sue boardman

After Fifteen Years…

Posted on September 5, 2016by sue boardman

Lately I’ve noticed that I’ve been filtering much of what’s going on in and around me through the lens of the events of 9/11. I imagine many of you have been, too.

Back in those days, I served as editor of a magazine called Monday Morning. It was a publication of the Presbyterian Church (USA). During that time, I lived in a very special time zone known as “magazine time.” Sitting down to write involved quite a bit of trying to figure out what would be going on in the world about a month later when a particular issue actually made it to the readers. Christmas and Easter were easy. General Assembly. Back-to-School. You get the idea. The hard part was dealing with the things we couldn’t anticipate.

Contemplations Grandmothers

To everything there is a season…

Posted on August 28, 2016by sue boardman

I love back to school time! I have ever since I started first grade without benefit of kindergarten. I was way ready. I was going to learn to read! In fact, the oral tradition in my family holds that I returned home after that first day of first grade and swore I was never going back. I’d been there 6 whole hours and no one had taught me to read yet!

Contemplations Grandmothers

Caution…Grammy is learning new things!

Posted on August 21, 2016by sue boardman

On Monday and Tuesday I wrote recipes. I’m about done with the bone broth recipes and have moved on to lots of yummy things to do with that freezer full of broth once you’ve got it. The possibilities are nearly endless!

Wednesday brought a bit of a calendar melt-down, followed by a video meeting with Dr. Scott Mills, the Chief Evolutionary Officer from Planet SARK. If I were to tell the truth, I’d admit that the whole video meeting thing still weirds me out some but I’m getting better. (I seem to have early childhood camera traumas that still need some work!)

Contemplations

Simple Pleasures…

Posted on August 14, 2016by sue boardman

As a part of my Lent II, 2016 retreat, I’m trying to pay attention to things that feed me, body, mind, and soul. It also helps with the writing! Let’s Boil Bones…Grammy’s guide to bone broth and other yummy things! is rapidly becoming reality and should be out this fall.

I’ve worked for years to perfect a recipe for roast chicken. Roast chicken makes me happy! It also makes great broth. It’s both homey and elegant in its simplicity. It’s juicy and full of flavor. And, perhaps best of all, it’s easy. In fact, with a little planning and prep time, it could even be a weekday dinner. Or a new tradition for Fridays or Sundays.

Contemplations Garden

A Purple Sort of Mood

Posted on August 7, 2016by sue boardman

We have some fairly unusual traditions in our family. One of those traditions, which others tend to find perplexing, is our habit of moving holidays around to days that are more convenient for us. I think it started a couple of years after we got married. We spent the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving helping a mom and her four children find safety in a shelter for battered women, several counties away. It was 2:00 in the morning by the time we got home. Bill and I looked at each other and said, in unison, “Thanksgiving on Friday!” and fell into bed.

Contemplations

Made for This

Posted on July 31, 2016by sue boardman

It’s been a challenging week in my corner of the world. A lot of the challenges fit into the category of annoying or inconvenient. Things to breathe through and, hopefully, chuckle about later.

Some of them were much bigger! The kind of reality shocks that require a tremendous amount of pondering and contemplating. The kind that cause me, at least, to stop and really consider what I believe. And for me, that takes a bit of shoring up.

Contemplations Grandmothers

Newfies Are Good At Helping!

Posted on July 24, 2016by sue boardman

Hi! It’s me, Sarah!!!

Mom’s doing that thing she calls writing again. It must be fun because she sure does a lot of it.

Sometimes I kind of wish she’d do a little less. She doesn’t really want to play football with me when she’s writing and she says, “Wait, please,” a lot. I know those words!

Right now she’s writing about soup. She says that’s why the house smells so good. I like soup. Sometimes she makes me some of my very own. It has things I’m not allergic to in it. (Whatever that means!) And it’s supposed to help my back and hips feel better. Mom said she’d even put the recipe for my soup in her book. Maybe I’ll be famous!