Lent 2023 - Murrelets

I never buy more than I can afford but I often buy more than I need. Until recently, I didn’t consider my spending habits a problem. My thinking we…

Chicken and Dumplings was one of my favorite meals as a child. My mother would cook a hen in salted water until the broth was rich and the meat lite…

I prefer Celebrations of Life to Funerals. Both kinds of events serve the purpose of helping the survivors, the grieve-stricken family and friends, …

I remember the very first Earth Day. We were living in Columbus Ohio where my husband was attending law school at OSU. Our daughter Robin was an in…

Dad Prentice My Grandfather Walter E. Prentice was born in 1886. His parents Mary Rose Kinslow and Robert Kinslow separated after the discovery that…

When I was a young teen, I wrote my philosophy in my “Penny Pringle” Diary*. A bit of wisdom I included was the belief that having something to look…

The Oath that He Swore I promised my mother that I would take care of y younger brother after our parents were dead. Our middle brother had committe…

I once was an activist. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe that groups as well as individuals could bring about change although the reali…

We have been happier in our retirement communities, one in Arizona and one in Maryland, than we were back home in Ohio where we lived for 45 years, p…

In 1995 my husband and I purchased a retirement home in a development called SaddleBrooke. It is a few miles north of Tucson Arizona just across the…

I wish I had clearer memories of my daughters’ childhoods. I wish I had more memories of them. The memories that are clearest are of those difficult…

Paths I was a recent college graduate, living in Evanston, Illinois while I attended graduate school at Northwestern and began my student teaching in…

I have two health-related concerns. I am not in good physical shape and my knees and feet hurt. I have arthritis in my feet and have pain from plan…

In my many years as a high school teacher, I was probably challenged and tested at least once a day. I remember one relatively undramatic classroom …

DAYDREAMS I think daydreams are generally a method of temporarily escaping reality. Since my reality is pretty darn good, I do not feel the need or …

Nearly forty years ago, when my family was grieving after my younger brother’s suicide, my father gave me some advice. He told me to stay busy, to k…

I was lucky enough to retire at age 55 after teaching for 25 years. It’s hard for me to believe how long ago that was. It is also hard for me to be…

COGNITITVE DISSONANCE When I was a child and a teenager, I often thought how lucky I was to have been born in The United States. I’d never been anyw…

I can’t remember the last time I saw my nephew, Alec Prentice. We were never close because we did not live near each other and rarely visited. When…

According to Genesis, the first murderer was Cain who killed his own brother because he was jealous. That is certainly a lesson about the dangers of…