This week Bernie Madoff’s mistress told all. Solomon Jackson, Jr., won a $260 million Powerball jackpot. Singer Chris Brown earned 5 years probation for beating Rhianna and my 23-year-old daughter walked into her first classroom as a first-year teacher.
“What a full day this has been,” I thought to myself as I leaned against my grocery cart, filled with basic items I’d need to prepare breakfast and lunch the next day. It was late evening and I had just returned to our beautiful island after spending a week with my husband in Phoenix.
“Where’s Stetson?” my husband inquired this week as he hopped out of his truck. “If we don’t watch him, he’s gonna become eagle food!”
I hurried out of the garage with Stetson in my arms as my husband described what he had witnessed to cause his alarm. In what was a perfect “nature in action” moment, he watched as a mature eagle swooped down onto a pair of mallards.
I began noticing God’s whisper a few years ago, but I hear it only occasionally and it has taken me quite some time to discover what prompts and also impedes it.
Wednesday afternoon I lounged in a sizeable, empty kiddie pool with my young adult children, to soak in some warm, stray rays of sunshine and enjoy simple conversation. No doubt we looked silly. In fact, a neighbor drove up and informed us the pool would work better if filled. But this is Whidbey Island.
I am a member of the Sirius/XM satellite radio nation, and have been for some time now. My brother was the one to introduce such programming to me years ago when he was a cutting edge listener and I a channel switcher between songs to avoid the commercials. Eventually I purchased a car with the service and I’ve been a devotee ever since.
I particularly like how I can hurry out the door and listen to the same international news feeds I was watching on my TV while getting ready at home. I also like the fact that with one stoke of a preset button I am catapulted back to the 70s, where the sounds of James Taylor, The Rolling Stones, or the Bee Gees take me to a time when I was a teenager and music filled my world. My parents would say it was constant and loud back then. I would say it was essential and expressed the sentiments of my generation.
I stood in front of the Father’s Day selection of cards this week and allowed myself five minutes to read…
I’ve been writing Faithful Living for 15 years and I shook my head in amazement this week when I looked back on an early column suggesting ways to stay connected with friends and loved ones.
This week I purchased Harris’ Farmer’s Almanac at the grocery store because it is on my list of things I believe I must experience. Immediately underneath this personal listing of mine I’ve written, “Watch ‘Gone with the Wind’.” This will be difficult because I’m famous for taking cat naps. Don’t tell my husband Matt, but I have no memory of the final 30 minutes of “Night at the Museum 2,” which was the focus of our date night this week. I was true to form and easily fell asleep sitting upright, but fortunately recovered quickly from my nap to proclaim, “That was really cute!” at the conclusion of the movie.
Only once do I recall the minister of our church entering our home when I was a child. In anticipation, we cleaned. After all, you had to clean up your life to talk to the preacher. Therefore, the green shag carpeting in the living room was carefully vacuumed. While Mom put on the coffee, my bother and I were instructed to put on our best manners.
Monday marks the official start to Summer 2009 and according to AAA, lower gas prices and enticing travel bargains are encouraging a 1.5 percent increase over last year of people who will celebrate Memorial Day away from home.
Is it my imagination, or does food taste better when cooked outside? And I don’t care one bit that they have no nutritional value: I love marshmallows. In anticipation of sunny weather predictions for this weekend, I hurried to the grocery store midweek for another bag of Stay Puffs.
I remember thinking as a youngster that I had a terrific family and if I wished hard enough, my life with them would go on forever. I could not imagine living without them.
Neither could I have imagined the serenity I would experience while traveling with them in the Pacific Northwest one summer in the 1970s.
