When the flu season took hold in Minnesota this winter, one of its first fatalities was a young man named Max. Max was just a young boy the last time we saw him, and was only seventeen when he died. Max’s parents had been active in our church as music and worship team leaders. Eventually their family moved to Texas… Read More
A Typical Friday Night At The Gates’ Household
The weather promised rain through the night and into Saturday. The air felt damp and cold, like a sweatshirt that hasn’t quite dried out after a hard sweat. Feeling a need to hunker down and bring on an extra dose of comfie, my husband and I poured some wine, curled up on the couch, and popped in a DVD.  We… Read More
A Tad Unfunny
Over the weekend my husband invited our husky, Booker, into the sunroom. This isn’t unusual, but it was a fairly mild day out and Booker seemed bored by being inside. Pacing, Booker created nose art on all available surfaces as he looked for something to catch his interest. My husband pantomimed that he should put his front paws on the… Read More
“Auto” Pay More Attention
One arm was squeezing a grocery bag too tight, the other juggled my car keys, purse, tennis shoes, and a pot of hyacinth bulbs nearing bloom-time. I had enough wiggle left in my fingers to get the kitchen door open before dropping all of the above in a spectacular mess. Pudgy (our cat) wisely skittered off before a wayward avocado… Read More
Pain-ski All Over
There are nine stairs from our living room area to the upper level where our bedroom and bathroom are located. I know this because my husband and I went cross country skiing this weekend and my muscles have been angry with me ever since. Each step up–or down–causes me to reflect on how in shape I am. Or, more evidently,… Read More
Working It At Any Age
Is aging truly an attitude? What keeps some people vital and active through the decades while others start saying, “I’m too old to do that†in their thirties? On a recent Today Show segment in which an expert on social situations was offering advice, a question from a viewer came in. The viewer was irritated that an elderly neighbor woman… Read More
Laughter…Does Not Mix With The Sounds Of Silence
I believe I’ve touched on this point before, but it happens often enough that I had to come back. Why is it when a room is dead quiet, like during a silent prayer or while taking a test, that funny, inappropriate sounds emerge so loudly? And, why is it those sounds then make me get the giggles at a time… Read More
Gray Area
I felt the image I have of myself crumple as tightly and as ruinously as the wad of paper I tossed at the wastebasket. I missed the basket, but that is not what brought about the destruction of my self-esteem. It was the content of the letter I had just crushed with fervor. How is it that a few simple… Read More
Car-ling, I Love You
The other day I was having lunch with my friend Judy. She told me her grandson just passed his driver’s license test and was thinking about buying his first car.  That got Judy and I on the subject of cars we’ve owned and loved over the years. I told her my very first car was a 1972 Ford Maverick, a… Read More
The Longest Goodbye
I went to a funeral on Friday. Even now I’m trying to understand my feelings about attending, and why this internal conflict has rocked me a bit. The woman, I’ll call her “Ann” for blog purposes, was someone I worked with many years ago. Ann began as a receptionist for the dental clinic soon after graduating from high school. Her… Read More
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