Updates from the Land of “Maybe It’s Spring”

Joe took this photo of our front porch yesterday (it was raining). 

The step up to the porch feels like  pole vault would be handy for my short legs.

Good morning from Minnesota. April 3, 2026, and we have a weather advisory calling for snow, sleet, and or rain over the next twenty four to thirty six hours. I had kind of hoped we were done with winter and could begin enjoying spring, but Minnesota seems to have other plans.

Yes, I have been away for a while, and it turns out I needed that time to recharge. So what is new in the Coehlo household?

Joe retired as of Tuesday this week from ICA. This now gives him plenty of time for what he calls “a few small projects,” which of course means leveling out another area of the yard and building yet another retaining wall. The plan for that space is still up in the air. Maybe a couple of pear trees. Maybe an herb and flower garden with some native grasses mixed in. Possibly a grape arbor, just because.

He also needs to build a brick step up to the front porch. Our home was custom built, and while the original couple may not have been tall, they must have had very long legs because that first step is a doozy for this short legged chick. I am voting this becomes project number one when the weather warms up.

In the meantime, he has plans to have the garage shop floor refinished in mid May. Apparently this requires at least thirty days of very serious organizing so he can “comfortably” move everything to one side while the floor gets leveled and coated. I am staying out of that one.

I started a new part time position as Director of Development for SOAR Regional Arts on April 1. If you are wondering what that means, it mostly involves meeting new people, building relationships, and inviting both businesses and individuals to support the arts. It is a good fit for me. If you are curious, you can take a look at what they are doing at soararts.org. I will keep you posted on how I manage to fit in at least five hours a week of fun SOAR activity.

Eight Friday morning neighborhood coffees have come and gone since I last posted. It has been such a delight getting to know the women in our neighborhood better. Actually, that should be seven morning coffees and one Friday evening happy hour. For the five of us who made the happy hour, we decided it might need to become a regular thing.

Mary Lee, who is more of a night owl, was able to join us that evening. Our neighbor Kim has also taken me under her wing to help me learn everything Minnesotan. I am not sure I am the best student. I have been known to rely on AI to help me craft the occasional text to our neighborhood group in “their” language. The funny thing is, I have always understood everyone just fine and did not realize Minnesotan was its own language. Now that I have been reading the book Kim loaned me, I really do hear the differences between Minnesotan, Ohioan, and Californian lingo. Turns out I am multilingual after all.

I also have new eyeglasses, hearing aids, and a new haircut. Getting old is not for sissies, as they say. I do like the Mark Twain version better: “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” For the record, the glasses are light purple and the hearing aids are the tiny kind that tuck right inside the ear.

Our three grandchildren are all doing well. Growing and healthy, which is exactly what we want.

Speaking of healthy, I am still working with Coach Becky on nutrition and activity. So far I am down forty three pounds and forty inches, which still surprises me a little when I say it out loud.

I think that just about catches us up to today.

Minding My Own Business… at 4:30 in the Morning

Image created by Beth using ChatGPT

Joe and I are adjusting to his new daytime schedule, and I will admit it has been harder on me than on him. If I would just learn to mind my own business, it probably would not be so difficult.

Joe has been getting himself up for work long before I came into his life. During our almost 32 years of marriage, he has managed just fine without me hovering over an alarm clock. He is perfectly capable of waking up, getting dressed, and heading out the door on time. This is not new territory for him.

But with this schedule change, I find myself waking up multiple times throughout the night to check the clock and make sure he has not overslept. I listen for movement. I calculate how many minutes he has left before the alarm. Then I lie there, wide awake, sometimes for half an hour or more between snoozes.

Of course, he has not overslept once this week.

Meanwhile, the interruptions to my sleep are catching up with me. I feel a little irritable. By afternoon I am sleepy, but I will not drink coffee that late in the day, and if I take a nap I will be staring at the ceiling at bedtime. It is a lose-lose situation, entirely of my own making.

Maybe this is less about his schedule and more about my need to feel useful, or needed, or somehow in control. After nearly 32 years, you would think I would trust the man to wake up on his own. He has earned that trust many times over.

So perhaps the real adjustment is mine. If I can learn to mind my own business at 4:30 in the morning, we will both sleep better.

