Our grandson, William, spent a few days with us recently. When all the grands are together, there is rowdy fun. But one grandchild at a time provides the unique opportunity for deeper conversations and greater bonding.

“Can I deliver a Chai and leave it on the front porch so as not to disturb the patient if you pick it up while it’s hot?” The email arrived out of the blue from a retired schoolteacher friend.

“No, you may not drop and run,” I countered. “I need a hug. Besides, isn’t that a run-on sentence?”

Dan and I recently returned after a week of wandering through Olympic National Park and down Washington’s ruggedly gorgeous coastline.

A few years back, my mom blacked out and hit the floor in her small-town pharmacy. Her physician couldn’t find anything wrong. “Mom,” I implored, “come stay with us until the doctors can figure this out.” She balked.

This week on the lake and around the campfire, I’ve been reflecting on how Dan and I met and married—a miraculous, seemingly random turn of events: if this one little thing hadn’t happened, then this other big thing wouldn’t have happened.

My daughter Summer was with us as her dad was dying of cancer in the hospital bed in our living room. Her cell phone chirped. It was the international adoption agency. “We have a referral for three brothers who would do well in a family with children. Are you interested?”

The world is much smaller than I thought. I recently met new members of my family I hadn’t known previously—brothers and sisters in Latvia, this tiny country that was once part of the Soviet Union and has only been independent since 1991.

On a beautiful 740-acre piece of rolling hills with patches of forest, stands a children’s camp and a working sheep ranch. Eagle’s Wings. 

I had several stand-out high school teachers, but a seventh-grade teacher comes to mind when I think about undercover influence. Mrs. Wells. She invited me to join her after school one day a week with a handful of other seventh graders.

Not all people are eager for change. It takes us away from the comfortable, the familiar. It sometimes costs, and sometimes hurt, and has the potential to unsettle us a bit. Or a great deal.

Making intercessory prayers for our children is a privilege. It’s a tool from God to assist us in the high calling of rearing our offspring, which takes tremendous amounts of grit and grace.

Every time I returned from a hike, Roxie was sitting at her guard post, halfway up the stairs where she can see out the large windows that flank the stone fireplace. No one was getting away with anything on her watch.

I met this amazing young woman, Sarah Thebarge, at a writers’ conference in Portland a couple years ago. She taught a coaching class entitled “The Healing Power of Your Story”—eight hours spread over three days with in-depth instruction, writing exercises, and critique.

The antagonism has risen to a new level. After we housed and fed and entertained my daughter, son-in-law, three of the grands, and a grand-dog for five days—five days—we started finding tiny plastic ducks. Everywhere.

Our time with family in Hawaii this year unfolded at a slower pace—partly because there were only two couples instead of four. Which allowed for time to read on the beach. And time to leisurely journal on the balcony to the crash of waves.

Dan and I stepped off a flight that originated in Maui onto a tarmac covered with snow. One day we were wearing flip-flops. The next day, Dan was shoveling the fluffy white stuff.

I love Central Oregon in the winter.

My first husband, Gary, lived with an expiration date. He was diagnosed with late-stage disease that had metastasized. The experts gave him two years because he was relatively young and in good shape and because prostate cancer is slow growing. But he blew way past two years.

My father wasn’t a believer. It was my mother who faithfully took my brothers and me to Sunday School and church, who encouraged us to memorize scripture, who registered us for summer Bible camps and youth activities.

If Dan had asked me beforehand, “Do you want to hike 5.8 miles in the rain … or would you rather stay here and read while I make a Chai latte for you?” guess what I would have chosen.

Dan and I enjoy a ‘dump date’ from time to time. We load up the small trailer hitched to the back of the Jeep, make Chai lattes, and sail away to the dump. It’s partly the idea of having the full attention of the one I love—seat-belted in, hollering over the noise of the ‘97 Wrangler with its top down, sipping Chai from thermoses.

Dan and I planted a little weeping blue spruce in our front yard two years ago. Some might say she looks a bit Dr. Seuss-ish, but I think she’s beautiful.