Answer the Door. Meet the Day.

A few days ago, I had just poured my morning coffee when the doorbell rang. My  neighbor would have called if she was coming over. My daughter would have rung the bell at least six times quickly to let me know it was her. It was too early even for the FedEx guy. So I...

I Like Trains!

All through my childhood, my dad commuted by train to his job in downtown Chicago. It was a daily chore, morning and evening, for someone to drop him off at the train station in the morning and pick him up in the evening. A lot of my practice driving time as a...

Field Trip to Limon, Colorado

Eighteen years ago I moved from Illinois to Colorado. For a long time, a couple of times a year we drove back and forth for family visits—usually spring break and Thanksgiving. My kids loved seeing the cousins, and they became quite accomplished car travelers. They...

Regret Is No Joke

“That’s two minutes of my life I’ll never get back.” Ten seconds, two minutes, an hour, a day. We’ve all had the experience of feeling like 1) we wasted our time through our own fault or 2) we let someone else waste our time. I had my teeth cleaned the other day, and...

“I Love That Title!”

“I love that title,” people say to me when I mention Wonderful Lonesome, the title of my new book. This is the start of a set of books called Amish Turns of Time. All three books are set in the 1910s, but each book is in a different setting with a different cast of...