MyLeslieNotebook

I usually try to keep my blog posts general, so that any person from any walk of life who reads it will read truth that can be applied. But today I may be writing to a select few people: those who knew Mr. Ken Greene. I started working with teenagers in my church in 2003 after a holy calling from the Lord. And the first Sunday that I stepped into that overwhelmingly-noisy room full of high schoolers, there was Mr. Ken. He was as predictable as the morning sun. He was there every single Sunday morning, taking the roll and shaking hands with kids. (I just realized that some of those teenagers didn't shake hands with anyone BUT Mr. Ken. Shaking hands is a lost art, unless you knew Mr. Ken.) And he was there every Wednesday night, handing out gum from his fanny pack. Yes, I've taken some myself, and I don't even like gum. But I loved Mr. Ken. I thought of Mr. Ken as one of those guys who would never die. Seriously, the man never aged and never slowed down. He had endura...

What do you put in your mouth? And why? I wrote a post a while back about a book my pastor gave me  and I was so enthralled with it he gave me another: Eat this Book by Eugene Peterson. (If that name rings a bell, it's because that's the guy who wrote The Message version of the Bible. And if you like The Message , you should really read this book.) Anyway, the book is centered on this passage from Revelation:  "So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, 'Take and eat it; it will be bitter in your stomach, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth,'" (Revelation 10:9, HCSB). John, the writer of Revelation, did just that: He ate the words of the Lord. Literally. Now, to get the main idea of the book, you need to read it. But what I'm sharing with you today is what God's been working in me over the past few weeks: God has put His word in our mouths. Well, at least, He said He did. Here are just a...

Add caption Today is my absolute favorite day of the year. More than Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter or even my own birthday. More than the first day of vacation or the last day of spring cleaning.  It's the first day of fall. I know, I know, the calendar told me that the first day of fall was last week. But it still felt like summer last week . I'm not talking about when google tells me it's the first day of fall; I'm talking about when my soul does . I had heard whisperings that today would be it. The forecast said highs in the 70s. I walked outside at about 6:30 this morning and it felt like any other morning for the past few weeks. [And I've been burned by weather forecasts before, so I didn't have my hopes too high.] But I went out again at 9:00 and it hadn't gotten even hotter.  Again at 10:30; same temperature. Now you may not know this about me, but I am not a hot-weather person. I am grumpy throughout May because I know summer is...

Lester, the most important man in my life, turns 61 today.  No disrespect to my amazing husband, but my dad Les ter--yes, the reason I'm named Les lie--is the ONE man who has always been in my life. Every day, every celebration, every loss, and every monumental moment (and most of the ordinary ones), he has been there.   And more than just a physical presence, Lester shaped me into myself. Some things he gave to me genetically (like my loud sneeze and my loud mouth), some things he intentionally instilled in me (like a devotion to Jesus and a basic understanding of plumbing), and some things I just picked up through being his daughter the past 39 years (like singing harmony, loving Star Trek, and laughing at my own jokes before I get to the punch line).  And though I today focus on my dad and reflect on all the good things he was and is and will be, I feel the need to say this to everyone reading this:  I am so sorry if you didn't have a dad like Lester. Be...

I have had the same kitchen towels for sixteen years.  I got a ton of them for wedding gifts and have used them--tons--since I got married WAAAYYY back in 2000. And it just hit me a few weeks ago: these things were disgusting! They were discolored, threadbare, and simply worn out.  (Those of you who know me well know that I am not observant. It literally took a hole in the middle of one of my "good" kitchen towels to make this observation.)  So I asked my mother-in-law to be on the lookout for some "new" kitchen towels for me at a yard sale. [She is a die-hard yard saler, and I love getting stuff for pennies.] The next time she came over, she delivered a box full of kitchen towels. And they weren't just better  than mine. They weren't just newer  than the old ones I had.  They were beautiful. You might doubt that yard sale kitchen towels could be described as beautiful, but these really were. They were huge and thin and perfectly white. As I p...

I try so hard NOT to be a snob. I come from a humble family, live in a humble town in a humble county in a humble state, have married a humble man and try to live humbly.  [But you know, of course, the minute you think you're humble, you're actually prideful, right? Because you're proud that you're so humble.] Anyway, I have a confession to make: I am a coffee snob. It's my husband's fault. For many years, he chaperoned a trip to Costa Rica in January, teaching Tennessee teenagers how to surf. [Tough job, but somebody's got to do it!] He left me at home with our two kids, handling the normal, non-beach, non-surfing, January life.  So he felt guilty enough to bring me back some Costa Rican coffee. Though he has never tasted coffee {I hear gasps from around the world!} and claims he never will, he knows I love it . And everyone on the trip was talking about how great the coffee was in Costa Rica. So the first year he brought me back four or five poun...

