by Stacey Denny | Aug 5, 2026 | Plain Speech Messages
A family friend is getting married this week, and I’m officiating. When I met with he and his fiancée to discuss the wedding, I asked where they were going on their honeymoon. “The beach,” they said. Then he asked where we had gone on ours. I told him we had driven to...
by Stacey Denny | Aug 13, 2025 | Plain Speech Messages
I was up on the ladder last month cleaning our gutters and noticed our 30-year roof that was installed 18 years ago already needs replaced. The month before I had replaced our 80,000-mile tires after 49,000 miles, and just before that I replaced a half dozen LED light...
by Stacey Denny | Aug 12, 2025 | Plain Speech Messages
I had a neighbor growing up whose name was Roger. We were the same age, maybe 7 or 8, and we shared a sandbox, a sort of communal sandbox, which we shared with several neighborhood cats. Every morning we’d clean it out, then play cars, building highways, tunnels, and...
by Stacey Denny | Jun 24, 2025 | Plain Speech Messages
An old friend came to visit last week. We were sitting outside in our screenhouse, and the subject of money came up. My friend said, “I love money,” and I immediately thought of the comedian Steve Martin, who said, “I love money. I love everything about it. I bought...
by Stacey Denny | Jan 20, 2025 | Plain Speech Messages
When I was 16, I was hired, along with 39 other teenagers, to work at the Indiana Dunes Lakeshore for the summer. It was my first time away from home, except for vacations, which were always family events, so I was worried about not knowing anyone, and whether or not...
