Category: The Valley
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2025!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year — time to cozy up by the fire (Youtube’s Fireplace with Piano Music on my TV screen while blasting the space heater) and crank out my SIXTH annual recap blog. Last year I did the heavy lifting of hunting down all of…
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Small: In Loving Memory of Hunter Hoffman
I remember pulling up to Indiana Wesleyan on freshman move-in day. My family lugged couches and crates of clothes up dormitory stairs to move my baby brother into the rival school just up the road from Taylor. We bantered about whose school was better while I secretly resented his pristine,…
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Pondering the Incarnation (Covered in Puke)
I’ll say it: I’ve never been much of a baby person. My teenage self was never quick to volunteer as a babysitter. I often preferred the fourth and fifth grade classroom over the nursery volunteer list. And I couldn’t imagine walking up to someone holding a baby and extending my…
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Cutting Blueberries
Tiny, chubby hands slammed a high-chair tray lathered with smashed bananas and yogurt. I worked frantically to keep my own breakfast from burning, racing back and forth from a skillet of scrambled eggs to the table where I could break off bite-sized bits of blueberry for my baby boy. But…
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A Backslash on our Christmas Card
It was November 3 — a Monday. A cool breeze coursed through the air and the neighborhood smorgasbord of Michael Myers statues and 12-foot skeletons were replaced by holly jolly blow-up reindeer. Bright yellow bulbs lined the rooftops and the faint whispers of Christmas spirit warmed our weary hearts. My…
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Eulogy for the Cameraman
In the hours after my sweet Papaw’s passing, we knew we needed a quick way to get the word out. Nana asked me to compose a very brief post that I could share to all 5,000 of his Facebook friends. But in no time at all, that post was no…
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Twenty-Seven Today
(Disclaimer: In a perfect world I would have posted this last night, thereby justifying the choice of title, but seeing as though it is one day later and I am still 27, I decided to keep it. Read on.) I made a sticky-note wishlist of my ideal birthday agenda: it…
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Still
The early November air was still that morning, almost as if all the earth around us was holding its breath. Dad slid open the bedroom door and I rose to meet his gaze. “Is she still with us?” I whispered. But the way he held out his arms let me know she…
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Molded by Motherhood
It’s the longest and shortest years of your life, they say. Somehow marked by mundane repetition of rhythms and routines and yet, strangely, awakened to new magic every morning. The beautiful, messy chaos of life with littles. And I’m only a few months in. It might be fun, someday, to…
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We Got to Church Early
Despite a 10:30 start time, being early to church isn’t as easy as you may think. There’s of course the end-of-week sleepies that make your bed seem comfier than ever before. Plus the social burnout — going early means talking to people, and I’ve been talking to people all week.…
House on the Rock 