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By Lisa Batten Kunkleman Looking at the yellowed pages of our wedding album, I knew it had to go. The album, not the photos. Trying to slip the eight-by-ten photos from each sleeve didn’t work. In frustration, I tried separating the yellowed and crinkly plastic from the white edging and found that it was a […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman Have mercy! Between my husband chopping wood outside my office window, my cat lounging all over my messy desk, my dogs underneath my feet begging to go in and out, this book is on the slow track to completion. My thought is, those who can’t do, watch. And be distracted. […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman After seeing our empty-nester treehouse come down last week, many people from all around shared how they felt the pull of childhood fun coming to an end. End? Never! Transform, yes. We live by rules such as Waste not, want not and all kinds of cliches like that. As we will one […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman As a writer and parent, I know the importance of inspiration for new ideas. For me, nature and especially the beach are where my five senses heighten like hair standing up in gooseflesh. Thoughts flow in faster than I can put them into long-term memory. Taking photos helps me […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman An imperfect circle of dead fish littered the beach near the water’s edge. How sad. I asked another morning walker, “Do you think they were discarded by a surf-fisherman who was using them as bait?” He lifted his brows while widening his eyes and said, “Either that or some sharks […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman You’re kidding me. That’s my new gazillion dollars heartburn medicine scattered all over the entry hall rug! So this is a slight cost exaggeration but those Dexilant pills cost about ten dollars apiece until our deductible is met and are my last resort in my relentless reflux battle. So what […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman My favorite guest is visiting for the holidays. Each year, our friend hangs out from Thanksgiving until after New Years. There’s a saying that fish and company smell after three days. Not this fellow. This guy is welcome to stay until he absolutely must leave and he smells great too, by […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman It’s like a treasure hunt searching through other people’s antiques and collectibles. Some memorable items leave us full of pride while others leave us full of questions like, “What were we thinking?” or “Why in the world did we decide that was a good thing to possess?” My husband and I […]
By Lisa Batten Kunkleman While cat-sitting for our daughter and son-in-law, I thought it might be a good time for our car-ride loving Coonhound, Sadie, to tag along and get to know her feline cousin, Lilly Cat. Not my best thought. First, I learned that Sadie is terrified of noisy garage doors. That […]
A Bathtub of Hurricane Prep Water? By Lisa Batten Kunkleman What do you do with a bathtub-full of water after the danger of hurricane force winds has passed? Do you pull the plug and watch it glug down the drain, serving absolutely no purpose except to give the pipes a little rinse? No siree, not […]
