"You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln

I love Abraham Lincoln for many reasons. He was one of our founding fathers and earl...

 This past week in the news a heartwarming story grabbed my attention. It involved a nurse who was standing at the nurse’s station at the hospital where she works when she heard the doctor mention the name of the most recent patient that was being admitted to the hospital. When interviewed, she said that she heard the name “Victor Peraza” spoken out loud and her heart almost stopped. She stood frozen as this new patient, this Mr. Peraza was wheeled by her and into his room. The reason f...

I have been thinking a lot lately about habits. We are all familiar with the age old saying that human beings are creatures of habit to which I heartily agree. The interesting catch here is that habits can be both good and bad... can they not?  We can have a habit of always wheeling the grocery store cart back to the rightful place in the parking lot…the area specially designated for returning carts or we can have a habit of pushing that same cart a few feet away from our car before we hop ...

“ He who doesn’t have legs cannot teach one how to walk.” – Unknown

 The other day I had an interesting experience. I witnessed a conversation in which someone who has never been a parent was giving instructions to a seasoned parent on how to parent their teenager. The only reason that I was not completely irked was because I was more amused. It was one of those situations in life where you say “ I would have been really mad if it wasn’t just so awfully funny !”

To...

“ The best way for a man to train up a child in the way that he should go is to travel that way himself.” – source unknown

Too bad the individual who penned this particular quote is not known. I say that because he or she was right on the mark. The problem is that even though all of us parents know the complete truth of setting the right examples in life, it is still just so stinkin’ hard to do sometimes isn’t it?

For example, I have never been known to be what is referred to as a...

“Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things.” -  Frank A. Clark

One of the toughest lessons to learn in life is that it is basically a routine. It is simply made up of little things is it not? We get up, make the bed, get dressed , go to our jobs, pay the bills, maintain the house, care for the kids, eat dinner, spend time with our spouse or friends, and go to bed to pretty much do the same thing all over again the next morning....

“ A Man Thinks That By Mouthing Hard Words, He Understands Hard Things” -  Herman Melville

Have you ever noticed how some of the harshest words seem to be uttered by very simple people? What I mean by simple is unwise, unstable, and extreme. Whether these words be stark profanity or vulgar slang or just coarse, rough language in general, more often that not, the folks speaking them are not known for their prudence or wisdom.

When I was young I used to mistake passion for being right. This c...

“ If the eye does not want to see, neither light nor glasses will help” – German proverb

   Let’s just be honest; the above quote packs a mighty powerful punch. Lots of wisdom and truth in this German saying. Although it specifically talks about the eye, it is really dealing with the broader issue of every man’s heart and spirit. The crux of the issue is that until someone really desires to change something about themselves or in their own life, progress or change rarely happens.

 Tak...

“It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand” – Apache

  There exists many wise sayings by native Americans and this is certainly one of them.  We have similar clichés that we are more familiar with but basically mean the same thing- “Actions speak louder than words”, and “Practice what you preach” and “Walk the talk” to name just a few. Somehow though, I prefer the Apache quote over the rest.

Perhaps it is because the phrase “thunder ...

" I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better” – Plutarch

 Friendship is a great but tricky thing. It is often sought after but perhaps not enjoyed by a lot of folks. How many pairs of people have you known who were once great friends but no longer are?  Scores of folks find themselves in this category, myse...

Quote –  “ If you would be pungent, be brief ; for it is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. “   -  Robert Southey

 Today is the day that I return to writing my blog that was actually first presented to me as a Mother’s Day gift last May by my son Matty. I began writing right away which produced roughly sixty blog entries from Last May through the early part of last November. I consider those six months to be my trial run , a time period in...

Two of my favorite quotes about anger are as follows…

“ The size of a man is known by the size of the thing that makes him angry.”

“ The best answer to anger is silence.”

How often do we get seriously angry at trivial things in life?  For me it is way too often. I can get very upset and all churned up over a person driving way too slowly in front of me. I will mutter something unkind under my breath, get extremely frustrated,  and display a scowl on my face. All because s...

Many years ago when our boys were very little, about three, six, and nine years old, I was pulling into a Walmart parking lot to do some shopping. We lived in Jacksonville, North Carolina as my husband was in the Marine Corps and we were stationed at Camp LeJeune. On this particular day, as I turned into our parking spot,  an incident occurred that has gone down in the family record books as “ Don’t Litter In Front of Mom”

This incident is a classic example of behaving on impulse and I d...

                         “ TO BE GREAT IS TO BE MISUNDERSTOOD.”  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Being great in this world is not easily achieved nor is it easily understood. People who achieve great things stand out, are noticed, and often become well known for their accomplishments. Success invites attention and scrutiny for which the accomplished must be prepared for and willing to endure.

Those who are deemed “great” tend to think outside the box, are frequently ahead of the times and...

This morning I went to visit someone who was really glad to see me so that is always a great feeling. My daughter in law Stephanie called and invited me to come over and spend some time this morning with her and our grandson Ben who is fourteen months old. That is the sort of invite that you will never see me turn down….time with the grandbabies… so off I went. As I was walking up the front walk he had a big smile on his face and reached out to me when Steph opened the door and at that mo...

