These are the days

June 18, 2026

Those were the days the Lord had made; we rejoiced and were glad in them. Or at least we totally tried.

After Ricka and Snapp’s engagement in January 2026, I considered the noteworthy nature of planning two weddings within one year. Flicka and Snipp’s ceremony happened on June 28, 2025, and Ricka and Snapp’s would happen on June 6, 2026. So much joy, so many moving parts. And when the wedding pieces were fit into their spots and the event was a lovely part of our history, Flicka and Snipp’s baby girl—due on June 19, 2026—would be born.

I rewind my memories now to the months that came before June 6 of this year. Lists cluttered our dining room table; sleepless nights filled my side of the bed. Endless details and countless shopping trips spilled from my days. I overplanned, overworried, and yet sometimes still overlooked things.

“Show me the gaps, Lord,” I prayed in the night. “Show me what I’ve missed.”

Even while striving over the little things, I knew they were little things. A soon wedding shouts louder than an approaching marriage, though—at least for the mother-of-the-bride wedding planner.

In the hustle of the preparation days, a pattern emerged: small but persistent obstacles arose, then resolved just in time. Again and again and again.

*****

Over a month before the nuptials, I ordered disposable dinnerware (clear pink plates and cups with gold edges and matching gold flatware) from Amazon. The delivery was set for a few days later, but that night, the date switched to a nebulous window of time anywhere between June 7 and July 12.

I messaged the seller. The wedding was June 6, I explained, and her reply confirmed I had conveyed my panic well.

No necessity for distress! she wrote. Your dishes will arrive to you with time in excess for your special moments.

Where was the seller from anyway?

The first half of my order came within three days of placing it; the second half stalled out. I waited for two weeks before contacting Amazon again.

“Are you calling about your wedding dishes?” the employee on the phone said. He must’ve read my note to the seller. “You’ll get them in time, ma’am. No worries.”

And he was right; the final installment of dishes arrived two days before the wedding, but as for the no worries part? Well.

*****

Three weeks before the wedding, Husband and I shopped at Costco for condiments for the reception’s hot dog bar. As I loaded ketchup and mustard into the cart, I glimpsed what appeared to be a black spider in my left eye’s left field of vision. A flashing light followed.

“Oh, great,” I said. I described the ocular arachnid and strobe lights to my man. I rubbed my eye and kept shopping.

The sight persisted, though, and I sighed. “I should probably call the eye doctor.”

I spoke with the receptionist, asking for an appointment for the next morning, but she let me go so she could reach out to the optometrist at his home. Soon, she called me back.

“He’s saying to go to the ER right now.”

I agreed I might, and she hung up.

In the refrigerated section, we priced out the Kirkland Signature Beef Hot Dogs, and I Googled retinal detachment.

“I hope you’re not having a stroke,” Husband said.

“Wonderful. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Husband drove me to the ER that night. We savored seven hours of together time in an exam room while the staff bustled around me, running tests. The EKG was clear, and an MRI showed I had not suffered a stroke after all, nor was anything wrong with my brain. They scheduled an ophthalmologist appointment for the next afternoon, which also revealed I was fine. It was the first time I heard the word floater connected with me, though. I had always imagined floaters as light-colored specks swimming across one’s vision and not black insects at a disco, but now I know better.

*****

Six days before the wedding, I sent the digital files for the event signs to Walgreens’ photo services for printing. A store associate called me a few hours later.

“I’ve tried to print your largest sign ten times, but it’s not working. We don’t have the 24” x 36” poster board you ordered in stock, so you need to make the font smaller so I can print it on the 18” x 24” instead.”

“Wait. That doesn’t make any—”

“If you make the font smaller, I can print it.”

“Why would I need to do that on my end?”

“We don’t have the capability of doing it here. It won’t take you long, though,” he said. “You just have to start a new order and copy and paste the files with smaller fonts into it.”

I told him I’d call back later, and I thought about what he had said. At first, I worried I was losing it, but at the end, I knew I was okay, and I transferred my order to a different store to have my order printed. They weren’t bothered by the font size at all.

*****

Two days before the wedding, at 3:30 p.m., the golf cart rental place called. It was Bart, the owner.

“Are you gonna send us your proof of insurance?” he said. “We’re scheduled to deliver the two golf carts to the venue tomorrow morning, but we need it first.”

“I can email it now,” I said. “You just need a copy of our vehicle insurance card, right?”

“Uh, no. We need a certificate of liability with our name as the holder. You get that through your homeowners insurance.”

My stomach lurched. Not the homeowners insurance. And it was already so late. I pictured wedding guests with mobility issues walking the large property to restrooms or their parked vehicles without golf cart rides if I missed this. I said something to Bart about this requirement being new to me and how I had assumed proof of insurance meant proof of vehicle insurance. Bart didn’t seem to care how I had misunderstood his small print.

“I’ll get right on it,” I finally said, my will stripped away.

