Month: December 2020

🌾 Today’s Poem ~ A Christmas Carol

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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 midwinter
   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 😃

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Joe: “My girlfriend told me I ruined her Christmas.”

Pete: “How did you do that?”

Joe: “I didn’t even know she was expecting a gift.”

✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ A Writer Can’t Please Everyone – Don’t Try

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“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

~ Kurt Vonnegut

🍎 Today’s Health Question ~ Want to Keep the Extra Pounds Off Over the Holidays?

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Three Tips to Maintain a Healthy Weight Over the Holidays

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.

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🍎 Today’s Health Question ~ Is It Time to Add Lentils to Your Diet?

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Lentils Are a Tasty and Great Health Choice

I use my slow cooker to make lentil soup. It provides a great fragrance to the house during the day and a healthy, protein and fiber boost. Here are Lentil’s health benefits:

One cup (198 grams) of cooked lentils contains roughly:

  • Calories: 230
  • Protein: 17.9 grams
  • Fiber: 15.6 grams
  • Folate (vitamin B9): 90% of the RDI
  • Manganese: 49% of the RDI
  • Copper: 29% of the RDI
  • Thiamine (vitamin B1): 22% of the RDI

Lentils can help reduce blood sugar compared to other foods. A study of more than 3,000 people found that those with the highest intake of lentils and other legumes had the lowest rates of diabetes. Some studies have shown that lentils benefit gut health by improving bowel function and slowing the rate that the stomach empties, which could help with digestion and prevent spikes in blood sugar.

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🤗 A Better Life ~ Watching and Waiting

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There are times when we can see the fall a friend or loved one is heading toward and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. Sometimes, hitting the bottom is the only way they can change. The best we can do is pray and offer a hand when they ask for help.

💡 Something to Think About

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The slower we go, the more we see, the better we feel, and relationships blossom. Take time for yourself. Take time for others. Let the chaos pass by without touching it.

🌾 Today’s Poem ~ I Saw You

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I Saw You
Joshua Henry Jones, Jr.

I saw you as I passed last night,
    Framed in a sky of gold;
And through the sun’s fast paling light
    You seemed a queen of old,
Whose smile was light to all the world
    Against the crowding dark.
And in my soul a song there purled—
    Re-echoed by the lark.

I saw you as I passed last night,
    Your tresses burnished gold,
While in your eyes a happy bright
    Gleam of your friendship told.
And I went singing on my way;
    On, on into the dark.
But in my heart still shone the day,
    And still—still sang the lark.

Today’s Smile 😃

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Joe: “My girlfriend told me she loved what I do with my hair.”

Pete: “Did she say anything else?”

Joe: “She wanted to know how I manage to make it come out of my nose .”

✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ The Pleasure That Comes from Writing

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‘Writing gives me great feelings of pleasure. There’s a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to. It’s like trying to write a song, making tiny tweaks, reading it out loud, shifting things to make it sound a certain way. It’s very physical. I get antsy. I jiggle my feet a lot, get up a lot, tap my fingers on the keyboard, check my e-mail. Sometimes it feels like digging out of a hole, but sometimes it feels like flying. When it’s working and the rhythm’s there, it does feel like magic to me.”

~ Susan Orlean

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