Hold My Hand
I’m angry. I feel abandoned. I’m sad. How can my dear, dear friend have died so suddenly this week? Weren’t we just laughing and talking a few minutes ago? I’m heart-broken. My homeland, Lebanon, is being torn to shreds. The blindness, the...
Swallowtail Butterfly Habitat
With the heartless slaughtering of innocents, ransacking of homes, destruction of livelihoods, and raping of life-giving lands, I find myself trying to heal the tiny, one quarter of an acre piece of dirt under my care. My garden has already earned the certified...
I Lost Myself
I miss my mind, body, and creative self. I lost them on a journey this past year. “How,” you ask? My kind, attentive, life-affirming rheumatolotist retired the previous January. We had slipped into gray-haired senior citizenship together. He was diminutive...
January Gardening in Texas
Most of my garden is planted with perennials except for the vegetables. However, the asparagus and some herbs are also perennials so they’re included in this category as well. Therefore, I spend most of my gardening planning with the new seed catalogues coming...
Succulent Personality
In the hush of any morning, while the humans in my household are still dreaming, my fur babies and I settle into the corner chair of the study and greet the morning with a cup of jasmine green tea. Today, it just so happens that the garden is resting under a blanket...
Shame, the Negative Imprint
In Psalms 25, the psalmist is eagerly giving God his heart, the source of his shame. He knows without a doubt that the only way he can live a hopeful life is to be taught new ways of seeing good in himself. He relinquishes his heart into the tender arms of God’s...
Swiss Chard, My Favorite of Greens
Every year, I promise myself that I will not plant so much swisschard, but it is my favorite winter green. I try not to buy veggies from the store and just eat out of the garden. Currently, the lettuce, spinach, and swisschard are going crazy. Also, all my herbs,...
A Composted Life
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks around these unseasonably warm holidays pruning, reshaping, and chopping to the ground perennials in my garden. I’ve shredded fallen dead leaves, chopped up dry twigs, and cut out dead branches. There’s been so...
New Book Launch: Can I Belong to You
I’m thrilled to launch my latest book, Can I Belong to You, a middle grade children’s book featuring my two cats, one a stray and the other a shelter, as they navigate belonging to and living in their new forever home, Maw and Paw Paw’s backyard, porch, and house.