A Leap of Faith

Lots of people are fanatical about eating the healthiest foods possible. At our house, we recently purchased snacks made with—you guessed it—vegetables. I’m eating corn chips made with beets, a vegetable I rarely eat. Sure, I’ll eat a few beets at a salad bar or if they show up on my plate at a friend’s house, but I’m not going to select them from a list of side items in a restaurant. Even if you dislike beets, you might like them in corn chips. Have you tried corn chips made with spinach and kale? I know. They’re green, not the best color for a snack food, but they taste great. If you like veggie snacks, then you’re probably a health-conscious person who’s ready for the next stage. Welcome to the next level of healthy eating:

  https://youtu.be/euTBQOrpOmM  

I just started enjoying veggie snacks so I’m not yet ready for the “next level.” Scratch that. I doubt I’ll ever be ready to knowingly go that far. Do you think you would? Who knows, in a year, maybe we’ll see bags of delicious insects in the supermarket. Is there something you thought you wouldn’t or couldn’t do, but now you realize how different your life would be if you had not taken a leap of faith?             

Fitting In

 A boy about four years old wearing a fashionable jacket and snazzy hat scooted into the row in front of me. Seated beside his mother, he removed his hat and waited for the assembly to start. Of course, within a few minutes, he started fiddling and fidgeting. Eventually he tried putting his hat back on, but it didn't fit. That’s odd, I thought. Why doesn't the hat fit now? As soon as he tilted it, I spotted the problem. He stuffed a chunky, toy inside the hat’s crown, leaving no room for both a head and a toy.  

Whenever you try to cram in too much, things are going to feel uncomfortable. I don’t why this group decided to sweat through this particular challenge, but they did.   

                                         https://youtu.be/YHlWUHYA6aY 

Overextending ourselves with work, activities, and too many commitments makes us cranky.  For whatever reason, we maintain our busy schedules and keep on going. Instead of struggling to scale back your commitments, what could you add to help cope with the busyness?  

Closer Than You Think

Can you believe the fog? Earlier this week when warm temperatures mixed with melting snow, the roads almost disappeared in the fog. Add howling wolves, a shadow lurking beside a shed, and you have the perfect setting for a mystery/thriller movie.

It’s amazing how much danger a dense fog can hide. One minute you‘re driving down an empty   road and the next minute an animal or vehicle appears from nowhere. You never know what you’ll spot once the fog clears. Here’s a scary situation:

                                         http://youtu.be/ne6NwcYFc8w

Fog is like life: go far enough and you’ll encounter a surprise that’s just beyond the bend. Sometimes circumstances cloud our perspective and discourage us from seeing down the road, until we slow down and look around. Better days may closer than we think. What’s one thing you can do right now to enhance your journey?  

An Amazing Twenty-Six Hour Day

I’m sure you have a favorite household appliance or gadget. I like the clothes dryer. On cold winter days nothing beats bundling up in a toasty blanket taken straight out of the dryer. Try it. I guarantee it’ll make you say, “Mmmmm.” It’s like a quick massage, yet much less expensive.

We fill our homes with modern conveniences, but for every benefit a new household invention brings, there’s a potential downside. For instance, clothes dryers suck up energy, shrink your clothing, and rob them of their vibrant color. When designers try to help us save time, space, or energy, we wind up with technology like this:

                                          http://youtu.be/amAIUNZw5YQ

If I owned that contraption, I’d end up yelling on the phone to the manufacturer, “Help, my kitchen’s  on lock down!” I can appreciate creating a compact, artistic kitchen, but should anybody need a forklift to move it into an apartment? You’ll probably have to remove a wall. I’ll stick with traditional kitchens that don’t unfold.

We have more convenient gadgets and inventions today than we’ve owned in the last fifty years, so you'd think we'd have more free time. I doubt that's the case. If you gained two more hours per day, how would you use them?