Category: Commentary

How to Fight Fair in Marriage

 “Never go to bed mad.  Stay up late and fight.”

Phyllis Diller

 Marriage and prison are the two easiest places to fight.  If you are married, or in prison, you will know this to be true.  I’m afraid I can’t help you regarding conflict during incarceration, but I can offer some tips for those locked in matrimony.  The key to successfully navigating conflict in marriage is learning how to fight fair.
 Marriage is like a job that you work at. Sometimes you have problems.  The real danger starts when you have the same last name.  If you are not trying to date anymore (when you are typically on your best behavior), the smallest of disagreements can flare into a double-digit married fight in a hurry.  Note – there are two types of fights in marriage.  There is the disagreement, which is like a planned fight, and the spontaneous fight, which can erupt at any time (who brought home this chocolate milk?!!!).  The following useful tips

can be applied to both.
First, you want to avoid having things blow up in blistering anger. Any kind of fight is a threat. Our brains can be hijacked when we perceive a threat. This is where the danger lies. When facing a threat, we tend to react emotionally and either fight, flee, or freeze. This happens when our amygdala kicks in and stress producing hormones flood our system causing a physical response. The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain’s temporal lobe that is part of the limbic system. It’s involved in processing emotional input, especially fear.

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Where in the Biblewill I find…?

Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
I pray that you are doing well so far this week. As always, I encourage you to get into the word of God on a daily basis. Have you read your Bible today? If not why not? It only takes a few minutes to read a whole chapter. In Luke 4:4 Jesus said, “…it is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” Let us also continue to pray for our nation’s defenders and our first responders. And please pray for rain! Our question for the week is; “Where in the Bible will I find gods and earrings hidden under an oak?”

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Glimpse…

OK, I’ll go first. My family lived about five miles south of Somerset in the Blackjacks on our 100-acre family farm when I started first grade. My paternal grandmother lived down the lane from us under a grove of Oak trees, and we lived under another. A Mr. Frank James (of the ubiquitous James family of Somerset) was our bus driver, and I recall we meandered amongst the family farms for about an hour before reaching the schoolhouse in “downtown” Somerset. The main schoolhouse was a three-story, 11-classroom building that housed second through 12th grades. The first grade met in a two-room building (which was probably an old barracks) down below the official school house.
There were two rooms. Miss Winnie was my teacher and Miss King was the other. Unfortunately, the Hispanic children were segregated, and they were Miss King’s students.

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Looking Good or Seeing Good

I recently saw a T-Shirt for sale that said something along the lines that aging is one body part saying to other parts: “You Think That Was Bad? Watch This!”
To be very clear, I take NO credit for that phrase, but I DO RESEMBLE that remark!
The latest in my Replacement Journey is a scheduled Cataract Surgery. The Good Book. AKA The Bible, talks about as some of the people mentioned aged…their Eyes Grew Dim. I can sure relate to that.
After some extensive investigations into that piece of my anatomy, some options were given to me and the Boss Lady. We selected the least invasive choice. Time will tell IF the procedure will be successful. But the real dilemma that comes to my mind is these two combative thoughts: Will I See Better and/or will I Look Better?

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School Time!

As is usual, with the first week of the month, my week was a busy one with various meetings and appointments. When we had our Hospital Auxiliary meeting, we changed the time of our hours, so now my Wednesdays working will change from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and be 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
The early part of this past week, they mowed the hay fields and spent the day Friday running the balers, in the fields close to my house. Sunday morning, when I looked out the window after church, most of the bales had been hauled off.
This week will begin with an appointment in Victoria for me and my sister decided that she needed a break and will take me. We have a gift certificate to a boutique in Cuero that we are anxious to use, so coming home there will be a side trip to that boutique. Mostly though, we’ll check out the mall and a couple of stores in Victoria, and of course, we get to eat out!

