Monthly Archive for December, 2011

The Greatest Gifts

At the risk of stating the obvious, it looks like the holiday season is in full swing. Parking lots are overflowing with traffic and normally organized store shelves look ransacked. 

Watching all the hustle and bustle this week brought back a memory of a holiday season from long ago. I was sixteen and working as a waitress in a department store restaurant. (Yes boys and girls, before malls had food courts many department stores had restaurants where tired and hungry shoppers could refuel.)

It was my first real job and although I’d been working at the restaurant for months, I was totally unprepared for the insane lunch crowd on the Saturday before Christmas. A line of people waiting for tables snaked out the door. The hostess looked frazzled. Bus boys… Continue reading

The Lady’s Hug

A beautiful story, especially for parents who get asked the question, “Is Santa real?”~ Angela Gentile 

The traffic in town crawled. Shoppers walked faster than the bumper-to-bumper cars could move.

“Just a few more blocks,” I muttered. There was so much to do and the heavy traffic was wasting precious time.

Finally, we found a parking spot right in front of Mapes – our destination.

Mapes was one-of-a-kind store that sold hardware, sewing notions, corny greeting cards and household goods. It’d been a fixture in town for decades. The kids loved the toy aisle, which was stocked with board games, puzzles and “must-have” items like silly putty, jump ropes and slinkys.

This visit to Mapes had special… Continue reading

Allow Allow Allow

‎”The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept, you open the door to change. That’s all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it’s something you allow.” ~ Will Garcia 

I love Facebook. Among the endless game requests (which I hide), baby photos (which I adore) and rants (* to be discussed)  I also find gems of inspiration like the quote above.  It was posted by Chris Cade, a man who describes himself as a “reluctant hero” on a journey to empower others. 

So Chris’s quote got me thinking about Facebook rants again. (My last blog was about one of my own Facebook rants – see Kardashian Krazy.) Facebook is a snapshot of life, so it’s no surprise… Continue reading