We’ve been doing a lot of work on our 1978 Tartan sailboat recently. We have owned it for 20 years with many great partners over the course of that time. A friend of Tim’s from the Minnetonka Police Department where they both were police officers salvaged her originally. Mark brought her back from North Carolina…

A week ago Monday, I was early for the three pm Bible study with the women at the St. Louis County Jail.  I headed in thru the metal detector and back into the program area to put out the chairs and grab the Bibles from the locked cupboard. One woman, who had been meeting with…

One of my favorite memories from a recent trip to Puerto Rico was watching the sun set in Rincon. Rincon is a small town on the far western side of the island. There is a lighthouse and a public beach there. It is a place where surfers spend a lot of time. From a cliff high…

My morning coffee just tastes better in a certain mug. I have a habit of always using a bright yellow fiesta mug for my first cup of coffee. I hate to admit this but I have become a bit superstitious about it. My husband has caught on and now always pours my coffee into a…

The answer is 64! It’s 64! These words have become the running joke as Lisa, another paraprofessional, and I coax the middle school boys we work with to do their math problems. Sometimes the answer really is 64, but usually it just brings smiles as they work on their required four pages each day. This…

On Monday I went again to the St. Louis County Jail to share in a Bible study with the women there.  Fourteen of us sat on plastic chairs in the program room. We started by sharing our first names, how the weather was in our soul (most were cloudy or stormy) and then a family…

I wrote our Christmas letters on Sunday night during the Vikings/ Raider’s football game. The game gave me plenty of time to put a handwritten note on each card as the only score came late, in the last few minutes of the game. It was good to hold each card in my hand and give…

Tim carved a pumpkin for us to light and set on our steps this Halloween. We didn’t have too many trick-or-treaters; our block is short and we are set high on a hill. It takes a lot of work to climb the stairs for our candy. I always reward heavily for any effort. We did have…

“Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music…

“Believe me my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Kenneth Grahame, ‘The Wind in the Willows’ These words about messing about in boats were inscribed on a small round disk placed near the tree where we recently buried the ashes of…