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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Failed New Year’s Resolutions

By Darren Marlar

January 1st – I resolve to read my bible in one year. Day one.

January 2nd – I read day two in my bible.

January 8th – Say, wasn’t I supposed to be reading my bible every day? Well, I guess I blew it. The whole year is a wash now.

That’s how it always happens. In January I promise I’m going to do 100 sit-ups a day, give up sugar, run five miles each morning, and contribute all of my spare change to those less fortunate while making time for eight hours of prayer every evening before bed. About three hours later I find out exactly how weak my resolve truly is when I hear the muffled sound of the vanilla ice cream calling me from the freezer. I try to ignore it, but end up failing. I give up and say to myself, “Oh well – maybe next year. Now where’s that chocolate sauce? Hmmm… a new episode of CSI is on tonight. Ooh, it’s an eight hour CSI marathon… sweet!”

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Microwave Stalactites

By Rhonda Rhea

I opened the door to the microwave to reheat my coffee a few mornings ago, and then realized I just didn’t want to put it in there. Ew. Before the coffee was going in, somebody was going to have to clean out that microwave. It looked like someone had a tiny little ticker tape parade. So much food-confetti, so little space. Worst of all, there were a couple of spaghetti sauce stalactites in there. I like my coffee with lots of sweetener and plenty of creamer. But call me picky, I like it completely without spaghetti sauce drippings. And speaking of “picky,” I thought I might actually need a pickaxe to get to the root of some of those stalactites. Do they make a microwave cleaner that has dynamite as its main component? 

Life can be a little like my microwave. Anytime I’m wondering why it doesn’t taste as sweet, I really have to look at what I might be hanging onto, stalactite-style. Hanging onto self-centeredness, bitterness, laziness—any of those kinds of things—will zap the deliciousness right out of life.

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Scrapping Scrapbooking

By Lynn Rebuck       

I am, to put it kindly, crafting-impaired.

It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have often attempted a new craft, only to discover that I am not well-suited for it.

For instance, I tried Scherenschnitte, the intricate German art of paper-cutting. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I am just not cut out for it. 

I bought the special scissors, learned the quick cutting strokes, and cut my heart out (well, I almost did, when one day I quickly tucked my scissors in my bra and forgot about them). In fact, I became a little compulsive about my new hobby.

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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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