I'm just trying to walk myself home.
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A (Short) Story about Spring When she came through the door, she handed me a small wooden charm. It was a colorful shamrock shape, tied with red and white striped string. “We wear these in my country when we are waiting for spring to come.” “What a lovely tradition!” I said, as I took it …
One of the wonderful surprises about art is how the forms reach out and speak to those who have no official knowledge or learning about the art form itself. You don’t have to be a painter to love a painting. And while it is almost certain that if I had some experience as a painter, …
Giving Things Up: A Story about Lent The thing about giving up something for Lent is that it is sometimes hard, especially for children, to not make the thing you’ve given up the focus of one’s attention. I think the point of giving something up during this season is to make more space for God. …
What kind of images come to mind when you hear the word needy? Is there a certain name that pops up on your phone that makes you hesitant to answer? Is it the person in your life who takes more from you than they give? More money, more time, more energy. The word draining is …
http://www.alisonchino.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=15178&action=edit&message=1 photo by Whitney Loibner, who shared our love letters on her blog recently. A Short Love Story (for Valentine’s Day) Recently I opened up a document I had put away for a while because I wanted to be able to look at it with fresh eyes. And here is what my fresh eyes saw: …
A Story about Trash In my unwavering attempts to look on the bright side, I may have neglected to present my new hometown of Aberdeen in the most accurate of lights. However, I think it is a case of selective omission rather than blatant lying to show you pictures of sand, sea and granite instead …
I’m still trying to tell stories on Tuesdays, so in January I told a few stories about Walking Towards The Unexpected. For the month of February I am writing about Walking in the Dark. Because I was trying to choose a happier theme. (sarcasm) Actually, if I didn’t feel light in my heart today, I …
Here’s my last January walk! After six straight days of rain in Aberdeen, I decided to get out by myself in the area last Thursday. I have been trying to go for longer walks when I’m alone because I’m hoping to go on a really long walk in the not too distant future. Plus I …
A Story about Growing Old Together One day I came home from visiting with our ninety-year-old neighbor and said to Taido, Do you realize that if we both live to be ninety that we will spend more years of our marriage alone than with children? We moved into our house on Cedar Street after five …
Traveling with Ben and Simon can sometimes feel a little bit like having Pippen and Merry in tow. Simultaneously fun and exhausting. The trick is to keep them moving, which is how we found ourselves walking around Calton Hill in Edinburgh one day last week. In addition to the National Monument and other various important …
Who does not love a stack of brand new school supplies? Or the smell of freshly sharpened pencils? I love to hold a new notebook in my hands, one with no creases in the cover, and to open it up to the first blank page. It is as full of possibility as the sun coming …
Friends, it’s no secret around here that I love to lace up my boots and go for a walk. I love to get outside. I do not like the word exercise. But I love to see the world on my own two feet. For most of my life, even though I love to go for …
Dear readers, I have thoroughly enjoyed these last couple of weeks of storytelling and story sharing. I hope it has been as great an exercise for you as it has been for me. I actually had a hard time choosing these stories. If you’ve ever met my daddy, you know I could write an entire …
The twelfth and final story of my Twelve Days of Stories is actually the beginning of a story. It is a draft of the first chapter of the book I have been writing. I hope that one day these words will take shape in print form that you can hold in your hands. Thank you …
A Story about Anger Three babies in five years is what it took to throw me over the edge. Mixing lack of sleep at night with defiant toddlers by day was a recipe for fraying nerves already, but then Taido often would have to leave town for work. I was exhausted at the sound of …
I told these cruise stories on my blog a few years ago as How I went from being a Cruise Skeptic to a Cruise Addict. They are still some of my best life memories.
A Story about A Long Time Goal When my husband sat me down and told me that he wanted to finish his masters’ thesis, quit his job and move our family abroad to get a PhD, I told him to go for it. “I’m all in for this adventure,” I said. But in all honesty, …
Taido and I are celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary today, so it seems like as good a time as any to tell you our love story. Since you already know the end to this story, it might be helpful to start in the middle, when it looked like maybe I would not end up with …
Here are the words I spoke to my parents upon receiving the only “F” of my university career: “I think one ‘F’ on a transcript shows character.” A Story about A Very Bad Grade I started college by majoring in psychology, but I was not one term in before I switched my major to English. …
In 2010, my husband and son, Taido and Cole, had a trip planned to go hiking in Switzerland for Cole’s 13th birthday. The night before the trip, there was a small problem. This was first published on my blog that same autumn. A Story about A Passport We were all leaving town on Friday morning, …