Magical Memoir Moments
A Pork 'n Sauerkraut New Year: Happy Birthday, Stuart!
At our house, the holiday season begins with Christmas and ends on January 11. Why January 11? That’s my husband Stuart’s birthday. We don’t clear out the wrapping paper and bows until Jan. 12. Our serious efforts to go back to low-carb eating only starts after that date also. This year, Stuart discovered a tradition…
Three for Thee!
I love Top 5 Things lists. Apparently lots of bloggers and their readers do. One of the best is Courtney Martin’s Sunday 5. When I get together with friends, we almost always share our recent favorites in books, movies, and podcasts. Do you? So, today I will share some recent faves in each of those…
Onward! Through Life and Death
Yesterday Stuart turned 80 years old. Wow. I’ve written about him frequently on this blog. He is the star of our romance and of his recovery from cancer story. When he turned 70, I called him the “linebacker of my life.” In almost everything I do or write he is a quiet, consistent presence. To…
The Handmaid Cometh
“Margaret Atwood should sue the U. S. for plagiarism.” When I saw the post above on the social media platform Threads, I recognized a good English major joke. Atwood’s classic novel The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in Gilead, a fictional place that is meant to represent the future United States where life has…
Pura Vida! A Great Gift
A month has passed since Stuart and I flew with our granddaughter Julia to Costa Rica. We celebrated her “coming-of-age” (12.5 years) by joining other grandparents and grandchildren on a Road Scholar tour. What will we remember from our hikes, mud bath, swims, zip lines, farm visits, river rafts, making tortillas by hand, stomping on…
Hopelessly #GranolaMennonite
“The transformation of waste is perhaps the oldest preoccupation of man.” …
Anabaptist Women Unchained
The Radical Reformation dates back to 1525 — 500 years ago. So Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, and other assorted groups who trace their theology back to the Anabaptists are throwing a party this year. It will be a subdued one, of course, since thousands of the first Anabaptists were martyred, and we are not known as…
Our Meet-Cute Story
The beginning of every romantic comedy features a tension-filled encounter that pits the two main characters against each other in some kind of twisted fate circumstance, otherwise known as the “meet-cute.” The actions those characters take in their first encounter will set a pattern that contains the theme of the whole book. Cue the violins,…
Triumph of the Will Then and Now
You have seen the images. A man stands elevated at a podium in the midst of a vast field. An enormous crowd packed into the field roars with one voice and salutes in unison — “Heil, Hitler!” Soldiers in knee-length black leather boots goose-step through the streets. Those pictures from the 1930s and 1940s are…
A Day in Passau:
What is your favorite way to travel? I love going with people I love to a beautiful place and then connect with people who live there who generously share their love of their place and its history with us. On our most recent trip, a Viking European Grand Tour of the Danube, Main, and Rhine rivers…