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Small Town America

We make Christmas to so many things that it is not.  It can become the most frustrating time of the year instead of the most wonderful time of the year.  But, Christmas isn’t candy canes and popcorn put on strings.  It isn’t mounds of presents and twinkling lights on every tree in the neighborhood. Christmas…

Losing someone you love is never an easy thing to bear, but it is even more difficult when it happens near the holidays.  I lost my sister, my last sibling, last year a week before Thanksgiving.  It was totally unexpected and all happened so fast.  Actually, I was at the Cleveland Clinic having surgery the…

We usually think of Jesus’ sacrifice for us at Easter time.  We recall His willingness to submit to His Father’s will and endure the agony of the crucifixion.  Indeed, that was a great sacrifice which bought us our eternal salvation, but there was another sacrifice that Jesus made long before He was nailed to the…

This is Joshua and Jesse after their afternoon at the ice skating rink.  They were “too pooped to participate”, in anything except a nice long nap.  I think we all wanted to take a nap, but only the little ones were allowed this luxury.   The only time these guys were quiet was when they were…

We have an ice rink about three blocks from us and my kids have always been skaters.  This year we had the wonderful experience of having both of our sons home at the same time.  So, they decided it would be a good idea for them to all go ice skating. Matt hasn’t skated in…

Most people haven’t even finished their Christmas shopping yet, but we have already had Christmas with two of our grown children and their families.  I really had to scramble to get everything bought and wrapped so early. It sounds crazy, but once it’s in motion, Christmas can be celebrated on any given day of the…

     I love my roses, especially the sweet smelling ones.  Often when they try to make hybred types, like purple and black roses, the flower loses its fragrance.  I like the unusual colors, but the fragrance is what is best.      This is one of the last roses from this summer.  We actually picked and…

I am always looking for new ways to bring joy into our lives.  This blog is more about laughter than true joy, but maybe I will get you to chuckle a bit.    My oldest son, Matt, and his family usually come home for Thanksgiving and then we do our Christmas with them on the next day. …

This year is the first time we haven’t had a real tree.  All our growing up years and all our raising children years we always had a live tree.  But, since neither of us can get down on the floor to tighten the tree stand and water the tree, we had to go with an…

I have great fun while frosting cookies with my grand daughter, Erin.  She is only 5 and still thinks grandma is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Last week we had to make some Christmas cookies early because we had Christmas with part of the family the day after Thanksgiving. We had three colors of…
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