January 18th, 2008
The Moon In My Rearview Mirror
My beloved grandmother was content to sit on a porch for hours engaged in storytelling, while I struggled to remain still long enough to listen. Deeply aware of the special gift
December 18th, 2007
New Years Eve Party Menu Ideas For A Fantastic New Years Eve Party
Hosting a New Year’s Eve Party can be great fun. It’s a way to reminisce with friends, and to look forward to what the new year will bring. Here are some ideas for food and drinks to start you off:
New Year’s Eve offers plenty of parties with friends and family to celebrate another year. You will find there are many menu options for New Year’s Eve. Most of these options include a lot of champagne, wine or beer depending on your preferences. You will also want to include plenty of items to eat. If you are having an informal party you may just get cold cut platters, cheese platters, vegetable platters, and many chips and dips to share. Or you could have a full scale meal with a potluck dinner for you and your friends. Here are a few other ideas:
December 6th, 2007
Examining Happiness
“What is happiness?” a young child asked. For a moment I was a bit taken aback. Then I thought, ‘Happiness’ is a really complicated sensory thing - a bit like an onion. As you peel away the outer layers, according to your experience, you expose the deeper, more intimate layers, one by one, until you get to the core - inner peace and contentment, which is the essence of happiness.
Happiness has been described as beatitude, blessedness, bliss, cheerfulness, child-like innocent contentment, delight, ecstasy, felicity, being light-hearted, feeling carefree, good-humoured, fun-loving, being joyful, rapturous, merriment, tranquillity, or enjoying inner peace. I know that inner peace is a necessary prerequisite of happiness.
November 27th, 2007
Old-fashioned Family Funeral Journey To A Country Church
Sometimes the journey and the destination become one. Thus it was on a recent family trip to a family funeral for a cousin with a beautiful woman with a beautiful heart and a beautiful voice. She’d sung at my sister’s memorial almost three years ago and at my mother’s graveside service about a year-and-a-quarter ago.
This is a big funeral inside the fully-packed country church, plunked down in the middle of agricultural land. I recall fanning myself here as a girl with a fan provided by a funeral home as we sat listening to a sermon and then rising to sing a hymn. Today there’s air-conditioning, recorded music, and barely a dry eye in the full house of the Lord. The town drunk made something beautiful for God inside this renovated Sugar Grove Church.
November 17th, 2007
Family Members
How painful it is to see a close family member become
weak and sick?
My ex Mother in law is getting sicker for every day that goes by.
She has been a heavy smoker for thirty odd years.
Her father died of suffocating from a severe lung disease.
It seems that she has passed on to her.
She has got 40% capacity in one lung left! No wonder she becomes blue faced and pale.