Congratulations to Kavya Shivashankar. The thirteen-year-old from Kansas who spelled all her words out in her hand as she spelled her way to the national championship this year.

To all you Mothers out there. Here's a cup from me.

Today, I baptized my son while his mom, sisters, and Poppi looked on . . .

I'd just like to take this moment to wish the most excellent of birthdays to the most beautiful of women -- My Blushing Bride.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie.

Luv Ya; Luv Ya, Honey!

Just so you know. I try to post sermons weekly at a podcast site--Loom & Wheel Sounds. On March 15-18, our church participated in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's Spring Practicum in which we had a SWBTS student bring the messages for a Four-day revival effort.

Our meetings were well-attended, and our student--one David Miller from Mansfield, Texas--delivered excellent sermons straight from God's word. You can listen to four of the five sermons delivered here, here, here, or here.

Today' s the day to let your Irish show. Have a safe and happy St. Patrick's Day.

Bear with me on this one. I'm including this video, not for the sake of the definition of a political agenda (but you may enjoy Uncle Jay's news items there as well). Go ahead and watch 'til the end where "Uncle Jay answers one of your news questions." Jay's onto the direction of all things media. . . Just watch

As we were finishing our services this morning I received word of the tragedy in Maryville, IL.

Today I'm praying and would ask all my readers to pray. Fred Winters' life was taken for reasons we don't know. Now his wife and children as well as First Baptist Church of Maryville have lost one that they love.

I am speechless. I must pray.

Check out the review of my first two novellas over at Coffeespoons.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Bill Crider, I've added another lesser-known holiday to my arsenal. And so I give you Square Root Day (we'll wait until the uncontrollable applause and mayhem subsides). Grab your calculator and start dividing. Remember that we can't celebrate every year, so kick your heels up with extra special vigor today!

If you haven't decided how to celebrate Texas Independence Day, why not have some Tex-Mex tonight and enjoy the holiday.

It seems our local school district looks for any reason to dismiss, and exercises its right to dismiss on every occasion it can find. The occasion today is Pulaski Day. This holiday is celebrated in Illinois for the apparent reason of taking another day off.

So, happy Pulaski Day, even though (unless you're from Illinois or of Polish descent) you've probably never heard of him or his day. Take the day off, relax, and enjoy life.

I heard that one of the most familiar voices of our time has been silenced. I recall many days when we would listen for Paul Harvey's commentary as we had breakfast (as I grew older, I discovered some stations played him in the middle of the day). Like many, my favorite part was when he would tell "The REST of the story." I could almost see him turning the page after an inserted commercial for the Bose acoustic wave machine or some other sponsor, and he would say, "page 3."

It seemed that one of the things that helped begin the day was to hear Paul say, "Hello, Americans . . . " concluding with a hearty "Good Day!"

Thanks, Paul, for the memories, for the laughter, and for making us sometimes think about what we thought.

I recall a time (more years ago than I am ready to admit) when we celebrated the birthdays of significant presidents. Typically in the month of February we set aside times to remember George Washington (the Father of our country) and Abraham Lincoln (the Great Emancipator) because (1) they had birthdays in the month of February, and (2) they held certain distinctions as presidents of the Union.

Then someone got a burr under their saddle (look it up) and decided that we should honor all of our past presidents. The school boy in me said, "Cool, now we'll get more holidays!" But alas, what the decision-makers decided was that, instead of celebrating all of the presidents' birthdays, we could lump them all together into one. Consequently we went backward in the number of holidays we received, from 2 in February, to 1 in February and none in the other months which held birthdays of past presidents.

Be that as it may, today is the special day designated to honor our presidents, so here's something I couldn't do from memory -- list the presidents:

1. George Washington, 1789-97
2. John Adams, 1797-1801
3. Thomas Jefferson, 1801-9
4. James Madison, 1809-17
5. James Monroe, 1817-25
6. John Quincy Adams, 1825-29
7. Andrew Jackson, 1829-37
8. Martin Van Buren, 1837-41
9. William Henry Harrison, 1841
10. John Tyler, 1841-45
11. James Knox Polk, 1845-49
12. Zachary Taylor, 1849-50
13. Millard Fillmore, 1850-53
14. Franklin Pierce, 1853-57
15. James Buchanan, 1857-61
16. Abraham Lincoln, 1861-65
17. Andrew Johnson, 1865-69
18. Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-77
19. Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-81
20. James Abram Garfield, 1881
21. Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-85
22. Grover Cleveland, 1885-89
23. Benjamin Harrison, 1889-93
24. Grover Cleveland, 1893-97
25. William McKinley, 1897-1901
26. Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-9
27. William Howard Taft, 1909-13
28. Woodrow Wilson, 1913-21
29. Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-23
30. Calvin Coolidge, 1923-29
31. Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-33
32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-45
33. Harry S Truman, 1945-53
34. Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953-61
35. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-63
36. Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-69
37. Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-74
38. Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr , 1974-77
39. James Earl Carter, 1977-81
40. Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-89
41. George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993
42. William Jefferson Clinton, 1993- 2001
43. George W. Bush, 2001-9
44. Barack Obama, Our current president
    

In the midst of a publishing community that is debating the value of keeping editors on staff, and the wash of a techno-age that fills young minds with convenience spelling for the sake of saving space on a text message, it has apparently become less than important to properly proofread tests.

Kudos to Geoffrey Stanford for his attention to a standardized test won him his fifteen minutes of fame. Read the story here.