If you are as old as I am ( a little over five decades) you may well remember the movie “ Love Story”  about a young married couple. The young wife is diagnosed with cancer and the basic plot of the movie is how this young couple navigates through this difficult journey from diagnosis until her death. The young wife was played by Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal played the part of the young husband. It was most certainly a tear jerker for that time and perhaps the signature line of the movie ...

Are you a person who sometimes has a hard time regrouping and collecting yourself once you have been upset about something? I certainly am! There can be an incident or a conversation or a reaction from someone else that so startles me, so stuns me, that I have a hard time letting it go. Not only can I not let it go immediately but I sometimes struggle with it for twenty-four hours afterwards. Not a prescription for peace and tranquility, is it?

Perhaps you can relate but maybe you cannot...

 My phone rang yesterday and the voice that I heard on the other end squealed “ Hi Mimi!” My heart immediately began to melt, my frown turned to a smile and I replied “ Hi Trent!”  All of a sudden, my day was made. My little grandson was calling me and that made the world a better place to be in. He then said “ Mimi, do you know what a fundwaiser is?” ( yes, I know I spelled it wrong, but that is how he pronounces his r’s) I immediately started laughing because I knew what was c...

 I taught third grade for many years and every year I had a reward system in place for students who had earned enough “tickets” to go to what I called the “Class Store.” The class store was comprised of all sorts of toys and treats that would appeal to any third grader. There were model cars and airplanes, footballs, frizbees, jump ropes, and jacks as well as smaller items such as colored pencils, stickers, glitter, and just a wide variety of items that third graders love.

Each F...

 When you unexpectedly lose someone whom you love, it hurts. I am specifically talking about losing someone through death. I lost my wonderful, devoted mom when I was just nineteen years old. One day she was vibrant, active, and full of life and the next day she was gone. She had an aneurism in her brain that neither she nor any of us knew about and it took her away from us one night. It is the reason that the medical community sometimes refers to aneurisms as “silent killers.”

My mom...

Two days ago I saw a story on the news that gave me pause and also put a smile on my face. It was about a high school football game in which one of the teams had a player with down syndrome on their team. That fact right away warmed my heart. Here was a regular public high school who had put a special needs student on their team as one of the regular players on the roster.

The game had only a little more than a minute left on the clock and the team with the boy with down syndrome was ...

For those of you who faithfully read the blog, you may have noticed that some of the articles focus on what is in the news. Like many Americans, I care very much about our country, our culture and what direction it is headed in and because of that I suppose I would have to plead guilty to being a news junkie. The down side of that is that one can easily become a cynic very quickly. I often find myself getting scared, frustrated and angry about what I observe occurring in today’s world. The ...

In yesterday’s blog I spoke about the recent incident in which Kanye West was extremely rude to Taylor Swift at the VMA awards. In another recent post I also spoke about Facebook and many different aspects concerning that social networking site. I have received a few e-mails from parents expressing that they are very unaware of how Facebook works and I also had a parent comment to me that they are unaffected by anything that takes place on an entertainment awards show as they never watch su...

        I am almost finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s book entitled “A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity.” For the most part, it has been an informative and entertaining read with the exception of the fact that O’Reilly is a guy who is quite stuck on himself. For almost two thirds of the book, he refers to himself in the third person which is always an immediate red flag that the person in question is a bit too impressed with himself. O’Reilly does however make a statement in the book w...

        This week I have read with interest but have not been surprised at the L.A. Galaxy/David Beckham spectacle. In a recent soccer game Beckham was jeered and chided by fans which is not all that unusual except for the fact that they were not fans for the opposing team. No, they were fans of the Galaxy, the team that Beckham is a member of. To sum it up, the David Beckham experiment has basically failed and the love affair between him and American fans has all but fizzled.

        Ju...

         I recently read a predictable but much overdone slogan which really is not all that original…it said “Dare to Be Yourself!”  I was fairly startled to say the least because to me it seems like that is precisely what most folks occupy their time with these days. A good portion of our society does nothing but live for self. People are simply consumed with self much of the time, so the thought that one should need to dare to be one’s self is a rather puzzling thought to me.

         This week my husband and I have had our two oldest grandkids visiting with us all week long. Our son and daughter-in-law are on a trip and so we get to enjoy being pop and mimi full time and we are loving it. The pool out back has been a big hit as well as a jaunt to Chuckie Cheese, some local playgrounds and of course the nearest Dairy Queen. All of it has been tremendous fun, but one particular incident will stand out in my mind for a long time. It will go down in the family record...

         I was browsing the internet last night and stumbled upon a question that gave me some pause. It truly made me stop and think. The question was “ What were the last regretful words that spewed out of your mouth?” A fairly direct question , isn’t it? It is also one that every living, breathing soul can answer. The reason we all can relate to this is because we are human, and human beings are emotional. Usually when we say something that we regret, the words were motivated by anot...

