Life – a cup at a time
4 Things You Can Do When the Chaos Around You Gets in Your Head The world is descending towards chaos and the prognosis isn’t great. Even the Apocalypse preachers are getting louder. (But that’s another article.) Meanwhile, if you’re like me, there’s enough happening in your personal life clamoring for your attention that you feel …
Enjoy the Highs, Endure the Lows, and Keep Moving Forward The last few months have been crazy, tough, and revealing, when I’ve been willing to step back and ponder. When I started my blog GracebytheCup.com, I wanted to focus on how Grace is present in our lives in so many little ways. But the last …
What Is an Old Dog To Do? You know I don’t complain much. Even when my hips hurt, I still like going on walks with Mom. But it’s been hard to be good this last year. Daddy got a new job in the summer, which made both of my parents happy. But it took so …
Great Expectations Meet Mundane Fails I took an unplanned road trip a short time ago. It wasn’t at all what I expected or felt I needed. My husband scored a job 1500 miles away from home. He expected to be staying in a motel and took the absolute minimum. But after getting there, he found …
Paradise has frozen over, too, along with Notrees, Sun City, Pasadena, Miami, Cactus and Egypt. OK, in full disclosure, there is no Hell, Texas, but all those other names are legit. So, what gives? Unless you’ve been off the grid for the last 5 days (I bet even Antarctica has heard the news), every county …
When was the last time someone told you to “go fly a kite”? The phrase is not as common as it once was. I don’t know if that’s because kite flying has been replaced by so many other possible activities, or if more direct phrases such as “go away” or “go to hell” have become …
This year the holidays promise to be particularly tough for a lot of people. But they are survivable. In addition to political upheaval, fires, and storms, 2020 brought us a pandemic, and we’re already seeing cases surge from Thanksgiving. The same supportive gatherings with friends and family that help stave off the blues this time …
“How can anyone be thankful for this wreck of a year?” you ask. My answer: it’s the tough times that we learn from the most. As I’ve begun preparing for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, it seems rather anachronous. All the families debating over get togethers, some going ahead, some postponing, others split. And that’s just …
I grew up in a household of scouts, and the motto Be Prepared was ingrained in me early. My dad was a Boy Scout Leader, my mom was a Girl Scout Leader, and all three of us girls were in Girl Scouts at various times. I was properly pegged 10 years ago, when I pulled …
A dream interpreted Unlike many people during the last several months, I haven’t been keen on deep cleaning, or reorganizing, or new hobbies, or cooking, or much of anything constructive. I’ve spent a great deal of my time reading fiction — my historical escape mechanism. Last week, that suddenly changed, and I found myself deep …