Thursday Thirteen

13 things I've learned this week or forgot and had to relearn

1. Always take your slacks off when sewing a button on the waist band.
2. Don't eyeball where you think the button should go if you have trifocals.
3. If you add about l/2 pumpkin puree to your favorite peanut butter pie filling, it tastes and looks about the same and has a lot fewer calories (in my recipe).
4. If your garage door goes back up after you've pushed the down button when you've pulled the car in, don't push it again; you didn't get the car in far enough.
5. Home made mashed potatoes taste 50% better than packaged, even with lumps, and at a fraction of the cost.
6. After a tragedy, the talking heads don't know as much as the investigators and police, so hold off on judgement.
7. If you weigh exactly what you did 25 years ago, the distribution is very different.
8. When you volunteer at the food pantry, you'll see some of the same people you saw three months ago. See Matt. 25.
9. Friday date night at the Bucket is more fun when shared with another couple or two.
10. When something goes wrong, whether it is pet food, home mortgages or a mentally ill college student, the proposed legislation and regulations done in the heat of the moment will probably be worse, cost more and lay the ground work for future problems.
11. Loyalty and reward cards whether offered by airlines, retailers, or supermarkets, are like an additional tax--very few benefit, but everyone pays.
12. If you contact someone in charge of a web page, a library, a church, a network, a party, or a government office, concerning something very urgent and important, you will hear nothing, or get an "I'm out of the office today" reply, or a canned response.
13. If you drop a line to just let them know, "I'm here and like what you're doing," you'll be their best friend and forever on their mailing list.