By the way, I am going to be a bit busy for the rest of the month, so I will be taking a short break from writing for a couple of weeks. Maybe that will give me time to practice staying in my own lane, even in the middle of the night.

Thirty-Four Years in the Blink of an Eye

Thirty-four years ago tomorrow, on February 11th, I was excited to head to the hospital to induce labor so we could finally meet our little girl. She was due in mid-January and was taking her sweet time joining the outside world. I remember the anticipation so clearly. It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating her first birthday.

I am sharing a few photos of our birthday girl during her first year. The highchair picture was taken at her first birthday party. I still believe she was the smartest and most beautiful baby ever born. Some opinions never change.

Today was a good day for a very different reason. I got to see my friend Kara virtually. That visit more than made up for the two hours I spent working on quotes for homeowners and automobile insurance. I opened an email from our current insurer to learn that our umbrella policy is increasing by 76 percent. When I expressed concern, the agent responded, “Well, we haven’t had an increase in nine years.” Since I have only been insured with them for two years, I could not care less about what they did in the previous seven. Perspective is everything.

Thankfully, Kara is a breath of fresh air and a ray of sunshine on any day. Visiting with her always improves my outlook on life.

This evening, Oliver and I spent time together while Megan and Jeremy went out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. I cannot say I babysit. We play. He is very good now at pointing to what he wants and following simple directions. When I told him it was time for a diaper change, he marched himself right over to the diaper basket.

His play area looked like a tornado had come through. My attempts to tidy up were not well received. Every time I put something away, he pulled it right back out. I quickly got the message that it was his play space and he would decide where the toys belonged.

He spent a solid ten minutes opening a drawer, putting a small bean bag inside, closing the drawer, opening it again, taking the bean bag out, and closing it once more. Over and over. I worried about pinched fingers, but he carefully opened the drawer by the handle and pushed it closed with his palm, keeping his fingers far from danger. When Megan came home, I proudly told her about his safe drawer technique. She calmly replied, “Oh, he already shut his fingers in the drawer.” Apparently, experience is an excellent teacher.

Oliver and I ended our time together snuggled on the couch watching a bit of the animated version of 101 Dalmatians. When his mom and dad walked in, he shifted instantly from sweet, snuggly baby to pure excitement. Two of his favorite people in the entire world were back in his orbit, and nothing else mattered.

Thirty-four years ago I was waiting to meet my baby girl. Tonight I am watching her celebrate another birthday as a wonderful mom herself. Time moves faster than I ever imagined, but days like this remind me how full and layered life really is. A grown daughter, a beloved friend, a curious grandson, and a heart that somehow keeps expanding to hold it all.

Hideous (Reflections on Predatory Power) - A Poem for Our Times

Image created by Beth using ChatGPT

This poem contains references to sexual abuse and violence against children; if that may be triggering, I encourage you not to read further.

Hideous (Reflections on Predatory Power)

With the talk of molestation, rape, and the killing of children,
the uncovering of a massive failure by law enforcement
is hideous.

And the Department of Justice continues the atrocities,
releasing files with survivors’ identities unredacted
and the perpetrators redacted.

If we want to know how ugly America can be,
we can start here.

As with my refusal to call Forty-seven by his birth name,
I am renaming these files: Pedophile Dump.
Until someone suggests a better descriptor.

Buried in 3.5 million documents from the most recent release
is a child’s diary, scrawled in code,
detailing her experiences with influential monsters,
real monsters, using her body as a sex toy.

And the DOJ takes such care in releasing this child’s hidden words,
making no attempt to break a simple code or redact the diary,
telling the world her words do not matter,
are not important—just as her body
could not belong to her.

The sliver of good from this abuse of power
is that the child names the monsters.

Until the monsters are brought to justice,
I will weep for the girls they were
and the women they have become.

----------

If you read this and felt unsettled, that discomfort belongs to the systems that failed, not to the survivors. If this was too much to hold today, please step away and care for yourself. I wrote this as an act of witness, and I share it with the hope that attention, however uncomfortable, can be a form of care.

Dear Future Me

February 8, 2026

Dear Future Me,

If you are reading this, it means you made it through the years when forty-seven held the presidency and the country felt like it was constantly holding its breath. I hope, wherever you are now, life feels a little steadier and your shoulders are not always tensed without you realizing it.

