Thanksgiving Prayer

Years of teaching preschoolers taught me to appreciate short prayers that three-year-olds can easily memorize. Many times the children would introduce the prayer to their parents at family meal times, and a new tradition would be born. For each new morning with it’s light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, [...]

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Thanksgiving Blessing #4

I am deeply grateful for the freedoms that allow me to celebrate Thanksgiving according to my own convictions and my own conscience. Empty chairs around Thanksgiving tables of many military families will be visual reminders that our freedoms are bought with a price. Although it’s appropriate to express prayers of gratitude for our military each [...]

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Book Review: Coping With Cancer

Pastor John E. Packo wrote Coping With Cancer and Other Chronic or Life-Threatening Diseases in 1990, nine years after his cancer diagnosis and treatment. I purchased the book while receiving treatment for breast cancer, in 2001, but never got around to reading it. As I headed back to familiar waiting rooms for additional cancer testing [...]

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Thanksgiving Blessings #3

Today would have been Grandmother Rachel’s 98th birthday. Grandmother taught me many things that became an integral part of my life, and that I have passed on to my own children. I am thankful that Grandmother taught me: 1. how to grow pot plants—Grandmother Rachel cultivated my interest in plants when I was eleven years [...]

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2009 Word of the Year

It’s that time of year of again—time for the New Oxford American Dictionary to announce their Word of the Year. And the winner is . . . unfriend. It’s a verb that means to remove a person from ‘friend’ on a social networking site. As in, “I decided to unfriend my neighbor on Facebook since [...]

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Thanksgiving Blessings #2

All the talk of eating squirrels, squab, possums, rabbits, and soft-shell turtles in a previous post reminded me that I’m thankful that those animals are not part of my diet. Here are some other food and food-related items for which I am thankful. 1. standard measurements in recipes—Although I get a kick out of reading [...]

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Have Booster Seat Will Travel

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Thanksgiving Blessings #1

For the last two years I have  compiled thankful lists in November. There is so much to be thankful for that it’s hard to know where to begin.  Listed in no particular order . . . 1. “Hello in the house!” —Andrew greets me with this phrase sometimes when he calls or visits, and it [...]

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Of Squirrels and Pigeons

A quarrel between two neighbors was reported this morning on National Public Radio. One man is demanding that the Mannington, West Virginia, city council take action against his next-door-neighbor for attracting pigeons with bird seed, bread, and French fries, because the birds drift into his yard, and make a mess. While city council members ponder [...]

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Book Review: The Jesus Storybook Bible

The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every story whispers his name is my favorite children’s Bible. The author, Sally Lloyd-Jones, presents the Bible from creation through Revelation, with Jesus at the center of every Story. The recently released Deluxe addition is narrated by actor, David Suchet. Although I didn’t recognize the narrator’s name (pronounced SOO-shay), I did [...]

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