I ran 1770 miles in 2024.  Whoo-hoo? I won’t humble brag–I am proud of this achievement. I think this is the most miles I have ever run in a year. But I also know this may not have been the best use of my time and effort. It took me slightly over 290 hours, which…

I sincerely thought my life was in danger.  It was June 2011, and Chad and I had just climbed up a mountain in Scotland. It was extremely windy, so windy that I literally had difficulty standing up in the wind. The wind blew me down at least once. It was also extremely foggy, so I…

Me: “It’s impossible to find underwear at Target that isn’t thongs or boyshorts!” Chad: “I think you’re exaggerating.” Of course I was exaggerating, but I was extremely frustrated. I had just spent soooo looong at Target looking at underwear, and I despaired that all my time and effort had been wasted. (I spent even more…

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…