Boy have I been negligent

It has been so long since I have been on here that I don't even remember how to post pictures. I guess I will have to relearn that. I do have a few new ones. Not too many. I must confess that I get wrapped up playing games on Facebook. They are so addicting.

I think I got it. I must be better about new posts. Dennis has been writing his memoirs. I wish we had a laptop because he takes a really long time to type. Oh well, maybe someday.

He had a laptop that our daughter gave him but something happened to it and it won't load now. I don't know if it can be salvaged or not.

Time to go get some cards done.

Oh boy

I cannot believe I have not written or posted anything new to this since October! Shame on me. I do have some new cards to post as well. I hope to do that soon. I am so into farming on FB that I have let other things I enjoy doing by the way side. Today I am working on getting my missions stuff organized for church. I also need to make a sympathy card for my sister-in-law. She lost her mom this week.

For the most part we had good holidays. Joy and family spent a lot of time with us when they were off school and work. The girls spent the night with us and that is fun. I love that I am able to have them close enough to be able to do that. We are so blessed now that they live here instead of IL. I would miss them terribly if they moved back. Both Jeff and Joy help us out so much.

I am not going to say anything about our son and family. It is very hard to be so separated from them and it breaks my heart. This is an important prayer point.

I hope to be back soon to post some pictures.

A Very Chilly Week

It is really chilly here. It has been cold and rainy for the better part of a week. It is almost 11 AM and it is only 39 right now.

I have been very busy farming on FB. I also have fish tanks and a cafe. It is all a lot of fun for me. I worked 42 years so that when I retired I could do what I wanted. I have arrived! :) I also have made some cards. You can see them here. I have lost 11 pounds since May. It is not much but it is all I did so far. I have sort of slipped up the last couple of weeks and I have to get back to watching closer what I am eating.

Here are the cards I made in September. They are not all I made because I made several of the anniversary card with different colors. Right now I am working on Thanksgiving cards. I have card club on Saturday when we swap. I am looking forward to it. We don't all go to the same church any more so I don't see my friends as often. Our numbers have dwindled since I first started. At one point, we had 10 people and sometimes more attending. Now we are down to 3 or 4. I wish there were more and I wish some of the LW ladies would be interested in card making. It can be a real ministry.

Off to get some more cards done. Have a great day.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different...
Two Different Versions! .................
Two Different Morals!


OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.


The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.


MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:


The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.


The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a
video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing,
'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Acorn stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house
where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'
Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.


Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back
of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.


Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.


The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ants food while the government house
he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.


The ant has disappeared in the snow.


The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident
and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders
who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

Here are my cards from August 09

A long time

It has been more than a month since I posted anything. I have a new addiction. Farmtown on Facebook. I have a great looking farm. I am working on it as a memorial to my dad. He was a farmer at heart.

I am still making cards. One of the problems I have is remembering to take a picture so I can post them on my blog.

My dad and mom's house is now on the market.
My brother and sister from the Grand Rapids area really worked hard and got it all cleaned out and staged to sell. My brother and sister-in-law from IL went up and helped too. Dennis and I only went up and helped once. I wish it could have been more. I think we would have been in the way. We are restricted physically with what we can do. They did a fantastic job. Now we are in a praying mode that the house will sell and make enough money to take care of my mom. On Labor Day week-end we went north for a family reunion. There was only 81 people there. After the reunion we went north and saw the house one last time. We also went out to the cemetary.
We had not been there since the funeral. It was really really hard to go there without dad knowing that chapter of life is over after 25 years living there. We had some great memories of our times visiting with dad and mom in the north house.

Dennis has been working very hard cleaning out the mess in the basement that Mark left. He has thrown a ton of stuff away. It probably would have saved money to just rent a dumpster instead of buying so many trash bags! He is about 2/3 done. I can't even get down there to see what it looks like. I can get down but it is nearly impossible for me to get back up. I am paranoid about falling up those stairs. That is how I messed up my shoulders in the first place.

I will be able to post pictures of my cards soon.

July Cards.

Here are most of the cards I made in July. There were a few that I forgot to take pictures of. I am running behind on getting them made so I forget to take pictures.

I am sitting with my grandaughters tonight and tomorrow. They are 9 and 7 now so they really aren't much trouble. I kind of like having them around. Dennis and Joy went down to the Tiger game. I don't even know if they are winning, losing or if they are still playing. I am getting weary so I think I am going to go to bed and read.

