Opinions

The children were in the pew in front of me.

One thing I can say for sure for this year is when Santa asks me if I have been naughty or nice. I want to preface my answer with, "I did try!" Well, I thought about trying, which is what counts. At least "they" say it's the thought that counts. I can harken back to my youngster days when I was nice or Santa would take me away on Christmas Eve night, but that happened to my brother, so there is that.

Heaters can cause fires that can cause serious damage, injuries or death. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), heating equipment caused 44,210 home fires and 480 deaths between 2016 and 2020.

A total of $18 billion in property tax cuts were approved by more than 80% of voters in the November general election and should be reflected in property tax bills that are due by Jan. 31. The cuts come in the form of increased home exemptions, lower school district rates, and limiting the amount property appraisals can rise.

“I don’t even have any good skills. You know, like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills. Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills!” Napoleon Dynamite

I tend to be a Christmas maximalist; at least if you ask my husband, Peter, that's what he would say.

’Tis the season to be jolly. Fa la la la la, Humf. It is sad when I can identify more with the Grinch than with Santa Claus. Where is that holiday spirit? I don’t see what all this holiday cheer is about.

A half-dozen lawsuits challenging the 13 approved Texas constitutional amendments appear to be dead in the water, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The prospect of life in outer space and alien creatures has always fascinated much of the population of planet Earth. Countless Sci-Fi movies and TV shows are evidence of this.

My Facebook feed reminded me that, exactly 12 years ago, I was considering buying palazzo pants.

As Dianne and I look around the house, we see piles of stuff. The stuff we have accumulated in just the last several years is enough to declare Mount Everest a hill. It’s not that we are hoarders, as hoarders themselves would say, because we do have garage sales, yard sales and any type of sales we can come up with to get rid of the piles of stuff we don’t use.

The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a case that could decide whether medical exceptions to the state’s abortion ban are written clearly enough to protect pregnant women who face serious health risks, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

We had dinner with friends last night.

Several years ago, I was invited to go deer hunting with my brother-in-law Jake on their ranch near Rocksprings, Texas.

We just finished up the annual and traditional time of Thanksgiving with family, friends, helping, giving, listening, and encouraging. I hope we all found moments of joy and spent some parts of the day giving thanks, not just in our hearts, but to those we shared time with.

Thanksgiving Blues

As time runs out next week on the fourth special session, Gov. Greg Abbott said he will continue to fight for school choice, despite the Texas House once again decisively rejecting it when 21 Republicans largely from rural districts joined Democrats in stripping it from a $7.6 billion education bill. The Austin American-Statesman reported it is unclear what Abbott’s next move will be.

“A Thanksgiving Prayer”

If you could do one small and simple thing each day to sig- nificantly improve your overall health and it didn’t involve sweating at the gym or eating kale, would you do it? If the answer is yes, then read on.

The Texas House on Friday defeated a proposed voucher plan, also leaving in doubt a comprehensive public school funding plan that became tied to it, The Dallas Morning News reported. A coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats joined together to take education savings accounts out of the bill by an 84-63 margin.

The Texas Legislature, conceived as a part-time body to meet every other year for 140 days, is now in its record fifth session (counting the regular session).