I have heard the phrase dog days of summer all of my life. But I never to stopped to research the exact calendar slotting of those days. According to factmonster.com, dog days is the name for the most sultry period of summer, from about July 3 to Aug. 11. Named in early times by observers in countries bordering the Mediterranean, the period was reckoned as extending from 20 days before to 20 days after the conjunction of Sirius (the dog star) and the sun. So dog days are officially over. However, since it is still over 100 degrees here in Texas, I am declaring at this site that dog days have been extended until further notice. I thought about dog days as I watched Miss Hannah stretch out lazily on the tile floor.                                               This is our lab/something else mix Hannah and this is not a posed photo. At any given time around our household Hannah will come waltzing up with the three
Continue reading...

Today is our Chemo Date Day. While Joni and I spend our day at the Slow Drip Spa I am posting a gently read post from the past. Christmas apparently is almost here based on the number of holiday catalogs arriving daily. It is an interesting phenomenon to burn your fingers on a mailbox superheated by 100 plus degree Texas days and pull out a catalog with models frolicking in the snow. With the Christmas shopping season looming it seemed appropriate to revisit the topic of regifting. I suppose that most writers perceive themselves as wordsmiths. But most of us merely arrange previously coined words. What a thrill it must be to actually create a word and see it become a part of the lexicon. The Seinfeld television show was known for inventing new words and phrases that are now in common usage. I was reminded of that this week when I read a survey about the phenomenon of regifting. Regift is a verb and means “to give an
Continue reading...

So I am sitting in my home this morning minding my own business, reading the Dallas Morning News, and I get clotheslined by a small note in the GuideLive section. There it is at the top of page 5G…Birthdays….Barbara Eden, 72. Are you kidding me? Jeannie is 72? How old do I feel today! I was twelve when I Dream of Jeannie appeared in stunning black and white on our Sylvania TV. I don’t like to brag but our television featured the “halo light” innovation. The halo light was a fluorescent light which surrounded the picture tube in order to provide, well, I have no idea why it was there but we had one and no one else on our block did! A little research time did reveal the answer to the mystery of the halo light. The website tvlamps.net  gave me my answer. TV lamps originated from a perceived need to diffuse the contrast between the brightness of the television screen and the comparative darkness of
Continue reading...

There is a brake company in the Dallas area that runs radio commercials featuring a very concerned and extraordinarily helpful employee explaining why a female caller needs to get her car in right away to save money and to be sure she is safe. They are even willing to stay later to make sure her car is safe. Impressed, she asks the question, “why do you do it?” And then the jingle singers let us know why. Because they really do care. That ad is for Just Brakes and I have no reason to doubt that they really do care. Someone asked me the other day a similar question about my almost daily blogs. “Why do you write a blog everyday?” The tone was incredulous. Why do you do it? Since I don’t have jingle singers I will have to write out my answer to a question that proved more complex than it seemed at first blush. I describe blogging as ego journaling. There
Continue reading...

This is a dangerous post. I must begin with a disclaimer that I have now lived in Texas for 26 years. I love Texas and the people of the Lone Star state. Please remember that disclaimer as I confess that I understand what General  Philip Henry Sheridan said about Texas after the Civil War. Sheridan remarked that “if I owned Hell and Texas I would rent out Texas and live in Hell”. Because he criticized Texas and was also a Yankee (the Texas version of a Samaritan) I am pretty sure that most Texans are sure he is now residing in Hell. But let us extend a moment of grace and consider that perhaps Sheridan offered his comments during the month of August. I suspect that in pre A/C days I might have said the same thing. This summer has been miserable in North Texas. August in Texas is our payback for mocking our Northern friends during February. The culprit for our miserable summer has
Continue reading...

Busted! You always hope that your sins will fly under the radar. But you cannot hide forever. Yesterday I laughed out loud when I found a reference to my recent blog about Mel Gibson at anti-itch meditation. Blogger Jeff Weddle posted an excerpt from my blog and had this summation. The guy is great with words (even though he puts an apostrophe in a possessive ‘its’) and makes excellent points. While I appreciate the kind words about my writing his comments exposed a raw nerve. I can hide it no longer. I am tired of trying to hide my shame. I was apparently sick the day they covered punctuation. Yes, I admit it.  Deep breath.I am a terrible punctuator. Okay…are you happy? My weakness is exposed for the entire world to see with the daily blog. I have an editor to clean up after my punctuation mess when I write a book. So I am praying for God to raise up a punctuation proofer to
Continue reading...

I opened the email box this morning and I was reminded that youngest son Brett fell straight down from the Burchett family tree. In his message was a link to a new  poster from a company called Despair, Inc. This group of lovable cynics parodies the motivational poster companies. Brett sent me this to start my day. Of course I then spent thirty minutes that I will never get back looking at all of the “Demotivating” downers from this company. Would you like to join me in a half-empty tour of abject despair? Of course you would because you have nothing better to do (just getting you warmed up). The first one fits nicely with my personal slogan that my ministry is to make other Christians feel superior. Mistakes – It could be that the only purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. I thought the next one was really funny until I really started thinking about it. And I
Continue reading...