toddcast

A few years ago I traded my gas and electric lawn equipment for battery-powered tools. I loved them, until the batteries wore out. No big deal, I thought. I bought a new battery and got back to work. But within a couple of weeks, it started dying on me. I'd be halfway through the yard and the blower would just quit. So I set the battery on the charger, swapped in the backup, and finished the job. The next weekend, I grabbed the new battery, fully charged and ready to go. A few minutes in, the blower died again. I was ready to throw that battery in the trash. Then a thought stopped me: What if it isn't the battery? What if it's the charger? It was the charger. The battery was fine. It had never been getting a charge in the first place. No charge, no power. It's that simple. I think I'm a lot like that battery. I run down fast. I fall short of the person I want to be. The good things I want to do start to feel like heavy lifting. And too often I find myself aski...

I don’t have a nice yard. I’ve never been good at keeping the grass thick and green. I’m not sure why but I’m sure it’s tied to some character flaw. I’m reminded of this every time I mow the lawn, and I use the term loosely. It’s more like patches of lawn interspersed with patches of dirt. As much dust and dirt fly out of my mower as grass clippings. But this mowing season there’s been an interesting development. My neighbors have a nice lawn, and an even nicer lawn this year. This spring they rooted up all their grass and had a sprinkler system installed. Then they had all new grass brought in and, with the sprinkler system working its magic, their lawn was better than ever. Each day, evidence of an early morning watering left their glittering, green lawn mocking me as I walked through my dry and drooping yard. As spring moved into summer my neighbor’s lawn continued to flourish while mine continued to wilt under the hot Texas sun.   Then one day while mowing, I noticed ...