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Dads…Who Didn’t Have To Be

June 16, 2013

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May 30, 2013

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May 30, 2013

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May 29, 2013

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Just Another Scenic Sunday 5-26-13

May 27, 2013

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Winter has finally succumbed to spring here in south central Alaska, though that is debatable since we are forecasted to get snow on Friday. But most of the snow has given away to mucky mud and for some reason we are all excited to see it.

I’ve emerged from hibernation ten pounds heavier, lethargic from the long winter and eager to find dirt under my fingernails and sweat on my back once again. The kids are battling the cabin fever and I’m battling the children. It’s time.

Yesterday I began our much anticipated ‘list’ of things to do this summer. The list is not as long or as expensive as it was in the past two years when we put thousands into gravel, building supplies, a well, septic, sawmill, generator and inverter, and excavating. We’re down to the details of the [...]

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Just Another Scenic Sunday 5-4-12

May 4, 2013

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Just Another Scenic Sunday 4-21-13

April 20, 2013

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All He Needs To Know

April 9, 2013

My boy, Billy, turned eighteen in November and a month later his brain fell out of his head and rolled into a deep ditch somewhere. I imagine his brain has company in that dark place and other parents know the pain of watching that fall.

That transition into adulthood is a twisted path for many, two steps forward, one step back. And for a kid with Billy’s background, it’s a dangerous edge to walk. Solidity to one side, a bottomless crevasse to the other, and broken tools with which to cling.

Honestly, when he came to us, we didn’t think he’d make it to eighteen without some kind of incarceration. There were times, I admit, we thought of giving up.

‘Mommy’, he often called me in those months approaching his birthday, this man-child who’d come to us nine years before. Half of his life he’d been ours; the [...]

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Frozen Assets

March 30, 2013

This afternoon I drove down to HOOKED ESPRESSO here in Ninilchik, Alaska. Hooked is the coffee shop owned by my teen daughter, Destini.

(Read about that HERE and this story will make a lot more sense.)

I’ve not been down to Hooked in several months though I’ve driven by a thousand times. Destini is closed in the winter while off at college so there has really been no reason for me to venture down. But sometimes the desire for creamy coffee concoctions can lead to desperate measures, including forging snow drifts in search of a flavor.

The first thing I noticed is that the portable coffee shop which sits up on a trailer with wheels, seemed to have shrunk. The front door was shorter, the drive-thru suddenly easy access for children or small animals. I unlocked the door and it didn’t budge. [...]

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