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Tid Bits

Last week your Lytle P.D officers handled 46 calls for service and conducted 84 traffic stops. Of those 84 stops, 65 resulted in citations and 19 were warnings. Railroad St., was again, the site of this week’s “top speeder.” Sgt. Hanson cited a driver for “60 in a 35”, so that is 25 MPH over the limit. I have received a few tickets in my day, I was never a “fast driver,” maybe if I was trying to make it to Dairy Queen before they closed but that was about it.
Not too much criminal activity to report this past week, the crooks are busy getting the kids ready for school and taking those last-minute vacations.
We did not arrest anyone last week! It’s always a good week when nobody goes to jail. As a bonus, we save a lot of time and fuel expenses by not having to run people to the county jails in Jourdanton, Hondo, or San Antonio.

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Things & Stuff

Well, Fall is almost here. Don’t need to mention the heat and the temporary dry spell we in right now. Lord is gonna make it rain soon….next time for sure.
I apologized for my actions in Sunday School that caused us to miss a rain event. Ten or twelve days ago, there was lightning and thunder to the north of us towards Biry and you could feel the cool wind and smell the rain…soon as I went outside and rolled up the windows on my truck, it dissipated. Sorry.
On August 20th at 6:30 PM, there will be a Public Hearing at the Devine EMS building on Dixon St. The public is encouraged to attend and discuss the 57% tax increase “needed” to fund their own ambulance service. I gotta lotta questions.

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Your Gallbladder is Your Friend

     “My favorite thing about being an adult is avoiding going to the doctor until I need to be hospitalized.”

Anonymous

     Your gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped organ located underneath your liver, in your upper right abdomen.  As part of the digestive system, it stores and concentrates bile.  Bile is a vital liquid that breaks down fat during digestion and is produced by the liver.  As you eat (especially good tasting fatty foods), the gallbladder contracts and releases bile into the small intestine through a series of ducts called the biliary tract.  Think of your gallbladder as your friend.

     To maintain gallbladder health, it is important to eat healthy fats.  A low-fat diet is not good for your gallbladder (don’t listen to the low-fat experts with their bow ties and clipboards).  Healthy fat is good for you.  Good healthy fat options include eggs (get the high-dollar free-range eggs – much higher nutritional value), grass-fed butter (margarine is poison), grass-fed beef, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), avocados, oily fish (try sardines), and nuts.  Eating healthy fats signals your gallbladder to squeeze out bile sludge preventing gallstones.

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Tid-Bits

Lytle Police activity for the past week included, but was not limited to, responding to 39 calls for service and conducting 66 traffic stops. Of the 66 stops, 57 resulted in citations and 9 were warnings. The “top speeder” of the week was “clocked” by Sgt. G. Hanson speeding 73 mph in a 35-mph zone on Railroad St. That’s 38 mph over the limit! That reminds me of the old Cannonball Run movie from 1981, it was packed full of stars. Sadly, most of them have passed on. Fair warning, if you look up the theme song and listen to it, it may get stuck in your head. Now on to something of more substance.
Only two property crimes were reported to us last week. #1 -H.E.B. Plus reported that an unknown female shoplifted some unknown items. That is a lot of unknowns. #2 – A resident of N. Benton reported scratches on the rear hatch of her vehicle.

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Dumbing us down!

Super busy week and weekend! My awesome stay in Devine ended last Thursday morning, when we left from my grandsons’ home to bring me back home! That afternoon, grocery shopping and a nap were the order of the day, Friday, I baked cakes for the church picnic and Saturday, I spent a large portion of the day helping make the cream cheese and poppy seed rolls that are a main fundraiser. It was fun and everything turned out really good. Sunday was picnic day and was a really busy day. However, I was finished working and after lunch watched the auction for a bit and came back to the house, hard work but also a fun time.  This column is truly a “Did you know…column, as I’ve noticed several things over the past several weeks/months and even years, that you may or may not have noticed. For instance: we all know that for years, bacon is no longer sold by the pound (16-ozs) but comes in packages that contain 12-ozs, and yes, it is still the same price or higher than the 16-oz packages were.

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