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This Is Now
Around the time that first memories were becoming solid and not just fleeting images of grandmas and old houses and smells and scenes, I can remember a Thanksgiving in Houston, Texas at my Great Uncle Clyde and Aunt Juanita’s house. We’d traveled there from Colorado and when I crawled into my lovingly prepared cot at…
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‘Til It’s Gone
I appreciate a good 2020 joke as much as the next guy. My kids and I zing ’em back and forth within text and messenger threads–“Say, did you hear this one?”– most every day. And 2020 is no longer just the name of a year. It’s an outright adjective for whatever’s run amok. “That’s so…
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What Makes Them Tropical?
Several years ago, before COVID temporarily wrecked summer camp for kids, I was the Snack Shack Lady at junior camp in the woods of western Oregon. In case you’ve never been in contention for that job, it is a highly coveted position, especially if your husband is the camp R.N. and you get to sleep…
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Francie’s Chicken Salad
She was a tiny little old white-haired lady from New Jersey whose energy defied her age despite her occasional smoking and addiction to daytime television. And she was my first best friend in Arkansas. The memory of how I came to meet Francie is murky but it feels like it was somewhere on the upstairs…
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A Chickahominy Dream Come True
Dear boys and girls, Maybe you recall the very first post on this blog was about Chickahominy Reservoir in eastern Oregon and my weird unfulfilled curiosity about that place. You’ve probably been wondering if that long-standing dream was ever realized. Well, wonder no more. Here’s Bob representing our mutual enthusiasm on the day we finally…
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Belly Up
The 10-year old computer has gone belly up. I am plunking this out on my phone in the app which I do not trust as far as I can throw it. And so, dear brethren, we temporarily suspend operations until a new computer drops out of the sky. There are still some pretty fun posts…
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One Thread
Written in black sharpie on the back inside cover of my 8th grade yearbook is this: I have tears in my ears from lying on my back in my bed while I cry over you. Now if those words are not poetry I do not know what is. And ohhh, I loved the boy who…
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A Twist — Not a Knot
Confession time. Since the stay-at-home order I’ve been cross stitching like a mad man. I’m not sure exactly how many mad men actually cross stitch, but you get the idea. It’s a little weird. I’ve read about so many folks taking care of their families in such admirable, practical ways — canning, baking, sewing, hunting,…
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Real Estate Bird
Right in the middle of writing a different blog post (a pretty dreary and potentially depressing one) I thought, “Hey, let’s lighten things up a bit.” We’ll start with the basics. Parakeets can talk. And fly. Twelve-year old girls aren’t always smart. But they mean well. The summer of 1974 was monumental. We, our giant…
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Al and Ruth
Once upon a time, decades ago, there was a church. Not small or large. An in-between church. It was straining within the era in which it existed, seeking to communicate love and Good News as it always had, yet trying to speak it and sing it in a way that was possibly uncomfortable to the…
Beyond Lashley Lane
Plain talk about life from a Christian perspective woven together with humor, practicality, and God willing, a bit of encouragement
Beyond Lashley Lane 