This is how my grammar program sees the world. Correct Question? 1. There is a desire from all over Europe to win back autonomy. 2. There is desire from all over Europe to win back autonomy. 3. There are desires from all over Europe to win back autonomy. Answer: You are talking about one desire, *to win back autonomy", so "a desire" would be best.

Here's what we are doing today: Wednesday, August 3, 2016. I'm trying to get my arms wrapped around it even as I write this particular episode. I know some of you may be wondering how my automatic grammar checking utility is working. He is a very busy fellow. I must be inspiring because he seems to be often moved to tears as he peruses my work. He also has to be a sentimentalist at heart because I often hear him singing, "I want to go home." (He must be a country music fan because he was singing the Bobby Bare version.) When he comes back to me with a grammar suggestion I have several options. I can change what I have written to conform to his suggestion. I can correct what he has pointed out as a potential misuse, or I can click on my favorite, the Ignore button. That ignore button is showing a lot of wear and tear. Don't get me wrong, I do use many of his suggestions and I'm glad that he is there always checking, always ready to pounce. He even pops up with an offer of an advanced fee paid capability that would help with my composition. How nice. I would have to know a whole lot more about its ignoring capabilities before I would try it. How do I determine whether to make a change or not? Gut, instinct, and how it sounds. To me. A lot of my stuff is colloquial. He doesn't speak that language so well. But, we make a good team. I write and he cries a lot. In spite of our differences, together, we typically get something thrown out on the electronic page. Thanks for asking. (I would appreciate it if he wouldn't use the word confused so often. I might be dead wrong in how I am using a particular word, but, let the record clearly state, I am not confused.)

My wife eats out quite often. She is out and about doing ministry here and there, and they often stop for lunch. She pretty much enjoys eating out. She believes that I no longer am well suited to eating out. She thinks I'm way too particular and that I would rather stay home and eat whatever it is that she cooks. I actually cannot dispute her reading of the situation. The older I get, it is the more difficult I have in enjoying restaurant prepared food. The other day someone was talking to her about how wonderful the homecooked meal they had enjoyed at a particular establishment. The wife was telling me about it and she saw my eyes roll back in my head even as she mentioned the place. I'm not for the government getting involved in the day-by-day aspects of our lives, but, something should be done about the false advertising that is being perpetrated with the use of that word 'homemade'. I volunteer to testify when they call a hearing. My approach to questioning would be along these lines. "Did they actually ever eat any of the homemade cooking from my Granny Mac, my mom, my mother-in-law, or my wife?" "Were they, like my wife, before age 8, taught how to make biscuits from scratch where you squeeze them off the dough and roll them up by hand to place them in a greased cast iron skillet?" "Were they ever in the presence of a house full of people licking their fingers because the food was so good, way before the Colonel ever even had a clue?" Homemade, my foot! They should be ashamed but they are not. I am but they aren't. No wonder this world is so messed up.

Why ruin it for those who do enjoy it? I wouldn't even think of doing so. If they enjoy that type of fake food, I say, go for it. That was intended to be a joke, so don't write me. At the same time, that doesn't mean that I have to enjoy it. I still, however, continue to go to a lot of those places. There's typically a fellowship element to our times of eating out, and, I enjoy that part of it. Here's how I read the menu these days. What is it they are least likely to be able to mess up? What is it that would have to be made fresh and has not sat under a lamp for the past hour or two? Like I say, I go because we enjoy spending time with family and friends. I do not go for the food. As I write this I am thinking of a few exceptions. Thank God for a few exceptions. The wife and I went to a seafood place to celebrate our anniversary last year. Everything they served was fresh and well prepared. We keep saying we need to go back there. That was last December. We plan to take a week of vacation in a couple of weeks, to recognize my 70th year milemarker, so, maybe we can try it again at that time. No. I am not attempting to be difficult. Notice I didn't say I wasn't difficult, just that I am not attempting to be that way. One of the most favorite things I love to hear from the wife: "What would you like for me to prepare for supper tonight?" Supper. We may have talked about ringing the dinner bell which meant to go and fetch everyone to the table, but, it was always supper to us. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to get there. May God bless us all is my prayer. Amen.   .....More later.