All Posts

Imagine what it would be like to live in the past, even just 100 years ago. Imagine living in a time and at a place where your community, your whole and only community, was where you lived Travel wasn’t as easy. There were no cell phones and there certainly wasn’t the internet. Your community was determined by your geographical location. This would mean you didn’t get to be very picky with whom you were “in community.” In the past year I’ve had the blessing of getting to know

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” Franklin D. Roosevelt I still remember the night in exact detail. I was visiting my parents for Christmas in Indiana, Steven was on his 2nd deployment within our short 17 month marriage at that time. He had been gone only 4 weeks. I was 17 weeks pregnant with Madelynn (our first) and headed back to San Diego the next day. My mom and I had gone to have our haircut, but before we left my dad called. He had been tr

Friday night was one of those nights I sat there in awe wondering, “how can I be so blessed?” Like many people my age, I don’t have family closer than 3.5 hours away and am not married. That means that my life could be pretty lonely. It means that I could feel like I have no one to call in an emergency. But as I sat in my home Friday night and looked around, I was overwhelmed with the very fact that my friends are my family here in Chicagoland. That at any point if crisis or

Friday was the day of great revelries with costumes, candies, and corpses. The one day of the year when you are allowed to be what you are not. Or is it? Husband eating #baconcorndog #glutenfree #cheater #ilovefood #irony In today’s society of electronic media and online social networking, we can be whomever we want to be at any time. Everyone has the tools to be a celebrity – perfect selfies, enlightening foodie shots, posting statuses perfectly crafted to make every moment

Each summer, I look forward to the “Cottage Reunion”; a weekend gathering of friends. We graduated in 2007 from Taylor University, and have made an intentional effort each summer to get together. These gatherings have become more elaborate and developed over the years, and we rotate responsibilities with hosting and planning. We have rented a “cabin” in Brown County, Indiana where we sampled ice cream and walked through a quaint town. We’ve gone off-roading with 4-wheelers in