Our homeowners insurance people didn’t understand the request—never heard of anything like it, as a matter of fact. They took a stab at it, however, and added Bart’s business to our policy, which made it look a whole lot like the guy shared the house with us. They tossed out different iterations of paperwork in the hopes something would stick, but Bart said no to each piece. I ran through two more insurance representatives, both as confused as I was, until I found a lady in Licensing and Permits who said she’d take care of it.

“It’ll take up to twenty-four hours to get the document,” she said. “It has to be generated.”

“I don’t have twenty-four hours,” I said. “The golf carts are scheduled for delivery in fifteen hours.”

I think I heard her shrug. “Let’s just hope it’s faster then.”

At 8:00 a.m. the next morning, the certificate of liability sat in my online insurance account documents box, waiting for me. We were good to go.

*****

Also, two days before the wedding, Flicka texted the family group thread:

Hey, would you guys be praying? We’re on our way to the hospital because I was just at the doctor. Because of high blood pressure and weight gain due to swelling, they want to do labs to make sure I’m not dealing with preeclampsia. Pray that we would be in a position to give birth Sunday at the earliest. I have faith I will be able to make it through the wedding, but maybe it requires more prayer than I thought.

It did.

No preeclampsia for Flicka, but the high blood pressure continued. An induction and forty-four hours of labor followed. Flicka and Snipp’s healthy baby girl was born at 3:47 a.m. on June 6—Ricka and Snapp’s wedding day.

Husband and I drove to the hospital at 6:30 a.m. to hold our first grandbaby for forty-five minutes before leaving for the wedding site to meet the volunteers for the setup of the glorious event.

The most recent wedding photos are out now, artfully snapped to catch the whirling, laughing bride with her groom, their glowing movements documented from before the union until after their vows when the sun slipped under its covers for the night. Pictures were taken on the other side of town too of a new life in a hospital bassinet; Ricka’s matron of honor stayed with her baby and joined the wedding by Facetime instead.

*****

Twelve days have passed now, and I’m still reeling from the blessings. They leave scars too, especially when they come so fast you can’t think straight—and you can’t be together for life’s biggest moments. They shock, and they soothe. They wound, and they heal. And my heart, both heavy and weightless, stretches and moves with the newness.

These are the days the Lord has made; we rejoice and are glad in them.

*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo), @TamaraSchierkolk (PayPal), or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka and their husbands (present and future), Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr.

Food and truth

May 21, 2026

This is a story about my client, one who endured horrific treatment at the hands of powerful men in Africa. She was left for dead in a forest strewn with bodies, but lived—and really lived once she escaped to the U.S. One day last month, I met with her in her home, and she dissolved into tears as we talked about life. The job search had shoved her into hopelessness, she said, but that day her hunger was louder than her fear of receiving another eviction notice. She had nothing to eat and still a week left until her next food assistance allotment came.

I love my job, performing the work of helping people find jobs. Employment is wonderful, but it’s not edible. So, I used my laptop that day in my client’s home to locate food shelves instead of career links. I found a pantry nearby, called it, and said my person needed groceries. I registered her over the phone, found out she qualified for a box of food for seniors (“It’s nothing fresh, unfortunately, but she’ll get canned and dry goods,” the lady on the phone said), and captured the address of the pick-up location—just two miles from my client’s home.

She and I drove there in the rain. She hoped the donation would be okay for her; she was diabetic, after all. I knocked on the correct door of the warehouse, raindrops dotting my jacket. The workers carried not one but five boxes of food to the back of my car and loaded them in.

At my client’s home, we opened everything. The lady on the phone had been wrong. Two of the boxes were filled with fresh items: potatoes, apples, milk, chicken, eggs, and bread. Three of them held rice, cereals, canned goods, and of all things, sugar-free cookies—the kind my person could eat.

For almost a month after the food day, I helped my client get a job; it was a struggle from the start. An error in the input of her Social Security Number set the process back by a couple of weeks, the background check dragged on before clearing, and public transportation to the employment location was confusing, but finally, she got to work.

And then the nightmare started. The manager was cruel, from the sounds of it, snapping at my client when she asked about her schedule, depriving her of a chair during her breaks, watching her on security cameras as she fumbled through exhausting shifts, and preventing coworkers from assisting or offering her comfort. No appropriate training, no guidance on the job, no respect in front of customers. My finger hovered over the phone number for HR for one, two, three days. Instead, I received a call from management.

All the days before that call, I saw my client a certain way: traumatized yet sweet, struggling yet soft, hurting yet kind, lacking yet generous. Then I heard what was going on at work from work itself, and I knew their telling was accurate. I fit shards of the story together—the truth, the narrative—and it was proof a splintered mind had risen from a fractured body back in a forest in Africa.

What do we do when the story isn’t as it seems? How do we hear the truth about those who walk among us? We believe them—until we don’t. Each step matters—to hear them, to preserve them, to discern them, to act on behalf of their foundational needs, and to quiet them with compassion.

But the truth stands, so we pivot in love. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

(Note: I significantly altered and/or left out the details in this story to protect the identity of the people mentioned.)

Constant flowers

April 16, 2026

Have I told you about our home? That it’s ours, but it isn’t?

