In many ways, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for the last two weeks – trying to wrap my brain around everything that has happened; struggling to find my voice because silence is deadly. Silence is not acceptable because silence implies acceptance. As a pastor’s kid, the words of the...

Twenty-six years ago my family went to Dallas for Thanksgiving. I don’t remember quite why my parents decided we would go to Dallas that year. It was just a couple of hours away from where we lived at the time, but we didn’t have family to visit. We just went on a whim. As chance would have...

A friend of mine works in the field of global education. She shared with me recently some pretty incredible information: In the entire county of Liberia, there are 45 doctors. Forty-five. If you’re not 100-percent clear on where Liberia is, it is a nation in West Africa. If you are also not sure why...

Sometimes it’s hard to love people, even people we want to love. They push us away as they work through their own struggles and issues. They push all of our buttons because they can and because they take our love for granted – which they should be able to do as our loved one, particularly our...

Today is the International Day of the Girl, a day established by the United Nations to promote girls’ human rights, highlight gender inequalities that remain between girls and boys, and address the various forms of discrimination and abuse suffered by girls around the world. While those are the...

October 5-11 is Fire Safety Week. One of my fellow members of the No Kid Hungry Social Council is a firefighter. Last year, she shared her top 10 tips with me to pass along to kids when teaching fire safety. I feel No. 2 on her list is particularly important, as I know many kids would feel the urge to...

Sometimes a memory comes to me in the form of a song – not the usual thing where the song triggers a memory, but rather the song is the memory or is representative, more often, of a series of memories which, in my mind, have bound themselves together with the song. It’s really like a montage...

Residents of Val Verde came out in numbers and made their feelings about the expansion of the Chiquita Canyon Landfill known – 112 to 0 AGAINST the expansion. Despite a clear presentation of the amount of money the community would receive from the landfill if it voted in favor of expansion, the...

Inspired by Mama Scout, I selected a guiding word for 2014. That word was compassion. As the year has gone on, I’ve seen how important compassion is and how appropriate the word feels for this year. With the marking of another 9/11 anniversary, I circled back to this word and felt the weight of its...

Keeping it simple this week with a gratitude list. My 37th birthday is coming up, so I decided to focus on all things positive and make a list of 37 things I’m grateful for in or near the Santa Clarita Valley. Enjoy, and then share your favorite things, too. 1. So many wonderful parks for my kids to...