There are plenty of good five-cent cigars. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel. - F. Adams

I thought you might be interested to see a few pics I took of my folks' home. These aren't particularly good; I have a cheap camera. But you can see why moving out of this into anything else, especially "senior living" accomodations will be difficult.

Here's one half of the living room. Baby grand behind the two wing back chairs, Rogers organ to the left. It's night time, so the windows look black.

This is the other half of the living room with the fireplace just visible to the left. The dining room is in the foreground. Those windows look out over the deck and then to Puget Sound at the bottom of the hill with the Olympic Mts. in the distance. Beautiful!

The lighting here is bad; my camera can't adjust for fluorescent lighting and I don't know the software well enough to do it there. But this is the kitchen, the place where my mother works magic. If you're looking for healthy, forget it. But if you want amazing, it comes from this room. To the right of the kitchen, across the wing of the counter with the stove, is the nook, where weekday meals are eaten. Again, the view out of that slider is amazing.

Note: my mother will be most upset that I took pictures with the place a "mess." Yeah.
And all the plants and flowers you see in these pics are the result of my dad's very green thumb. The man can make fence posts bloom. You should see the place in the summer!

If an opened roll of Certs goes through the laundry does my underwear have fresh breath?

Shock Therapy, or Craig Comes Crashing Back to Reality
For five days I ate all kinds of wonderful foods, all made from scratch. Cinnamon rolls with frosting, berry pies, bread, waffles...on and on. Tonight I'm having a "Mexican Style Fiesta" that includes cocada pudding (!), this thanks to the good folks at Hungry Man dinners.
(To be fair, a frozen dinner is relatively rare, and hey, no broccoli!)

In 1972 the Miami Dolphins had a perfect season and won the Super Bowl. They won that championship game on January 14th. In 2010 we still have, what, six weeks to go? But why should the NFL be any different from any other pro sports league? The World Series in November and hockey in August?

I struggle with the balancing act that faces the preacher every week. Our section for Sunday, 1 Tim. 1:12-17, has buried within it several hidden gems - small but powerful details not apparent without some digging. In a couple of cases those jewels emerge only when the dynamics of the original Greek are understood. But this is a 35 minute sermon, not a two hour lesson. That is, you can't put 10 lbs. of potatoes in a 5 lb. sack. By definition a sermon includes significant application to daily life, what we call the "so what?" Add to this application even a brief introduction and the preacher only has so much time left for exploration of the text. It just seems SUCH a shame - almost nonfeasance - to leave diamonds buried just under the surface when I know they're there.

What to do?