I was in a Wal Mart store when I discovered I had diabetes. I had had my semi annual blood work done two days before and my doctor was calling to tell me that my blood tests showed that my blood sugar level was a little over five hundred. I knew this was something serious because he had never called me before about anything! Calmly I asked him what the normal reading should be and he said around seventy.

So you believe you're ready for a great weekend featuring your own unique talents at the barbecue grill. Before you even think about throwing a slab of meat on smoldering briquettes, there are important steps to follow in preparation for that special cookout; steps that could make the difference between success and failure!

You gotta have a plan! Nothing great has ever been accomplished without some kind of a plan! You should have everything in order before you start, getting all your ducks in a row as it were.

It's all in your mind! How many times have you heard that old saying? It's true! When it comes to your financial health it is all in your mind! There is no doubt that the mind of man is the greatest single force in the history of the world. Our problem as humans is that we don't always believe what our mind is telling us! This is when our belief systems have to go to work!

When your mind tells you something long enough, your heart will follow.

Sometimes you feel as if the worries of the world are piled on your shoulders and it's killing you! You come home from work dead tired and still you can't relax. Your mind keeps revisiting the errors of the day and predicts doom for the days ahead! Your wife reminds you that it's your night to take the kids to music practice or karate school or any of the endless extra curricular activities that consume our children's time! There's never enough time for everything you have to do!

You need a break! You need to do something enjoyable that will take your mind off all your troubles.

Tired of the same old traditional Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners that you've had each year since you could walk? It's time to break tradition and do a little something different this year! For your holiday dinner, spice up the feast; smoke a turkey and surprise the crowd!! The folks over for dinner will love it and you'll receive a round of applause for cooking such a scrumptious dish.

As a child, while visions of sugar plums danced in the heads of children around the world on Christmas eve, I dreamed of candied orange peel, candied lemon peel, candied citron, candied cherries, raisins, ginger, chopped walnuts, chopped pecans, grated lemon rind, brandy, vanilla cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, mixed into a batter made of baking powder, flour, sugar and eggs.

I've rarely been accused of over thinking a situation. My "code of the west" mentality has been good to me through the years, rescuing me many times from the temptation of unnecessary thinking! Unnecessary thinking can ruin a perfectly good plan, but no thinking at all can be hazardous to your health! A good case in point is a situation I witnessed last year.

I love the Florida Gulf Coast! I especially love to catch fish and eat them for dinner. That's one of the benefits of spending vacation time where seafood is plentiful and you have plenty of time to enjoy the fruits of the sea. Fishing the area around Apalachicola Bay in Florida is just one of those places where you can catch fish everyday you're there, then come home and fix it on the grill for dinner.

Every year I take up my soup spoon, adjust my bib and continue my search for the best tasting seafood gumbo I can find. It's not an easy job, but I'm up to the task again this year. You can find it just about anywhere you can smell the salt in the air. My choice is the gulf coast from Alabama all the way to Texas.

I've tasted gumbo made with shrimp, (head on or head off) chicken, sausage, fish, scallops, clams, oysters and crab meat.

Springtime barbequing is a ritual here in the south. On any given Saturday afternoon you can drive through almost any neighborhood, and see smoke rising from a barbeque grill in someone's back yard. If the wind is blowing in the right direction, you may even smell the aroma of a rib eye sizzling over a grill. It's a rite of spring that every red blooded southerner claims as his heritage.