We take in people. It's what we do. But it’s not because we’re good people; that’s a silly thing to say about us, and now it’s my pet peeve to hear it. We do it because of sound advice from someone immeasurably wiser: Do not say to your neighbor, “Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you” when you already have it with you.

As it turns out, it’s today, and we already have our house with us.

Also today, we’re at capacity. No need to share the names of our residents or tell their stories here, but all of our rooms are full, and we have a wait list. I’m worried the one who’s next—slated to arrive on April 30 from Guinea, Africa—will have to sleep on an air mattress for weeks if there’s no vacancy before then, but we’ll figure it out.

I observe the dwellers coming and going through their days under our roof. Countless evenings, I’m drawn to our kitchen island where they gather in various combinations and discuss anything. Last night, one of them said life was all about going from one waiting room to the next.

“Hopefully there are snacks in the waiting room,” another one chimed in.

Layers of meaning and fodder for sermons followed. Sometimes I listen and am nourished by it or I’m concerned and pray about it. And plenty of times I just say, “This is all lovely and everything, but I can’t do it. I’m going to bed.” And I go.

I see the residents dealing with post-surgery challenges, new jobs, emergency room trips, travel visa plans, job application rejections, and news of deaths. A newborn lived here with her mama once, and a toddler lives here with her parents now. And in the past two years at our place, three romantic relationships have turned into engagements.

What I didn’t know when we began our open house was that we might benefit. It wasn’t our plan to hear funny stories or join impromptu movie and game nights or get invites to other people's home cooked dinners in our kitchen. But what I really didn’t expect were the constant flowers—flowers from fiancés to fiancées, from Husband to me, from friends to friends, from neighbors to all of us. I don’t always know how the bouquets get here, but does it matter? Vases packed with blooms, spilling color and fragrance into our shared space, end up on the kitchen island all the same.

But of course they do.

The leaving and the cleaving

March 17, 2026

Two different stories today. Or maybe they’re similar stories but snipped from two different stages. Yes, that’s what they are. But they’re still for you, readers, wherever you are right now.

The leaving. And the cleaving.

*****

Auntie Gracia and her friends (I can’t remember the number of them or all of their names, but there were at least two Carolines) lived on the third floor of our big green house in south Minneapolis in the early 1970s. I was a preschooler at the time—three or four years old—and she and her roommates were college girls. I recall one or more of them working as hospital aides or Candy Stripers while also managing their studies.

I sneaked up the stairs to the third floor to watch the college girls whenever I could. They were kind to me and let me stay even though Mom sometimes called up the stairs and told me not to bother them. My memories are filled with long blonde hair, hoop earrings, soap operas flickering on the tiny black-and-white TV in the corner, and Auntie Gracia drinking Cherry Coke. She would pour the soda into a glass over ice and poke at the cubes to dunk them. I asked her why. “So they get wet,” she said, smiling.

Auntie Gracia and her roommates would sunbathe on the balcony, and the scent of coconut suntan lotion filled my nose and dreams. She used cream rinse on her hair that smelled of lemons, and I watched her wash her face at night. It was a lengthy routine, that nighttime ritual, and she first pulled back her hair with a stretchy, tan-colored headband. She unscrewed a jar of Noxema and let me smell it before she swiped it over her face. I perched on the toilet seat, memorizing the scent of the white cream, and as a teenager in the 1980s, I used Noxema too to wash my face and thought of her.

In those early 1970s summers when Auntie Gracia wore short dresses, I sat on her lap and whined about her prickly legs. She always laughed when I complained and said she needed to shave. She scooped me into her arms to walk across the pavement at the neighborhood swimming pool at Seward Elementary School—across the street from our house—because it was too hot for me to walk on it with my bare feet. Her eyes were kind; she was beauty to me. And because of her, I wanted to be beautiful too when I grew up.

In my teen and adult years, I loved my visits with Auntie Gracia. Stories about her missionary life in Liberia enthralled me. She listened well when I asked for her thoughts on life and children and marriage. About toddlers, she once said, “They’re not terrible twos to me but terrific twos.” She gave my grownup girls books on marriage and men and bought a book about women for them to give to their men too when they came along.

On September 18, 2025, I went to the apartment Auntie Gracia shared in Roseville, Minnesota, with Uncle Bob. She had some special things to give me from Grandma’s curio cabinet, but what she said that evening about relationships with adult children was more meaningful to me than any of Grandma’s breakables: “It’s simple. Just enjoy them and find them interesting.”

I saw her last on November 9, 2025, when she attended the clothing exchange I hosted in our home. She didn’t take any clothes with her that night but enjoyed all the ladies, the social time, and she hugged me warmly before she left.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too, honey,” she said back. “I’ll see you soon.”

But she didn’t.

Auntie Gracia passed away on February 1, 2026, just six weeks after her pancreatic cancer diagnosis. I shake my head as I try to comprehend her missing from this world.

A person's blip on the timeline is small, the space thin between the here-and-now and the over-there-and-not-yet. But maybe that's our comfort: the space is thin. We know it well.

