Sharing Life’s Vibrancy

We took a look at women through history who sacrificed their comfortable lifestyles to participate in war. The British would say these women were “Doing Their Bit”. But, as we saw, these women did their service in disguise. It was incredibly dangerous for men in battle much less women. Men saw women differently in history. Women were seen as people to do be protected and honored as wives and…

Unlike our previous warrior women, we’ll now go to the ancient world. In the annals of ancient history, few figures stand out quite like Artemisia I of Caria. A Greek queen ruling a Persian vassal state in the 5th century BCE, she personally led ships into battle against her fellow Greeks during the Second Persian Invasion of Greece. Herodotus, known as the “Father of History” and a fellow…

Our next female warrior is probably someone you have never heard of. I know I had never heard of her until my 19th Century Russian History course at Florida State University when I was a graduate student. My primary focus in graduate school was Russian/US relations. It was a phenomenal time to be studying this field because our relationship was in transition. The Cold War had ended, Reagan was…

Where I live was recently selected as a potential site of a data center. A local town meeting was held to discuss the matter and people showed up in droves to protest. I immediately got angry because everytime, it seems, that our county has an opportunity for significant growth and revenue generation, the people drive it out. The county was the original site for Disney World, but the “powers that…

Modesty dressing has become an increasingly visible conversation in fashion, culture, and personal identity. What once might have been seen purely through the lens of religious or traditional expectations has grown into a broader movement rooted in autonomy, creativity, and self‑expression. At its core, modesty dressing is not about hiding—it’s about choosing. 1. Modesty as an Expression of…

We know that each person’s life is a book which has meaning and relevance to the story of mankind, even if we feel insignificant. When someone dies that story ends and the book is closed. The same can be said of our families. Every family carries a story — a tapestry woven from the lives, choices, triumphs, and hardships of those who came before us. Yet in the busyness of everyday life, it’s easy…

Nicholas was born on March 15, 270, in Patara, Turkey. We know from records that Nicholas lost both of his parents, (Epiphanius and Johanna in some accounts), as a young boy and that he used his inheritance to assist the poor. He devoted his life to his faith and became a monk. We don’t know what business his father was in to have such wealth to leave his son well off and well raised.…

In the United States today, there are approximately 400,000 children in the foster care system. The average age of a foster child is eight years old. More than half are under the age of ten, and 27% are teens. The system which relies heavily on volunteer families is often misunderstood and suffers from a bad reputation. As of 2023, there were fewer than 200,000 licensed foster homes in the US, a…

I remember hating my name when I was growing up. It was so often mispronounced and I got tired of having to correct people. I didn’t know until I was an adult that it actually wasn’t being mispronounced. My biological mother named me Deborah Dean, but the hospital misspelled it Deanne, so it became Dee Ann rather than Dean. Boy, I was so upset because I would’ve loved to have been called Deborah…

March 23, 2025 will be the 250th anniversary of Patrick Henry's famous speech given at St. John's Church in Richmond wherein he declared, "Give me liberty or Give me death"! This speech was just weeks before the first cannons of war would be shot at Lexington and Concord beginning the Revolutionary War. To celebrate this key moment in U.S. history, there will be a reenactment at St. John's…

Luke 17:32…it’s the second shortest verse in the Bible. It’s succinct, but it’s message looms large. Jesus is speaking the apostles about his second coming to prepare them. It’s consequential; failure to heed its warning could result in the loss of one’s soul. No other explanation was needed for the apostles because they were very aware of the story; they knew it well. That may not be true of us…

I have always been a huge fan of St. Patrick’s Day mostly because of my Irish roots, but until a few years ago, I knew almost nothing about St. Patrick. I am not Catholic so I had really no reason to know anything about him. Of course, I knew the legend of him running snakes out of Ireland, but that was essentially it. Then, my loving mother-out-law (don’t you love that!) went to Ireland and…

Now that we've considered Bill Gates, let's look at Elon Musk, the man who the left seem to hate because he supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election and is working with Donald Trump through the newly created position called the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. This position, which is a temporary one, is meant to do a deep dive into government agency efficiency and spending to…

Everyday on social media I see hate and love for these two men. The Democrats adore Gates; the Republicans adore Musk; Democrats loath Musk; Republicans loath Musk. There are, of course, other billionaires who interfere with campaign finance like George Soros, but he’s an enigma for another day. Today I want to ponder these two because they are very similar and I wanted to lay out a comparison as…

While I have been doing my “This Week in History” post (and I do enjoy researching those events), I thought I would do something different this time, especially since I needed to do some new posts. I subscribe myself to several historical social media pages and I was catching up on them over the past few days, and so I decided to pick one of those to focus on here. Growing up our parents read to…