(In honor of my vacation week, here’s a little blast from the past: -Ology magazine’s May 2010 article. Enjoy.) How wonderful it is to do nothing, and then to rest afterwards. This little saying is needle-pointed on a framed wall hanging at my grandparents’ house. I didn’t have appreciation for it until 2.75 years ago…   read more

It’s halftime. Game six of the NBA finals. Mavs are up by two. This is where we begin this blog. By the end of this article, we will know if our Mavs are NBA champs or if they will live to fight another day. In the meantime, let’s talk about you. Especially if you’ve given…   read more

(Chatter letter from the editor, February 2011) Well hello there. This is Julie Rhodes. I’ve been on maternity leave for the past few months and am just now emerging from the fascinating underwater world of progesterone, where bright pink anemones of emotion and coral reefs of anxiety dance in the current. Actually, I haven’t really…   read more

(Chatter letter from the editor, August 2010) Today we began reading our two-year-old potty-training propaganda. This mostly involved shameless plugs from the likes of Elmo about how “Elmo can use the potty!” and how you can do it too and might even get to FLUSH all by yourself and pick out your own big boy…   read more

(Chatter letter from the editor, March 2010) You do not have a destiny. Excuse me, what? The phrase “you do not have a destiny” popped into my head at about midnight as my husband Gordon and I were driving home from a friend’s house. Well, it really whacked me in the face, if you want…   read more

I heard a very interesting news report on the radio the other day. The gist of it was: “Hey, remember that big story a year or so ago about the rise of West Nile Virus? Remember it? Yea, well, we really don’t see much of that virus any more.” Which is a bizarre thing to…   read more

After last week’s entry, I think a lot of you must have prayed that Thing Two would start sleeping through the night because that very night she went 8 hours. Eight hours! It was as if the Holy Spirit had convicted her of sin — not honoring her mother and father — and she responded…   read more

I wish I had some profound thoughts on motherhood this week. Really I do. Really. Because if there’s anyone in need of a profound thought, it’s me. Mostly my thoughts have involved simple binary instructions like, “Breathe” and “Eat carbon-based solids to live” and “Don’t jump from the second story.” The problem is simple: Sleep….   read more

Texas and San Francisco are tied, 2-2, bottom of the third. This is where we begin this blog. I am sitting on my couch on Wednesday night watching the first game of the World Series. Under normal circumstances, you are very unlikely to find me sitting at home watching baseball on TV of my own…   read more

Act I: “See you at nine,” said Gordon, grabbing his keys and heading for the door. He was going to BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) Monday night, as usual. I was late making dinner and was just firing up the wok; he would have to eat when he got back. “Are you sure you shouldn’t call…   read more