So it goes...

I got an email last night about one of my poems that sort of caught me off-guard. I am always grateful for feedback on my writing as, for one, it means people are reading my work, and secondly that it is having an impact.  This one referenced a poem, Wednesday's Child. The poem came from my collection, Written Life , and addresses the night my father was killed at the hands of a gang of men. I titled it after the nursery rhyme "Monday's Child" about children according to the various days of the week. It reads: Monday’s child is fair of face Tuesday’s child is full of grace Wednesday’s child is full of woe Thursday’s child has far to go Friday’s child is loving and giving Saturday’s child works hard for his living And the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. I thought the Wednesday theme was fairly relevant given the tone of the poem.  Anyways, the woman who emailed mentioned how the poem made her cry and even pr...

It was four years ago this weekend that I made my second trip to the Mayo Clinic to visit my brother Rob for the weekend. Rob had two chemotherapy treatments while he was battling his cancer, one in January and one in February. When I found out, I told Donna that I thought it was important that I be there over a couple of weekends if I could. I missed out on being there during his back surgeries, so wanted to support him during his therapy. These were difficult trips. Good trips; I'm so glad I made them, but difficult. I went up on Saturday morning and stayed overnight in the hotel across the street. Rob knew I was coming and I think he appreciated the company. Both times I brought a care package from Wisconsin, including his favorite cookies from Donna and a very rough draft of Dirty Shirt . He loved the cookies and said the book was "spot on". That review was worth more than every Amazon review to me. We had some crazy good conversations. We talked for hours about...

It's day 3 of what is shaping up to be a great vacation in upstate New York. While the weather is hot and muggy, John and Jill's pool has been a lifesaver. It's actually made for a very relaxing vacation thus far. The kids are getting along so well that we hardly notice they're around most of the time. They occasionally show up for food or a quick minute of adult conversational stimulation before they run back to their cousins and resume playing with their cousins. Trips to see the Neufang side of the family is much like our trips to Minnesota where they have cousins on my side of the family. They get along great with all of their cousins and it makes our trips here and there so nice because the adults can sit and talk without having to worry about entertaining the kids like we once did. A good example of this was yesterday when we were sitting by the pool and Sarah and Halle came up and said they wanted to sing a song they'd written for us. The song was built a...