I had the opportunity to listen to two and half hours of the best live music I’ve heard in along time last night. My dad had been planning the concert, a fundraiser for People of Faith for Peace, for months and despite cold weather, lots of rain and the threat of snow, more than [...]

I hope that everyone out there had as wonderful a Christmas as the one my family had today.  It was intentionally light on presents, but overflowing with an abundance of love.  We cooked and ate together, and a dinner that was originally planned for seven expanded to feed eleven.  And the fridge is still overflowing [...]

My sister rolled into town with her boyfriend Trevor around 5 pm this afternoon, which means that all the necessary holiday parties are present and accounted for. My parents and I spent most of the day talking about doing some early food prep without actually getting down to business, so my dad and I [...]

When I bought my D50 last summer, I chose a Nikon in large part because that’s the brand of camera that my dad has.  It wasn’t so much familial brand loyalty that motivated me, as much as a hope that I’d be able to convince my dad to share a particular lens with me.
You see, [...]

Around 2:30 pm yesterday, I suddenly stumbled into a period where I couldn’t cope.  Where everything converged and I truly felt like I might fall apart.  Within half an hour I found out that my great-aunt was in the hospital and that a job application process I’ve been in hit a stumbling block.  I couldn’t [...]

I drove out to visit my Great Aunt Anne today.  She is 88 years old and is still living on her own.  For that last few years, her situation has been less than ideal, but workable.  However, these days it’s not going well.  She’s essentially stranded in a suburban ranch house with nothing around but [...]

I spent the evening with my family out in Plymouth Meeting tonight for round two of Thanksgiving dinner. I brought half a gallon of gravy and there were three kinds of sweet potatoes and no regular ones. The food was delicious, although it was a little chaotic getting everyone seated and settled at [...]

Last year this time I was out in Oregon, getting ready to cook dinner with my parents. The celery, mushrooms and onions were chopped and bagged, ready for the stuffing. Multiple heads of garlic had freed from their papery skins and the defrosted turkey was resting pertly in the fridge in my mom’s [...]

As most of you know, my younger sister is a folkie singer-songwriter. However, what I don’t mention too often is the fact that she came to her love of music honestly, because our dad is a long-time singer/songwriter/folkie in his own right. He learned to play right around the time he went through [...]

I’m heading to Ames, Iowa in about seven hours to teach a Unitarian Universalist campus ministry workshop to a bunch of folks in the Prairie Star District.  I’m looking forward to getting off the east coast for just a bit and am hoping against hope that I’ll get a chance to eat some fresh Iowa [...]