I did manage to go use some of the machines at therapy. I rode the bike for 2 mi. in 12 min. not great but I did it. I also rode the arm bike for 10 min.

FINALLY

I got my new system today. It seemed like it took forever for Dell to send the replacement but now I am happy again. A friend of ours just came over and was able to get my files off of the hard drive so I didn't lose contacts, pictures, etc.

It is late tonight so I must get to bed. Tomorrow I will have the fun of loading my programs back on to this machine and packing up the old one to send back to Dell.

Monday That Feels Like Tuesday

When I got up this morning it felt like Tuesday to me. Don't ask me what happened to Monday. I guess I just skipped it. We were dogsitting again over the weekend. This time it was for our daughter's dog. He is huge. He is a husky/lab mix. He makes our medium size dog look small! When he laid down in the living room, we hardly had any room to walk around! :)

We went to church yesterday. We tried a different one again this week. The pastor was gone so we had a fill-in. We knew him from other places and we enjoyed the sermon. I doubt we will go to church there. Neither one of us felt comfortable there. These older traditional churches seem dead to us. There is rarely younger married couples or children to make it seem alive. The music is played so slow. I don't mind singing hymns but why do they drag so.

I don't have any big plans for this week except to make more cards. We also have to go over our bills and see what we can pay. That is not a job I like especially when there is no money.

Our doggy sitting

We spent the last two days taking care of a friend's dog. The black and white one is our Miriam. The yellow one on Dennis' lap is Rebel. They got along really well. In fact I wanted to trade my yellow cat for their yellow dog!

I actually left the house this morning

I was craving a donut or bagel so bad this morning. I went ahead and got dressed and went out. Dennis and I needed to go get a few things at Kroger and I told him if he would take me to Horton's I would go with him to the store. That worked! Before we left I called my friend, Nancy. I am so glad I called. They had a fire in their family room this morning. The room has windows blown out and every thing covered with smoke and water. Landy got it out before the fire dept. got there thank goodness they weren't seriously hurt. They both inhaled enough smoke that they we were having a difficult time breathing. Nancy's eyes were red. I told them they should get out of there and breathe some clean AC air so they met us at Horton's for a little while. Since I believe in guardian angels and God's care I am so thankful they are ok. The insurance company can take care of the damage.

The most wonderful surprise

We got a call on Monday night from a dear family friend. They wanted to come by. It was 8:30 and that was no problem. We told them to come on over we weren't really doing anything. Nancy was carrying a Red Wing bag. I thought that was neat. Then she gave me a card. It was a gorgeous anniversary card. She gave me the bag. Inside was a quilt she had made. It is gorgeous. I absolutely love it. I told Dennis we need to find some way to get the bedroom painted so it would really look nice. Words will not be able to express our thanks to them.

Sunday June 21 Dad's Day

Today is the first Dad's Day without my dad.

I have had several blows to my mental well being this week. It has been so bad I haven't even felt like making cards. Hard to believe but it is true. I haven't slept well this week. I know that I fret about things that I cannot do anything about. Why? I wish I knew. We have some financial things going on. We had some expenses that we should have planned for better but what is done is done. We had some car repairs that cost more than we thought they would. Our debt program doesn't end until August 2011! It sounds impossible. I sure hope we can make the car last that long.

Mark had a temporary custody hearing this week but the judge has forced them into mediation. This is going to cost extra money for Mark. I don't think it will do any good either. The sooner this is over the better as far as I am concerned. For Mark to get on with his life it needs to be over. Today is for dad's and he probably won't even be able to see his son. Yes, I am angry.

I did have a good week with my Mom here. I was glad she came. I hope we can talk her into coming again. I think if we didn't have our cats she would come more often. We got a chance to visit with some family, old friends and even went to a patriotic concert.

We are going to visit a different church this morning. I am happy where we are but Dennis isn't. I told him I would go try it this morning. Why is it so hard to find a church? I told him we could go to my church in the morning and where he would like at night. Not a very practical idea I am afraid.

Chilly Tuesday

I have not written in a while. I have not much felt like it. I attended my 3rd funeral in 4 weeks. It is all so sad. Since I lost my dad, I have a hard time going to funerals and the funeral home.

On a better note, I was able to attend an open house for Jesse Pipe and Christopher Taylor. I had these kids when they were in my AWANA Sparks. I am really feeling old. The young men have grown to be fine Christian men.

