TABLE TALES Written by Arleen M. Kaptur
Setting table used to mean placing forks, knives, and spoons in exact same place where your grandmother and your grandmother’s grandmother placed theirs. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with tradition, does setting table today carry same meaning as it did in past generations? When your children are small, you prepare family meal, and then use place mats, your eating utensils and assorted bowls and platters. Kids don’t seem to mind if there are no flowers on table or crystal water glasses. They seem to enjoy their food with these amenities or without them. On special occasions, when your in-laws visit, preacher comes visiting, or your child’s favorite teacher comes for brunch, you try different ways to present a table that is not only laden with best in culinary delights, but also your very best china, silverware and linen. In all different phases of life (single, newlywed, bringing up family, empty nest, retired, or living alone once again) people go through simple, very elaborate, kind of trendy, and then back to very simple. Of course, time, money, and family ideas and needs are all different, except for one. People eat better when they are treated with charm, dignity, and special little details designed for their comfort and enjoyment. When eating alone, why bother setting table? You are setting it for a very special guest - you. Your thoughts and ideas are paramount to conversation, and your mealtime needs to be stress-free and well-appointed. You will feel better for it, your digestion will thank you, and you will leave table feeling good about yourself . Small children - they learn from our example more than they learn from our words. If we treat family meals as special times, they will learn to feel same way about sitting down with everyone sharing, caring, and being attentive to each other. Of course, this would be ideal situation. Family squabbles, fighting, spilling, and other added features will occur during mealtime when you have various ages gathered at table. Welcome these annoyances, deal with them appropriately and carefully, because message you convey carries a lot of baggage. It imprints on a child fear of being careless, and a bother, or it will boost self-image and creativity. How - your child will see that you deal with disruptions in an orderly way, clearing mess as cheerfully as circumstances permit. They, in turn and maybe not right away, but they will deal with their peers and their elders in mimic of you. How would you like their imitation of you to be projected?
| | How Much Does it Cost?Written by Ken McIsaac
"A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety." - Aesop (BC) Most of us go through life always wanting more and better. Being in this state of constant desire does not coexist with peace of mind. It is normal to want a better life for ourselves and our families, but we have to balance our goals with cost. How much does this promotion, vacation, new purchase, cost in terms of real life? How many extra hours of stress and anxiety, now and later, go into getting it? "The cost of a thing is amount of what I call life, which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in long run." - Henry Thoreau (1817-1862) Corporations and their advertisers are out to make money. Advertising is one-way communication persuading us to buy things we may not need or want. The good things in life are free, life itself, friendship, nature. Whatever we do possess, in end we must leave it all behind. "Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. The demon of worldly desires is always seeking chances to deceive mind. If a viper lives in your room and you wish to have a peaceful sleep, you must first chase it out." - Buddha (BC)
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