But Esau ran to meet cheapest car servicing him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. – Genesis 33:4, NRSV

When I was in the third grade, I stole chalk.

My reasoning was very simple.  Teachers had better chalk than I, as an unemployed 9 year old still living with her parents, could purchase.  My dream was to be a teacher, and I spent my time away from school trying to get people, and pets, to let me teach them.  I reasoned that teacher-grade chalk was my way to make this dream a reality.

My technique was to back myself against the chalkboard every afternoon as I left, say a hearty good-bye to my teacher, and swipe the newest, longest, whitest piece that I could find.

I was not like any of the vandals that you would see on TV.  I would call my methods, unrefined.  In fact, it was a miracle that I was not caught sooner.  That’s right, I was caught, but let me continue.

To read more, click here and head over to the wonderful bunch of ladies at Internet Cafe Devotions.

I am resolving to slow down this year.

This all started the day that I discovered I

had ruined my dog.

She has an active disinterest in food, and since I believe that everyone should eat, regardless of leg count, it is a dismal part of my day to see her avoid that food dish.  I find that sitting down on the floor for a few minutes, offering up little pieces of food by hand and speaking some type of falsetto baby language gets her excited about the process.  The only problem is that she enjoys it too much, and now insists on this “temporary” solution.

And, that was just what I was doing the other

day.  I was hand feeding the dog.

So, there I sat…conflicted and contemplating this unnatural human behavior.  At least that is what I thought about for the first 20 seconds.  Most of that time I was somewhere else entirely. I imagined, amongst other things, my “to-do” list blooming in my computer.  One 20 second interval brought five more items to put on my grocery list and three more tasks to place neatly on its keys.

I begged my pregnant brain not to forget them before I got off of the floor.

To read the rest of this article, click here to go to Internet Cafe...