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Paying attention to a scary dream

I had a very upsetting dream last night, having to do with my upcoming trip to Uganda. In the dream, I was carpooling to the airport with my friend from Uganda and two others who were going with us. Never mind that I live in Georgia and the others are all in Minnesota. At some point, I thought about my passport, which I had put in my suitcase as soon as I started packing, so I would be sure not [...]

By |January 19th, 2018|Columns, Travel, Uganda, Writing|

Oprah for President?

Like many people, I watched the Golden Globe Awards last Sunday night, and was blown away by Oprah Winfrey’s speech as she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement. It was inspiring, empowering, and it made me feel as though, yes, a new day is dawning, and the world is about to change for the better. At no point did it occur to me, however, that this was a political speech, or the launch of a political career [...]

By |January 12th, 2018|Columns, Gifts and Talents, Respect, Values|

Searching for ways to calm the storms

Until this past week, I had never heard of a bomb cyclone. But it’s formidable-sounding enough that I knew it referred to a nasty storm, even before I saw it described as “blizzard conditions and hurricane-like winds.” Shortly before Christmas, I saw a weather report about Winter Storm Dylan, which was dumping snow, sleet, and freezing rain in the Northeast.  Again, I thought, “I’ve never heard of that before.” I’m very familiar with winter storms, of course, having spent almost [...]

A New Year Filled with Faith

I’m one of those people who still makes New Year’s Resolutions, and they’ve always been the subject of one of my columns each year – a practice I plan to continue with my blog. When I sat down to write this morning, I was all set to write about my resolution to deal with “unfinished business” – projects started but not completed, unanswered email, and some boxes and bins that still haven’t been unpacked from our move. But then I [...]

A simple solution to a Christmas dilemma

I was on the treadmill at the health club the other day. Two women near me were talking about their holiday plans and preparations. One of them was going through the list of people she still needed to buy gifts for, and saying how difficult it was to figure out what to buy for her young nieces and nephews. Plus, she had to ship some of the gifts, and she wasn’t looking forward to standing in line at the post [...]

By |December 22nd, 2017|Columns, Faith, Family, Holidays, Values|

It’s Christmas Cookie Time

I’ll be spending much of this weekend on one of my favorite activities of the holiday season: baking Christmas cookies. The tradition goes back to one of my fondest childhood memories – being in the kitchen with my mom and sisters, rolling out the dough, then cutting, baking, frosting, and decorating the cookies. And eating them, of course. I don’t do cutout cookies anymore. I don’t have the patience for all that work, although I have no problem spending hours [...]

By |December 15th, 2017|Columns, Family, Holidays|