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Seeds of Good Deeds

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     Growing up on a farm in Minnesota was very good for me and it taught me things that I have used ever since.  Working hard and having chores to do has given me a work ethic that has served me well all these years.  I was thinking recently about planting the crops.  I am sure they are far more advanced these days but back then we had a four row planter.  It had four compartments for seed. One for each row and a companion compartment for each which held fertilizer.  At least that is how I remember it.      Dad always did the planting and my job was to wait at the end of the row in the pickup which held bags of seed corn and fertilizer. When Dad got to the pickup he would stop and I would help him get the bags, cut them open and fill the planter back up again.  There were times when we had to replant because of hail or heavy rain.  We had one low spot in the field which was very susceptible to getting rained out.  It was the first place Dad would check when we had a lot of rain.  If
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I Can't Take the Pressure!

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     We begin our story today with what happened at Costco last week.  I had been wanting to buy a pressure washer for quite some time and had seen the one at Costco which, by the way, just happened to have a little more than the recommended PSI for cleaning driveways and sidewalks. Anyway, there is was, $80 off.  I was not going to see that price again for some time, so the pressure was on.  Pun intended.  I had the money but was having trouble deciding if I really needed it.  My brother has offered to let me borrow his but I really wanted my own.  Mostly because I could use it a little bit at a time.  Trust me, I have big plans for my new little friend, which I did buy. How could I not buy something I had wanted and was now on sale?  Plus, it had a Briggs & Stratton engine.  When I was a kid we had a mower that seemed to last forever. You guessed it. It had a Briggs & Stratton engine. These had to be signs!      Fast forward to this morning.  I woke up at 3:45 and laid in be
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Which is better, iPhone or Android?

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     Ok, here is the answer to the question you have been waiting for all week.  Which is better, iPhone or Android?  It depends on who you ask. My wife is an iPhone X user and for her, the iPhone is the best.  Now I have a Samsung 9 user and for me it is the best.  Kathy likes her's because it is easy to use. I like mine because I can customize it a little more. So you get to decide which phone gives you what you are looking for.  A really fancy phone won't do you much good if you don't know how to use it.      Just this afternoon Kathy accidentally turned on the flashlight on her phone.  Instead of trying to remember all the steps to turn it off, she hit her Siri button and said "Turn off my flashlight" and it was done.  I guess words do have power. I could argue that I can do it as fast by swiping down from the top and locating and hitting the flashlight icon but the important thing is the job gets done whichever way you use.  We all get used to using our ow
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I Have a Question.

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     I don't remember a whole lot about going to Church camp as a kid but a couple things still come to mind.  I remember getting a coffee can of cookies from my sister Joyce only to have them taken by our pastor's son and distributed to his friends.  I recall that they did leave me the last one which was very nice.  I have forgiven him of course and it was nice that God used him to help me share. I can't say for sure that I would have eaten them all myself but I think it was a definite possibility.      The other thing I remember is our cabin counselor telling us a story about Spartacus.  Just to refresh you, Spartacus was a slave and a gladiator in the Roman empire who led a slave rebellion against Rome.  In the end Spartacus's army of slaves was defeated and he was killed.  I might  never have remembered the incident except for what happened when my counselor finished his story.  He concluded by saying Spartacus was killed and cut into pieces and started to answer a
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The Rest of the Story

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     Last time I talked about being awake at 4 in the morning and telling God that I had wasted so much time.  I wanted to write a little more about that because I realized, later, that I gave you an incomplete picture of all that happened.  So, here is the rest of the story.      I have some Bible verses in my phone that I try to read and pray through every day.  One of those verses is this one.  "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life." Psalm 139:23-24 NLT      For a long time, when I would think about what offends God, they would be things like pride, hatred, selfishness, greed and so forth.  But, before the "offending" part, the prayer asks for God to know my anxious thoughts.  So, I am not a Bible scholar but I think God is saying that he cares about what we think and wants us to be free of thoughts that make us anxious or afraid. I ca
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Sorry Not Sorry

     I know it has been quite a while since I blogged.  I have excuses ready if I need them.  But I think since we are friends, you will forgive me for abandoning you.  So please forgive me.  The thing is I think it was pretty much inevitable. You see I have some things I love to do.  I love to have coffee in the morning and read devotions on my phone.  I love to wake up and just lay in be and talk to God and think.  Boy, do I love to think.  I love to watch Hallmark movies because they make me cry and have happy endings.  Notice you did not see write a blog on the list.  Before moving on, I want to say that I heard somewhere that the cure for exhaustion was not to do less but to do more of what you love.      Back to why I stopped blogging.  Sometimes writing is hard but I almost always get a sense of pride and satisfaction from creating something.  Sure, I wish I could paint or sing or play an instrument but those abilities have eluded me.  But using words to create and inspire and
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I Mean It This Time!

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     Good day to you all.  Thank you for coming back to read my thoughts about life and happiness.  Or, if this is your first time, thank you for clicking on to my blog.  I hope you are challenged by what you read.  Part of the reason I write is to challenge myself.      So because it is the start of a new year, I have been thinking about what people are saying about this year.  I hear things like, "This is the year things will change," or "What you have been hoping for will happen this year."  Have you heard people say, "This is the year of breakthrough?"      Now let me tell you what I think about all this.  On the one hand,  I sincerely hope that all these things do happen this year for all of you and for myself.  On the other hand, I have heard this said in years past and yet nothing changed.  Having hope for a good year is very important but it is easy to loose hope if we don't see things change.  My thought is that we can and should help the p
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