I want you to remember how heavy those years felt. The constant news alerts. The way one headline could derail an entire day. The strange mix of anger, sadness, disbelief, and exhaustion that settled in and never fully left. There were moments when it felt irresponsible to look away and moments when looking away felt like the only way to stay sane.

You showed up anyway. You paid attention, even when you wanted to turn the page. You checked facts. You questioned what you were hearing. You resisted the urge to numb out completely, even though it would have been easier. And when the noise got overwhelming, you gave yourself permission to step back, take a walk, make a cup of tea, or write your way through it.

Remember that you protected your heart without closing it. You found comfort in small, ordinary things. Conversations with people you trust. Quiet mornings. Familiar routines. Laughter that felt almost rebellious in its normalcy. You learned that surviving did not always look like action. Sometimes it looked like rest.

I hope you remember that you were not perfect, but you were present. You worried about the future, but you also lived your life. You loved people fiercely. You stayed connected when it would have been easier to retreat entirely. You kept reminding yourself that this moment in history did not get to steal everything from you.

If things are better now, let yourself feel that relief without guilt. If things are still complicated, remember that you have already lived through uncertainty and found your footing again. You are more resilient than you gave yourself credit for back then.

Most of all, remember this: surviving those years did not harden you. It clarified what mattered. And that matters more than any presidency ever could.

With steadiness and hope,
Beth

Sometimes All You Need Is a Drive

I felt the need to get out of the house for a drive today, so Joe and I checked out a few local reserves near us. These are the kinds of places where people cross country ski, ride horses, or head out for a hike. There is snow everywhere, except on most well traveled roads, so we decided we will go back in the summer when we can actually get out of the car and walk one of the paths.

I love barns. Not to hang out in. Just to look at. So when I spotted a red barn off in the distance, we took a detour to get as close as possible. As close as possible turned out to be about a quarter of a mile from the road. There was a dirt road leading toward it, but a locked gate stopped us. I showed admirable restraint by not crawling over it. My iPhone camera was zoomed to 15x to get a better view, which felt like a reasonable compromise.

While we were already out and about, we decided to stop at Millside Tavern as we headed back into town. We went in without realizing they have won the Star Tribune’s Best Burger in Minnesota two years in a row, 2024 and 2025. We shared a double cheeseburger with jalapeños and pepper jack cheese, served with sweet potato fries. We also ordered a side of deep fried mushrooms.

I had a taste of the fries and carefully counted how many mushrooms I could eat while staying within my daily allotment of nutrients. The burger was excellent. The mushrooms and fries were excellent too. I was doing such a good job until I discovered they had huckleberry ice cream.

The ice cream was amazing. Only one scoop, and I did share it with Joe. I can easily see this becoming a new go to spot for us on Saturday afternoons. They also have a good children’s menu, and the prices were excellent.

Sometimes a simple drive, a barn admired from afar, and a very good burger are exactly what the day needs. Today reminded me that you do not always have to go far or do much to feel refreshed. Getting out, noticing small things, and sharing a meal can be more than enough.

Memes I Can Relate to This Week

 

And ... for a few Political Memes:

 

Cookie Season, Ferrets, and Acts of Love

 

Photo by Megan Formo

My daughter Megan is a Girl Scout leader, along with two co-leaders, and she is also the cookie mom for her troop. I think this is her fourth year in that role. This year, however, cookie season looks very different.

Door to door sales will be somewhat limited in her town and even more difficult for troops in Minneapolis because of the ICE presence. Booth sales usually generate a large portion of orders, and those booths are typically set up in grocery stores or Walmart parking lots. Unfortunately, ICE has been known to go into parking lots to detain or deport people, which has created understandable fear. As a result, quite a few troops are opting out of selling altogether or are limiting themselves to online sales only. Online sales, however, do not include a rewards program for the girls.

Each year, cookie sales feature an animal mascot. This year’s mascot is a ferret. Girls earn prizes based on the number of boxes they sell, and it is likely that one of those prizes will be a stuffed ferret.

