Serve by Design

Every time our kids come home to visit, they lament the day when they’ll have to clean out the basement after our passing. The irony is that much of that stuff is theirs! I must confess though that Monique and I have contributed to a lot of the stuff that’s stored down there! When we retired from school and church work, we each moved our offices downstairs into file cabinets, onto bookcases and packed away in storage boxes. We have about maxed out the available shelving and space. Self-Storage Image: uhaul.com Have you noticed the one-, two-, and three-story ground-level storage buildings that dot our communities? The “bread and butter” of U-Haul used to be in renting trailers and box trucks for moving our stuff from point A to point B. Today, I’m seeing more emphasis upon providing storage space in modern, secure, and even temperature-controlled   facilities. These buildings have multiple-sized pods for every storage need. Consumers are accumulating more and more stuff! They’ve ma...

Every summer I fight to eradicate a persistent, pesky vine from preying upon my border plants, shrubs, and beloved rhododendron! While I have never completely identified the exact species, I think this "climber" is in the family of summer annuals like a "Morning Glory." One thing I know, although it has heart-shaped leaves that are configured alternately on the stem, I have no love in my heart for this "twiner!" Nearly every season, this vine will spread like a canopy upon the tops of the rhododendron until it shades and smothers this plant that we prize for its beautiful lilac flowers. When I unloose the vine and pull this mass down to dispose of it before it completely suffocates the plant, it fills up half of a large lawn-waste container!  Where is this rambler going? This vine is the enemy! Just this week, I was surveying the roof and siding of our house for any wind damage from a recent storm. I looked up some eight feet at the corner molding behind a...