the not knowing …

photo credit here   so if you’ve seen our Sonya lately, you know that what once was a tiny secret is now a great place to rest her morning chai.   a baby will be born – this very week, if doctor’s predictions are to be believed – and i, for one, am completely wrecked not knowing if it...

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beauty wins

photo credit here   if not for my bad attitude, i wouldn’t have noticed …   i was doing the passenger-seat-pout, a pose you married folk (or surly teenagers) might know well.   it typically involves an argument, the remnant of which is still hovering, like the scent of a tree-shaped air...

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God’s tattoos

photo credit here     this is not a post about Christian hipster culture.   my aim here is not to  make God cool or trendy. He is content with omnipotence, i’d say.   nevertheless, the prophet Isaiah asserts that the Almighty does, in fact, have a tattoo.   don’t believe...

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what’s your story?

photo credit here “i had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.” G.K. Chesterton   through the hard chapters and the ones that explode off the page with gratitude, remind yourself that He who writes the story has already secured its...

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on loving your peeps

photo credit here   sometimes, you learn  the hard way. and so i’ll share, what i know now, with scraped knees – this kernel that i keep chewing, back of my mouth,  about grieving and living and what it means to live with, not just alongside.   i lost someone dear to me, again. ...

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more to love

photo credit here   it’s a catch phrase we use – with a wink and a smile – when we’ve put on a couple of pounds.  pair it with an elbow bounced against husband’s ribs and a playful swing of the hips and you get the picture.   but what if those pounds aren’t just the chocolate croissant...

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the post where i just say it. out loud.

photo credit here   i’m a wannabe writer.   i let Flannery O’ Connor short stories wash over me, attention wrapt to audiobook while i scrub dishes in the sink.   i keep C.S. Lewis on the bedside table, in the very same place (and for much the same purpose, figuratively speaking)...

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pep talk for the hard road

“your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing,   and heaven shall make amends for all.”   –Thomas Brooks   [photo credit...

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our hats off to you …

photo credit here  looking for  a new spring chapeau?   check out the new hats we’ve added to our inventory in the Banebow Store!   it’s a fabulous way to look good while supporting  a great cause.   all proceeds from sales in the Banebow store fund our mission to bring help to...

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tiny predators

forget forest fires or tornadic winds. the ash tree’s greatest threat? a tiny beetle   “The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that  the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you...

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