Glue Gun Control

By Lynn Rebuck

I am not good with a glue gun.

I can shoot a pistol with great accuracy at a paper target, but ask me to glue together paper from Target, and it’s a whole different story.

The glue gun is the weapon of choice for crafters worldwide, and quite frankly, I think we need stricter glue gun laws. This suggestion may upset some of you (especially members of the NGGA, the National Glue Gun Association), but hear me out. I think there needs to be a “cooling off” period before one is allowed to buy a glue gun.

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A Spring In Your Step

By Rhonda Rhea

My kids keep asking me if I’ll bounce on the new trampoline with them. I keep telling them that I can bounce without the trampoline, thank you very much. Besides I could get hurt on that thing. Not just the average compound-fracture-when-you-splatter-on-the-ground kind of injury. No, I’m telling you. Women over 40 do not want to sass gravity.

For instance, a younger woman can see a friend across the yard and give a big, friendly wave. Not so we of the over 40 crowd. If I were to give one of those big waves at this stage in my life, the hand/wrist part of the wave would be long over before that fluttery stuff between my elbow and shoulder stopped waving. No one wants to be that friendly.

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Demise of a Salesman

By Emily Parke Chase

The salesman appeared at my home ten minutes before the hour and parked his car behind my own vehicle, preventing any possibility of my escape.  From his trunk, Jim (not his real name) pulled a week’s worth of luggage. The biggest box held a vacuum cleaner. Three other boxes contained miraculous attachments that would turn this machine into the Harry Houdini of housecleaning. As he entered my home, I mentioned that I already owned a Kirby.

“Really? How long have you had it?”   “About ten years.”  “Well, we’ve spent two million dollars improving the machine.”  Jim displays the new attachments, all duplicates of mine which are stored downstairs under a tidy layer of dust.  “Ah, but have you seen this?” He picks up a hard rubber attachment and wrestles it inside out. He works hard to make this process look easy. “Of course, this is new. It becomes softer after a few times. With the blower feature, this attachment can clean out a drain.”  Have I been negligent? Do people vacuum their kitchen drains weekly?  “Can I use it to plunge a clogged toilet?”  “No, if you turned the machine on, water would splash all over you.”  The picture of filth spewing all over me is unpleasant, but wouldn’t a plugged kitchen drain do the same? That drain gums up only when the sink is full of tepid greasy water. This device cost two million dollars and I still have to bail out the sink first?

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Stop. Breathe.

By Jodi Whisenhunt

It’s a beautiful fall afternoon, cool by Texas standards. A misty drizzle spritzes the window while I relax in the recliner and listen to my children’s laughter. When what to my wandering eye should appear, but a miniature sleigh and…Oops! I guess I got too relaxed for a moment.

It’s a rare occurrence these days to have time to daydream. I’m a freelance writer and editor, but I also homeschool my children. School has resumed, as has all the busy-ness that accompanies the season. We have classes, music lessons, dance rehearsals, ball games, church events, and sleepovers. Not to mention deadlines, doctor appointments, Bible studies, and holidays. Complicate matters with each family member’s unique frustration level and nerves can quickly fry.

My daughter tends to be overly dramatic. Why, just today she threw a fit at Academy Sports & Outdoors because she did not get a soccer ball like the one her brother has. Even with Mom and Dad’s assurance of, “Maybe you’ll get one for your birthday,” she insisted she never gets anything she wants and whined and moaned all the way home.

My husband was tempted to react. He sternly reprimanded her a couple times, but then remembered to stop and breathe. Acknowledging her tantrum rewarded her and encouraged her to continue, whereas stopping to breathe allowed Daddy to maintain self-control and assert his authority more effectively.

1 Peter 5:8 (NIV) advises, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” The enemy prides himself on the inevitable disasters that loom over the most carefully organized schedules and the conflicts that lurk on every page of the calendar.

And so each day, when havoc threatens peaceful productivity: Stop. Breathe. Such restraint improves discipline, both the discipline of our labor and the discipline of daily structure. It curbs anxiety and allows God to order our days. By practicing self-control, we resist our enemy the devil and he flees from us, freeing us to go about our busy-ness in a civilized manner.

The clouds have given way to the setting sun, weaving hues of lavender and azure amid soft pink billows…A Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night! Sorry! I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jodi Whisenhunt and her husband Richard homeschool their three children in McKinney, Texas. Jodi is a freelance writer and editor whose services are available at jodiwhisenhunt.com. She can be reached at jodi.whisenhunt@att.net.

New International Version New Again?

According to a news story I just read, the top-selling Bible in North America will undergo its first revision in over thirty years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gender terms in the sacred text.

The New International Version of the Bible will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship.  The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011.  The NIV was first published in 1978 and more than 300 million NIV Bibles are in print worldwide; its publishers and distributors say the translation accounts for 30 percent of Bibles sold in North America. 

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