See The Lite

By Michelle (Graceful, Faith in the Everyday)

I had expectations all right...they just didn't turn out as I expected.

When my pastor first suggested I give up social media for Lent, I balked. "I can't do that," I thought to myself, sitting across from him in the cafe. "It's too risky. There's too much at stake. I can't sacrifice everything I've worked so hard to gain."

I feared the loss. Loss of control, primarily. Fear that readership would plummet, that my itsy-bitsy platform would crumble. But also fear of a deeper loss -- loss of self.

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Elevator Anniversary

By Alan

Recently, I moved offices from the 12th floor of a 100 year old building, to the 6th floor of a more modern skyscraper. Ironically enough, the move meant that I'm actually having more elevator rides than before. Because of a quirk of construction, I take a ride to the "sky lobby" on the 4th floor, where I board other elevators to access the rest of the floors. I found it fun that a significant anniversary was passing by at the same time I was finding new elevator experiences.

Despite the "simple" concept, elevators weren't actually a common thing until after March 23rd, 1857 when Elisha Otis installed the first commercial "safety elevator" in New York City. Several years before he famously demonstrated the safety of his cable elevator at the World's Fair by getting into his elevator himself, and having the cable cut while he was several stories above the ground. Before his invention, this would have meant certain death. (Because Jumping up in the air at the bottom doesn't help).

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Life Is Funny: 1-2-3 What?

By Alan

Ordinarily my wife would be writing this post. But since this LiF is largely at her expense, even though she caused it, it seemed appropriate for me to write it.

Every spring and fall, we have a day when try to replace the old mulch in our flowerbeds with new mulch. This involves picking up all the falling sticks (a lot after this winter's blizzards), pulling the weeds, raking up the old mulch into several large piles. We have access to a trim little trailer with high walls that can help us haul away the old mulch, and truck in fresh, new, stinky mulch.

There are several methods for getting the old mulch into the trailer. When the levels are low, we can literally push the wheel barrow right up inside, and dump the load. But as the level rises, we have use combinations of wheelbarrows, shovels, pitchforks and hard work to get the trailer full. A technique we started using years ago involves two people grabbing all four corners of a large tarp partially filled with mulch, and together, hoisting the tarp up and over the side of the trailer, dumping the contents inside.

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Fingerprint Friday: Time With My Children

By MAD21

I am so blessed to be able to stay home with my kids. I love every minute of it. Yes, we have bad days just like everyone else, but I'm glad to have those, too. I'm glad that I am the one who gets to see most of the "firsts," go to the playground whenever we can get it into the schedule, and I get to be a major influence in their little lives and not another caregiver (not sure if that's always a good thing for them!).

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Tasty Bites: Mission: Meatless

By Candy, RN (Steele the Day)

One of the reasons we haven’t embraced meatless meals in the mainstream is because so many people are disappointed that the end result doesn’t taste like meat. We haven’t learned to enjoy the taste of a good healthy protein without meat. That’s understandable, as most of us grew up with meat as a main course.

This is a tasty sandwich that I hesitate to call a burger. It’s meatless, and not intended to be a meat “taste-alike.” It’s just a sandwich. The combination of rice and beans makes a complete protein and the variety of ingredients as well as the seasonings gives it fabulous flavor. It’s loaded with fiber and very filling.

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