And so, we live.

*****

In the summer of 2014, twelve-year-old Ricka joined her North Dakota cousins for a week at FaHoCha Bible Camp near Warwick, North Dakota. It was there she saw Snapp for the first time and met his siblings.

Snapp and his family—close friends of Ricka’s North Dakota aunts, uncles, and cousins—attended numerous weddings on the Schierkolk side of the family over the years. Because of the families’ connection, Ricka and Snapp’s paths crossed many times—even though the two of them weren’t aware of each other’s presence. In the spring of 2024, at Cousin Seth’s wedding, however, Ricka saw Snapp—and her life changed.

Ricka asked her cousin Rose, Seth’s sister, to set her up with him.

“Snapp doesn’t do set-ups,” Rose said.

So, the two girls planned other ways to coordinate future path-crossings for Ricka and Snapp in hopes he would think it was his own idea to ask her out. Distance made chance meetings nearly impossible, though; Ricka lived in Fridley, Minnesota, 232 miles away from Snapp’s home in Fargo, North Dakota. Ricka visited Rose in Fargo multiple times throughout 2024 and into 2025, but her dreams were dashed. There were no Snapp sightings at all.

Rose got engaged and planned her wedding for early summer 2025. This was Ricka’s chance. As the wedding neared, word of her interest in Snapp flew through the families, but he was none the wiser.

Ricka walked down the aisle as one of Rose’s bridesmaids on June 7, 2025. Snapp sat among the guests to witness the union of yet another family member of Ricka’s, but would the two of them speak with each other this time? Would he finally notice the tall, blonde bridesmaid as someone more than “Rose’s cousin”?

At the reception, Ricka’s courage flagged; the gathering of guests overwhelmed her. After much coaxing, she found ways to join group conversations where he too was present, but she left the party convinced she had missed her chance. Only later did she learn Snapp’s mother had summoned his sister, Grace, during the reception, urging her to act. Grace got Ricka’s number from a cousin-in-law of Ricka’s and held onto the scrap of paper, the digits scrawled on it, to deliver it to her brother at just the right moment.

At the very end of the evening while Snapp played with his nieces and nephews, his mom again approached Grace.

“We’re going to leave soon, and Snapp is just playing with the kids. If you’re going to do something, you need to do it now.”

The next day, a text lit up Ricka’s phone. Snapp. The message was casual, but it sparked a back-and-forth conversation that continued throughout the week.

God, the ultimate Matchmaker, had a plan: Snapp was traveling to the Twin Cities area (near Ricka’s home) for his cousin’s wedding the next week. Ricka texted hint after hint. Finally, Snapp caught on, and he asked about her plans for the weekend. Her schedule was conveniently clear, so they coordinated a walk for June 13, 2025, at a park in Maple Grove, and it rained on their stroll together. As they bantered and sloshed through puddles, they decided they wanted to see each other again.

Ricka arrived home after their rainy date, but minutes later, Snapp texted, asking her out for dinner that evening before he left town. She said yes and invited all the females of the household—her mom, two sisters, and Grandma Schierkolk who was visiting—up to her bedroom to regale them with first-date details while she changed from her wet clothes into dry ones for her second date of the day with Snapp.

That evening, Ricka and Snapp ate burgers, drove through the neighborhood, and talked. Her dream and his realization merged. He asked her out on a third date the following week to kayak together on Lake Minnetonka.

Ricka and Snapp’s story flowed on with ease. Weekend after weekend, his Toyota wore a path down I-94 from Fargo, North Dakota, to a certain house in Fridley, Minnesota. The Matchmaker’s presence covered the two of them, His well-timed gift delighted them, and they soon decided to reflect His goodness together for the rest of their lives.

On January 17, 2026, Snapp proposed to Ricka outside by a waterfall in Wisconsin. More relatives joined their story that day as an aunt, uncle, and cousins on the other side of the family peeked from the windows of the Millpond house to witness a wintry scene—the kneeling, the asking, and the saying yes to a sacred future together.

And the Matchmaker smiled.

The Bride

February 19, 2026

On Saturday, December 20, 2025, I spotted a wedding dress at Savers, hanging alone on a stand near the checkout area. Did the thrift store sell wedding dresses? Maybe it did, but I had never seen any before—not at that location anyway. I walked by it, then retraced my steps. I reached for the fabric of the gown and touched elegance.

My girl, Ricka, not yet engaged to be married but on the verge, filled my mind.

I abandoned the dress and browsed the home decor, the art, and the furniture. I bought some funny coffee mugs for our Lille Julaften event and exited the store.

Later in the day, the bridal gown swept through my thoughts. I told Ricka about it, describing the dress in vague details because I hadn’t looked that closely. My talk sparked more interest in her than I expected, though, so Husband, Ricka, and I made a stop at Savers on our way to an evening Christmas market.

As Husband put the car into park, I assured him the stop to peek at the dress would be quick; it might already be gone. He said he’d wait in the car, and Ricka and I scurried into the store. The bridal gown hung in its same spot.

