Hearth To Heart

Driving home after a day at work can get to the best of us. With hectic schedules and multi-tasked minds, it's hard to avoid road rage as we hustle around each other.

Even this summer we felt under the gun with places to be. "What time do you have to be at practice, Kathie?" I asked as I tried to gauge what I might do in the next hour.

I raised my aching body from the wooden planked bleacher seat that I'd become fused to. I should have taken more stand-up-and-stretch breaks between heats.

Trying to go from breakfast all the way until supper, I'm reminded, again how much better off I'd be "grazing" through the day with several light meals and snacks rather than two bigger meals.

One Saturday when my brother could lend me his help and his pick-up bed, I finally brought home the three-seater swing complete with awning in a color scheme I could live with (no large patterns with flowers or leaves), that I'd purchased weeks ago at a summer clearance price.

Trying to go from breakfast all the way until supper, I'm reminded, again how much better off I'd be, "grazing" through the day with several light meals and snacks rather than two bigger meals.

Three steps higher than the rest of our church's sanctuary, Carol and I noted how much hotter the air felt in just that slightly elevated area where we took our turn as elders during our Sunday worship service.

As we celebrate our freedom on the Fourth, let's reminisce via the wartime correspondence I dug out of Dad's cedar chest

After Flag Day and Father's Day, we're headed fast toward the heart of summer. How do we fit all those special times that can best be enjoyed on a summer day into the limited weekends on our calender? Inevitably, events coincide and choices must be made.

It's time, again, to ask my daughters if they have a gift in mind for their dad for this Sunday and if we need to rush out at the last minute to shop? Although we all know deep down that allowing ourselves to be entrapped by society's marketing routines is our own choice, we also know we would feel slightly guilty if we didn't step somewhere within the seasonal shopping loop.