Hi Pauline,

I was remembering recently something my father said when I was a child, that he was proud of me for not calling stupid people "stupid" (or the people I THOUGHT were stupid) my father would never refer to people as stupid either!  What I realize now is that in addition to looking for goodness, he could also clearly see the lack of badness in our behavior sometimes.  THAT is truly a gift more parents could use!

One thing that made the lives of me and my siblings somewhat difficult as teenagers is we had to go to church every Sunday..."If you live under my roof, you'll go to church or get out from under my roof!"

So we all went, and I was the youngest and so eventually I was the only one left in the house with my parents, then sandwiched between them in the church pew every Sunday.  My mother was a wonderful singer, and my father sang because he thought it was the right thing to do, but sounded like a scratchy skipping record!  We always sat in the 3rd or 4th row, too close to the booming echo of the priest's microphone for my comfort, and about halfway thru mass my father would always be looking at the palms of his hands, from boredom.  I once got the nerve to ask him if he was watching his life-line getting shorter thru the hour of church!  HAHA!!  He was partially deaf so I had to say it louder a second time, and he ANSWERED ME and said yes his life line always got shorter!  (This was a very strict man, so my brothers used to tell me I had b*lls to talk to him out of turn, but I did!) 

My sister once said I talk to my parents like they are PEOPLE!  The older kids had younger parents than I did, thank goodness Mom & Dad lost some energy by the time I became 15+.

HAPPY EASTER!!