“This is pretty,” she said, surprising me. “Maybe I should try it on.”

I found an employee and asked him if she could try it on in the bathroom since the store didn’t have fitting rooms. He summoned a manager to speak with us.

“No,” she said. “We can’t let you do that. You’ll have to try it on over your clothes in one of the aisles.”

We strolled with the floaty piece to the home goods section, and as I removed the dress from the hanger and prepared to lift it over my girl’s head, I noticed the label and the size. My eyes widened.

“It’s a Vera Wang,” I said, realizing the designer creation was originally around $3,000. “And in your size.”

I zipped Ricka into the dress—over her jeans and long-sleeved shirt—in the glassware aisle of the store. The skirt was full, so her jeans underneath didn’t matter. Her shirt was thin, so I could tell how the gown would fit her without it.

“I love it,” she said, taking a spin in front of a mirror. The style was gorgeous, the size perfect.

A couple of female shoppers sprinkled her with compliments as they passed by us.

My vision blurred for a second. I blinked away the emotion to inspect the dress, bracing for a small tear or two or a soiled hem, but no. It was pristine. The price was right, the timing beautiful. The dress was sewn for Ricka.

My girl messaged her sisters, sad they weren’t present to share the moment, and I texted Husband to join us in the store to witness the miracle.

The wedding dress first went into someone else’s hands for their wedding day, then passed through them to land in the middle of Ricka’s love story. God hung the dress at Savers and made sure I was shopping that day to see it. Our girl purchased the gown on the sixth-month anniversary of her first date with Snapp. At the time, the ring was yet to come, but God’s ways are not our ways; otherworldly gifts arrive at unusual times.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready.

Note: Snapp proposed to Ricka on January 17, 2026. He has now heard about the dress. I’ll post pictures of it after their June 6 wedding; we can’t risk him seeing it just yet.

A big announcement

January 29, 2026

The blog, My Blonde Life, will continue.

The frequency is changing, however, for 2026. I will post installments monthly (the third Thursday of each month) instead of weekly.

I’m considering my word for 2026, ROOM, and streamlining my life in ways I never before considered; my blog is one commitment I’m reordering.

This year is filled with exciting new things, and I’m making ROOM for them all:

Flicka and Snipp (who married in June 2025) are having a baby girl who’s due in June 2026. We get to be grandparents!

Ricka and Snapp (who started dating in June 2025) will be married in June 2026. We get another son-in-law!

Husband will retire at the end of 2026 (even though I’ll still be working full-time.) Half of us will enjoy more freedom, and that’s big!

Stay tuned for new monthly blog installments along our ever-changing way. Thank you for continuing to follow along with the writings of my life. I feel you out there, and I’m thankful for you!

Feast of the Seven Fishes

January 22, 2026

I don’t know if it was the 1980s setting that first drew us to the movie, Feast of the Seven Fishes, or the food. No, of course, I know; it was definitely the food—at least for Husband and me. The girls fell in love with its love story, which is an element of the film too.

After our first time devouring the movie, we filed it away with our other favorites, and we embraced the Italian Catholic story—a tale of love and deliciousness at Christmastime—for an hour and forty minutes each year thereafter as though it were our own heritage.

We watched the character, Johnny, the grandpa in the story, rinse the baccalà many times over a few days and his brothers needling him for it still being too salty when they ate it on Christmas Eve. We needed to try the salted cod for ourselves, we decided, as well as the six other courses required to complete the traditional meal. We would host our own Feast of the Seven Fishes, and we knew exactly the friends to coax into joining us.

Domenico and Murphy were game for the adventure, as usual, so we all shopped for our designated dishes’ seafood. Husband and I bought baccalà at Morelli’s in St. Paul, and just like Johnny, my man got up in the night to slosh the fish around in a tub of water, rinsing it well every six hours over several days to ready it for our own big dinner.

The night of our feast, Andrea Bocelli’s “Con Te Partiro” floated in the kitchen’s atmosphere, mingling with calamari and marinara, crab cakes and aioli, baccalà and potatoes, hearts and souls. Husband ladled cioppino into bowls, and Murphy plated the clam-stuffed mushrooms. Savory filling crusted from the baked artichokes, and we discussed the differences between panko and breadcrumbs, which someone in the party, according to my notes, determined were two very different ingredients. Our meal was not a white tablecloth experience with pristine presentation, but rather everything we most wanted: a hunker-down-at-the-kitchen-island-and-enjoy-each-sumptuous-item-as-it-emerged-from-the-oven kind of banquet.

Somewhere between the Spiedini alla Romana (Murphy had used neither fresh nor brick mozzarella, it must be stated, but the whole milk variety) and the buttery shrimp scampi, I remembered Valentine’s Day 2021. It was back in the Lauderdale days, that precarious and beautiful time between our old and new homes, a time when we rented the downstairs of a house and lived for a while without much of anything. (Our stuff was in storage.)

