It is 2 degrees here this morning.
The wind chill makes it feel like 20 below zero.
The Northeast is being hit with frigid temperatures and record snowfalls.
News reports are warning about the hazards of being outside in this kind of cold weather.

Many set out only to find their batteries are dead when they try to start the car.
Ice crystals form on most windows; exquisite masterpieces from God’s Hands.
It is said that boiling water tossed in the cold air will freeze before it hits the ground.
It is THAT cold!

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I passed the historic building at the corner of Market and High Streets.
I remember ten years ago, a ruling came down which had all eyes focused on that corner.
Our county courthouse is on that corner.
On our courthouse hung a plaque of the Ten Commandments.

In April 2002, it took less than 60 seconds to cover the Ten Commandments plaque.
The 50-by-39-inch plaque was covered in tan aluminum to match the building facade.
The courthouse is in a university town, peaceful, quaint; not known for protestors.
A ruling stated that this display on a county government building is unconstitutional.

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I was talking to a friend who is moving at the end of next month.
She is ambiguous about the move.
She knows it is a good thing but she doesn’t like change very much.
She is a wife and mother of two boys.

It is not a far away move but it is in another school district.
Leaving friends, leaving the known for the unknown.
Many would say, It’s not like you’re moving to the other side of the world.
Cold comfort; I understand her feelings completely.

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Every parent can relate to the busyness of his or her schedule.
Even if you limit the activities your children do, you still feel like you live in your car.
It is not keeping up with the Jones-es.
It is allowing your child to expand their horizons, with parameters and limits.

With five children, we only allowed each child to do ONE thing a season.
If you did a fall sport that is all you did until the spring sports began.
Even with only one activity each, I still had five children doing one activity each.
My calendar was color coded for each child.
Schedules hung by magnets on the refrigerator.

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It was a few days after we got engaged.
We decided to go skiing for the day.
We went with our dear friend who would be our best man.
He brought a date as well.

I agreed to go.
I had never skied before, but I was a quick learner.
I remember wearing my purple jacket, gloves, and a hat.
I was wearing none of the things that I saw other people wearing.

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It was an interesting day.
Funeral visitation in the early afternoon followed by a baby shower.
The funeral was for a precious woman who just celebrated her 100th birthday.
The baby shower was for the granddaughter of a friend.

The circle of life in one afternoon.
God was teaching me all day long.

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(originally published March 13, 2012)

We were friends…as much as you could be, standing between the frozen foods and the peanut butter. Her delicate frame came just above my elbow, as my tall frame seemed to tower over her. We saw each other weekly at the grocery store. It seemed as if we timed our visits to synchronize with each other. She always teased me about my two shopping carts.

Push one…pull the other, she would say.
If they would just stop eating, I would tease back and she would ask about my children.

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It was first invented in ancient Greece.
It is basically an axle which is connected to two disks.
String is looped around the axle.

A player puts his finger in the slip knot on the free end of the string.
The player allows gravity to spin the object…unwinding the string.
The rotational energy winds the string back up to the player’s hand.

The yo-yo.

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All day long, as I sat down to write my blog post, the server was down.
The site was too busy…temporarily unavailable…so the error message said.
How frustrating.
The server was down.

I wrote the post in a document, to be saved, and published later.
Inconvenient to be sure!

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Two days in a row I have received this message in my inbox.
MAILER-DAEMON: Failed Delivery.
It means the message I sent was undeliverable.
It bounced back to me.

For some reason, seeing that message in my inbox makes me sad.
Somebody did not get my message.
Just when I thought my message was zooming through cyberspace…it is blocked.
Blocked by some mysterious cyber wall.

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