Today I have the great pleasure to introduce Matthew R Merrick. I met Matthew on Twitter through a mutual friend and was quickly delighted by his humor and energy. We struck up conversations ranging from the ugliness of grammar Nazis to the best father/daughter dates. His two little girls are very lucky to have a good dad. Matthew is a writer full of life and passion…
I’ve been making these trips to Mexico for 13 years now, and I've never had stories that made me cry like this one. Jahir (Yah-EER) was the second eldest child of the family who received a house from my team. He was a perfect model of gentle courtesy. He shook hands to greet me and looked me in the eye whenever we spoke. When our American…
Yesterday something boiled down to an ugly truth that made me cry. My husband and I were planning on attending an event with another single friend. When my husband asked the friend if he’d like to hang out with us before the event, the friend replied, "I thought about it, but when I realized that you were the only other ones going, I didn't want to…
Today I introduce you to one of my lifelong friends. I knew Hannah ever since she was born. I opened her first birthday presents for her (I was two years old at the time, and thought myself infinitely more capable) and we have stayed friends through high school, college, marriage, medical school... Name it, and we've probably dealt with it over the phone! Only our first…
She walked out in a pair of tiny denim shorts and a T-shirt that was falling off one shoulder. She spoke in a sweet southern accent that I’d never heard before and burst into real tears as she explained to her best friend that she’d never be responsible enough to be a mother. My sister stole the show for her acting final. I was sitting in…
I've decided I'm part plant. You know, those things that start as a seed and uncurl little leaves? It's why I pout when my herb garden withers. It's why I lose pigmentation when I'm stuck indoors under thick cloud cover. My mother, tongue-in-cheek, said she’d be a sun worshiper if she wasn't a Christian, and I think that I've inherited her sun adoration. Halfway through drafting…
I'm a firstborn girl and I can't help telling people what to do sometimes. At least that's my story I tell myself. :) Although it can make me obnoxious at times, there are moments when the leadership is much appreciated and needed. Thank goodness! I blog on Heather Huffman's site today in her Heather's Mark series on using my powers of bossyness for good (or for…
Earlier this week, I began my endeavor to prove my reasons for admiring BBC's TV Sherlock Holmes. I continue it here. Duality (continued). While discussing Moriarty's victims, Sherlock says to Watson, "Would caring about them help to save them?" (The Great Game). And yet, when Holmes plays his violin, clearly brokenhearted after Irene Adler’s disappearance, I felt his brilliant mind meeting his breaking heart, and the…
I, like many around the world, have fallen under Sherlock's enchantment. Specifically Sherlock as portrayed in the BBC’s Sherlock, which has finished its second season. Ahem, this post will not dwell on the high cheekbones of Benedict Cumberbatch, just FYI. I'll leave that to Irene Adler. The mystery I want to unlock: What makes Sherlock so compelling? I've narrowed it down to a few possible causes.…
It's my pleasure today to introduce you to my good friend Scott. Scott and I originally met at a meeting to discuss the creative future of an arts and news journal that our church was publishing at the time. The journal disappeared, but Scott and I stayed in touch, exchanging stories after we'd discovered we were both aspiring fiction writers. Scott was always generous with praise…