Murphy stood at the stove that night with Husband, and the two of them tended to the dishes from P.S. Steak, a restaurant that sold classy take-and-bake Valentine’s dinners. A plastic tablecloth draped a nearby folding table, and Domenico sat at it, reading the step-by-step cooking instructions to the chefs. I stood in the middle of it all, absorbing the scene and mentally recording its smells and sounds for this very moment, I suppose. I remarked on how my cell phone spouted music too quietly for our party—and wouldn’t it be nice to be in our new house with its sound system?—and Domenico fixed the issue by dropping the thing into an empty cup for amplification.

At the end, the Valentine’s steaks called for a finishing knob of butter, but that dollop slid off a knife, and plopped onto the bottom of the oven, whipping up a stink. I don’t recall any smoke detectors shrieking at the incident, though, so we enjoyed our meal in peace. And with every buttery bite, yacht rock tunes serenaded us from their cup.

The sound system on the night of the fishes served us Puccini’s “Turandot, Act III Nessun dor” while we numbered the hopefully seven items that swam onto our menu, quibbling over whether or not the cioppino counted as three because the soup contained shrimp, halibut, and clams. We agreed we had enough kinds of fish to successfully satisfy our first Feast of the Seven Fishes—and more than enough to fill us. Cannoli from Charito Bakery, Murphy’s chocolate-dipped strawberries, and Pavarotti’s sustained vibrato brought us to the finale.

And our feast was perfection.

Cioppino

Clam-stuffed mushrooms

Crab cakes with saffron aioli

Domenico and his calamari

Baccalà

Shrimp scampi

Spiedini alla Romana

Stuffed artichokes

Cannoli and chocolate-dipped strawberries

Cold

January 15, 2026

We Minnesotans are known for many things. Unfortunately for us, we’re known these days for our heavy presence in national news. We also talk about the weather a lot, which is something I’d rather cover today.

My sister, Coco, in Wisconsin wrote about the weather two days ago in her weekly publication, The Connector, a newsy email update to her family and other subscribers who want in on her life’s adventures. Here’s her cozy account of our current weather:

It feels like spring. There was a long row of seed packets on display at Walmart today. And when I hopped out of the car to shut the coop on my way home tonight, my boots stuck firmly in mud, which I wasn’t expecting in the dark. It was 46 degrees today, but next Tuesday is supposed to hit -11. Just a little reminder that spring is NOT just around the corner. How often I think of Henry from Kenya. When we visited him, he teased us about always talking about the temperature and checking our phones to see what it was. “It’s always 80 degrees. There’s no need to keep checking,” he told us. Then he came here to visit one November. Besides being shocked that there weren’t people everywhere outside and that you could order coffee by talking to a disembodied voice in a drive-thru and that bodies of water actually freeze to the point you can walk on them, he grew to fully understand why we daily checked the weather. We live in a land of extremes, and weather dictates a lot of what we do—what we wear, if it’s safe to drive, and if we need mud boots when we shut the coop. We just get so used to how to manage the changing temps that we don’t think about sharing the info with our African visitors. Things like... if your feet are warm, it will help your whole body feel warmer. (That’s why we don’t wear flip flops in the winter. I had to explain this recently.) And sweaters and hoodies are usually worn for warmth inside, while jackets and coats are generally worn outside. (This doesn’t seem to be readily apparent to those visiting. Which is fine. We’re just not used to seeing jackets inside as everyday apparel.) It all keeps life fresh and interesting.

*****

We could all use fresh and interesting lives—and I’ll add land-healing times—right about now.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

New year, new word (2026 edition): your responses

January 08, 2026

Thank you to my readers for their submissions this past week! Here are your words for 2026:

*****

“I will always be curious about what I don’t know and be humble about what I think I do know.”

“It is not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you are absolutely sure about that just ain’t so.” (Mark Twain)

Bob, Denver, CO

*****

My word this year is poise but maybe a little deeper understanding. I feel Him calling me to radical honesty with poise. Let’s see how that shapes up.

Elizabeth, Lino Lakes, MN

*****

Engage. Let’s do this!

Deborah, Beldenville, WI

*****

Engaged (but with God and not to a boy!)

Dicka, in a village of Papua New Guinea

*****

Rejoice!

Ricka, Fridley, MN

*****

Changes for good

Flicka, Bloomington, MN

*****

My word for 2026 chose me: savor!

I want to

savor foods by eating more slowly, maybe even trying new foods.
savor and appreciate the fact I am alive.
savor the renewed enjoyment of things that have lost their savor.
savor my time with family and friends.
savor time spent with the One who gave me the need and desire to savor more of Him.
Avis, Newfolden, MN

New year, new word (2026 edition)

January 01, 2026

Here we are again, reader. Welcome to your fresh slate.

Do you have a word/verse/idea for this new year? What is it? And why?

If you’d like to have your answer published in next Thursday’s blog installment, send me a message HERE by Wednesday, January 7, 9:00 p.m. CST. (Subscribers, simply hit reply to this email.) Please include your city and state with your submission.

