As I walk our dog, I sometimes find myself picking up trash. It amazes me that people throw stuff on the ground, sometimes from their cars. When I was little, the dear mother of some friends I grew up with was a “trash picker.” Her name was Melinda and whenever we took walks around the […]
Any May a Beautiful Change 
May 28, 2012 by
This post in honor of my friend Katharine’s new book, Any Day a Beautiful Change. It’s about the way life changes, knocks you around, and surprises you with some grace. Katharine’s big change was the collision of motherhood, marriage, and ministry, but even if you have no connection with any of those things, her writing […]
Memorial tire swing
May 21, 2012 by
The park near our house is full of memorial trees, and now, we also have a memorial tire swing. An 11-year old girl, Jordan Oliver, drowned in a retention pond behind her school last week. She was playing along a bridge with a bunch of other kids, slipped into deep water, and didn’t come back up. […]
My Suburban Yard 
May 4, 2012 by
There’s a lot of lawn in the suburbs. Not exactly eco-friendly. Here’s our backyard, and it’s mostly lawn. But it’s cheaper to buy a house with a yard here than in the city. There’s also a lot space to grow food, if you’re so inclined. We’re right down the street from industrial-size cornfields, but ironically, […]
Bolingbrook Vista, No. 2
May 4, 2012 by
Subdivision. Soccer field (to the right). Tree, probably from the farm that was on this site for 100+ years. Creek. Graffiti.
The Bolingbrook Memorial Tree Program
April 30, 2012 by
How does a human settlement become more than land with houses on it? How do people start to merge the story of their lives and relationship with the ground they live on? One of the ways humans mark ground with stories is by making graves. Farming families started digging graveyards in the Bolingbrook area almost […]
Night Catfish Derby
April 26, 2012 by
It’s not just Little League and PeeWee Soccer out here, you know.
Suburban Ugly
March 23, 2012 by
My dad told me he thought my “Bolingbrook vista” photo was, well, pretty ugly. I tried to explain that I didn’t mean to suggest that it was an attractive vista – just a vista. But he’s right. It’s ugly. Suburban ugly isn’t as cool as urban ugly. Urban ugly at least has some street cred! […]
Back roads and silence
March 11, 2012 by
We drove out to Galena and back, yesterday and today. It’s a charming tourist town on the other side of the state. We belong to a meat CSA – we pay a subscription to a farm family and in return, every month we get a “share” of meats and eggs. We missed our delivery last […]
