The Good Portion

On Thanksgiving Day I got up early and headed off to work. As it turned out, the client who thought she would need my help that morning to prepare for her large family gathering did not need me after all. She sent me home with a full day's pay just the same. My own family gathering would be a small one. My daughter and her boyfriend were out of town for the day. My son and his girlfriend would not be available for dinner until 7:00 pm. I was tempted to lay around all day and do nothing. After all, I work hard. I could use some rest. But I know myself well. I resisted that urge and decided to make better use of those newfound hours. There is nothing like the process and result of cleaning your own house for clearing the cobwebs from your mind. As a person prone to depression, I know first-hand that it is a lying brute that will try to stop you from doing the very things that actually have the power to fend it off. If your house is dirty, it tells you there is no point in cleanin...

I've lived fifty years on this earth and I have a lot of regrets. But one thing I can say that I have never regretted was a decision to forgive. Decades ago I had an employer, a professing Christian, active in ministry. He was a charismatic man with big dreams, and his employees were devoted to him. But his dreams were bigger than the reality in which we all lived, and the business foundered.  Paychecks became sporadic, but his bright optimism, our belief in his vision, and our loyalty kept us around. Eventually, however, it got to the point that he neglected to pay us for weeks on end. This went on for two or three months before I finally quit, but there were others of us who stayed far longer waiting for that oft-promised ship, carrying its thousands of dollars of back-pay, to come in. One of the last straws came for me when I learned that all the while we were not getting paid, our boss was renting a luxury home in Dana Point. I was indignant. I, too, was a professing Christ...

 It's been a while since I've offered any new cleaning tips or recommendations.  That's because what I've been doing all along, and have recorded in previous posts, has been serving me just fine.  But, as we all know, necessity is the mother of invention, and need arose recently for me to discover something new - or, rather, rediscover something not new at all.  You see, I ran out of Mr. Clean and I needed something to mop a floor with that would be gentle and not leave streaks.  Then I remembered back to the days of my youthful poverty when I would mop my kitchen floors with dish soap rather than buy some special product.  So I took my empty spray-bottle added a few drops of dish soap* and filled it the rest of the way with warm water.  A short time later I was looking at perfectly shiny, streak-free floors. Being out of Mr. Clean for the rest of that day, I ended up using the dish soap mixture on everything I would have used Mr. Clean for.  ...