Admit it, one of your best childhood memories is waking up on a cold winter morning to find that the world outside the window has been blanketed by snow, and sitting in the kitchen listening to the radio atop the fridge as the man reads off a list of school closings. And then, when you hear your school’s name, the squeals of joy up and down the block as you and all your friends urge Mom to hurry up with breakfast so you can tumble out the door to play the day away.

In fact, I’m pretty sure if he was able to talk, he’d tell us the last year has been the best year ever.

Baxter is a 7 year-old German Shepherd/Yellow Lab mix. When we adopted him, his golden fur was baby soft and he had one ear that stood straight up and another ear that stuck out to the side, making him look like he was questioning everything around him.

I have racks and racks of baseball caps honoring the Cubs and the Bears and just about every exotic place I’ve ever visited, but I never wrote a song about any of them.

I have piles and piles of wide-brimmed hats to keep the sun off my neck when I’m on the beach or in the garden, but I never wrote a song about any of them.

“Dad,” he finally said, “why does the moon follow us?”

“Follow us?” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Everywhere we go,” he said, “the moon has been following us. It doesn’t matter how fast we go, we can’t get ahead of it. It’s always there.

Nearly every weekend my husband and I go camping, sometimes bringing along our children, sometimes not. In summer, we had to make reservations to be sure we got a spot. When we’d arrive on a Friday night, we’d often pull into one of the last campsites.

We were getting by, but we were struggling financially, and it was robbing our peace of mind. My husband and I have jobs that we love, and four children that we love more. We knew we had to make more money so that we could build our retirement while also saving for the kids’ college funds.

Oh — while also paying for music lessons, soccer, and ballet.
But even after completing Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, and paying off all our debt except the mortgage (YAY us!!),

The good news: I’ve made my peace with it — a necessary healing because, after all, I’m the guy who killed him.

It was a terrible burden to bear. But eventually the guilt became too much to handle and I had to confess, to lift the burden from my shoulders and tell all.

I killed Louis L’Amour.

If the name isn’t familiar to you, it should be. Louis L’Amour wrote more than a hundred novels.

The zinnia is my favorite flower. It is a reliable annual, pretty easy to grow from seed, even with my less-than-stellar gardening skills. In spring, I start buying seed packets from garden shops, choosing different varieties: Sunbow Mix.

I’ve been lucky to live long enough and to travel extensively enough to wear my bucket-list pencil nub down quite a bit. Notre Dame Cathedral, The Louvre, Sydney Opera House, Brandenburg Gate—the list has narrowed quite a bit since I was a young, wonder-eyed boy.

Many items were closer to home, but no less important to me: Arlington National Cemetery, Gateway Arch, Mammoth Cave, Smithsonian Museums and more.

The one house is what you’d call a farmhouse style: it looms large with lots of sunny windows. It’s a newer construction boasting all the amenities, conveniences, and 21st century square footage coupled with old fashioned curb appeal.

—Anne Herbert

On a nondescript weeknight, a young man, probably barely over the age of 20, set up a chair beside a bike path. With a single microphone, an amplifier, and his guitar, he began playing — with no explanation — exquisite classical music.

There was nothing about this young man that would indicate that he was capable of this stunning music. His sneakers were scuffed, his hair a shaggy reminder that haircuts in the time of COVID are not necessarily essential.

Instead of new shoes, piles of fresh notebooks, pencil cases, locker organizers, and backpacks, this year started off more with a tiptoe than a bang. Come to think of it, I never took a “First Day of School” picture like I usually do. On the first day of classes, two of my kids woke up, showered, and unceremoniously walked to the dining room table a few feet away from where they’d just grabbed the milk for their breakfast cereal.

Since our family downsized to a modest 2-bedroom home five years ago, Ikea and its compact line of furniture with a minimalist mindset has been a crucial ingredient in our ongoing quest to live life in a smaller space. I have to admit that I love the way Ikea items come in compact boxes with just a booklet of illustrated instructions, an Allen wrench, and a variety of bolts, brackets, and pegs.

For the record, I have always felt a touch of envy for those long-ago folks because medieval art is filled with paintings showing blazing comets in the sky, and I have always wanted to see a comet blazing across the sky above me.

And one clear night this summer, my dream was fulfilled as Comet NEOWISE hung like a Christmas ornament just beneath the Big Dipper.

But by those early days in June, we were going stir crazy from the shutdown as COVID-19 cases were on the rise. Summer had arrived, and amidst a global pandemic, our upcoming vacation—so carefully planned in pre-COVID days—seemed less and less likely to happen.

“My fellow Americans, today is Fourth of July, the day we celebrate our nation’s independence from tyranny and oppression centuries ago. That independence was won by the sacrifice of patriotic citizens, and sustained by the sacrifices of subsequent patriots we honor equally.

Those patriots made sacrifices not because they wanted to, but because they knew it was their duty as Americans. They were willing to forego their own comfort and security for the sake of their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers—even for neighbors and townspeople they had never met.