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The Happiest Place on Earth
“Tommy, listen to me,” I said very seriously as we sat on the plane down to Florida, “you are going to have to walk a lot on this trip. Mama can’t carry you all the time, and you’ll have to stay with our family. There will be a lot of people and I don’t want you getting lost.” Tommy looked at me and earnestly nodded his head. I knew he was really excited. Claire and Austin squealed behind us. Just a few hours prior, I’d announced that instead of a few days at a local indoor waterpark, we were headed to DisneyWorld for a week! I couldn’t believe I’d managed…
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Marjorie’s Favorite Blog Posts (there are 300 now!)
300!!! Okay, I still haven’t written a book. I haven’t even really managed to outline one. But I have 300 blog posts under my belt (and some other articles as well) so I think I can finally say that I’m a writer. Or something like that. Anyway, today’s post is a highlight of those 300 blog posts – you can click on each link to send you to that specific story. These posts below are some of my favorites, though there are others that I love. I tried to pick a range of posts, so that each one tells a little bit of a different story. Maybe you come to…
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The Warmth of Home
Every day during the week leading up to Thanksgiving, Tommy asked me, “is it time to go to the grandparents’ house yet?” He’s too little to understand the days of the week, so I’d just tell him how many more days there were to go until we left on our trip. But he was so excited that he’d forget the next morning, and ask me again. One morning, when I told him there were still two more days to go and that he needed to be patient, he laughed a little bit and said, “I’m just so excited to go to the grandparents’ house!” The thing was, we weren’t actually…
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Team Brimley
I really never thought I’d do a guided tour anywhere. Especially Italy. I remember being a student here, watching the crowds of tourists following a guide with a little flag and thinking, “what lemmings. I’ll never be like that.” Well. 3 kids later, with no partner of my own, the tour started to look really nice. And lucky for me, I had someone who helped get me to Italy with the kiddos. “The trip of a lifetime!” I said a million times to my family and friends back home. I meant it. (I’m not sure I would have ventured so far from home without some serious encouragement from my generous…
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Family
At the end of last year, I got on a shuttle bus at the airport with my kids and my dad. Tommy sat with my dad and I sat with Claire and Austin. We were on our way to Texas and everyone was really excited. At the next stop, another family got on. It was a mom, a dad and two kids. They sat together and the parents chatted happily with the kids. To most outside observers, the scene was nothing out of the ordinary. But it struck me how much watching them bothered me. They were the family I was supposed to have. I’m sure they didn’t think much…
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Home
The pastor was talking about Jesus, and my mind was wandering. Sometimes, in the middle of a service, I find myself immersed in whatever is happening at the front. The music or the sermon or the prayers can whisk me away into a place where I’m totally focused on whatever it is we are doing in that moment. I love those times in church. They feel the most holy to me. But I was in a new church with my extended family over the holidays, and the pastor at the front wasn’t one I knew. He was engaging but I wasn’t fully listening. Still, I liked how he was talking…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