On December 30, my word for 2026 came:

ROOM

He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

In 2026, I will be a willing participant in the rescue and choose less effort, striving, and pressure and more room in my heart, expectations, and schedule. I can already feel the peace.

What about you?

Oh, the festivities! (Part 3)

December 25, 2025

We maintained our festive clip this week and fit in a chilly night stroll through Christkindl Market, a Christmas movie marathon (we may have watched Last Christmas more than once, and it was heart wrenching each time), a lutefisk dinner at Jax Cafe, a last-minute rush to buy a “sock” for the lefse rolling pin, and a sudden sentimental desire for yulekage yesterday at 2:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve Day.

The girl behind the bakery counter at Hyvee tossed us a flat look when we asked if they sold the Norwegian Christmas bread. We described yulekage, mentioning the bits of candied fruits and raisins in a cardamom-spiced dough.

Still a blank expression. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe Lunds has it again this year,” I said to Husband when we returned home.

“Call and see.”

I called. The Roseville location was sold out, but the downtown Minneapolis store had two loaves left.

“I can hold one loaf with your name on it for thirty minutes,” the guy in the downtown store’s bakery said, “but then I’m putting it back on the shelf for other customers. First come, first served.”

Husband was already revving up the engine and peeling out of the driveway.

The festivities of December are all fun and games, but our pastor spoke the truth yesterday; the First Coming was not sentimental but interventional.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

Yes.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Celebrate well. The Light has come.

Oh, the festivities! (Part 2, I guess)

December 18, 2025

On December 12, in layered winter garb, Husband and I tramped almost a mile from our hotel downtown Duluth, Minnesota, to the Bentleyville Tour of Lights at Bayfront Festival Park. If a traveler stumbled into the city between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there would be no missing the five million lights of America’s largest free walk-through holiday display; the glow from the freeway could lure anyone into its warmth, although at minus four degrees, it really wasn’t.

We thawed our hands by fire barrels, Toby Mac & Owl City’s “Light of Christmas” accompanying the scene. “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” lit the atmosphere as we snacked on free popcorn on our stroll through the tunnel of lights, the busyness “Moderate,” as the Crowd-O-Meter called the attendance that night. Minnesota’s famous icons—SPAM, “Spoonbridge and Cherry” (its official name, apparently), Prince’s symbol, and a fish (for our 10,000 lakes)—glowed to show us where we were, and “The First Noel” played to remind us why.

After Bentleyville, Husband and I shared a Wrecktangle pizza in the back corner of Wild State Cider, the patrons around us in Carhartt snow bibs and Norwegian sweaters, lifting steaming mugs and zipping their babies into bunting snowsuits before departing. Swags of lights dripped from the ceiling there too, so our Christmas spirits shone on.

The next morning, we browsed in the shops of Fitger’s Inn to find infant clothing that could cost a person their appendages and a kitchen store that sold lefse chips in Cinnamon Sweet, Pumpkin Spice, and Cool Ranch. We left the chips where we found them and scurried for the flavors of the Cajun Finn sandwich and smoked salmon salad from Northern Waters Smokehaus instead.

Oh, the festivities of a cold winter’s night (and following day)! We warmly recommend it.

Oh, the festivities!

December 11, 2025

I’ve never felt more festive than I do this Christmas season. The only rival was 2003 when I was four months along with Dicka and bought every holiday-themed shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, and body wash Target offered. (Since then, I’ve learned a thing or two about applying chemical-laden products to the skin, but I digress.)

So, here Husband and I are, looking for merry ways to celebrate the month.

On our drive back to the Twin Cities from Thanksgiving at Mom’s in northern Minnesota, we launched our holiday season with a stop at Morey’s Seafood in Motley, Minnesota. The nice lady behind the deli counter gave us samples of any and every type of pickled herring we wanted, and each one was a full piece. I would’ve stopped after three, but she kept urging us to taste more, so I was polite and obliged. We drove away with containers of two of our favorites (in cream sauce): Cajun and horseradish.

On Saturday, November 29, we braved blustery conditions to attend Christmas in Excelsior, a holiday market downtown Excelsior, Minnesota. We petted sled dogs, sipped cozy coffee drinks at Red Bench Bakery, and smooched in the mistletoe booth. Even the porta potties there were joyous.

On Saturday, December 6, we waited in line for thirty minutes outside Anthony Scornavacco Antiques on 6th and St. Peter downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. The shop owner minded the door, allowing in a limited number of customers at a time.

“We’ve been around for fifty years, and we do the same thing every Christmas,” he said, “but we’ve never had a line of people waiting to get in before.”

“You’re all over social media this year,” I said, recalling how TikTok and Instagram told us we must go and visit the establishment.

We toured the opulent store, breakables abounding, and came away with only a $4 bag of metal ornament hooks. If we come into significant money, as the saying goes, we won’t tell you, but there will be signs. (Like maybe a Christmas-themed oil painting from the 1800s in an extravagant gold frame.)

