by Kelli Donley | Feb 21, 2020 | Uncategorized
Last year, a neighbor gave me a sock full of birdseed. She loved her birds, and I would too. Was I at this point in my life? Apparently I am. I placed the sock in one of our ficus trees within view of the dinner table and we’d watch in awe as tiny birds in a dozen...
by Kelli Donley | Sep 18, 2019 | Uncategorized
I grew up in a home where the garage shelves were heavy with pickles, beets, and jam. Our vegetable patch in the backyard always needed weeding. Come January, we’d climb the citrus trees. We had one small peach tree in the corner of the yard that would produce...
by Kelli Donley | May 7, 2019 | Domestic Art, Family, Reuse
My cousin Cale was given this quilt after my grandparents died. It wasn’t one my grandmother used; it was kept on display on a high plant shelf above the kitchen. Cale’s puppy didn’t show such deference and sooner than later the hand-stitched...
by Kelli Donley | Apr 29, 2019 | Community, Uncategorized
Spring is in full bloom in the desert. Snowbirds have flown home, school children are antsy for summer, yellow palo verde blossoms are in the air. Baseball training grounds are empty, stale popcorn in the seats and dreams of the World Series carried forward to a new...
by Kelli Donley | Apr 23, 2019 | Arizona, Community
Last weekend, while wandering Miami, Arizona after a lovely walk through Boyce Thompson Arboretum, a girlfriend and I stumbled upon a community demonstration for hydroponic gardening. We were “just in time for the tour!” Elvin Fant was leading several...
by Kelli Donley | Apr 18, 2019 | 2019, Faith, Family
Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays. My late Grandmother Maxine would have us to her home in Tucson for a simple meal after church, and we’d all enjoy chocolate. She loved chocolate, and it was her annual sacrifice for Lent. I think of her often,...
by Kelli Donley | Mar 10, 2019 | Uncategorized
ROAR! There are things we are not meant to understand. I tell Gracie this, but she continues to wonder, to bother me for answers, yipping in my ears late at night. For one, I do not know why after we leave that terrible place, the one where they mop at our ears and...
by Kelli Donley | Feb 26, 2019 | Family, Uncategorized
When I was born, my British grandmother, fondly known as Gramma J, was just 45. She was a young mother, as was my mother. By 50, she’d have three grandchildren and one on the way. Gramma J is still alive in her body, but her spirit has long since left this...
by Kelli Donley | Jan 3, 2019 | 2019
Driving into work this morning, I thought about how the happiness and satisfaction of relationships depends on balance. Imaging each person on a seesaw, the best relationships work when the emotion desired in the center is actually centered. He doesn’t love you...
by Kelli Donley | Oct 10, 2018 | Nelson
Yesterday, unexpectedly, I had to put Nelson down. He’d been sick for a while with an uncommon autoimmune disease. Sunday, he was chasing me around the house trying to eat the tortilla chips off my plate, in his normal, annoying way. Monday as I left for...
