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a look at Father's Day

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 Father's Day weekend is here.  It's a hard one for me.  It always has been, actually.  My dad and I were not close when I was growing up but in the last few years we came to a place of mutual understanding and respect....and then he got really sick really fast and now he is gone.       This is my first Father's day without a father.  I've talked to my older kids this week and mentioned Father's day.  They asked "are we doing anything?"  My answer was something like, well, I don't know.  I don't have a dad anymore so I don't really feel like it's my job to plan something for Father's Day.      I wish I could tell my kids we were going to my dad's to visit and grill and hang out at the lake for the day.  I wish I could go shopping at the local greenhouse and buy something landscape-ish that he would like, or go to the bakery and get a bag full of Dutch treats.....that's what I have done the last few years for...
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Claire, my dining room table, church

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Today Claire came home from work and we sat at the table for awhile.  Oh boy, if my dining room table could talk......there are more memories soaked into this table that I can recount, and more tears and bursts of laughter than I can ever remember.  There are more lists and memos and plans etched into it that I could ever save...... She is making her lists for moving to college.  It's true that she is only moving a couple hundred feet away to the college in our town, but she is still moving out.  She is taking all of the things she uses every day and she is setting up a life in a dorm on a college campus with a new roommate and a whole new world.  In 4 days we will move her out.  It is so weird.  It is the weirdest thing ever.  Adding children to our home is not weird at all.  Figuring out how to send them out is.  I'm less sad and more....conflicted, maybe.   I am so excited for her.  Moving to college is probab...
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3 French Hens

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According to the internet explanations ( if we choose to believe that the 12 days represent 12 different parts of Christianity) the third day is for 3 Christian virtues:  Faith.  Hope.  Charity.  I was reading from a different site that said this is not code for persecuted Christians and that made me crabby because I liked it better when that seemed true.  Don't believe everything you read, folks.  That said, you can believe this.  Three of the hardest virtues to maintain and live by, are faith, hope and charity.  Living a life of faith means not believing in the here and now, not banking on what you can see and sometimes it means if you want to walk on water, you first have to get out of the boat.  Jesus called to Peter to get out of the boat and come to him......if Peter had lacked faith, he would have stayed in the boat and refused.  Faith allowed him to swing his legs over the side of the boat and shift his weight forward and to s...
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