Pictures!

This post is from Mia. She has been pestering me to post it for her...

Guess what readers??!?!?!?!??!!?

I talked mom into taking pictures of me in my new winter coat!

Here they are:

First is me in the kitchen. I am so cute and adorable. Who can resist my power? I don't have much hair so when it gets cold outside I need additional protection from the elements.

Now here is what you have all been waiting for, me in my new Parka!!! I even have the hood up in this shot. It was cold and windy that day so mom really bundled me up. The leaves were fun to sniff and chase by the way.

Here is another shot where you can see my face a bit more. I am stalking a leaf. 

Please tell me what you think of my new coat. I have other clothes and will do more posts if you let mom know you like these.  I hope to hear from lots of you.

Luvs,

Mia

Road Rage

I live off of a very dangerous highway. There are deaths every year.  I have even seen surveys on the local papers website asking if other people think the highway is dangerous and the results were like 80+% yes!!! Some days are scarier than others but you have to just accept this and move on.

What makes this highway so dangerous? Multiple things.

First it is a 2 lane highway. There are SO many cars that travel this highway it should be 4 lanes but funding has prevented this from happening. They have the engineering work complete. Now it is a matter of just finding the money to build it. It will be built in two phases whenever funding is found.  Here is a photo from earlier this week. Now we are on a holiday week so traffic is way less than normal. It is around 7a.m. so not even the full brunt of people have hit the road yet and you can see I am in a line of quite a few cars with multiple cars going the other direction. It is like this or worse for three hours in the morning and three at night.

Second, the road itself. This road is hilly, winding and rough. In the winter the wind blows and makes visibility horrible with a lot of drifting snow and occasional black ice. It is a bear to drive on.

Third - Deer. I know this is a problem on many roads but we have what I would say is constant road kill on this road. We have opossums, raccoon, cats, dogs, and the famous deer. I have hit a raccoon on said road but luckily no damage to vehicle. That could not be said for the raccoon though...

Fourth and by far the most dangerous - other drivers.  Now if you are cursed to driving this road every day you accept certain facts. One of these is once you get on this highway you drive what ever the speed of the day happens to be. Now this can vary from 45 - 65, depending on the drivers. You do not pass as it is to dangerous and their are too many other cars in both directions.  The trouble starts when you get someone on this highway that does not drive it every day. Add to this, put this person in the traffic during one of the rush hour periods. It is almost like one of those Mayhem commercials waiting to happen.  What caused me to write this post was one such event.

I was heading to work earlier this week. I have to pull out onto this highway from a stop sign making a left hand turn. I was behind one car, so after he pulls out I make a quick check and decide to quickly follow. Now the car ahead of me must be running on only 1/2 of its four cylinders as it does not get up to speed very quickly. In the meantime, here comes an F350 diesel barreling up behind me trying to climb onto my bumper.  He stays back there for 30 seconds or so then decides to go around both me and the car ahead. I think "oh sh*t" as there are on-coming cars. I look down at my speedometer and we are doing between 60 and 65, which is a good speed for that time of day.  He barely makes it around us with the black smoke just rolling out of his exhaust pipe and cuts off the car ahead of me. I am sure the on-coming traffic slowed down as the idiot was passing.  The funny thing about this is after all that within 1/2 mile he was in the middle of a line of cars going 55-60!!!

Next is the photo of far ahead of me he got...(truck immediately ahead of me) Was it worth all that rage? I think not.

Holy Spirit

A little background before I begin this post.
I am a Christian - Lutheran to be very specific.  I don't know that any of this is important to tell the story but it might give things some perspective. I do think what I will write about applies to all people even beyond Christians so here we go for what it is worth.

I wrote my first devotional this week. The only reason I wrote it is because a small voice of sorts inside me pushed me to do it. Now this inner voice doesn't use words as you and I communicate, it is more with feelings and other things you can't put into words. It kinda freaks me out to talk about it but it is very real.  Sometimes I stupidly even try to argue with this voice inside me. Like THAT does any good. The little voice can be very persistent even if it is not loud.  It will still let me do whatever the heck I want and doesn't punish me when I don't listen but it stays there all the same.  Some people call it your conscious, some the voice of the Holy Spirit, some even call it craziness!  Anyway, I am getting off subject here...

I will share what I wrote but that is not the amazing thing. The amazing thing about this story is the email I received back shortly after sending it in to be posted.  Like she said, God is amazing how he works!

First the devotional:

CHURCH POWER

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs to deep for words.  Romans 8:6

     This fall things have been more hectic than usual in that I had to miss church a few times. One particular month I was going on three weeks without church. That entire week I was cranky and out of sorts. I was short with people and just didn't feel like myself. By about Thursday I realized I was being extra cranky and gave myself a time out. When I was trying to figure out the problem, I said a little prayer for the Lord to help me. That is when the Holy Spirit whispered church or something along those lines not really using words. I realized I had not been to church!  That Sunday I couldn't wait to get to church. After the service, I could immediately tell the difference. I was so much calmer. My head was clear, my sins had been forgiven and I felt I could tackle the upcoming week.

Lord, Please help me to keep my inner ears open to hear the Holy Spirit whispering to me the correct path to take. Amen.

Now for what the Parish administrator wrote: (the amazing thing)

This is wonderful!  I was just preparing a class session for tomorrow night and the topic is “The Practice of the Presence of the Spirit”.  Then  I turned to my e-mail and here was your devotion – now I believe that is God at work!

I would love to use this as a D.R.O.P.  Thank you for listening to the Spirit and writing this down.   Please feel to share something like this any time.  It is wonderful to have “extra” devotions to use.

Blessings,

Wendy

To all this I just say - Amen.

Tribute to Marc

Happy Veteran's Day Marc

and also to all members of the Service!

I feel like I owe Marc some sort of tribute. I chose this day to honor him as he is a Navy veteran and he used to tell me I was the only one that would thank him for his service to the country on this day. I thought that was so sad and make it a point to remember him on this day.  This year I wanted to blog so others would know!  This special person helped me through my darkest most hideous days of my divorce. He would patiently talk to me for an hour a day about this that or the other. He would give me sound advice on handling things with the X or the kids.  Marc would lecture over and over how I needed to take the high road. Do not stoop down to the x's level and things would work out. I grew to need these daily phone calls just to make it through my awful days. I am sure many times Marc would feel like he was talking to a cement wall; that he was wasting his breath and I was hopeless.

Please know Marc - you did NOT waste your time. Your advice stuck. YOU did GOOD. I am so much better off because of you.

Marc had a deep base voice that always calmed me and many times made me laugh when all I wanted to do was curl up and die.  There came a day when he felt the need to move on and he did so most graciously. I did not want this friendship to end. So STILL to this day I call him my friend. Even if it has been years since we talked - Marc is my hero!

Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!

NOT DEAD

I am not dead.

I have been working on some serious posts but they take quite a while for me to put together when I only get small snippets of time to work on them.

I have one ready to go for tomorrow!

Check back then.