         I recently watched a talk show that centered on the topic of forgiveness. It featured a story that had such a profound impact on me, that I will not soon forget it. The guests on the show were a father, his twenty-two year old son and another young man, who was twenty-four years of age who was no relation to the father and son. He was however, their very good friend…and also the man responsible for killing the wife and mother of the father and son who were seated next to him.

         In our front yard is a tree that can only be described as evil. Yes, that’s right…our family has named it the evil tree and we have called it that for years. It’s nickname is “E.T.” . This tree deserves its title as it is like no other tree that I have ever seen. It is unsightly, it does not grow properly, and it serves no useful purpose. I am probably offending all the environmentalists right now, but truthfully, I do not know of one earth loving, green person who would be...

         As I have mentioned in previous blogs, my husband and I put in a swimming pool in our back yard this past spring. It is beautiful and our whole family is enjoying it tremendously but there is one feature that we are a bit disappointed in which is the diving board. I knew that the board would be a very basic small board however I was not prepared for the rigidity of it. It just simply does not have a lot of spring. When my almost thirty year old son tried to bounce off of it this past...

        When all of our kids were growing up, they all had various school projects. Usually, the huge projects were assigned in the beginning of the school year and were not due until sometime in the early spring around mid March. Science projects in our house were the most dreaded of all school endeavors. Not only was there a typed paper to be handed in, but also a journal or log that must be kept along with the cleverly decorated science board complete with labels, graphs and more writte...

Very recently, I was in a conversation with two other people which could have culminated in a bad way but instead, the outcome was a productive one. One of the other people in the conversation was a teenager and the third was an adult and an authority figure in that young person’s life. As the conversation progressed , it was evident that this teen was becoming somewhat tense and perhaps a bit upset with the direction that the discussion was going. When this became apparent to the other ...

         There are many lessons that I have not learned well or easily in my life to date but there is one that I have known the importance of even as a child. It is the lesson that our actions today can surely cause us to have deep regret later on in our life. This truth was evidenced so clearly in an article that I read yesterday about a young teenaged girl who decided to have three stars tattooed on her face. Something went terribly wrong however, and when the whole procedure was complete,...

Recently I read a quote that arrested me. It is profound and carries so much wisdom. The quote is:

“Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at”

                                  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 

        I simply sat and pondered the absolute truth of that statement. Laughter is a good and wonderful thing as we have all heard several quips and clichés concerning laughing. Statements such as “laughter is good for the soul” and “laughter is the ...

Every so often we have a visitor who comes to our front door , rings the doorbell and has some questions for us to answer. If you live in the Washington area , you have most likely had the same experience. The person on the porch is a government investigator who is doing a background check on a neighbor who lives close by, most likely on your very street. The person who is being investigated or inquired about is not in any sort of trouble but he or she is applying for a job with a government ...

                 For eleven years I taught third grade in a local private elementary school. I have specific recollections of countless incidents and of some very memorable students. One particular little boy stands out in my mind. His name was Cory (not his actual name) and he was an extremely bright little fellow, so bright in fact that he had his parents, his grandparents and even some former teachers completely snowed to put it bluntly. Whenever he did not want to do something that was re...

This is the time of year for graduations. I realize that there are all levels of graduations these days as we celebrate graduations at many different levels; there are preschool, kindergarten,  middle school, high school, college, and post college level graduations. Perhaps since my youngest child graduated from high school this year, my mind has naturally been most focused on high school graduates. I just seem to be noticing the graduating high school seniors in the community more this year ...

      I think it was about seven or eight years ago that one of my friends, a young mom of two little league participants, invited me to attend one of her son’s baseball games. My daughter who was ten years old at the time, was a friend of her son who was playing in the game, and she wanted to go as well, so off we went to watch our first little league game in several years as my boys were at the tail end of high school and in college at this point. When we arrived at the field, my friend w...

 Have you ever noticed how so many of  the behavior related words in the English language begin with the letter “D” ?  There are several. However, today I want to focus on just three of them…disobedience, defiance, and deception. I suppose that I am one of those rare folks that loves words, but also loves Math. I used to love solving equations and was especially delighted as a kid to reach that point in a problem in which I had arrived at the correct answer that belonged on the other si...

Sometimes I write about subjects in which I feel that I as an individual or that our family as a whole has done a fairly good job.  For example, yesterday I wrote about family loyalty , an area where we have not struggled as individuals and so it was easy and pain free to write about it. Not so my friend, with today’s subject….a soft answer. This one is going to be flatout painful. Why? Because I am horrible at it. Rarely do I give a soft answer and it is something that I pray about all t...

       Since I began yesterday's entry by mentioning a movie, I did not want to begin writing about another movie today however I must. Last night as I was randomly surfing the channels with the remote, I came across the movie Castaway that was being shown on T.V. for about the one thousandth time. It has been shown so often that as soon as I stumbled upon it, I immediately began to click to something else until that is ....I saw Wilson. Wilson is my favorite actor of that movie ....to me, he...