Author: maryanncrum

 I’m never more thankful for my husband than when I listen to single friends talk about their perilous expeditions into the jungles of online dating.    As a matter of fact, one of my friends is currently writing an insightful, hilarious book about her online dating adventures. Oh, the tales she tells.    There was… Continue reading Kudos to My 20-Surgery Man

   I read directions, I follow directions, I plant, I pray, I wait, I watch, I hope … and more often than not, I end up shaking my head and wondering what went wrong.    My hubby has planted more than 100 flower bulbs in our yard over the past couple of years, so I… Continue reading You Never Know What’ll Grow

   I know this statement may earn me my official “old geezer” card, but I’m going to say it anyway: The plots on many TV dramas these days are just too complicated. So many confusing backstories are hauled from episode to episode that keeping it all straight requires more brain cells than I can spare.  … Continue reading Give Me Simple Truth

  It was not a good time for scrawny trees and dead branches.    Beginning on Valentine’s Day, we had a run of weather that separated the proverbial men from the boys in the tree world around here. Strong winds, ice, more big winds, and lots and lots of rain.    On Valentine’s Day last year, we… Continue reading Standing Through the Storm

   Some dear friends of ours live in a very charming 150-year-old farmhouse just down the road from us. I love the historical feel of the place, and the way my artistically gifted friend has decorated it. But when our funny friends describe the realities of living in a house that old, I realize there’s a price… Continue reading Heaven: Better Than We Think

   Maybe I better promise again, as I have before, that I will not use this precious space to always and only talk about my grandchildren. Cross my heart.    I realize I’m perilously close to becoming one of those obnoxious grandparents you cross the street (or turn the page) to avoid. But this week, I… Continue reading Remaining WonderFULL

   “Well, I have a verrrry BIG lap,” I replied to my five-year-old granddaughter when she asked how I was going to hold all four of my grandchildren at the same time.    I had just told Edda how excited I was to be getting the thing I wanted most for Christmas this year: to… Continue reading God Has a BIG Lap

   I can tell you with absolute certainty what’s going to happen in 2015. And unlike Madam Ripoff, who will pretend to analyze your palm wrinkles if you lay down enough cash, I’ll tell you for free.    (Cue drumroll.) Here’s what’s absolutely, positively going to happen this year: Change.    I know this because I’ve… Continue reading Change is Comin’

   In every elementary school class, it seems there’s at least one girl who is a horse fanatic.    In my class, it was Sue. She didn’t actually own a horse, but Sue’s bedroom was jam-packed with horse stuff. Plastic horses, stuffed horses, horse posters. I didn’t really get it. I was into the Beatles, the… Continue reading The Message of Christmas is Everywhere

   I don’t have enough energy or money to waste any of it trying to convince other people not to believe in things I don’t think exist. Unicorns, leprechauns, Bigfoot, whatever.    That’s why it’s hard for me to understand why some atheists are so rabidly determined to convince us that God is a myth. If He’s… Continue reading God Loves Those Atheists