Bum...Bum...Bum...Here it Comes! 2006!

Can you believe that Christmas has now come and gone! It seems that I just put gifts under the tree and now I must start taking it down tomorrow! Where does time go? I like the way our pastor put it Christmas morning. He said that it is like riding a train and going by the telephone poles along the way: zip...zip...zip. That is the truth of it. When I was young, I gave no thought to time other than its standing still between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now, I know what my parents must have been feeling. We just cannot spend enough time with our loved ones; we can't give them enough of our love or even material gifts. If I could go back in years to when our 4 children were smaller, I would give them so much more of my time and less to my profession. I worked hard and spent many long hours away from them; I think I could have condensed some of that work and planned better use of my time so that I could have given them more. It's a known fact that I cannot turn back time, but I can encourage any younger readers to spend as much time with your family as possible, give them as many hugs as they will allow, and tell them how much you care for them. We did hug and tell one another that we loved them, and we did spend a lot of time together, and we had a lot of quality time at meals, traveling across country, etc., but we could have done much better. Now, when we talk on the phone, we end the conversations with those precious words, "I love you". As the new year quickly approaches, I pray that all of us can be more loving, more forgiving, and more open with our Christian faith. Along with my plan to try once again to lose weight, I add these things to my new year's resolution. What are you resolving for 2006?