In keeping with our family tradition, we present the best books we read in 2025… I read 65 books this year. (Goodreads thinks I only read 63, but they aren’t counting the two times I read my oldest daughter’s manuscript!) For the most part, I read on my Kindle Paperwhite via Kindle Unlimited, Libby through…
Our year has been made up of many moments and memories. Library book sales, thrift shopping, and farmers market. Precious moments with siblings, cousins, and friends. Visiting graves and remembering grandparents we’ve said goodbye to for now.
When my cousin-in-law asked me to share at my sister-in-law’s baby shower last August, I said “yes”–and then I thought of the fact that my own three daughters would be sitting there in the room listening! They know better than anyone else that I’m not a perfect mother. But they read and gave their blessing…
When I chat with friends interested in blogging these days, I often suggest they give Substack a try. Substack is a great place to get started: flex your writing muscles and find your community without any financial investment. But what about my friends and clients who have been blogging for decades? They are also wondering…
“Hi there! I’m Gretchen.” It’s how I introduced myself at the first blogging conference I ever attended. But no one recognized my name. Until they saw my blog address scrawled on my nametag. “Oh, you’re the little pink house!” Well, actually, I am not the little pink house. That’s what I called my blog, because…
We share our very favorite books in our annual Christmas letter each year. But sometimes it’s hard to limit ourselves to just a few titles. So here are our top picks for the year…
We’ve watched loved ones walk through diagnoses, treatments, and life challenges this year. But in the midst of the grief, the Lord gave us reminders of His faithfulness.
It’s been a tradition in my family for three generations… Grandpa Marvin and Grandma Mary started sending out a annual Christmas card picture the year their first child was born. I’ve heard that Grandma often included handwritten notes in each, until she finally began sending the same photocopied letter to everyone sometime in the 1980’s….
Grandma was a woman of many roles and responsibilities—a real-life Proverbs 31 woman. She was a thrifty cook and a meticulous housekeeper. A skilled nurse and industrious businesswoman. An avid photographer and a careful historian. She was a voracious reader and a frequent letter writer. A faithful wife, loving mother, precious grandmother, and doting great-grandmother….
I was born in a valley known for its production of peppermint. We named our first dog Minta as we sat on our front porch swing and watched the mint trucks drive by. When I was eight, we moved across a few fields to twenty acres planted in peppermint. My brother and I loved to…
We sat around the table the other day swapping book titles with cousins we hadn’t seen in years. Our children share a love of many of the same series and authors, but my oldest still filled both sides of a sheet of paper with hastily scribbled titles for them to check out. That conversation got…
An annual Christmas letter and family photo has been a tradition in my family since I was born, but really it goes back even further than that: my parents started the tradition in 1982 as their version of the annual Christmas card photo that my paternal grandparents began in 1957, the year their first child…
The End.
The End.
