Last week in the Life Skills Class where I help as a paraprofessional, we played a game of Jeopardy on the white board. All the categories had to do with personal safety. The middle schoolers would pick a category like home alone, stranger danger, or technology and then pick a 100-to-500-dollar square in that category….
Last Saturday, Tim and I snowshoed up the Split Rock River with some friends. We started from the wayside rest just off highway 61. As we walked down to the riverbed I began to worry because there was no discernible trail. We would be finding our own way. I had never done that before. The…
On New Year’s Day we hiked the trail around Oberg Mountain. Enough people had walked it that we didn’t need our snowshoes. You did have to be careful not to step off the trail or you would find yourself thigh deep in the snow. Our sister-in-law made one such misstep. We laughed and helped her…
The smell of ginger and cinnamon filled our house yesterday. Hannah, our daughter, was home from her clinical rotations and was making ginger cutout cookies. She got the recipe from a cookbook given to her many years ago as a Christmas present from her Aunt Robin. She’s always loved to bake. I helped her finish…
Friday will be our daughter Hannah’s birthday. Before she was born we called her banana because her boy name was going to be Ben, and her girl name was Hannah. We just combined the two potential names. Often, I still call her banana. There is incredible power in being the one to name another person….
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. Isaiah 35: 1- 2 The words on one of my Sierra Club calendars stated, “Nowhere else on earth is geologic time so exposed as in a desert.”…
Tomorrow the eighth graders at Lincoln Park Middle School will have a science exam on the water cycle. I sit in on third period science and I’ve learned a great deal about water over the last few weeks. For example, did you know that our water, all the water that ever was, is over 3…
On Wednesday I began Bible study at the county jail as I always do by asking the women gathered in the program room the question, “How’s the weather in your soul?” It’s a great way to gage the energy in the group. Will it be a sunny or stormy session? Last Wednesday I added another…
The trees are showing us there is beauty in letting go. I read this quote somewhere just before a Sunday morning hike with Tim, my partner, a few weeks ago. We decided be part of the congregation in the woods and hike to Bean and Bear Lake near Silver Bay. We attempted this six plus…
Like you my thoughts this week have been with family and friends living in Florida. We have been grateful to be able call or text learn that they are safe. One of my high school friends, Janell, living in Naples had to evacuate with her two elderly cats. She is fine, but not sure when…