I have made a few cards recently but I did not take pictures. I need to remember to take pictures better.

We did have a great family reunion on Memorial Day weekend. When I get some pictures from my sister-in-law I will post some here.

I need to go catch up on some letter writing (email of course)!

Cards of the week

Here are some cards I made in the last week. My house is a mess but I did get my cards done for my card club on Sat. They are the ones that are red white and blue.

Sad News

I learned this morning about a dear friend that passed away yesterday morning. His name is Vaughn. His family and our family have been friends for many, many years. His oldest daughter was my best friend growing up. My sister married his son. His wife, Bess, used to come with us to our families' ladies week-end. It is sad but the good news is he knew the Lord. He is now in heaven visiting with the friends of ours that have passed on before us including my dad. We will grieve for a season but have the blessed hope that we will see him again some day.

Hectic

It is hard to believe that we get so busy. I wonder sometimes how in the world we found time to work! We had our grandgirls for an overnight on Friday. Our Lilli had a hard time going to sleep. She missed her mom a lot I guess. Saturday Dennis took them to the Children's Concert series at the DSO. I guess they had a good time. When they got home from that, I took them to lunch and then to get manicures. It is always fun watching them and seeing what color polish they will choose.

We hit a jackpot week - NO Dr. Appts. That is a rarity for us. It seems like one of us is always going to the doctor or dentist.

Dennis is out golfing today although it is chilly. It is 1:30 and it is only 55. This past week-end it was over 80. I guess it is just the crazy Michigan weather.

I have been busy making cards. If I can figure out how to get them to my blog I will do a slide show of them. No other news from here. Back to my passion!

Tax Day

Today is the day when taxes have to be filed. I am glad we paid ours in Feb. There wouldn't be enough money now to pay what we owed. I really don't like having to do them. It helps to have the computer to do them.

Tomorrow we are going up to see my Mom and visit for a bit. We haven't seen her since January. I can't believe we are so busy that we can't even find time to make a day trip to Middlevile.

I got most of my new stamps put away. They are numbered and cataloged. I only have two sets left to do. I know I have birthday cards to do so I should get busy on that.

Will You Dance with Me?

READ THIS VERY SLOWLY....
IT'S PRETTY PROFOUND.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, 'How about going to lunch in a half hour? She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain...' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet... We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.'

W hen anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord..

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-Decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now....go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to......not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Make sure you read this to the end; you will under stand why I sent this to you.

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butter fly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask ' How are you?' Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, 'We'll do it tomorrow.' And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say 'Hi?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift.......Thrown away..... Life is not a race Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over..

It's National Friendship Week.. Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends.

To those I have sent this to.... I cherish our friendship and appreciate all you do.

'Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here we might as well dance!

It doesn't hurt to have a little Biblical humor to start the day....
Q. What kind of man was Boaz before he married Ruth?
A. Ruthless.

Q. What do they call pastors in Germany?
A. German Shepherds.

Q. Who was the greatest financier in the Bible?
A. Noah He was floating his stock while everyone else was in liquidation.

Q. Who was the greatest female financier in the Bible?
A. Pharaoh's daughter. She went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a Little Prophet.

Q. What kind of motor vehicles are in the Bible?
A. Jehovah drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden in a Fury. David's Triumph
was heard throughout the land. Also, probably a Honda, because the apostles
were all in one Accord.

Q. Who was the greatest comedian in the Bible?
A. Samson. He brought the house down.

Q. What excuse did Adam give to his children as to why he no longer lived in Eden ?
A. Your mother ate us out of house and home.

Q. Which servant of God was the most flagrant lawbreaker in the Bible?
A. Moses. He broke all 10 commandments at once.


Q. Which area of Palestine was especially wealthy?
A. The area around Jordan. The banks were always overflowing.

Q. Who is the greatest babysitter mentioned in the Bible?
A. David He rocked Goliath to a very deep sleep.

Q. Which Bible character had no parents?
A. Joshua, son of Nun.

Q. Why didn't they play cards on the Ark ?
A. Because Noah was standing on the deck. (.)

PS... Did you know it's a sin for a woman to make coffee?
Yup, it's in the Bible. It says . . 'He-brews'

KEEP SMILING!!!! GOD LOVES YOU BUNCHES AND BUNCHES!!!!
Friends are God's way of taking care of us.

Faith, Hope & Love -- but the greatest of these is LOVE. 1 Corinthians13:13