Isn’t He a Cutie?

This is our great-nephew, Colin. He was born on March 19. Nicole and Andres Juarez are his parents. He comes to visit once a week. This photo was taken last night.

The Wisdom of Pioneer Women

Yesterday I went to Cousin Izzy’s memorial service.  She was 95 and she and my dad had been each other’s favorite cousin. One of the things said at the service by her niece, was something that Izzy had told her she learned from her own mother. That was my great Aunt Janie Palmer Abbott. Aunt Janie had said when you find that you are feeling sorry for yourself, you have two choices. You can do something to help someone else, or you can mop the kitchen floor. I need to do one or the other, because I am feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t see Cousin Izzy more often, that I didn’t give myself the gift of more of her company.

Another Year Older

Well, actually only another day older, but you know what I mean. I went into the health food store Monday to get some more calcium and the sales clerk, a woman I’d guess to be in her late sixties, asked me if I was 62. I said, “Not yet. Give me 4 more years.” Didn’t exactly make my day, since usually people tend to think I look younger than my age rather than older. But she just didn’t want to cheat me out of my discount if I qualified for one. She was trying to be nice.

Anyway, we’re goin’ to Disneyland today and tonight we are going to swing dance to the live band at Carnation Plaza. So there.

There Were Gorillias!

There were gorillas in my dream.  Two of them…maybe a mother and a child, since one was significantly larger than the other. They were bathing in mud.  And the rather large mud puddle was in the shower/boardwalk area between our house and garage.

That wasn’t the only odd thing going on at our house in this dream.  It started with me getting out of bed, putting on my robe and walking into the living room to find an unidentified young Hispanic man.  My startled self asked him, with a fair amount of annoyed tension in my voice, “What are you doing in my house?!?”  His answer consisted of showing me a small cardboard box (about the size of a brick) with numerous shiny black metal objects inside and a hand written statement addressed to me totaling $23.00.  After asking him to leave, I went out the back door to see if Raymond was anywhere outside, and that’s when I discovered the gorillas. There was also a crew of three or four workers doing major construction on the garage and the back of the house.  My inward response to this scene was something along the lines of a calm acceptance, like,  “Oh, I guess I forgot all this was happening.”
I enjoy bizarre dreams.

OK. Now I’m ready for all your humorous interpretations.

Happy Groundhog’s Day

http://wilstar.com/holidays/grndhog.htm

Heavenly Celebrations

I was wondering lately if birthdays are celebrated in heaven……or maybe conception days?

Rancho Mirage/Palm Springs

We drove to Rancho Mirage yesterday.  We stayed at the Agua Caliente Resort- Casino -Spa.  Nice place!  And the room was only $90.00.  Of course as soon as we got there, Raymond turned on the flat-screen TV and I looked in the fridge and closet.  The photos don’t show it, but the other end of the room had a nice couch and coffee table and desk.  A nice view of the pool area and mountains, too.  Then we checked out the bathroom.  Big tub.  And big shower.  And two sinks and a flat screen TV…yes, a TV in the bathroom, too.  We took a walk around the pool and looked in the fitness center.  Then we drove to The River mall, about 10 minutes away, and had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.  This morning we went to The Living Desert and looked at lots of plants and a few animals.  And then we went to The Aerial Tram.  Wow.  That was magnificent.  All in all, a very fun couple of days.  Happy New Year!

Lookin' in the fridge.

seein’ if the tub is comfy

bein' silly in the shower

cheetah

3 female zebras

camel

giraffe

aerial tram

view from the tram

at the top

Help

Do any of you know about minor repairs on printers?  When I was printing address labels, the pages got stuck.  When I pulled out the pages, a little black plastic thing came out.  I think it helps with the feed.  It doesn’t look broken, but I don’t know where it belongs.  Now sometimes paper will go thru and most of the time it just gets stuck.  I don’t think I need a new printer.  I think this little black thing just needs to go back to wherever it belongs. 

God Likes Parties

This is from the daily devotional that Rick Warren puts out.

(the ’clip art’ is from a Pier One advertisement)

I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Luke 2:10 (NIV)

*** *** *** ***

This may come as a shock to you, but God really likes parties. God is into parties; God likes to party; God is constantly throwing parties. In fact, the Bible says that God’s angels throw a party every time a single person trusts Jesus as the Lord and Savior of his or her life. They party for joy whenever someone turns away from self-centeredness and turns toward Jesus.

 

Christmas is a party; it’s a birthday party for Jesus. It’s why we say “Merry Christmas.” Yet, we often leave the guest of honor out of our Christmas parties! Thinking about this irony, I started asking people, “What are you celebrating this Christmas?” This is what a few of them told me:

 

· “What am I celebrating? Not a lot.”

 

· “The blessings that we’ve had in our family this year.”

· “Just the Christmas spirit.”

· “Being home and not being on the road for the holidays.”

· “This Christmas? I’m celebrating the birth of Christ.”

· “Nothing. I just want to get through it.”

This last comment is true for a lot of people. Christmas may be a season of celebration, but they feel they have nothing to celebrate. Perhaps that’s true of you, too. You’re thinking, “I just want to get through Christmas. I just want to survive it. I’ve got nothing to celebrate.”

 

But God, through his angel, tells us that embedded in Christmas is good news of such great joy that, if we believe it, we won’t be able to contain the celebration within us.

 

But we get so frustrated in our circumstances or so busy simply getting ready for the celebration that we lose sight of the joy. The good news turns into the fact that your in-laws aren’t coming this year or you managed to keep within the Christmas budget.

 

God’s good news is so much more than that! The joy of Christmas is based on three things: (1) God loves us; (2) God is with us; (3) God is for us. Can you hear the celebration in that?!

 

© 2008 Purpose Driven Life. All rights reserved.

Not exactly…..

We didn’t quite look like that, but we had fun performing Cool Yule with our fellow swing dance classmates last night.  Our kids were gracious enough to come watch.  Dr Paul even said we looked “smooth”.  Dr Denise said it was fun.  And the Paul and Grace said we did good, too.  What does it mean when instead of going to your kids’ waterpolo game or swim meet or 4H event, they are coming to watch your “dance recital”????  The shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.  It’s kinda fun.