Sunday Thoughts

Principles are anchors of safety. They are like the steel anchors a mountaineer uses to conquer otherwise impossible cliffs. They will help you have confidence in new and unfamiliar circumstances. They will provide you protection in life’s storms of adversity . . . The productive power of correct principles can make your life a joyous, satisfying experience.

~ Elder Richard G. Scott ~

We are navigating through times in our Country the likes of which we have never seen before. We have politicians who twist the truth into something unrecognizable. They say one thing to placate the masses and then do another to please themselves and/or to further their “careers.” The one thing we can do in these turbulent times is to hold to correct principles. The important thing is to stay close to the Lord and follow His path, striving with all the energy of our hearts to be like Him. If we do this we will triumph.

Consider This Quote

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

~ William J. H. Boetcker ~

(This is a quote made famous by Abraham Lincoln)

I found this quote here and felt it was something that we should consider as we look around at the chaos our beloved Country is experiencing. I feel that we must let our representatives know how we feel and be consistent in that contact with them.

Gloria

The Amazing Tomato Plant

Last fall our neighbor's soon-to-be daughter-in-law discovered a little seedling bravely growing in the drain of the bathroom sink. The family speculated on how it came to be there, and decided that it must have been deposited there in the drain by someone as they were brushing their teeth. They didn't even know what kind of a seedling it was, but on a lark their son carefully fished it out of the drain and planted it in its own pot. He placed the pot in a window with a southern exposure, watered that brave little seedling and waited.

It soon became evident that it was a tomato plant. Well, that brave little tomato plant liked that pot and that new home and it began to grow. Well, actually it thrived. Eventually, it set out blossoms, which the family fertilized with a gentle squeeze of each little blossom. Soon those blossoms dropped off to reveal tiny little tomatoes.

Along about the first part of April they picked and consumed the first two full grown, ripe tomatoes. Now the third is beginning to turn a lighter green. So, the contest of who in this neck of the woods will eat the first, ripe tomato of the 2009 growing season has already been won.

The tomato plant has now been given a new home out in the garden. It's not as warm and cozy there, and at times it has been downright cold (read almost freezing). The wind blows and so the plant has had to endure some buffetings. At first it suffered a little shock and it looked a little bleak for this plant. In fact, it looked like it might just give up and die.

But no, that plant rallied, took hold, and now it continues to thrive and grow. All season long, I'm sure it will provide those luscious red, ripe tomatoes that we all love to eat.

This just proves that no matter where we are planted, we can grow and achieve the measure of our creation. In the beginning, I suppose that little seed could have just gone "with the flow" (pun intended) and just wash down the drain into oblivion, but it didn't. We need to be like that little seed and seedling. No matter what is happening around us, we can keep having faith in our Heavenly Father and in ourselves and keep on striving.

Just like the plant, when our life suddenly changes and we find ourselves suddenly "transplanted" into some hardships and trials, we can again be like the tomato plant and just dig in and adapt and continue to grow. In the end we can be winners, just like the tomato plant--growing, serving, and striving to be the best we can be.

Gloria

Remembering

Some years ago, while I was still employed as a secretary, I came down with a very bad cold. The cold progressed and settled in and around my vocal cords--otherwise known as laryngitis. It was awful. It was probably about the worse case of laryngitis I had ever had for I could make no sound--only whisper.

Of course, I stayed home from work to nurse my cold and take care of my throat. During the course of the day, the telephone rang and forgetting that I couldn't talk, I picked up the phone. Then I realized I had to "say" something, so I whispered as loudly as I could "hello!" The masculine voice on the other end asked for someone I did not know. Again I whispered, "I'm sorry, you have a wrong number."

Then came the question that warmed my heart. He queried, "Are you all right?" I'm not certain what he conjured up in his imagination. Was I whispering because I was hiding and didn't want to give myself away, or because I was in trouble of some kind, or .... well, use your imagination. I explained in my best whisper that I had lost my voice. He wished me well and apologized for bothering me.

That memory came up yesterday as my sister was telling me about her bout of laryngitis. I will always remember the concern of a stranger on the telephone. There are many good and caring people in the world.

Gloria

A New Leaf

I don't know just why I put off updating my blog. I have great ideas. I take the pictures and upload them to my computer. And that's where it ends.

I can't figure out why I have such a resistance. I love to write. I want to keep a journal, and this is the best way in the world to do it. The only thing I have been able to come up with is that I want each post to be perfect. That means, I write it in Word and check it over and revise it a time or two, and then look it over again to make sure, then at last I feel I can post it. All that doing takes time and so the days slide by and nothing gets added.

So I decided that I would just write something each day, or at least a few times a week. I decided I would just write like I was updating a good friend or family member on what's going on in our lives. If I make a mistake, well, so be it.