Megan came up with a creative solution. Using the family’s 3D printer, she designed a hard plastic ferret and began offering them for sale to troop leaders. For every ferret a troop leader purchases, Megan donates one to a girl who is unable to participate in sales because of the ICE presence. It is a simple and thoughtful idea. She already has far more orders than she anticipated, and most of the donated ferrets are already claimed. This is not a money making venture. It is an act of love.

Watching my daughter conceive this idea and then reach out to me for help with the recordkeeping side while she focuses on manufacturing has been a real gift. I love watching her learn about sales tax, Venmo business accounts, and how to think about costs. It has been fun for me to help where I can. We set up her recordkeeping in Google Drive, and opening a spreadsheet to find her questions waiting for me is a trip. I had forgotten how much of my work life centered on teaching people new skills. That is the part of working that I miss.

None of this fixes what is broken, and it is not meant to. It is simply one family, one troop, and one idea responding with care instead of fear. Watching Megan turn concern into action, and finding myself alongside her doing the kind of teaching I once loved, has been grounding. In a season made harder by forces far beyond cookie booths and prize charts, it feels meaningful to witness kindness taking a tangible shape. Sometimes that shape is a spreadsheet. Sometimes it is a small plastic ferret. And sometimes, that is enough for today.

Peaceful Evening Wish

The day sped by and now I simply want to get some sleep. All is well in my personal world (not so much the rest of the world). I hope you have a peaceful evening.

What I Thought Was Guaranteed

Until forty-seven became president, I believed that no matter who won the presidency, we would get through it and be fine. Republican or Democrat felt less important than the simple fact that we lived in a democracy where we had the right to vote. I trusted that whoever was elected would follow the law and at least try to make Americans’ lives better.

That no longer feels true. The only people forty-seven appears interested in helping are predominantly white, male, and wealthy. His cabinet is filled with like-minded people who seem far more focused on what benefits them personally than on serving the country as a whole.

Before forty-seven, my political anxiety faded quickly. I could watch the news for thirty minutes or an hour each day and feel reasonably informed. Now, there are not enough hours in the day, and even then it feels like I have barely scratched the surface. I struggle with the idea of tuning it all out because staying informed feels like a responsibility. If I know what is happening, I can respond. That might mean donating to causes that support democracy, writing about it here, or talking with people who are regretting their vote for forty-seven.

Any response feels better than silence. At the same time, as important as it is for me to stay informed and engaged, I also want my life back. I want to return to the days when I trusted that safeguards were in place and that everyday Americans were protected.

I want to know my grandchildren have a future in tomorrow’s America. I want to believe there will be jobs that allow them to support their own families. I want them to have affordable health care. I want my granddaughter to have the same rights as her brothers. I do not want them growing up in a country where people are forced into poverty to protect the wealth of an oligarch.

I have few regrets in life, but I do regret taking the America I grew up in for granted. I assumed it would always be there, steady and imperfect but moving forward. Now I understand that democracy requires more than belief. It requires attention, participation, and sometimes grief for what we thought was guaranteed.

How Did We Survive Childhood?

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Growing up, I remember our family of seven going places in one car. I remember the lap belts in the front seat. I remember five children packed into the back seat with no seatbelts at all. As the oldest of those five kids, I’m talking about the years before 1974, when I left home at eighteen.

I remember my mom holding my infant sister, Jeni, in the front seat while my dad drove. We never had baby car seats for any of us, so she probably held Jeff and Todd when they were babies too. It sounds horrifying now, but at the time it felt completely normal. Luckily for us, we were never in an accident that caused any harm.

Thinking about this sent me down a rabbit hole. I got curious about when seat belt laws came into effect in Ohio. I discovered that Ohio enacted its first mandatory seat belt law on May 6, 1986. At first, it only applied to front seat passengers, with full enforcement beginning after July 4 of that year. Children under four were required to be in a car seat or booster. Children and teens ages four through fifteen were required to wear seat belts in the back seat. Interestingly, Ohio still does not require adults sitting in the back seat to wear seat belts.

That last part was news to me. Anyone sitting in my back seat has to buckle up or we all get to listen to the relentless ding, ding, ding of the seat belt alarm. Highly annoying, but effective. It did make me wonder whether cars sold in Ohio have those alarms disconnected, or if people just ignore them.

