Real Life is Better Than Fiction

I just finished a three day canning marathon, thanks to my sister-in-law who brought me 6 crates of tomatoes and a bushel of green beans. I haven’t been able to do a lot of canning lately since I can’t have a garden. We live in the middle of the city and have more critters here than in the country. Groundhogs eat absolutely everything. Anyway, doing all that canning brought back a lot of memories of summer days when I was a child and would help my mother can tomatoes.    There was one time in particular that stands out in my mind. We had been working for a couple of days and our antique dining room table was full of beautifully canned tomatoes and spaghetti sauce…until the table leg broke allowing many of the jars to fall crashing to the floor, breaking and leave a huge mess. Tomatoes were everywhere! My mom screamed and then she ran crying to her bedroom. I cleaned up the mess knowing she was heartbroken over the loss of time, food, and money. When Dad came home fro...

The TV at our house has pretty much been on constantly since the Olympics began. I enjoy seeing the world come together just for fun – I wish it could happen outside of sports. The games are addicting to watch, even if what’s on isn’t my favorite sport. My favorites include volleyball and gymnastics. As I sit and watch the American women try to fulfill their dreams, I am reminded of dreams of young girls all across the world, even to a little town, that no one's ever heard of, called Jordan.   Every four years my sisters and I would watch the Olympic gymnastics and then go outside and try to emulate them. We were not successful. In the ‘80’s we watched Mary Lou Retton and she was the one we wanted to be like. We set up a 2x4 in the yard and pretended it to be our balance beam. We would perform all our tricks and then score each other to see who would get the gold medal. Well, you know the old saying, “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt!” One time in particu...