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  Marriage 101: Agree to Disagree   I was once part of a Bible study group where the leader shared a few basic “rules” before we started. He said there would be times we didn’t agree; there would be topics where our life experiences shaped our thinking in differing ways.    Our first rule for the group was to bathe everything we said in love. The second was that we had to agree to disagree.    Appreciating differing viewpoints is essential to any good relationship.    I have always enjoyed the story of the five blind men and the elephant. As each touched a different part of the animal he would describe what it was.    “A wall,” one of the men offered as his hand met with the broad side of the beast.   “No,” said another as the elephant’s trunk wound around the man. “It is a great snake.”   The one with a large ear flapping back and forth before him declared it a fan while the one holding the tail was sure it was a rope.   ...

  What’s on Your Plate?   As I write this, I am preparing for Thanksgiving. It will be a small gathering.  My family in Ohio and Wisconsin will be “doing their own thing” as they say. I was thinking about our large family gatherings. The cleaning and cooking, setting the table, and the long to-do list I live by the weeks prior to the holiday.     I occurs to me I often talk about having “too much on my plate” when facing a new challenge or opportunity.    As in… “Would you like to join our women’s club? We have a wonderful time and serve the community.” “I’m sorry. It sounds interesting, but I have      too much on my plate right now.”   I am not making excuses. I really do have a lot going on.    I am, after all, a newlywed. Mike and I knew each other as teens, but we are still getting to know each other as adults. That’s a good thing.    We bought a house that needs some updates and decided to live in it a...

  The Eleventh Hour   Eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of November.    The eleventh hour… “the last possible moment before it’s too late.”   The eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.   That was when peace negotiations began in 1913, bringing World War I to an end. Armistice Day. A day to lay down arms. Armistice Day eventually became Veterans Day and is officially recognized each year on November 11.    Don’t worry. This post isn’t a history lesson. It is a post about friendship and an appreciation of the freedom and peace we share because of others who were willing to take a stand.   The day before the official celebration recognizing Veterans Day, seven of us met at a small café near the Veterans Memorial Park and Museum in Tampa, Florida. All of us grew up in the area. All but one of our group graduated from the same high school, Chamberlain. Our high school had established a plaque in the park with the names of those ...

A Week to Treasure I spent this past week in Ohio.    I stayed with my mom at her house the first two nights. It was sweet to wake up to the smell of fresh coffee brewing and the sound of my mother singing as she moved around the kitchen.   Throughout the week we found time to play a couple of our favorite games like Backstreet Rummy and Farkle. We toured my youngest daughter’s house, which is almost ready for her precious little family to occupy and we attended the musical “School House Rock” to watch my oldest granddaughter perform. She has a wonderful voice.  I’m not saying that just because I’m her grandmother. The girl landed a solo in the performance that was excellent.   Mom and I attended church together on Sunday. It is the church where my children grew up. The church where all three girls were baptized. The church where all three walked down the aisle on their father’s arm to leave our household for their own, bringing three good men into our family. ...