This blog is a classic example of how my brain works. The original prompt for today was simple: “What seemed harmless to you as a kid that you now look back on in horror?” My answer was easy. No seatbelts for kids. But of course, I couldn’t stop there. I had to look up seat belt laws not just in Ohio, but also in California, where I lived from 1974 to 2023, and Minnesota, our home since 2023. For the record, both California and Minnesota require adult passengers in the back seat to wear seat belts.

Once I opened that door, more memories came flooding in.

There was trying to swing high enough on a swing set to flip over the top bar by wrapping the chains around it. I never quite made it, but I got pretty high. At my grandparents’ house, my brothers or cousins had to hold down the legs of the swing set so it wouldn’t tip over. Park swings felt luxurious because their legs were set in concrete.

There was walking to the bathroom at the drive in by myself as a little kid, barefoot on stones and small rocks. First, how did I never slice my feet open? Second, how was I not kidnapped?

And then there was leaving the house at age ten to walk into town to visit or play with other kids. It was probably a quarter mile, out in the countryside, walking along the road where maybe three or four cars passed by. There were no mobile phones. I don’t even remember if we had a house phone in that particular house. What I do remember is that it was important to be home when my mom said to be home. I also suspect that other adults in the community were quietly keeping an eye on me and all the other kids wandering around.

Looking back, it’s tempting to gasp at how reckless it all seems. But it was also a different time, shaped by different expectations, fewer safeguards, and a lot of trust. Some of what we did was genuinely dangerous. Some of it was survivorship bias at work. And some of it was simply childhood, lived with scraped knees, bare feet, and a freedom that feels almost unreal now.

I wouldn’t trade modern safety standards for nostalgia, but I’m grateful I lived long enough to look back and say, with equal parts disbelief and relief, “Well, that could have gone badly.”

The YUM Box Finale (Starring Oliver)

Yesterday our family finished the very last of our YUM International snack boxes, this one from Italy. For most of 2024 and 2025 we sampled snacks from a different country each month. In 2025, with the arrival of the new baby, we fell behind a bit. The final box arrived back in November, but yesterday was the first time we were finally able to slow down and open it together.

When I announced that this was the last box, Caleb (11) and Charlotte (10) both looked a little disappointed. Caleb has loved almost every snack we have ever opened. Charlotte has enjoyed quite a few as well, though she has also politely rejected her fair share. She also sits out anything with nuts because of allergies. We talked about the idea of creating our own international snack boxes going forward. That might be even more fun, since we could take the grandchildren shopping and let them see what international foods are sold right here in local markets.

While it was our final official YUM box, it was Oliver’s very first snack tasting. He started out sitting on Megan’s lap, but that arrangement did not last long. He quickly figured out how to grab snacks straight off her plate before she even had a chance to try them. Eventually Oliver rotated between Grandpa’s lap and his high chair, sampling everything along the way. He seemed to like every single snack, especially the Italian cake he claimed from Megan’s plate. Apparently he decided it was similar enough to his recent birthday smash cake and therefore belonged entirely to him.

It felt fitting that our last box was shared across generations, with older kids reflecting on what they had loved and a baby discovering it all for the first time. The boxes may be done, but the curiosity, the laughter, and the small ritual of sitting together and tasting something new are not going anywhere. Those are the parts worth keeping.

When “Voluntary” Doesn’t Mean Voluntary

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Today I learned something that made me angry. Maybe you already knew about it. I didn’t, and when I first read about it I honestly thought, “This has to be fake news.” It was so cringeworthy that I felt compelled to look it up for myself.

It’s been a long day, so I am going to try to keep this short and sweet, with minimal hostility. That said, I am prepared to take full responsibility if a few hostile words slip through.

The discovery? The ICE Voluntary Work Program.

This came up in a friend’s Facebook post about ICE purchasing warehouses in small and mid-sized communities to house detained immigrants. My first reaction was simple: if the government is supposedly deporting people as quickly as possible, why invest in warehouses to house them at all? Would they eventually be used to house American citizens who did not agree with the regime (probably still a valid question)? My friend suggested that the detainees would not be deported but would be kept in the United States as a cheap source of labor.

That idea sent me down a research rabbit hole.

Here is what I have learned so far.

