Thoughts and Jots--Blog Archives

A fruity gift from a sister friend in Ohio I love fruit, and I especially love apple orchards! We have a really good one about 20 minutes from home, and I look forward to our annual trip to harvest our own apples. My favorites are the tart, crisp Haralson apples. Well, maybe that's my second-favorite. I flip for Opal apples, but we don't have those in Minnesota orchards, so Haralsons have to stand in. Sometimes there are trees that look like they're not doing too well. The fruit is deformed, and there are bugs covering these infected-looking trees. In fact, I thought I had found one good piece of fruit on one of these bad trees, only to turn it around and find a dark, black crater with a great big spider living in it! He looked chubby. Too many fruit-covered bugs in his diet.  We are here to glorify God with fruitful lives, but sometimes we get bugs, infections, and other assorted things to keep us from being as bountiful as we could be. Just like we're...

I have a continuous goal in life among many: The goal of being easy to live with. It's not as uncomplicated as it sounds, because being irritating comes naturally to most of us. In fact, both people in a marriage relationship have irritating habits. Does your husband pitch his socks at the hamper, leaving them on the floor overnight? Don't even tell me. But do you routinely repeat yourself, as if your husband needs a refresher course in English? Everybody has something that makes them, well, annoying in some small way. The goal of being "good company" is important for any relationship, but especially the relationship between a husband and wife. Here are a few ways that we can be hard on the nerves: 1. We're tuned to the "History Channel."  This is the place where we bring up things that he did wrong from any time in the past decade (or more)! This is an irritating habit, but we can only feel the irritation when it's being done to us. ...