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Say it with me: “At this time last year…”
You certainly heard someone say it this past week. Maybe you even said it yourself. Looking out at our sea of snowy white, below zero wind chills, seemingly endless Monday snowfalls, you probably took...
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Sunburns, Easter Eggs, and Amazing Grace
What in the world?! There’s an antelope standing out there on the street! If I can say that and it sounds believable on the morning of April Fool’s Day, I’m either A) in Montana or B) surrounded by...
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Chariots of Fool’s Five
While I usually run alone, on Sunday I ran the Fool’s Five with my favorite running partner: my daughter. Starting my count at 7th grade cross country, I’ve been a runner for 23 years. After high...
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To My Kids on Mother’s Day
To My Kids on Mother’s Day, On Mother’s Day, I want to tell you thank you for making me a mom. Some mornings when I come down the stairs I don’t look very excited to be awake and making breakfast, and...
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The Tale of the Missing Chicken Foot: A True Story
The feather-covered chicken leg, complete with a foot, laying near the welcome mat on the front porch one Sunday morning a few months back barely caught my attention. It wasn’t until my husband...
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Seven Lessons Learned in Seven Days
Children possess uncanny permanent marker detection…just one of the life lessons I learned this week. Life’s been especially busy around here lately. My husband spent a week in Montana working on a...
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Putting a Little Spring in our Step
I do believe it takes living with -30 wind chills and knee deep snow to fully appreciate the first 70 degree days of spring. Minnesotans get it. Our Saturday of soaking in 70 degrees prompted the...
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A Series of Fortunate Events
Normally, milking a goat for the first time would be a pretty memorable event for me. But this past week, I almost forgot I even did that. It’s really spring and life is running at full speed at our...
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Giving my Kids Nothing This Summer
I love my kids and I try to do my best. The trouble is, it’s easy to think “best” and “more” are one and the same. They are not. My original plan this week was to write about our summer list of...
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My Garden Plan of Attack: G.R.O.W.
Last year around August, if you drove past our ambitiously large garden, you probably said to yourself, “My goodness, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a nicer looking crop of…weeds.” I love gardens and...
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A Life Interrupted.
Sometimes big life makes everything petty and small like blogs seem like a waste of time. The last time I posted was June 18th. At the time, I was a few weeks behind on posting my newspaper articles...
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Thank you
Written on June 23, 2013 for my weekly column in the local paper To all my readers, Many of you know that we lost my brother, Mike Kramer, in a helicopter accident this past week. We are all working...
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Remembering my Brother: A Few Mike Stories
Written July 1, 2013. If I could rewind time back to two weeks ago, I would. Two weeks ago, the family gathered for our typical Sunday brunch at my mom’s house. My brother, Mike, made a comment about...
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Bittersweet Summertime
Written July 8, 2013. The new ordinary in our family seems to be living life fully, but with an empty space. By a quick glance of social events that filled our calendar during the week of the Fourth of...
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Camp Mosdal
Written July 15, 2013. When summer was just around the corner, we picked up a 12-person tent. We tucked it away safely in the attic, just waiting for that nice night when we’d set up that new...
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Neglect: The Latest Innovation in Gardening
Written June 3, 2013. My kids are highly innovative horticulturists, despite a lack of any formal training. Last week I wrote about a few of my researched plans for the garden this year, but who needs...
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“Chicken Day:” 110 Hot Chicks on the Farm
“Chicken Day” is now one of my favorite memories of the summer and my brother, Mike. On June 6th, our chickens arrived. I wrote the article below for the paper the following week. Less than two...
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Kids Still Say the Darndest Things
Even though I’m with my children 24/7, they still have a way of taking me by surprise. Just the other day, my three-year-old proposed. He first asked me about the plan for the day. I said it was just...
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A Popsicle Week
Written July 22, 2013. With colored tongues to prove it, our kids slurped down most of a brand new box of 100 freeze-and-eat popsicles in the past week. Four kids, a few popsicles a day, times a...
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35: The Chicken Birthday
Written July 29, 2013. This Friday is a momentous day at our house. It’s my 35th birthday and Chicken Day. Eight weeks ago, 110 peeping balls of fluff arrived at our place, 60 meat bird chicks and 50...
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