Sorry, Wrong Number

By Emily Parke Chase –

“Not again!”

The error message blinks on my screen like an avenging warrior.  For the third day in a row, I am unable to connect to our internet service provider. Read more

Subbing’s Not for Sissies

By Emily Parke Chase –

“Oh, why didn’t I listen to my teachers?  Why didn’t I pay attention to those who gave me instruction?” Proverbs 5:13 (NLT)
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Recline in Peace

By Emily Chase

Crack!

My husband plunks down on our recliner and breaks the mechanism.  The chair now has a severe cant to one side.  After years of warning our children not to abuse the chair, my husband has broken it himself.

“Don’t worry, Gene,” I assure him.  “The chair came with a lifetime warranty.”

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Football Highlights

By Emily Chase

Every New Year’s Day, my father and my three older brothers SuperGlued themselves to the couch in order to watch football for eight or ten hours straight.  They’d tune in to the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Gator Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, one after another all through the afternoon and into the evening with only brief time-outs to reach for the chips bowl.  I didn’t share their passion for pigskin but I could get excited about the occasional touchdown.

My mother had even less interest in football yet she always looked forward to this sports marathon.  An hour before game time, she would retrieve all the family silver and pile it at one end of the couch.  Serving dishes, flatware, vases, teapots and trays were all about to get their annual polishing.  On the coffee table in front of the couch, she’d set out the polish, a plastic basin filled with warm soapy water, and a pile of soft rags.

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Trimming Traditions

By Emily Chase

Celebration of Christmas demands that we maintain certain family traditions year after year. Some traditions satisfy the desires of eager children, while others protect exhausted parents. Here are five easy suggestions for trimming those traditions to fit the current season.

Decorating the house is the first challenge of the season. Stores begin decorating their shelves before Halloween so why not follow their example and get an early start? Combine Halloween costumes with Christmas themes and have your kids dress up as a Christmas wreath or an oversized Christmas stocking. When they come home, just have them hang the costume on the front door or over the fireplace mantel. Your neighbors have helpfully filled the stocking with candy treats so you can cross that chore off your list too.

Have you accumulated a mountain of cardboard cutouts covered with macaroni and glitter that your kids made in preschool? Your children are now in high school, and your family tree is beginning to look like more a bulletin board covered with post it notes. Start a new tradition. Recycle those ornaments! Have your children write notes on the back and send them to their former teachers as greeting cards. Think of the joy the teachers will experience knowing the child that emptied the entire bottle of glitter into the fruit punch still remembers them.

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