Anyway, that's the plan. Wish me luck, won't you?

Gloria

I'm Ready for Spring

It's still cold here, but I find it is easier to find things to be grateful for instead of ranting and railing about the weather. I am grateful for a warm home, a good car (with a heater), for coats and sweaters, and the blue skies I can see today. The water picture is getting better and better and the cool weather helps. I am just hoping it gradually warms up, rather than going from cold to hot a in a couple of days.

I have always been a summer person. Yes, I get hot in the summer, but I seem to endure the heat better than I do the cold.

I am anxious to enlarge our garden. Our garden occupies a small corner of our yard and the grass keeps encroaching upon it. Each year the garden has gotten smaller and smaller. We spent a year and a half in Brazil and so there was no garden for those three years--the year we left, the year we were there, and the year after our return. The grass took advantage of us, so we need a plow--our tiller is just too wimpy to cut through the grass efficiently.

I love spring and watching the growing things come back to life.

Gloria

Global Warming? I Don’t Think So!

This is our backyard and it was clear full of snow. Since this is the north side of our home, we still had a good portion of snow left from the huge 17 Feb snowstorm.

I don’t know how the weather is in your neck of the woods, but it has been quite a winter here. As I have noted in the news, there are many parts of this world that are experiencing some unusually cold, ferocious, wet weather.

I googled on the internet to see what information I could find about weather patterns. I found an interesting article from The American Thinker Website. Here are some excerpts from that article about the lack of sunspots and its effect on our weather:

Author: Thomas Lifson

“There is some serious evidence accumulating that we may be on the brink of not just global cooling, but an ice age. Sunspots are historically correlated with temperature on earth. During the Dalton Minimum, beginning in 1790, the number of sunspots was low, as the earth's climate turned cold for a few decades. At http://www.spaceweather.com/ you can see live images of the sun taken from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in space. Right now there is but one tiny sunspot. (My note: When I checked there were NO sunspots.)

Phil Chapman, geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco, writes in The Australian about the frightening prospect that this year's ferocious winter and decline in average temperature is the herald of serious cooling. . . .

We need to watch the sunspot activity, and keep our fingers crossed that the world is not entering a new ‘little ice age’ . . . .

If we are entering a period of low sunspot activity and global cooling, then the changes demanded by Warmists, especially the conversion of crops to fuel use, would be catastrophic.”

About three weeks ago, we got out of bed and looked out the window to see mounds of snow on the ground and the snow just kept coming the whole day—we ended up with about 18 inches of the white stuff. It finally stopped snowing late that night. The 18 inches was added to the foot or so of snow that was already gracing the ground. It was quite a day. We just stayed home and watched the spectacle. Oh, we could have, perhaps, made our way out of here, but I fear we would never have made it back up our hill for most of the day.

The first edge of the storm was either rain that turned to ice, or heavy, wet snow. It coated the power, cable and telephone lines leading into our home. The wind managed to finally blow the snow off the power and cable lines, but the snow hung tenaciously onto our telephone line, making me fear that it would collapse under the weight of the heavy, wet snow. We had already lost power for about two hours that day and the Direct TV was a bust for the entire day until about 8:30 that night.

I encouraged my husband to shovel a path in the back yard out to where he could reach up with the shovel and jostle the line enough to knock most of the “snow sleeve” off the telephone line. I should have taken a picture of the whole line hanging low, but I did take a picture of the part that just hung on “like Velcro.”

This is the path my husband shoveled in order to get out in all that carpet of snow to reach the telephone cable with the shovel and knock most of the snow off.

If you click on this picture and enlarge it, you can see the portion of the "snow sleeve" that hung on. Just remember that most of the whole line was covered in this sleeve and it was hanging verrry low.

Now three weeks later the snow was almost melted from our front yard, but we have had another full snow day. It hasn’t been as bad as the one three weeks ago, but we’ve got about 4-5 inches out there again.

I never did believe in man-caused global warming, and now there are more and more scientists who doubt it as well:

NEW YORK CITY - Speakers at a conference on climate change are making the case that the alarmism behind the global-warming bandwagon is politically motivated, has nothing to do with science, and could affect the sovereignty of the U.S.

The second annual International Conference on Climate Change hosted by The Heartland Institute is well under way in New York City. More than 700 registrants have gathered in the Big Apple to hear more than 70 scientists -- representing the views of tens of thousands of their colleagues -- make the argument that media and environmental advocacy groups have it all wrong, that global warming is not a crisis.

So there you have the story of our big snow storm and my opinion on global warming. Lest you think I am not interested in our planet, I am. I have been recycling before it was the "thing" to do. I even recycled when we were in Brazil once I found out that people were sifting through our garbage looking for usable stuff. I just saved all the cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, etc., and set it out separately.

Gloria