Choosing Joy

Another holiday season with busyness and excitement has come and gone.  It is time to pack away the fancy things until next year. One of my favorite Christmas decorations is a wreath that I made years ago from a coat hanger, clothes pins, and beads...

My entire life, we always went to Grandma Karon’s house for Thanksgiving.  She lived in a tiny town in rural Missouri and visiting her was like hitting the pause button.  There was nothing to do but eat home cooked food, sleep under antique quilts and walk down gravel roads...

I used to hate Thursdays.  Thursday always felt like the day to play catch up.  The house was always a mess from the previous busy evenings.  We always had to cram because the spelling test is always Friday.  We had to do bathtime because we get home late from church on Wednesdays...

A friend of mine texted me in the middle of the day this week.  She was frustrated because of a conflict with a co-worker.  More than frustrated, I would say she was angry.  The co-worker had lately become lazy, dishonest, and rude to everyone in the workplace...

My daughter broke my heart a little last night. She is in kindergarten now and we were trying to find the least ratty pj’s in her collection to wear for pajama day at school.  Her first choice was a pink nighty with Minnie Mouse on the front...

The other day I happened to be walking up the back stairwell of the school where I work and hovering on the landing was a new sixth grader.  I greeted her warmly and continued on past but she caught me and said, “Two 8th graders yelled at me...

“Jingle, giggle, jingle, giggle, jingle, giggle.”  The small circle of one-year-olds excitedly shake their bells and cymbals as we sing. “Yes!  Jesus loves me!  The Bible tells me so!  Yeah! Praise God!” “Clap, cheer, clap, cheer, clap, cheer...

With all the amazing produce at our new Meijer, we ate a lot of fresh fruits and veggies last month.  I was so proud to see my family enjoying such healthy food, and it was really fun trying new ways of preparing plant foods.  But, with all those “quick trips,” I wasn’t surprised when my husband pulled me aside this past weekend and said, “We need to have a budget meeting...

It doesn’t hurt my feelings.  I have been called prudish many times.  So when I revealed to my mother my new swimsuit, the one that I scoured the internet and many catalogs to find, I was not even phased that she nicknamed it the “1920’s bathing suit...

For most of my adult life, I thought of breakfast cereals as evil, deceptive bits of artificial color and flavor doused in sugar just tempting us to ruin any attempts at a healthy lifestyle!  Don’t even try it Rabbit.  Your Trix aren’t for kids...