Sometimes you don’t know whether to cry or laugh. Back when all three of my boys were under the age of five, I had come down with an infection and overnight started running a fever. I didn’t realize how bad I felt until I laid down in front of the fire to close my eyes for a second...

I’m writing this before the final day of the election. I don’t know if the next president will be determined by the time this blog is posted or f the new president will be announced by the end of the week, the next month, or next year. What I do know is...

I’m unqualified for my life. I don’t have a degree in creative writing, but I write books. I majored in psychology so that I wouldn’t have to do math, and go figure, I do bookkeeping and accounting for my husband’s businesses. I don’t believe there is a degree that could teach everything a mom needs to know to raise children, but I’m in the middle of raising three teenaged boys anyway. I don't know what I'm doing. Fortunately, God does.

As as author, I love to play the what-if game. What if the heroine gets robbed, thrown in the poorhouse, or falls overboard. As a mother and wife, the what-if game isn't as much fun...

Don't abort the mission. You may have to re-strategize, change tactics, or reprioritize, but keep your eye on the goal. I left this message for a friend before he proposed to another friend of mine over the weekend. He’d elaborately worked out a scheme to ask her to marry him at the top of a mountain where the view is spectacular, but the climb isn’t for the faint of heart.

Our newly remodeled four-bedroom rental unit had to be stripped to bare studs. The apartment could have appeared on the tv show hoarders. As landlords, my husband and I became leery when...

The speedometer read 40 miles per hour. I sat white-knuckled behind the wheel, flying through the empty school parking lot, my heart pumping faster than a techno dance beat.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” said Greek philosopher Socrates. We can think we are so smart, but our brains are easily fooled.

I love a good rescue. In most romance novels, after the darkest moment, when all looks lost, some heroism allows for a happily-ever-after. Sometimes it’s the hero swooping in and sacrificing something to save the heroine, sometimes it’s the heroine relinquishing her goal in order to protect the hero, or it could be both. Often it takes this black moment for them to realize they aren’t strong enough, smart enough, or brave enough to endure on their own, and that’s when...

I won’t drive with my husband in the car and haven’t done so the entire time we’ve been married. He’s a great man, but he backseat-drives

Sometimes I wonder if fiction mirrors life or if life mirrors fiction. Currently, I’m in the process of plotting book number five...

I was Zoom caller 219 out of 428, not even a blip on the screen.

We have a neighbor who spits at us.

I used to cringe when the phone rang. There was a time in my life when I was called down to my son’s school daily...

The average person will spend five years waiting in line and an additional six months waiting on stoplights. How do we reclaim our waiting time? How do we turn our stalled moments, especially during a pandemic, into preparing?

It’s never a good time to be inconvenienced, but often it's worth it. I can’t tell you how many nights I’d be exhausted and looking forward to getting the kids in bed so I could slump down on the couch and veg.

We can have the best mattress, a pillow that puts us in the proper alignment, and sheets made out of cotton from Giza, but if there’s unrest in our thoughts, then we won’t sleep well.

Have you questioned whether you have the skills to make the team, good enough grades to get into college, or ever poured your life into a project only for your boss to give you another even more challenging one? My hand is raised.

We might relish the thrill of the hero and heroine’s gazes holding a tad longer than appropriate, the quickening of pulse as their fingers brush, or the intimacy of their mingling breath as a loose strand of hair is tucked behind an ear. We might sigh with longing at those romantic moments, but my answer is a firm, "no, thank you."

Life can often be like learning to ride a bike. One moment we think we’ve got it—we can do this on our own—but the next thing we know, we’re lying in a ditch