Author: maryanncrum

   When your kids grow up, leave home and invite you over for Thanksgiving, it’s a mixed blessing. It’s a whole lot easier, for sure, but I do miss having leftovers to munch on for days and days … and days.    Having gone to my son’s house to feast this year, my fridge is now… Continue reading Happy ThanksLIVING!

  I hate it when winning feels like losing.    That was my experience a couple of weeks ago when my Auburn Tigers beat the University of Mississippi in a hugely hyped football battle between two highly-ranked teams.    I should have been thoroughly stoked when my team came out on top, but I wasn’t. Why? Because… Continue reading When Winning Feels Like Losing

   My five-year-old granddaughter has come up with her own surefire formula for success: If you want to win every time, play games you make up yourself.    I stopped by to visit my grandkids recently and Edda couldn’t wait to show me a new game she’d invented. She proudly brought out the game board and… Continue reading Whose Rules Are You Playing By?

   Is there any activity in your life you’ve spent 10,000 hours practicing?    I ask because I was watching a tennis match on TV recently and one of the commentators said experts have determined it takes 10,000 hours of practice to perfect a skill like hitting a tennis ball.    No wonder I never… Continue reading Just One Thing

   A friend of mine told me her elderly mother-in-law liked to read signs as she traveled down streets and roads. Not just a few signs. Every single one.    “Grace Street … For Sale By Owner … Speed Limit 30 … Let ’em Work, Let ’em Live … Two Sausage Biscuits for a Dollar ….”… Continue reading Devour (God’s Word) or Be Devoured

   The serious goings-on in our tumultuous world supply more than enough fodder for real newspaper columnists to discuss. But who, besides me, is going to address the news item I read the other day about a dog who ate nearly four dozen socks?    Pontificating on things like Islamic jihadists, the Russian invasion of Ukraine,… Continue reading Don’t Let Things Slip Away

   When anyone asks me what we grow on our farm, it feels rather wimpy to answer, “Well, we have a little vegetable garden.”    We moved to the hinterlands more than two years ago, but we don’t have the time or know-how to be real farmers yet. Maybe when my husband retires. Until then, our… Continue reading Being Driven Can Be Good

 “Is there something about me that makes you think I’d want to hear THAT?”    That’s what a friend told me she was tempted to say to an elderly mother who had just told her, in great and gory detail, how she’d come to the aid of her grown son, who was suffering some digestive… Continue reading God’s Story Can’t Be Overshared

   It’s almost hard for me to remember life before all my iGadgets—my iPhone, iPad and iPod—kept me connected and entertained.    Almost, but not quite.    In fact, just the other day I was thinking about one of my favorite childhood possessions: a transistor radio I got when I was about seven years old.… Continue reading There’s Something in the Air

  A cool day in July? Who’d a thunk it?    It wasn’t exactly an arctic blast, but on July 16th and 17th, there was “a good feel to the air” just as Christy, the TV weather lady, had predicted. Not bad for mid-summer in South Carolina.    I was sitting outside on the morning after the… Continue reading The Cure For Soul Cancer