Since the COVID shutdown in March, the homeless population in our small city has been difficult to ignore. Suddenly, many daytime locations where they accessed food, heat, and toilets disappeared, leaving them in the streets for large portions of the day. Our city, to their credit, placed porta-johns throughout town, that six months later, are …
I wrinkled up my brow, switched tabs on my browser, and opened up the lecture outline I was listening to. The instructor had completely lost me. Google, define domicile. What was this lecture even about? Subject-Matter Jurisdiction, oh yeah, I forgot. I was in way over my head and could hardly make sense of anything …
Ah, summer. Originally our family had plans to travel in Canada this year, but then, coronavirus. So here we are in Pennsylvania. The east coast has had a sufficiently hot July. Thankfully, many state parks and some pools have opened, and we could hardly be happier to swim in the water and frolic in the …
I am writing this while in flight to Mexico. This trip was unplanned, like so many things these past several months. Our family has close friends south of the border. Last summer, we adventured to their hometown in our minivan. I did not anticipate returning so soon. I am going back to say farewell to …
I’ll preface this by noting my writing is simply me processing the pandemic happenings of this spring, and if you don’t feel inclined to read one more thing about COVID-19, I certainly don’t blame you. I feel the same myself. Keep calm and carry on – or go read something else. I don’t know about …
When totaled up, between our three adopted children we have missed 9 years and 9 months of their early years. We missed the entire pregnancy, newborn, and infant stage for all three of them. We missed the toddler stage for two of them. Our eldest became part of our family less than a month before …
WHACK. The sound of my log against the chopping block echoed through the empty forest and to the hill across the creek. It was definitely still winter up here. Only the evergreens showed color. Everything else along the valley was bare, freeing the sound to travel loudly from one hill to another. WHACK. I can’t …
Do you ever play the “What If” game? You settle down for the night and then, instead of sleeping, you parade a variety of scenarios through your head, working through some of the possible outcomes. Eventually you may start tweaking smaller variables. You might begin with thoughts of the upcoming private school enrollment, and work …
As I was working at my laptop recently, our adopted daughter stopped by to wish me ‘good night’ before Austin tucked her in. As I turned to say my evening farewells, she wrapped her arms around me and leaned in to kiss me on the forehead. Without thinking, I recoiled, making her attempt at affection …
As I have mentioned before, our family needs a lot of positive bonding opportunities. The most detrimental force against our family connection is by far, strife. Strife frequently rears its ugly head as competition amongst the kids (stemming from each one’s personal insecurities). Our children are very close in chronological age, but very different in …