Wordless Wednesday-Reflections

Above: Through the window

Above: The hood of our car

For more Wordless Wednesday go here.

Images and Reflections

Hello world!

Hey there, Georgy girl...

Gotta itch-scratch it!

This calf needed a good scratch.
The telephone pole was his provision.

It's a Beautiful Day!

This lovely little award has been given to me by Melissa at Family-Fixin's.

You ought to go over and see her lovely header picture.  It's a good one.

Thank you Melissa for making my day also.  

Wordless Wednesday-Three in One

Here are more Wordless Wednesday's.

World Vision

Yesterday when posting Fun Monday I thought about another thing I forgot to mention.  I have been sponsoring a child from Chile through World Vision for several years now.  We have sponsored him since he was three and now he is seven years old.  Just this year I sponsored a girl from Uganda.  She is seven years old.  World Vision is a wonderful organization.  They help people all over the world.  I have been blessed and very happy to read reports of my children's progress.  I receive letters from them and hear about their families.  I hope to continue to sponsor these children for many years.  I want to hear some day that they have completed school and go on to college if that's what they want.  World Vision also helps their communities.  It is a worthy cause.  I can't post pictures of the children but I would so like to.  They are beautiful and healthy too.  

Edit:  I just received a letter from my girl's family in Uganda.  I had sent them some extra money and they were able to build three bedrooms on to their house.  They only had two rooms in the whole house before.  Awesome!  They have 5 children and the pictures show them smiling.  They are also buying some pigs.  The father wrote me a letter for his daughter.  She colored me a picture.  It's so great.  I would encourage anyone who can to sponsor a child.  The money really does go to the child and their family.  

Fun Monday- Magnum Opus

Magnum opus (sometimes Opus magnum, plural magna opera), from the Latin meaning great work,[1] refers to the best, most popular, or most renowned achievement of an author, artist, or composer, and most commonly one who has contributed a very large amount of material. It is another way of saying "masterpiece."

This Fun Monday is being hosted by Southern Doll. Here is her request:

What have you done in your life that was worth doing? I want to know the moments in your life that you hope will be the ones to pass through your mind when your time comes. I hope that doesn't sound too morbid. This doesn't necessarily have to be items you have checked off your Bucket List, it can be those small moments that made you smile, or the time you got that huge promotion you deserved, or the first time your baby smiled at you out of pure joy. I want to know all the moments, big and small, that make life sweet! If you don't already have a running list of these in your mind, you should! These moments help you remember how much your life is worth living, and we all deserve to enjoy it.

Much like Charlotte in "Charlotte's Web", my Magnum Opus would have to be giving birth to my three children.  I really can think of no greater, meaningful, fulfilling, or pleasurable experience.  

Here are a few more things that rate right up there with my children. My marriage is important to me. I cannot imagine being without my husband. I love him and together we are a team. We are opposites in many ways yet we compliment each other.

Owning our house free and clear and owning our business. My husband is the brain of this operation but I am the paperwork/computer person. We work together.

Something that makes me smile: My dad's last words to me were, "You know that I love you." And I will never ever forget that.

Now something I must mention because it was and is life changing for me. I can't say that I accomplished it but it was accomplished for me and I accepted it. Salvation. I gave my heart and life to Jesus Christ and that gives me meaning in this life and in the one to come. That is what I believe. It makes me happy and you might say, "God put a smile upon my face."

I am singing this song in church this Sunday. It's for our pastor's 20th year celebration at our church.
That's all I can think of right now. It always happens and later I think I should have mentioned that, but, oh well. :D

Time it was and what a time it was!

I have this photograph of my mom and dad taken in 1970.
I don't have a single photo of my parents and my brothers
and me together. I know my aunts and uncles took pictures
of us because I remember that but we don't have any copies.
Preserve your memories with photographs. I remember so
many little things about my dad now that he is gone. These
little things remind me of him every day. He loved to drive
around the countryside sometimes looking for deer, other times
just driving past pastures. He loved to take care of his cows
and horses. He liked to garden and mow grass too. He just
plain liked being outdoors. He'd sit outside in his swing in
the backyard for hours. Other things I remember, he liked
to eat crackers and buttermilk, ice cream with milk poured on
it, and he loved to hunt for wild mushrooms. We shared a
hidden bag of soft-centered hard raspberry candy together.
We would hide it in the bookcase. When I was little, after
he washed his hair he would let me comb it and mess with
it. I wish I had more photos.


This is me at age four.  


Time it was and what a time it was it was,
A time of innocence a time of confidences.

Long ago it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you

There's Such a Lot of World to See!

Audrey Hepburn (May 4, 1929-January 20, 1993)

She must have been the most beautiful woman inside and out.
What a legacy!

Here are some words about her:
In 1991, Hepburn said "I have memories. More than once I was at the station seeing trainloads of Jews being transported, seeing all these faces over the top of the wagon. I remember, very sharply, one little boy standing with his parents on the platform, very pale, very blond, wearing a coat that was much too big for him, and he stepped on to the train. I was a child observing a child."
Hepburn also noted the similarities between herself and Anne Frank: "I was exactly the same age as Anne Frank. We were both ten when war broke out and fifteen when the war finished. I was given the book in Dutch, in galley form, in 1946 by a friend. I read it – and it destroyed me. It does this to many people when they first read it but I was not reading it as a book, as printed pages. This was my life. I didn't know what I was going to read. I've never been the same again, it affected me so deeply."
"We saw reprisals. We saw young men put against the wall and shot and they'd close the street and then open it and you could pass by again. If you read the diary, I've marked one place where she says 'five hostages shot today'. That was the day my uncle was shot. And in this child's words I was reading about what was inside me and is still there. It was a catharsis for me. This child who was locked up in four walls had written a full report of everything I'd experienced and felt."
These times were not all bad and she was able to enjoy some of her childhood. Again drawing parallels to Anne Frank's life, Hepburn said "This spirit of survival is so strong in Anne Frank's words. One minute she says 'I'm so depressed'. The next she is longing to ride a bicycle. She is certainly a symbol of the child in very difficult circumstances, which is what I devote all my time to. She transcends her death." (Wikipedia)





Audrey Hepburn's Beauty Tips

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.

Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

Sam Levenson

Posted October 1999

Contrary to what some may think, Audrey Hepburn did not write this beautiful poem, Sam Levenson did. Levenson wrote "Time Tested Beauty Tips" for his grandchild, and it just so happened to be one of Audrey's favorite poems. She read it to her children on the very last Christmas Eve she spent with us here on Earth.

Special thanks to Nicholas Darrell for author information.

Nursing Graduate

Our daughter will graduate from college on May 3, 2008. She will be our first college graduate in our immediate family. She graduates with a BSN in nursing. We are so proud and happy. She already has a job with a hospital lined up for June.

Split, Croatia

Such a beautiful country.

Croatia

My oldest daughter lived in Croatia in 2004 as a nanny to missionaries for Wesleyan World Missions.  She took care of their two little boys, ages 2 & 4, while their parents took language 

classes.  She had to raise her own money to get there and she lived with a couple of girls in

an apartment.  She traveled across the city by public buses to get to her work.  It was a very

good experience for her.  While she was there she was taking two classes online for her degree.

This is my daughter and one of her roommates (the one

on the right) in their apartment.

This is a bombed-out phone booth in Bosnia

that they visited while on a trip.

This is Split, Croatia where she was living.  It is a beautiful

city.  Now it is a tourist destination.  The weather is mediterraean

and it is on the coast of the Adriatic Sea across from Italy.

The terrain is like San Diego with rocky beaches and plenty

of palm trees.



Split by night.




This is her missionary family.  Wonderful people.

Diocletian's Palace

At the end of the third century AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian built his palace on the bay of Aspalathos. Here, after abdicating on the first of May in A.D. 305, he spent the last years of his life. The bay is located on the south side of a short peninsula running out from the Dalmatian coast into the Adriatic, four miles from the site of Salona, the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. The terrain on which the palace was built slopes gently seaward. It is typical karst terrain, consisting of low limestone ridges running east to west with marl in the clefts between them.
This palace is today the heart of the inner-city of Split where all the most important historical buildings can be found. The importance of Diocletian's Palace far transcends local significance because of its level of preservation and the buildings of succeeding historical periods, stretching from Roman times onwards, which form the very tissue of old Split. The Palace is one of the most famous and integral architectural and cultural constructs on the Croatian Adriatic coast and holds an outstanding place in the Mediterranean, European and world heritage.

Wordless Wednesday-An Apple A Day

Go to Wordless Wednesday for more photos.

Tax Day

Hooray!  Tax Day!  It's finally over.  We always wait until the last day to finish paying our taxes because we are self-employed and have estimated taxes throughout the year.  So each year alternates, one year we have to pay more and then the next year we have overpaid and that is applied to our first quarterly estimated tax payment.  Last year we overpaid, so this year I knew we would have to pay more.  But I was so pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as much as I was expecting.  Yea!  I am glad that is over.  I'm feeling better now after having had the strep throat.  It really made me tired.  Too tired to stare at the computer for very long and I still had to stare at my work computer, so the work was all I could stand to do.  Now maybe I can get caught up on reading some blogs and creating a post or two.  I'm going to go to Tulsa this afternoon to exchange some sunglasses that I bought.  They are not very comfortable and they were expensive so I hope they will still allow me to exchange them.  I am two days over the 30 day return but I was too sick last week to take them and twice I tried to return them before but I forgot the box the first time and completely forgot the sunglasses the second time.  I am going to talk to a manager there and see what they will do for me.  Wish me favor!  

Streptococcus

I have had a strep throat since last Friday.  And I have been miserable and tired.  Too tired to blog or read blogs.  I finally feel better today but still not myself.  

My oldest daughter bought a doggie from the

shelter two days ago.  Her name is Apple.

She is three years old.  She weighs about

7-8 lbs.  Isn't she sweet?

Fun Monday-Celebrity Crush

Fun Monday's hostess is Jo Beaufoix.
She wants to hear about our first celebrity crush.
Ah yes, the wonderful Davy Jones.  

How I loved him...

Weekly Winners Sunday Meme

Hobbes the Hunter

For more Weekly Winners see Lotus.

For Willowtree

Wordless Wednesday-Don't Cross the River

More Wordless Wednesday here.

Turtle Soup

Look what comes out after a nice big storm. A nice big snapping turtle.
We were woken up by sirens going off in town about two miles

from us warning of a tornado.  The tornado touched down one

mile from us taking part of a neighbor's roof top.  Fortunately,

it was a small tornado.  We had lots and lots of rain quickly 

flooding ponds and roadways.  Also our electricity was off

from 5 am to 2 pm, so I didn't get much Fun Monday visits 

done.  

Kitties didn't pay any attention to the turtle at all.  Boy,

old Spunky would have gone crazy over him.  Spunky ate

small box turtles and terrapins.  

Have you ever had turtle soup?