Although ICE itself did not exist in 1950, it operates using detention policies that were written long before the agency was created. One of those policies allows detained immigrants to be paid as little as one dollar per day for internal labor which includes work such as cooking, cleaning, and general maintenance inside detention facilities. This rule originated when immigration detention was overseen by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and was later absorbed into ICE after its formation following 9/11. While the work is officially described as voluntary, dozens of lawsuits allege that private contractors use coercion, including threats of solitary confinement or denial of basic necessities, to force detainees to participate.

Then there is the question of external labor. At present, there is no formal federal program that sends detained immigrants out to farms or hotels for a dollar a day. However, the Trump administration has recently floated the idea of a so-called temporary immigration pass. Under this proposal, undocumented workers in agriculture or hospitality could remain in the U.S. legally if their employers vouch for them and they pay taxes. Critics have been quick to point out what this really looks like: a pipeline to cheap, employer-controlled labor. 

There are also legal challenges piling up. Courts are increasingly ruling against the one-dollar-a-day system when private contractors are involved. In Washington state, a jury ordered GEO Group to pay more than $23 million in back pay after finding that state minimum wage laws apply even inside private detention centers. The U.S. Supreme Court is now weighing whether these companies can claim sovereign immunity to shield themselves from similar lawsuits.

Here is where my anger really kicks in.

The White House keeps insisting they are only trying to remove “the worst of the worst.” That is a lie. But even if it weren’t, why would anyone put the so-called worst of the worst to work in farms and hotels? Does that logic make sense to anyone?

Because to me, it sounds a whole lot like slavery dressed up in bureaucratic language.

I am still learning about this program, and I suspect there is more to uncover. But what I have seen so far is deeply disturbing.

What do you think of this program?

Slavery has a way of resurfacing in history, especially when we try to disguise it with softer language and official policies. We have been here before, as a country that justified exploitation by calling it necessary, legal, or temporary. Programs like this force us to confront uncomfortable questions about who we believe is worthy of dignity and fair treatment, and who we decide can be used for convenience. If we cannot look at this honestly and call it what it is, then we are not just repeating history, we are choosing it.

Connection Matters. Especially Now.

Today was one of those days when there simply were not enough hours.

Even though I set an alarm to leave the Friday morning coffee time with the neighbor ladies, I was enjoying the conversation so much that I did not even hear it go off. That may also be because my ears are plugged this week. I ended up spending an extra hour chatting with one of the ladies, and honestly, it was worth it.

I rushed home just in time for my monthly call with my friend Mary Anne in Pennsylvania. I am so glad I made it. We talked for a full hour, well, more like an hour and fifteen minutes, before she had to get back to work. Time with her always feels grounding.

After that, Joe and I headed out to run errands. Costco and the local market for groceries, a stop at a tool company in a nearby town, and then Menards to buy yet another tool along with some hardware odds and ends. It was one of those errands-heavy stretches that eats up more time than you expect.

When we finally got home, I squeezed in a short thirty minute session on the NuStep before Charlotte and Megan arrived. We went out to dinner and then clothes shopping to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday. A good evening, full of ordinary joys.

Now I am home again, trying to wrap up chores, write a bit, and get back on the NuStep for another forty minutes before calling it a night.

Life is good in so many ways these days.

And then there is the world outside my bubble.

Sadness over the death of Catherine O’Hara. More documents released from the Epstein file. I am all for consequences for molesters and abusers. I am not interested in their political affiliation, and I am not interested in their excuses. There is no excuse for what they did.

Then there is the arrest of independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for following protesters into a Minnesota church to continue their reporting. Note that Lemon and Fort are both African American. Note, too, that there was more outrage from people in the White House over this incident than there was over the children killed and injured in the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in August 2025.

And that is only what I know about. I have not even looked to see what has happened since earlier this afternoon.

With all of the awful and scary news piling up, I find myself even more grateful for the connections in my own life. The coffee conversations, the long-distance friendships, the errands run together, the birthday dinners, the quiet routines that hold me steady. I know I am blessed, and I know I am privileged. For today, at least.

If Someone Else Ran My Life for a Day

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My brain insisted today that it needed a brief hiatus from the news. Frankly, being immersed in the news challenges my ability to be creative. In today’s America, I need some form of creativity to help me find joy.

