Gratitude

Worm Holes

I was standing on top of the ladder trying to push aside my disappointment along with the heavily laden branches of my apple tree. “What a shame—so many worm holes this year,” I grumbled as I examined the almost-beautiful apple cupped in my hand. About four out of five apples I picked had at least one worm hole. We had been too busy to keep up the spraying this year and now we were reaping the results. Even though sorely neglected, the apples had filled out well because of the perfect timing of the extra rain and strong winds we had at blossom and small fruit time. The result had been a thorough job of thinning! I hadn’t had time to start picking the apples until after our first frost, but that in itself was inadvertently adhering to my Grandma Smith’s advice of letting the first frost “set the sugar”…

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Seeing Christmas Clearly: Erik’s Gift

“Oh, there they are; thank Goodness,” I exclaimed. My sons, seven year old Brent and three year old Erik, had just spent several minutes searching the living room for my reading glasses–again. I had already misplaced them once that morning. “I do not have time for this kind of frustration,” I grumbled. With only three days until Christmas, I felt rushed and distracted and I had been careless. So, there we were, again, crawling around on the floor looking for my glasses. We looked under and behind the sofa, including lifting up each cushion. We checked behind the drapes and on the piano. I was heading for the armchair when Erik spotted them. They were poking out from under the pile of wrapping paper, tags, ribbons and bows that were scattered on the floor. “Hooray for Erik! Thank you, thank you,” I told him as I hugged him. “I need…

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