It’s that time of year again, time to “fall back”, time to reset your clocks and watches back one hour, time to give up a bit of daylight in the afternoon and gain a bit of daylight in the morning. It happens at 2 AM on Sunday, November 5th–like anyone […]
Jill Whitecap
57 posts
I was recently given a book, Coffee Gives Me Superpowers (Iwata, Ryoko, 2016, Kansas City, MO, Hallmark Gift Books) which has an interesting section taken from a psychological study on how the way you drink your coffee shows certain personality traits. According to the study, if you are a black coffee drinker, you […]
What motivates us to enter a contest, play a game, or cheer for our favorite team? Because we want to win! Winning gives us a feeling of being special, of being known as a “winner”. When we win, it doesn’t have to mean others are losers. If we play the […]
When we drill a new borehole or rehab a broken one, the response is almost always the same. “Thank you for the water, thank you for loving us.” It’s simple, yet poignant. Here, in Pittsburgh, we get caught up in “stuff” which obscures what’s really important. Life can get complicated […]
It’s a major event in the life of a Ugandan village when they get a new borehole. It means so much to their health, lifestyle and success as a village. However, that is not the end of the story. Africa is littered with broken boreholes–by some estimates more than half […]
I receive a calendar that lists every national “day” throughout the year. As I write this on Thursday, May 4th, it is National Hoagie Day. I do not know who designates these selections, but it seems like everyone and everything has its special day. Some do not make sense to […]
The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970–almost 50 years ago. I think we take it for granted today and we ignore the effects of our everyday decisions on this fragile planet. Life is a gift; we didn’t do anything to earn it or deserve it. With the gift comes […]
When I was growing up in Massachusetts, the winter was always cold and the ground snow-covered. March would eventually come, still snow-covered and cold, but there would be a day or two toward the end of March and the beginning of April where there was a hint of springtime in […]
During our recent visit to Uganda, we spent one day at a Displaced Persons Camp, a DPC. These people were part of a tribe which had been removed from land they had lived on which was due to be developed. As they didn’t own the land, they have been […]
Do you ever get the feeling that you just don’t know how to celebrate well? Do you wonder what you’re missing out on? Watching some of the workers dance at a recent coffee farm celebration made me acutely aware that celebration is something I do poorly if I do it […]