Making Marriage Beautiful

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, many sweethearts – or would-be sweethearts – are making plans for how to express their love. The holiday is also one of the most popular days for becoming engaged. But what happens after the chocolates have been devoured and the roses have wilted? Or what if, after years or decades of being together, you’re just not feeling it anymore? Plenty of marriage books offer activities and tips that promise to help you reconnect.

Buffing out bad choices

Buffing out bad choices

Everything was going perfectly with our house renovations, just in time for our big move this weekend. Finally! After a month of working double time, my husband, Dana, and our older boys had nearly finished laying down 1,200-square-feet of pine floors. I’d finished cleaning the mouse droppings from the cupboards, sweeping cobwebs from the windows, and painting rooms. We were on the downhill stretch of sorting, tossing, and packing up our home in Bath.

Two decades of choosing to love

Two decades of choosing to love

Twenty-one years ago, when my high-school sweetheart and I stood before family and friends in my grandparent’s flower festooned church and pledged to love one another till death us do part, my idea of love resembled the stock photos found in ready-made frames. The...