cat.

Faith is a sixteen-year-old cat with cancer.

Some days, she just looks tired, like a clock that's winding down.

She does not look tired now. In this moment, she's now standing on the arm of my chair, nuzzling me for attention.

She tends to look down or away from the camera when I point it at her. Just six months ago, she was such a ham for the camera.

As sad as we'll be when the time to say goodbye arrives, we are so thankful.

We could have lost Midnight all those years ago when she was just a sick little kitten.

We could have only gotten two or three months with Faith after her diagnosis.

And we also almost euthanized Faith eleven months ago. We never dreamed she'd still be with us.

Last November she'd stopped eating and drinking. She was assessed by her primary and a doctor who euthanizes in the home. No one found a reason for Faith's decline. Her bloodwork was good. Her heart and lungs were normal. She had no palpable masses.

So Faith received a modified care plan and had two days to respond. Otherwise, humane euthanasia on the third day was recommended. Daniel was out of town for business for a couple of weeks at the time, and we did a "goodbye" video visit with him, since he and Faith are close.

One hour before Faith's scheduled euthanasia, she jumped off the bed and ran to her food bowl. I took a video and sent it to the doctor. She canceled the euthanasia.

Then we scheduled another euthanasia appointment for two days later, a Saturday, with her primary, just in case. If Faith declined again, we didn't want to drive her an hour away, with her suffering, just to end it all.

We canceled that one, too.

Later that Saturday, Faith left the ugliest, largest hair ball by her food ball I ever saw. That likely caused a blockage that could have killed her. Seriously, this thing was as wide as a sausage and half as long, with long spiky hair sticking out of it.

YUCK!

So now our daily routine looks like we're running an animal hospital, with medication rounds twice a day for both cats and regular weigh-ins. Midnight is taking two, Faith is taking three, and both have additional "as needed" medications, too.

So that's the "tail end" of our update. 

We are thankful.

We are grateful.

We are in awe.

Thank you for taking this journey with us. 

Happy Monday!

Friday Free Space

Good morning!

Ever since I began this blog in 2010, Fridays were a day to post a roundup of all my story links for The Herald-News.

Today I'm breaking from that tradition since I don't have many to post this week.

One, I was off last Friday and Monday for my birthday. Shaw Media is generous in that it gives us a day off in our birthday month.

Two, when I returned, a lot of the focus was on storm coverage and two stories just for print.

Three, the last few weeks have been super challenging - and have been filled with some wonderful moments, too. I'd prefer only the latter, of course - but life doesn't serve itself up that way.

And speaking of moments, most of life is lived within moments. So instead of linking to my work, I'm sharing a random moment in 2018 that I caught with my phone camera, a moment I don't remember living.

I guess the lesson here is this: no matter how topsy turvy life can get, find reasons to smile.

And try to capture those moments via camera, too, for a second smile years down the road.

(Bertrand the Mouse approves this message).

Spiritual Spa Day

Our family's had more than its share of medical unicorns prancing into our lives.

One might think, considering we've survived them all (so far), we'd be filled with great awe and admiration for modern medicine.

But we're not.

Instead, we're often filled with anxiety over what modern medicine might do to us (some of those unicorns are in the drug reaction club) or what new and strange malady might befall us.

Seriously.

Popular buzz words in our home include pheochromocytoma, mast cell disorders/chronic urticaria, Steven Johnson Syndrome, hidradenitis suppurativa, Hashimoto's disease, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), familial polycythemia (without the vera), hyperhidrosis, and inappropriate sinus tachycardia mixed in with the rather normal diabetes, asthma, Asperger's, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, dyslexia, allergies (seasonal, food, and drug), white coat hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, diverticulosis, and diverticulitis (which actually might not have been diverticulitis after all - which really doesn't surprise me).

The awe/anxiety seesaw is a real spiritual pushmi-pullyu in our lives.

People used to comment on my patience for homeschooling my six children. I'd reply that patience is developed by enveloping ourselves in situations that cause impatience.

The same is probably true with overcoming medical anxiety. So I've worked really hard this past year to reframe my thinking with more and less success. Fortunately (?), God has provided plenty of opportunities, too.

This doesn't mean every situation will go well or every provider will be fantastic. But it does mean to have a little faith that the Holy Spirit is present in every situation and will guide us (and those around us) in that moment.

So...

Today I am happily on a clear liquid diet in anticipation of tomorrow's colonoscopy. I say "happily" because the procedure has already be rescheduled four times this year for various medical reasons that weren't sedation friendly.

In these weeks, I've learned an appreciation for the procedure, which - although it has its risks (of which I cannot completely control), is a privilege many people in the world simply cannot access. 

I'm going to try to keep this in mind as the day progresses.

I've already set myself up for success on the back end (no pun intended) by setting up the day, the diet, and the timing of these next two days with all weird health issues factored in. Because realistically, grumbling about being hungry really is the least of my concerns.

