Serve by Design

During these days of Advent, I have been thinking about heaven. It’s funny how the mind works. It surprises me in strange ways. I popped into a local eatery on North Grand, Springfield recently. Our daughter and her family think this place has the best burgers in central Illinois. I must admit that their smash burgers and custard are something special. I do savor those crispy fried edges on the double cheese! Don’t tell Monique! Image: Krekel's Custard & Hamburgers I looked up on the tabletop and noticed a catchy advertisement on the napkin holder. It said, “Heaven is a Brown Paper Sack!” And appropriately so, this restaurant does a lot of take-out orders where you will see patrons clutching their brown paper bags filled with burgers and fries. While this isn’t the best food for your health, you can cherish “heavenly thoughts” of delicious greasiness in each bite! There is another notable brown bag establishment that I like on South Grand that stuffs its delicious fried fish ...

This past weekend, we have been dealing with our first snowfall of the season. It has been a heavy, wet snow that has steadily blanketed our village with an impressive eight and a half inches of accumulated snow. The day before, on Friday, our granddaughter, Chloe, helped us put the ornaments on the tree and then we did some last-minute grocery shopping. It was the calm before the storm, and we were getting prepared should we be snowed in for the weekend! Image credit: www.freepik.com On Saturday, as the snow began falling, Monique and I sat comfortably in the family room admiring our Christmas decorations. The lights on the tree and mantle were having their usual seasonal effect. It was just after one o’clock as I was entering a hypnotic state and was almost asleep when the first of two back-to-back thunderous claps jolted me fully awake. Monique was startled as well and exclaimed, “WHAT…WAS… THAT?” While still processing what I had heard, I tentatively replied, “That was thunder! But...

This is our first and hopefully, last "Pandemic Thanksgiving!" It is different and disappointing. Yet, in many ways it is also surprisingly delightful! We have some extremely gifted and creative grandchildren in our family! Remember, my weekly signature postscript declares that I am proud to be known as "a doting grandparent?!!" This suggests by definition that I am "extremely and uncritically fond and adoring" of all twelve of our grands! 😁 I have been wanting to get a writer out of this crop of kids for years now. I just may get more than one! We have a couple of teenagers who are showing some promise. I'll brag on them sometime later. However, it is the littlest of the lot that I am bragging on today. Eloise our adoring 8-year-old granddaughter from Saint Louis recently wrote a precious note to Mimi and Poppi that has our buttons popping with pride. This was a school assignment for her second grade class. Her Daddy remarked that this micro literary...