So what do I do when my creativity feels buried? I pull a card from the Delve Deck I have used in the past for ideas.

Today’s card asked this:

“If a stranger had to live your life for 24 hours, what would they probably screw up the most?”

Below are the ideas that immediately popped into my head, in the order they appeared. The tricky part is figuring out which one would be screwed up the most.

1. Finances

This one jumped to the top quickly. Checking bank account balances against my accounting software and monitoring credit card balances is important to me. I do this both to watch for fraudulent activity and because I use free accounting software to create a budget a year in advance.

We know our cash flow for the entire year at all times, which allows us to plan projects and home improvements without surprises. It also gives me a sense of control. That mattered a lot when we still had family at home, and it helped us build a nest egg so we could retire comfortably.

Honestly, I would not want a stranger having access to our money for 24 hours, let alone trying to keep track of the accounts.

2. Relationships

First off, Joe might notice there is a stranger in the house and wonder why. I say “might” because it depends on whether it is a workday. When he comes home at 2:00 a.m., he is very quiet as he showers and gets ready for bed. I wake up about half the time, and we talk about how his workday went.

In the mornings, I am usually up before him and downstairs. Depending on when the stranger shows up, Joe could go nearly 20 hours before realizing there was even someone else in the house. Those last four hours would likely include questions like, “Where is Beth?” Remember, we have ICE in Minnesota.

Then there is my daughter, son-in-law, and the grandkids. Jeremy and Megan have clear boundaries with the kids, and I respect those boundaries. I would not want to be the stranger if any of those lines got crossed. Caleb and Charlotte are older and would probably be fine meeting someone new. Oliver, the baby, has entered the “shy of strangers” phase and might not be thrilled to have an unfamiliar person in his play space.

As long as the stranger shows up on a day with no virtual chats scheduled, friends would not be an issue. That said, it might be fun if the stranger had to join one of those calls. My friends would likely be up for the challenge and would welcome them. After all, I was once a stranger to them too, and they welcomed and kept me.

My neighbors would not notice unless it was a Friday, when the women meet for coffee. Like my regular friends, they are a welcoming bunch. I can picture them asking, “Do you need anything?” or “How is the life of Beth going for you?” and then offering sweet treats.

My three brothers all live in Ohio. They already think I am strange.

3. My health regimen

I hope the stranger has the self-control to stay within my daily macronutrient goals. I also hope they are familiar with Excel, Google Drive, and how to use the NuStep. Beans would be an issue. I eat a lot of beans. Drinking lots of water too.

After completing the day’s workouts, everything has to be logged in my Excel activity sheet and summarized in the daily report I submit weekly to Coach Becky. This might be where the stranger could mess up the most, except that Coach Becky would simply say, “This is not a one-day program. One day will not cancel your success so far. Relax. Nobody is perfect.”

I am still trying to prove her wrong about the “nobody is perfect” part, which is fairly easy since her definition of perfect has a lot of wiggle room. “Tried your best for the day? That’s perfect!”

4. Writing my daily blog

Frankly, nothing could go wrong here unless the stranger wrote from a MAGA mindset.

In the grand scheme of my life, a life I enjoy, they could not do too much damage in 24 hours. Mostly because I have surrounded myself with kind, loving, and honorable people who would not be flummoxed by a stranger standing in for me.

 

Streets of Minneapolis Lyrics

Bruce Springsteen released a new song today. The link to listen to the song on YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w

Streets of Minneapolis

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In chants of ICE out now
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Memes of the Day

 

A Prayer I Needed to Hear

Image created using ChatGPT

Today’s blog shares the prayer offered by Reverend Tom Widlund during yesterday’s service at the Woodland (California) United Methodist Church. I found it extraordinarily moving. Many thanks to our friend Kara for sharing the prayer and for securing Reverend Widlund’s permission to pass it along here. My hope is that it will bless you and offer comfort and support on your own journey toward healing.

Today, we come to this candle in a different spirit.

Not as Democrats or Republicans, but as people seeking to follow your way.

We confess that:

We are tired

We are weary

We are heartbroken

We are filled with fear

We are angry

We are confused

We are even hopeless

We bear this week in the depths of our souls

 

So, we light this candle not just as a symbol today, but acknowledging the real presence and power of Christ.

