Welcome! Tucked happily into the gorgeous hills and woods of Wisconsin, I write about life, faith, and the humor that both require. Welcome to the Nexus!

Drip, drip, drip…

Me, to my old, old kid: "Did I tell you that Dad and I decided to hike the Ice Age Trail?" My old, old kid, to me, right into the receiver: SnortLaugh. *Composes self* "Oh, I see. Is that why you want your knee brace back?" Why, yes, my dear. As a matter of fact,...

To trod

I havea newplaceto hike. I can't even tell you how excited I am. As per usual, I'm a little slow on the uptake, and I'm embarrassed that it took me this long to discover this gem, but hey, better late than never. It's not that we don't have good hiking in the area. We do....

Casualties

I lopped off the tip of my thumb the other day. Thursday. It was a week. No, I didn't take off a big ol' steak of flesh, like the kid did with that deli meat slicer last year, or have a green foam/fungus bandage applied by the finger authorities to stimulate new growth to bring...

Leave it to Doyle

I have recently begun a small series of rearrangings in an effort to slow the entropy of householding and acquisitions. Books in their shelves, DVDs in their own, the abject horror that is the Pyrex lid drawer. This is, I suppose, an expected consequence of my recent return to full-time housewifery and writing, a likely...

Famous. Again.

Got m’self in the paper again, yessir I did. Yep, yep, yep. *shines fingernails* This is, as I’m sure you can imagine, quite the feat of fame and fortune in a town like Colfax, where all 1,054 of us are fighting for airtime. Burbling masses all vying for the limelight. Competitive newsmaking at its finest...

Damn and blast

Rolled a deer the other night. At that very duskiest time of dusk, where the headlights still have no real darkness to cut through, yet all the world is fading to blue and the eyes begin to lose contrast. This is not the first deer that has fallen to the Ottinger fleet. Oh, no, there...

It’s coming

Ran home from a few hours of work today to revel in the sunshine and warmth before it fizzles. First, I spent a frenzied 15 minutes trying to shovel out the front deck. Why? Well, this: You may not recognize it, but this is the view from the front windows less than a week ago....

Diversions

Sprung the hubs from the hospital the other day. The sorts of photos that would be appropriate to this story just really aren't appropriate to share. We'll have to make do...This is us in the ER on Scott's birthday, which was much more fun that the free birthday-food trolling that was on the docket. I...

Collections

How does one go about collecting words? You know, quotes from this and that. Snippets. Sentences you need to remember and hold onto. Paragraphs that are life-altering and never to be let go of. Words you simply must collect. Anybody else do this? I know you do. Tell me how you've done it. The nuts...

Huh

I’ve never sat writing in my winter boots before, at least not inside. I’ve also never, not to my memory, burped up chocolate guacamole, which also just happened, but that is beside the point. I’m here writing in my clunky winter boots because a guy was supposed to be here almost an hour ago to...

What I meant to say

I was with a few close friends the other day, and we were talking about our experience of God. Now, please understand, Im’a simplify the context violently here, or we'll never get anywhere. I'll just cut to my part, which was kinda' two parts: First there was my general presence answer. The deep knowing, the...

Trips large and small

Me post-nos. It's small for obvious reasons. Had me a little nitrous the other day. I guess it was almost a month ago now. Time flying when the fun is had and all that... The nitrous in question was administered at my request as prelude to an extraction. You see, while I've had a tooth...