Tomorrow, December 12, Husband and I are driving to Duluth, Minnesota, to enjoy the Bentleyville Tour of Lights in the city’s Bayfront Park. Here’s to a jolly time in a Hallmark movie type of setting and hopefully more mistletoe. (And now I can hear the girls saying, “Eeeewwww!” as I type this.)

Until next time, deck your halls!

Movie time!

December 04, 2025

This installment is a rerun from Christmas 2017. But we like reruns, don’t we? Especially of these sweet movies. What’s your favorite?

*****

In late November, I phoned Comcast about the amount of our cable bill, which had crept up on us like holiday weight gain. An employee assured me that yes, they could lower it since we had been loyal customers for fifteen years. In a sudden craving for something sweet, I asked if they could also add a cable package, simply for the Hallmark Channel and only for the month of December. My wish was granted, and I invited the family to join me at our new holiday entertainment buffet. But only one person accepted my invitation: Flicka.

“Let’s see if we can watch one Christmas movie every day in the month of December,” I said in the Triple Dog Dare tone of Schwartz in A Christmas Story.

My girl accepted the challenge, and her stamina matched mine. She and I devoured movie after movie—and not just on Hallmark. We dipped into Netflix and Amazon for some seasonal saccharine too.

“Have we seen this one?” I asked her last week, scrolling through Hallmark’s movie schedule.

She squinted at the offerings. “They’re all starting to look alike.”

“There are only a couple of plot lines,” I said.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

I grabbed a notebook. “Let’s make a list of common themes.”

The following are our findings in holiday movies (and we may or may not have discussed these at length over goodies):

The main character is most likely young, pretty, single, white, and blonde. She’s often a workaholic and lives in a city.
She takes an ex, a co-worker, or a friend (who’s attracted to her, but she’s oblivious) home for the holidays to fake that he’s her boyfriend/fiancé to please her mother who constantly pressures her to find a man. And a tangled mess ensues. (Plot #1)
She goes back to the small town of her upbringing to plunge herself into a cause like saving a bakery, inn, or other, from destruction or commercial redevelopment. She rediscovers the spirit of Christmas and a sense of community, while reigniting feelings for a past love. Her city boyfriend/fiancé surprises her with a visit, and her life unravels—for like five minutes. (Plot #2)
A funeral or inheritance brings her back to her hometown at the holidays. She doesn’t want to be there and has long ago lost her Christmas spirit. But things change when she finds love and cheer in the place of her childhood. (Plot #3)
The young woman’s mother—if not desperately wanting her married—is dead, and her father has remarried a woman who’s very nice, although the younger woman doesn’t think so. (She hasn’t gotten over the loss of Mom yet.)
The idyllic and festive small town often has a holiday-related name: Evergreen, Snow Falls, or Hollyvale, to name a few. Flicka and I wonder how a wintry name for a town feels for the characters in July.
The city man she ultimately rejects (in favor of the small-town guy) has undesirable qualities, but they’re not too bad. The small-town love interest has a past she’ll have to get over, but that’s not really too bad either. The new man (small town guy) is single, because he never found the one, or his wife died; he’s never divorced.
The main character is lovably clumsy, adorably bad at cooking, or inept in some other cute way. But rest assured, the new object of her affection will lend a hand and save her from herself.
You can count on an elevator scene. And who gets stuck in the elevator? That’s right; the woman and her new man—probably before they even like each other! —and there’s mistletoe hanging in there. Uh-oh.
In the final scene, the new couple embraces outside at night. They suddenly look up. It’s snowing! And they act like they’ve never seen snow before.

Holiday movies are as delicious as the cookies we nosh while we watch, because there’s love at the end. But remember that story about the man and his young pregnant wife looking for a place to stay, and they’re out of options? They end up giving birth to their baby in a barn, and shepherds come over for a visit.

There’s love at the end of that one too. And it’s definitely the best.

Thankfulness

November 27, 2025

We did an over-the-river-and-through-the-woods road trip yesterday to Grammy’s house in Northern Minnesota. Many things spark thankfulness this year. Here are just a few the travelers (and beyond) noted:

Husband: I’m thankful I have a son-in-law now to shovel my driveway. I’m thankful I still have a daughter at home who will shovel for me too. And black licorice.

Flicka: Half-day at work, family trips, my husband, baby, cute apartment, jazz, and the Bible!

Snipp: Warm toes, little projects to do around the house, DeWALT tools.

Ricka: Jesus!! (And a cute boyfriend)

Dicka (by text): I am thankful for the opportunity to go on adventures with Jesus and for family both in Minnesota and Hawaii.

Me: Waking up to a clean kitchen (you can’t even tell we cooked eight Thanksgiving dishes in it yesterday) and sneaking an episode of High Potential during the day before we hit the road.

Grammy: I’m thankful my two dogs were not hurt when they tangled with a coyote last week—even trapping him against the house before he made his escape.

What’s on your list today?

Cioppino

Clam-stuffed mushrooms

Crab cakes with saffron aioli

Domenico and his calamari

Baccalà

Shrimp scampi

Spiedini alla Romana

Stuffed artichokes

Cannoli and chocolate-dipped strawberries

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