The Light that breaks into the darkness

The light that leads the way through and out of darkness

The light that brings back hope

The light that sets our feet on the right path

 

We light this candle and pray for God’s presence to be

With the people of Minneapolis

With the family of Rene Good

With the family of Alex Pretti

With Liam Conejo Ramos and his family

With those who have been abused, locked away, disappeared, and killed at the hands of our government

With the immigrant communities across the nation who are being terrorized

With those who stand up and stand alongside these communities

 

We light this candle and pray for God’s presence to be

With us this morning

With our weariness

With our confusion

With our uncertainty

With our hopelessness

With our anger

With our downright mad-as-hell spirits

 

God, we also light this candle for those in power, those who wear the masks, hold the tear gas, and wield the power to take life, who demonize, who lie, and who harm

May they know your presence

May they know your love

May they feel the pain that is in your heart

May you turn them to compassion

May they see and hear

May the light break in on them

May they know that what we do to the least of these, we do to YOU!

 

God be with us, be with us all today

Break into the darkness and empower us to

DO JUSTICE
LOVE MERCY
WALK HUMBLY WITH YOU

AMEN!

Rest, Resistance, and Remembering Alex Pretti

      Photo taken from Pretti GoFundMe page

One day a week, usually Sunday, I take the day to rest. Part of that rest is staying away from social media. The other part is staying off the NuStep and allowing my body to recover. It is a small act of care, but one I have learned to protect.

This evening, though, I did a quick check-in on the news. There were a few developments that felt cautiously heartening. More and more members of Congress are saying they will vote for Secretary Noem’s impeachment. There is also pushback on giving ICE the additional funding they requested, funding that would need to pass by January 31st.

Today marked the first full day of Minnesota National Guard activation by Governor Walz. Reports indicate that Guard troops were telling protesters they were there to protect their right to protest, not suppress it. They were even handing out donuts and coffee. That matters. Presence matters. Tone matters.

There are also reports that the White House is unhappy with how the facts are emerging in the shooting death of Alex Pretti. As more witness statements and videos have surfaced, the picture has only become clearer and more horrifying. It appears to be exactly what the video shows, a murder. Why it happened, I still have not heard a credible explanation. And why the enforcers continued to shoot is something I cannot wrap my head around.

One of the most disturbing accounts I read came from a witness who is a pediatrician living nearby. He stated that he did not see Pretti attack federal agents or brandish a weapon. The witness ran outside, identified himself as a physician, and asked to assess Pretti’s condition. At first, agents refused, repeatedly demanding to see his medical license, which he did not have with him. None of the agents were performing CPR.

Eventually, one agent agreed to let the physician assess Pretti, after patting him down to make sure he was unarmed.

“I saw that the victim was lying on his side and was surrounded by several ICE agents. I was confused as to why the victim was on his side, because that is not standard practice when a victim has been shot,” the witness wrote. “Checking for a pulse and administering CPR is standard practice. Instead of doing either of those things, the ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds.”

The physician reported seeing at least three bullet wounds in Pretti’s back, another in his upper left chest, and a possible wound to his neck. He could not feel a pulse and began CPR until EMS arrived shortly afterward.

Source:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/25/shooting-witness-accounts-legal-cases-challenging-federal-operation-minnesota

It is so incredibly sad. And so completely needless. The part I struggle with most is the number of shots fired after the first one, especially given reports that the first shot struck Pretti in the back and that he was already on the ground.

The Border Patrol agents involved in the shooting were removed from Minneapolis, but they have not been suspended. Instead, they were sent out of state to another site that has not been disclosed in media reports and they remain on active duty.

A GoFundMe account has been set up for the Pretti family, and it has already raised a significant amount because people know injustice when they see it and because grief should never have to come with a financial burden.

GoFundMe for the Pretti family:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/alex-pretti-is-an-american-hero

On a day meant for rest, I find myself still processing all of this at once. The small signs of resistance, the quiet decency of people protecting protest, and the unbearable weight of a life taken for no defensible reason. I step away when I can because I have to, but I check back in because I must. Rest, for me, is not forgetting what is happening. It is gathering the strength to keep naming it, mourning it, and refusing to accept it as normal.