I don’t like solving puzzles (unless Wordle counts). I usually just give up.  But last night I was confronted with a puzzle/problem that I was very motivated to solve: How was I going to work out at the gym when my workout clothes consisted of tennis shoes, socks, a pair of capri length tights, and…

“I was fifteen when Chad and I met…” I started to tell my therapist.  “Oh wait, I wasn’t actually fifteen, I was nineteen,”* I corrected myself.  I misspeak all the time, so it’s not surprising that I started an anecdote with a factual error. What is surprising is that I think I know why I…

I’m not a Halloween enthusiast, but I do have vintage Halloween socks.  I was going to call my socks “antique,” but Google says something has to be at least 100 years old to be an antique, and while these socks are old, they’ve only existed for about 25-30 years. So they don’t qualify as antiques,…

As the summer was winding down, I noticed a lot of coverage in the media about the “Songs of Summer.” Not surprisingly, I wasn’t familiar with the songs that kept getting mentioned. I can say that I’ve heard of Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish, but that’s about the extent of my current pop music knowledge. …

“How did she get dehydrated going to the laundromat? She was doing laundry, it’s not like she ran a marathon. She’s a grown-ass woman–doesn’t she know how to drink water?”–me, complaining about my sister, July 2019 My niece (my brother’s daughter) brought up this rant of mine recently. She found it hilarious at the time,…

I’m a pretty big fan of Minnesota Public Radio (although if you had told 20 year-old-me this was my future, I would have scorned your prediction). I appreciate many of their stories, features, and hosts, but I don’t remember ever being as interested in their content as when they recently aired a story about why…

(Author’s note: This is another piece I wrote for a recent church service, and Chad helped with it a bit). When our family’s beloved elderly Siamese cat, Chester, left this mortal coil, he climbed up on my mom’s lap, shared some of her bagel and cream cheese (just like he did every morning), and then…

The morning started out just like most mornings do. I got up, went on a run, took a quick shower. No signs that something was out of the ordinary. Nothing to indicate that I was about to embark on an emotional journey.  And then I opened the air fryer to put in a frozen waffle for…

(Author’s note: I wrote this to read at a recent church service, so it’s a bit of repurposing of previous blog content…let’s think of it as renewing previous content). Uh-oh. There it is in my inbox again: the email informing me that my subscription to the Babbel language learning app is going to automatically renew…

I can’t ride a bike.  There, I’ve announced my deep dark secret to the world. Not the world’s most salacious confession, but it is embarrassing. Also, not really a secret, but definitely something I don’t advertise.  I don’t know why I can’t ride a bike. My brother said that as a kid I could (and…