A List

What could it be? Why, fabric of course!

1. My house needs a good, deep and thorough cleaning.

2. I wish I had enough money to pay someone to give my house a good, deep and thorough cleaning.

3. I would be so happy if my house were clean.

4. Why won't my children clean my house for me?

5. Last night I worked in my garden until dark. I love working in my garden. But it has taken me three weeks of fairly good weather to get motivated to work in my garden.

6. I have been very lazy lately.

7. I am of the opinion that a bowl of cereal makes an excellent supper.

8. I wish other people in my family liked a good tofu-broccoli-barley stir-fried curry. Or anything with feta cheese mixed in. Tabouli. I'm pretty sure I could live on Mideastern, Mediterranean and Indian food.

9. Unfortunately, everyone else my family would starve if we ate only what I wanted to eat.

10. Time to make another meatloaf.

11. Do you ever get tired of doing the grocery shopping? I shop every Friday afternoon, and every Friday afternoon, I think, 'Really? I have to do this again?'

12. Time to do an online grocery order! Let the grocery do the shopping for me!

13. If you want to read a really good history book about, say, the Civil Rights Movement or Thomas Jefferson, may I recommend you look for your book in the children's section of your library? You get all the interesting stuff without having to wade through whose grandmother was born on what day.

14. I have yet to step into Target in the year 2014.

15. I'm embarrassed by how much this has lessened my monthly spending as compared to 2013.

16. I could write this list forever, but I need to go not clean my house.

17. Hope all is well with you! What's on your list?

Another Very Late & Very, Very Short Pause in Lent (#6)

It is Holy Week. Last night I walked Travis and came across this license plate. I think it is the perfect license plate to contemplate as we round the bend to Easter Sunday.

(A Very Late)(and Very Short) Pause in Lent #5

I have been traveling, traveling, traveling. Last week I was smack dab in the middle of Missouri. Yesterday I was in the eastern part of North Carolina. Today I am on my couch, where I plan to stay.

In my travels, I have been talking to children about stories and writing. I talk about how we humans seem to need our daily dose of storytelling or else we get a little cranky. We are creatures hungry for meaning.

And I sign a lot of books. When I sign books, I ask kids to tell me something about themselves--one thing they like to do, or an interesting fact about them. When I hand their book back to them, I say, "Thank you. It's wonderful to meet you."

If I am a Christian, I am the least of all. I do what I should not do, and do not do what I should. But one thing I can do, and sometimes remember to do, is love the ones who are put in my path. And fortunately for me, many of these are children, whom I find easy to love. Even the ones who are smart-alecky or half asleep when they sit in the audience stand before me vulnerable and shy and sweet, asking so politely if I'll sign their book (or a piece of paper or their hand).

It is my hope and my dream that for some of these children it matters that the visiting author talked to them and listened to them and said, "Oh, I like your name!" or "My sons play World of Warcraft and Minecraft, too!" It's not much, but it's what I can do. What I hope they hear: You are loved. Your story is important.

I do it because it has been done unto me.