Twelve Swans
This true story is beginning to recede in memory. This really happened to me. When we moved here, the only place we could find to live was a beach house. A beach house rented in the off season can be a bargain, except that beach houses are built for the warm weather, and we live in New England. So we lived in the beach house for a short season and in the morning the living room had the bright blue ocean and at night, the moon would shine over the water. It was the kind of place that you want to s

The Flu and the Moon
The flu is back in our house, and I am making sure that it leaves for good. A sense of humor is always good at times like this, so we remember the now comical-to-relay episodes of the baby years when illness took our family down for almost a month at a time. As seasoned parents, we know the drill, the vaporizers, the Lysol, the bleach and the NyQuil, the softest tissues, the soup and the cozy bedrooms. There is a fire in the fireplace, extra trips to the health food store and pharmacy. Ther

October Light
Some of my family who live in the warmer climes have often spoken about how they could never live in the Northeast. There are all sorts of reasons, but mostly it is the cold that frightens people. I felt the same way for a long time. Slowly though, it grew on me. Seasons provide an ongoing challenge and sense of surprise. The cold landscape of winter gives way to the exuberance of spring, the verdant grandeur of summer and the fire-lit trees of autumn. I grew up in the tropical cloud forest of the Cordil

Today I blogged over at Tumblr
I blogged at Tumblr to see how easy it was. It was easy. http://crestaola.tumblr.com

Praying every day
I pray every day because my stakes are so high. I have six kids, a husband who is an entrepreneur, and old house and a large extended family and an even larger group of friends. Many of these friends ask for prayers, many are religious, many are not. It gives me great comfort to know that there are communities of nuns who pray around the clock. If you send in a prayer request, it gets printed and posted in their communities and someone picks it up and prays for you! Of course, being who I am, I have a list of multiple convents, because the more the merrier, in my opinion. If you don’t believe in prayer, for whatever reason, how would you feel about someone