a Sweet Life Saga

As I walked through the lobby of my building, I noticed one thing everyone had in common – they (we) were all wearing an identification badge of some sort. The badges are all shapes, sizes and colors, just like people. But they all serve the same purpose -- to give us access to a certain place. Soooooo, I started thinking (yes, I know it is dangerous when I think, however, this is a good one). What if we all had to wear a badge regarding our salvation; to show whether or not we would be admitted to the Kingdom of Heaven? We all wear our work badges prominently displayed on our person to show we have access to a place where others aren’t permitted to go. But, given the opportunity, would we wear our “I am a Christian” badge just as proudly or would we hide it behind the lining of our coat? What if we were forced to wear a badge that listed all of our sins – on a daily basis? That each day we got up, the badge would look different according to the sins we had committed the previous day. ...

I enjoy cooking. While my own palate is not varied, (I’m a meat, potatoes and M&M’s kind of girl) I do enjoy preparing a variety of foods for my family. Whenever possible, and time permitting, I like to make things “from scratch” as opposed to opening up a mix of some sort. Stop laughing -- it’s true! Recently, my husband and I endeavored to prepare our own “from scratch” biscuits and gravy. Some of you may think this is the easiest and most natural thing in the world; however, homemade gravy has always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to get it right and always ended up with a blob of something that even the hungriest of dogs wouldn’t ingest. One morning, while preparing our homemade biscuits (a recipe we have now perfected), my husband suggested that we make our own gravy. WHAT??...Homemade gravy??...No way!! I immediately broke out in a sweat. I admitted to him that I had never been successful in preparing an edible gravy mixture. He insisted it couldn’t be that difficult an...

As I was driving on the interstate going to lunch one day recently, I found myself driving behind a small pickup truck with 3 children in the bed of the truck. Yes, I know this is illegal and I should have run them down and made my best Gomer Pyle "citizen's arrest" address, but they seemed so carefree, just enjoying the sun on their faces and the wind in their hair. Oh how I would have loved to be one of those children, riding down the road, not a care in the world. I began thinking back to my childhood, reflecting on how we spent our summers, and I found myself asking “whatever happened to the good old days?” Now to each person, the “good old days” represent something totally different, but to me, those days represent a life full of happiness, naiveté, anticipation and excitement. When I was a child we spent our entire summer outdoors. We had no video games to play nor did we have 175 channels to watch on TV. We spent all of our time OUTSIDE – which is almost unh...