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    Managing Expectations

    I tell my wife and daughters all the time to manage their expectations. Whether it’s a new job, new boyfriend, new car, fast food, new conspiracy theory, or new Girl Scout cookie flavors, manage your expectations. You get the picture. I recommend managing expectations about pretty much everything in life. Don’t have unrealistic expectations (positive or negative) of anybody or any place or anything. Don’t believe that Wendy’s commercial about their food. Here’s why: Once, I accepted a new job in East Tennessee. Now, East Tennessee is beautiful and sometimes I miss living there. I even learned how to speak a little Tennessean during my time there. But I grew…

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    Invasive Plants and Future

    I ran across this little popcorn tree a few days ago. As strange as this may sound, I miss them. (Yes, I do know that they are an invasive species, but go with me here.) This one is growing in a field next to our apartment complex. For it to be here, there must have been another such tree nearby. Reasonably close, anyway. Maybe the wind blew a seed here. Maybe a bird thought that this field needed a new Chinese Tallow tree. Maybe the rain, I don’t know. I miss them because, on our little half-acre lot in southwest Alabama, we had three such trees. All of them, to…