HAPPY THANKSGIVING, NOAH.
The turkey is upside dnwn this year “
So is my world since the flood , 
Temporary quarters full of temporary things,
T chat’s life too. In this xx world full of turkes
Thia year I’ll be with my family virtually.I won’t have Mama Stamberg’s cranberry sauce or a Buttrabal sut Is will have a Pub 819 Dinner in virus-free wrap. I will have a piece of pumpkin pie. That cannot change
I won’t have my family . Their presence will be a welcome gift when it happens, so until then, I’ll have this upside dxown world of turkeys: Quite a few, this year, with cancer-scare, virus-looming, flood,Parkinson’s.
vc it’s over l’ll buy a goldfish and call him NOAH, 
We can remember our floods and have joy.
November 2020
necessary to get and use our money which is stored there out for my care. So far this has required two long and detailed phone calls. It will also require a home visit to verify my eligibility, and paperwork for my Doctor to fill out, as well as paper work to verify specific claims. They don’t make it easy or fun.
By Barbara LaTondresse
I celebrated my 70thbirthday this August. That fact in and of itself is enough to make 2018 memorable, but this past year is significant for several other reasons.
So, here I am, twenty-some years after that, sorting boxes for another move. This move is unlike the others in that we’re opening and sorting and processing a vast LaTondresse archeological dig, which spans many years and numerous sides of both of our family trees. It takes a lot of time because we actually feel compelled to look at the stuff partly because this time around Andre and I are the gatekeepers for our two grandsons (with a third on the way, due in October!)
What is real?
back to the bed, getting in bed, the process which looks a lot like picking up the dead weight of a heavy sack of flour and heaving it four feet up and sideways where it thuds into a position allowing sleep.
It’s third-and-10 at the Minnesota 39-yard line with 10 seconds on the clock and the Vikings down 24-23.
and I both raise our hands and cross the goal line. We stand there stunned; beyond jubilant. Touchdown!
Labor.
My bruised and bloodied fingers bore witness to the grueling nature of my task within that process which was to transfer by hand the freshly shiny canned corn cans by twos out of huge iron baskets into cardboard boxes containing 24 cans each, over and over again, until the whistle signaling the end of the 18 hour shift blew and I made my way home to collapse exhausted in my bed until the morning whistle blew six hours later jarring me awake and signaling the time to start the work day all over again.
In another arena, I have known the painful yet beautiful anguish of childbirth. Those of us who have birthed and delivered babies could, but maybe shouldn’t, write volumes about the ins and outs, the upside down sides of that messy, miraculous process of birth.
And I have been a foreign missionary on the front lines, engaged in all-consuming spiritual labor, birthing, and nurturing a Siberian church in Akademgorodok, Russia.
Each of these instances show the work to be worth the effort and ‘well done’ whether from fellow humans or God will be the judgment; as a result it becomes easy to measure one’s worth by what one is or is not able to perform well along life’s way. Labor toward perfection seems to lead to success in life.
Night Lights and Morning Joys 