I was a six-year-old girl when the 1984 Olympics were on television. [Insert: these were the stone ages of TV. You watched ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS because that's all that we had.] So when the Olympics were on, we watched that only, every night, for two weeks. And I could show you exactly where I was in the floor of my parents' den, on the brown carpet, glued  to the screen watching Mary Lou Retton compete. She was larger than life, even on my parents' 36-inch screen. I had been taking gymnastics for about a year, and to me she was IT. Always smiling, tons of energy, and seemed never to mis-step. I remember asking myself, "How does she do all that stuff? How does she handle it with all those people watching?" And when she won the gold medal, I distinctly remember thinking, "Yep. That's who I want to be." I poured myself into gymnastics, got the leotard (like every other self-respecting gymnast of the 1980s) and dreamed of standing, back arched and a...

My daughter Shelby is so very brave. She faces bigger kids and mountains and sickness like a champ. She has courage in the day time . But it starts to fade when the sun goes down. She has nightmares, scary thoughts, and struggles to fall asleep because she can't get frightening images out of her mind. (You've been there. I have, too.) It happened with Shelby not too long ago. She was trying to fall asleep (not an easy task for such an adventurous five-year-old) and I had encouraged her to think about a movie as she closed her eyes. Twenty minutes later, I heard her pitiful cry. I walked into her room and asked her what was the matter. "I keep thinking about the scary part of Zootopia," she explained, "and I can't stop. I'm very afraid." The Mom in me knew just what to say: "Honey, Zootopia is not real. It's just a pretend story."  "I know, Mama," she cried, "but it seems real in my mind." And that...

My husband, kids, and I just returned from a two-week trip out west. Destination: Colorado.  Purpose: hiking.  We camped in a national park (Black Canyon of the Gunnison), the highest city in America (Leadville), and on one of the highest roads in the Rockies (Guanella Pass). [If you've not been to Colorado, you should go. Add these 3 places to your must-do list!!!] In the midst of our camping, we hiked two fourteen-ers. A 14er is a mountain whose peak is at least 14,000 feet above sea level. The trail length can range from four miles to many times that, but the end result is standing on what feels like the top of the world. We tackled Mount Sherman and Mount Bierstadt , two of the least difficult. (They are all hard. But some are REALLY hard. I blogged about a super hard one here .) The four or us began each mountain together. But, just as I suspected might happen, my seven-year-old son destroyed me in the ability to hike quickly uphill for hours. My husband was...

Did you know we were blueberry farmers? It's one of our family's many hobbies that sounded great at the start but takes much more sweat and work and time than we realized. Not only that, but my husband doesn't do anything half-heartedly: he started our blueberry patch with fifty [50!] bushes. We started getting teeny tiny fruit in April. We would walk through the patch every day or two and identify how well they were growing. We'd watch them carefully, excited for the first ripe berry. That happened about a week ago. It was so delicious. And just this week, the ripe blueberries started flowing like water. We call it the "blue tide." For the past three days we have spent at least two hours each morning picking.  They are BEAUTIFUL. One one branch, you'll have every color from white to green to pink to purple to blue. Sometimes they're so heavy with delicious fruit the branch will bend over to the ground. And just like this picture portrays, th...

I did something a month ago that I hope I never do again: I hurt my back. I didn't tweak it or pull something or twist funny. I HURT it. I couldn't lean forward at all . I had to seriously consider how I could grab the crock pot from the bottom shelf of the cabinet without screaming in pain. I couldn't lean over to kiss by kids in bed at night; they had to sit up and kiss me. It took me four minutes to get into bed the night I hurt it.  (Full confession: I hurt it jumping on the trampoline with my kids.)  That should not have  hurt  me like it did.    I thought I was strong. I thought I was fit.  But the truth is that I wasn't nearly as strong or fit as I thought. And e very motion  reminded me that there had been a weakness I didn't know about . It didn't just hurt my back. My legs hurt when I walked. My hips hurt when I sat. I shuffled when I walked and somehow I couldn't even pull the brake on my car when I needed to park; I didn't r...