Weekend Ponderings: In the Still of the Night

Have you seen “Delovely” — the life of Cole Porter, as told through his music?  The first time I watched it, I was struck by Ashley Judd’s portrayal of the longsuffering Linda Porter, who endured the repeated humiliations of her husband’s repeated gay affairs and the additional burden of infertility for 34 years before succumbing [...]

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Foster Families – How will your kids handle it?

The other day I received this comment from Jane, whose parents opened their home to foster children. She has recently started a blog about what it was like to grow up in a home with foster children. I have recently,(yesterday) started my blog about growing up a “natural” child in a family that took in [...]

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Wee Cook Wednesday: Zucchini-Blueberry Bread and Zucchini Chocolate Cake

Today we went blueberry picking at a farm near our house. It’s a local secret — we go every year and pick gallons of blueberries for a couple of dollars each. It keeps us in berries all through the winter, since blueberries are very easy to freeze. Just wash, place on a cookie sheet, freeze, [...]

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A Time to Let Go …

Yesterday we spent the day with the boys of a good friend recovering from leukemia. Whenever our kids get together, the subject of their older brother always comes up. The violent fifteen-year-old has been holding the entire family hostage, with the assistance of DFS, which is refusing to place the boy in a therapeutic group [...]

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Quiet Time

Every morning, it starts at the crack of dawn. Which at my house is 5:50 a.m. “SHHHHHHHHHHH! Mom’s still sleeping!” “I KNOW that, butt-head.” “Stupid.” “I’m telling you said stupid. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” “Mom, can we watch cartoons with our cereal? We walked the dog FIVE TIMES. And we hardly argued at all.” “Mom, can you unbutton [...]

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Crimes against the (Sacred) Heart

This week cyberspace has been buzzing about the Vatican’s memo regarding the CDF’s revised guidelines for handling cases of sexual abuse among the clergy. Reading this memo, I was came away with a fresh appreciation for the way civil law (which regulates our actions within the temporal order) and moral law (which compels us to [...]

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Weekend Ponderings: Somewhere in Time

Saturday night, Craig and I hired a sitter and went down to the Terrace Room where the Grand Hotel Orchestra was playing Big Band and soft pop tunes. It had been some time since Craig and I had spun around the dance floor like that. Years, maybe. Our swing was a bit creaky, the waltz [...]

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