You can see by the map on the top of my blog that Tom and I have been a lot of places in 2015. Today, the last day of the year, I wanted to highlight our five favorite places from the last year. Our top favorite place in 2015 was Scotty’s Castle and Death Valley …
From December 2015
A Low Sodium Diet
Last June, when Tom and I had our annual check-ups, our blood pressure was way up. Tom has struggled with high blood pressure most of his life, but mine had always been normal. Our doctors instructed both of us to take our blood pressure regularly. I was also told to lose a little weight and …
Family Traditions
Family traditions are an important part of making Christmas feel like Christmas, and my family is no different. We have traditions that we do every year and until we do, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas. Here are a few of my family’s Christmas traditions: Lights and decorations go up around the beginning of December …
Anna’s Story
Yesterday at Linworth UMC, the young Associate Pastor Matt Yoder, preached on “Anna’s Story.” Anna is one of those peripheral people in the Christmas story. She appears in the story when Mary and Joseph take the baby Jesus to the Temple to be dedicated. Anna is part of the symmetry of Luke’s gospel. Luke’s Christmas …
A Wonderful Christmas
Tom and I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas with John and Jackie. It started on Christmas Eve with a “Thanksgiving dinner” at their house. John and Jackie were in Japan at Thanksgiving and we had to work, so none of us had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner – until Thursday. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, …
The Night Before Christmas
I wonder how many of us can recite “The Night Before Christmas”? We have heard the rhyme so many times and can probably sing the song – maybe not get all the way through it, but recite a good portion of it anyway. One of my favorite lines has always been “not a creature was …
The Girl on the Train
I love to read and I especially like to read thrillers – books that you can’t put down because you have to see what happens next. “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins recently won the Goodreads “Thriller of the Year Award” so that put it on my list to check out. I got …
Our Evolving Plans
You may have noticed, on our itinerary, that our plans for the winter were “evolving.” Things don’t always work out the way we plan or the way we want them. We had intended to return to Death Valley – the land of perpetual sunshine and warmth – for a second winter but the flooding in …
Rough Places Smooth
From Isaiah 45:2-3 (NAS): “I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.” Tom and I have been in some rough places in the last year. There have been some rough roads …
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Yesterday afternoon Tom and I went to see “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” It wasn’t opening night, but it was closer than Tom and I usually get. John and Jackie got us tickets at the AMC Dublin Village 18 – the theatre with the reclining chairs that I wrote about last year when we went …