Christian buying power can change business for the better. Integrity, excellent products and wholesome advertising beget loyalty from a demographic that spends $1.5 trillion annually. For shortsighted companies that dismiss the Christian market, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
   

    Nationally, 231 million Americans (77 percent) describe themselves as Christians, of which

 

Anatomy of a Bad Book Signing

By  Suzette Martinez Standring

 

        It’s not good marketing to share a flop, but a bad book signing can be comical.  This is in case you thought authorhood was all bright lights and glamour.  

 

    I don’t want to be self-serving by saying I’ve spoken to crowded rooms before (there I’ve done it anyway), but Tuesday at Borders was not one of them.

    

    Shoot me now - there

 

    By Suzette Martinez Standring

 

    Local gardeners are gearing up to plant homegrown produce and my daughter and her husband have prepared their first-ever veggie patch.  Enthusiasm has raced ahead of experience in these two former city slickers.

 

    “Come see what Joseph did in the yard!” said Star.

 

    And indeed, there was a square of newly tilled earth. Three stakes stood in the center ready to

 

     By Suzette Martinez Standring      

 

         Christianity through Yoga is what former Benedictine monk Russill Paul teaches in his new book, Jesus in the Lotus: The Mystical Doorway between Christianity and Yogic Spirituality (New World Library 2008; $14.95). Yoga and prayer can open the door to a feeling of divine connection without compromising one’s Christian faith.

 

    “Without any

 

By Suzette Martinez Standring

 

    There is an uptick in tongue piercings because more kids enjoy mouth jewelry as a fashion statement.  I hear that sensory pleasure and style are the benefits. Oh, and here’s another one - funding your dentist’s new boat. A steel barbell, commonly inserted after a tongue piercing, cracks molars.  Eventually, if you want to eat anything stronger than great-grandpa’s