Date night. Make your marriage a priority and get out for some grown-up time. Connecting and communicating with your significant other is good for your health.
Month: December 2019
💫 Inspiring Quote ~ Love Fills Our Hearts
Mankind is a great, an immense family… This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas. ~ Pope John XXIII
Today’s Poem ~ A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
Christina Rossetti
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there.
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part, –
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart
Today’s Smile 😃
Q: Who is a Christmas tree’s favorite singer?
A: Spruce Springsteen
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Have You Found it Yet?
“I tell aspiring writers that you have to find what you MUST write. When you find it, you will know, because the subject matter won’t let you go. It’s not enough to write simply because you think it would be neat to be published. You have to be compelled to write. If you’re not, nothing else that you do matters.” ―
🍎 Health Hack ~ 3 Tips for Healthy Holiday Eating
- Take 10 before taking seconds. It takes a few minutes for your stomach’s “I’m getting full” signal to get to your brain. After finishing your first helping, take a 10-minute break. Make conversation. Drink some water. Then recheck your appetite. You might realize you are full or want only a small portion of seconds.
- Distance helps the heart stay healthy. At a party, don’t stand next to the food table. That makes it harder to mindlessly reach for food as you talk. If you know you are prone to recreational eating, pop a mint or a stick of gum so you won’t keep reaching for the chips.
- Don’t go out with an empty tank. Before setting out for a party, eat something so you don’t arrive famished. Excellent pre-party snacks combine complex carbohydrates with protein and unsaturated fat, like apple slices with peanut butter or a slice of turkey and cheese on whole-wheat pita bread.
A Christmas Surprise ~ A Short Story of Christmas Love
A Christmas Surprise is a short story about a down and outer, Eddie Testa, who’s quit on Christmas. It’s Christmas Eve and Eddie can’t wait for Christmas to be over. His 
unemployment check arrives the day after Christmas. Until the check arrives, Eddie has four dollars and fifty cents he found in his change box to buy food. Eddie heads out into a dark, cold, doubly gray sky to buy a slice of pizza for lunch and a loaf of hot French bread for dinner and Christmas day. He knows he’ll make it if he can skip a couple of meals. Eddie’s life takes a series of twists and turns the moment he leaves his small two room apartment 83-year-old Sofia asks Eddie to buy her a can of soup from the discount wagon at the market. She promises to pay Eddie back when her retirement check comes in. Eddie slowly discovers Christmas is all about people and giving and receiving. What Eddie learns changes his life. And, it may change yours as well.
A Christmas Surprise is available as an eBook from Amazon
💫 Inspiring Quote ~ Love Is All
“Love is the last relay and ultimate outposts of eternity.” ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Today’s Smile 😃
Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda?
He was lucky it was a soft drink.
Today’s Poem ~ Winter Rain
Winter Rain
Christina Rossetti
Every valley drinks, Every dell and hollow: Where the kind rain sinks and sinks, Green of Spring will follow. Yet a lapse of weeks Buds will burst their edges, Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks, In the woods and hedges; Weave a bower of love For birds to meet each other, Weave a canopy above Nest and egg and mother. But for fattening rain We should have no flowers, Never a bud or leaf again But for soaking showers; Never a mated bird In the rocking tree-tops, Never indeed a flock or herd To graze upon the lea-crops. Lambs so woolly white, Sheep the sun-bright leas on, [30]They could have no grass to bite But for rain in season. We should find no moss In the shadiest places, Find no waving meadow-grass Pied with broad-eyed daisies; But miles of barren sand, With never a son or daughter, Not a lily on the land, Or lily on the water.
