Anna M. Aquino

  My grandmother moved in with Jesus over 5 years ago. When I was a little girl, she used to sneak me out of the house if I’d gotten in trouble.   We used to go get a McDonald’s Happy Meal and eat it at the Harding Memorial.   I still remember rolling down the hill in a huge cardboard dryer box (which I did hear that all of that is officially illegal now.)   No matter how old I was her excuse for any deviant behavior I had was, “She’s only such and such years old.”   Yea I don’t think that excuse still works.     I inherited a lot of her kitchen extras.   You know what I mean, those random cooking tools that one rarely buys but somehow they end up in the drawer.   My family and I are in the midst of several transitions and a lot of my things are still packed in boxes.   I only unpacked the bare minimum when we moved a few months ago.   I have no idea where my crock pot is.   I think it’s in a box somewhere between my c...

  Last weekend my family and I felt the need to start purging some things in the house.   We started the piles of: “Things we are keeping”, “Things we are selling”, “and Things that are getting thrown out”.   Dan took on the role of helping the kids while I started listing things on Craigslist.   It’s amazing when you go through your home once in a while the piles of stuff you find.   It’s amazing all the little doodad’s and trinkets that once seemed so valuable suddenly don’t.   Sometimes we can so worry about gaining all the stuff:   Like are these the right color for my couch, or did I get it on sale and could have gotten more off, or what if I give so and so another Christmas present they don’t like.   We get so caught up in collecting our Stuff that we forget; we can’t take this stuff into eternity with us.   One day on this earth all that will be left of us on the earth is the stuff of our lives.   I’m not about to say ...

            A few nights ago around the dinner table, Dan and I began reminiscing of some of the supernatural stories we had the first few years that we lived in Florida.   There was the time my oldest daughter was set to be born and we had really bad insurance so the doctor waited a couple of days before he induced me.   Our insurance changed on a Monday and I had her by C-section on a Thursday.   There was the time when my husband knew he was supposed to work for this one company and essential called them every week, and sent the boss a get well card.   When one job ended, he never missed a day of work.   He went right to the job he knew God had wanted him to get.   There was the time we bought our first house and technically neither of us had a job because the place Dan was working ran out of work on a Wednesday and we closed on the new house on a Friday, and in faith we went through with it. ...

            Our beloved little puppy like most puppies has moments of destruction.   Sure it’s minor compared to big dogs, however Mojo likes to rip open things and pull out the stuffing.   You can see in this picture a trail of stuffing that’s been left behind.   You know where Mojo has been, and where he went just by looking at it.             Our lives on this earth are like that.   What kind of trails are we leaving behind?   What do people see when we leave a room?   Are we leaving Godly character and legacy or are we leaving a mess behind.               I remember once hearing Maya Angelou speak and she was saying that when she has a party and people come over, if she hears someone speaking negative she’ll politely ask them to leave.   She doesn’t want their words cl...

As many of you know I’m currently in full swing on my Northern Tour. It’s been so nice to be spending some time with my family in OH. I’ve joked for years that though God took this Northerner out of the North, the Buckeye is still part of the girl. My parents have had an in ground outside pool on their property. I grew up swimming in the midst of the Ohio woods. The setting really is this picturesque place, but it was always so cold. The pool wasn’t heated. In fact I remember being told to “jump right in and eventually we’d just get used to the water.” My sister and I have joked about this for years, and in fact if some of you grew up with me you’ll laugh about memories in the frigid pool. After my sister and I grew up and have had our own children, a pool heater was finally purchased. This makes for a much more pleasant experience, the grandkids love coming to swim and an endless stream of jokes have arose. Because you know when I was a kid it was so cold they made us swim ...