The undercurrent of this post is not intended to be whining. It's to address fear. And we all come face-to-face with fear in our lives, even if the situational cause is not identical.

If you're facing fear today, I'm facing it with you. And I hope that helps you.

All that's left is for me/us today to untie the boat and sail out to the middle of the lake and meet the uncertainty, where the real spiritual growth happens.

What's the old saying? A boat is safe in the harbor. But that is not the point of the boat (paraphrased).

So anchor lifted, here I go.

With a big bowl of quivering lemon Jell-O (not blue Jello-O) sitting in the refrigerator with a big spoonful already gone.

Because I've already embarked.

And because blue Jell-O is not allowed 

That First Sip of Coffee

There is nothing like that first sip of coffee when you've had to delay it for fasting bloodwork.

Even better than coffee, there is nothing like gathering with loved ones when you've had to delay that, too.

The journey to the coffee maker is long or short, depending where you choose to place it. And once we grab our cup, we think about that journey no more.

But what an exquisite experience to gather with people who are not together randomly and look back at the journey traveled together.

Happy Monday!

Beautiful Flowers

I love flowers.

When my children were young, I used to buy half a dozen bouquets of fresh flowers during our weekly grocery shopping trip and arrange them in vases all through the house.

One time, the person handling checkout remarked, "What lovely flowers! Who are they for?"

I didn't miss a beat: "Me!"

I fell out of the habit once we had the cats, who found flowers great nibbling fun, and I wasn't certain which flowers were toxic to them.

But I'm still thrilled to receive them, and five beautiful people gifted me with flowers on April 22 in the lobby of the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park and Theatre on Saturday night, after WriteOn Joliet's first radio style readings of original writings.

I love the smell of flowers, I love the look of flowers, especially all the little intricate details that are just amazing to me. 

It was hard to take closeups with a cell phone camera. But here's a couple that aren't blurry.

Quick Monday Morning Reflection

So my computer went through an update yesterday and now it freezes when I try to attach a photo, making me wonder why I got up extra early to get a jump on the day.

And from my window this morning (just to to my right) is a beautiful sunrise, orangey-pink streaks through the lightening blue.

Of course, I can't share a picture of that with you.

I'm not very far into the work day and I can scarcely see my desk for all the paperwork haphazardly covering it.

But I slept fairly well last night and a health issue, which has flared off and on these last few months, has quited down, for this morning at least. And my day (week, month, year) is full of more story ideas than I can ever possibly write, something that me as a child dreaming to be a writer one day could never have imagined possible.

The cup of coffee is three-quarters empty. But I have plenty more coffee downstairs, five varieties of coffee, ready for whever I wish to make it.

Once Rebekah has a moment, she can fix the computer issue while I catch up on social media and email (I'm woefully behind in replying to posts, which makes me feel antisocial). 

So perhaps the computer issue is an opportunity to accomplish another project?

For anyone reading this post, here's hoping any pebbles in your path today are really opportunities in disguise - and any roadblocks are really invitations to go another, and better, way.

PS: If you're reading this post and you see a photo, it means Rebekah has fixed the issue, and I've returned to attach a photo. So thankful to her!

PPS: The issue resolved all by itself. But Rebekah is still great!

PPPS: This is not the sunrise from my window. But it's a beautiful photo Timothy took some time ago and sent to me. 

Musings on a Tired Morning

It's easy to get grumpy when sleep has been short for several nights running.

However...

1) Some people today did not wake up and never will again.

Today I will praise God for the blessing of another day and remember those who grieving.

2) I'm tired because we've taken another huge step forward and that brings effort.

Today I will praise God for that blessing and pray to grow with it.

3) I don't have to drive anywhere today; there's plenty of coffee in the house (and I'm drinking it from a mug that was a gift from Jasmine); and a list of interesting work I can't wait to tackle.

Today I will praise God for the blessings of this job and pray for the words that best communicate what needs communicating.

Ten Simple Daily Pleasures

People always say to count your blessings. Here's ten of mine I enjoy everyday.

1) A cup of coffee in the quiet early morning.

2) Walking for fun and exercise while listening to music and allowing my mind to roam.

3) Walking to work, either bundling up again the snow (cozy) and chill or basking in the warm sunshine (freedom). Both have merits.

4) Midnight cuddling like a baby.

5) Poor man's massages from Faith at bedtime.

6) A late morning cup of coffee while pouring over my work.

7) The inherent rhythm of a day I've arranged.

8) A cup of frozen fruit at bedtime.

9) Listening to a person discuss something (a topic, a person, an event, a cause) that excites them (and basking in the sudden realization that I get paid to do this).

10) Taking scrambled notes (be it features or fiction) and arranging and composing them in ways that elictes interest and emotion in readers.