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

The Feira in Brazil -- How I miss it

While we were in Brazil we learned to love the feira (fay – tuh) that came to our street every Thursday. Early Thursday mornings we would awaken to the various sounds of the feira being set up—trucks parking, the pounding of the stands being put together, and boxes of produce being moved from truck to stand. It was such a delight to buy fresh produce from the stands that lined the street. They also had other venders who sold all kinds of goods from CDs to clothing to trinkets and what-have-you. They also had some kind of machine that pressed the juice out of the sugar cane--that was very popular with the people. They also sold fresh fish, pork products, and beef, but we never bought anything like that.

We bought a little shopping cart that rolled along on two wheels and made it very easy for us. We would load it up with such fresh vegetables as green beans, broccoli, radishes, cauliflower, and fresh fruit, like bananas and pineapple. I think I miss the feira the most of anything that we encountered in Brazil.

The feiras are very popular in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where we lived. During the week they would visit different areas of the city, bringing the fresh produce and goods to the people. Along about 1 or 2 o'clock, or sometimes earlier if a vendor sold all out, they would pack up and leave. The street would be littered with all kinds of detritus from the fruits and vegetables. However, when we came home along about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it was all cleaned away and you would never know they had even been there.

The stand above was maintained by a couple (their picture is just below) who we grew to love. We didn't speak Portuguese with much fluency, but it was enough to let them know we thought a lot of them. One day I found her in tears and learned that her little dog had died that day. I gave her a hug and let her know that I understood that losing a pet is cause for grief. I have lost pets in my lifetime and I know just how heart-wrenching it can be.

This man was always at the feira, sitting on his little box in which he collected donations. He would sometimes play his harmonica. I always gave him a Brazilian dollar, one real. One day as I was walking to the office one day, when a huge truck started backing up. It was moving toward him and I thought that they could see him and would soon stop. However, the truck kept moving, and since he was blind, he had no idea he was in danger. In that moment of extreme anxiety, I shouted at the top of my lungs: "STOP!" Even though it wasn't in Portuguese, I guess the distress in my voice alerted them and they stopped. I don't think he ever realized he was just about to be squashed.

I Wish I had Written this Letter

My friend sent me a copy of a letter written by a University Professor and sent to the editor of the Wall Street Journal this past week. This letter so eloquently put into words the thoughts that I carry in my heart and mind about abortion. I recently emailed my own thoughts to President Obama about lifting the ban on paying for international abortions and about the danger of signing FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) into law. Every protective law that now exists will be effectively eliminated and the family will suffer. My words to him were not so exquisitely expressed. I want to publish this letter here so that I can share them with any who might read my blog:

Dear Mr. Pollock:

One of the last orders that George W. Bush signed as President was the January 2009 National Sanctity of Human Life Day Proclamation. His pro-life record includes the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, the ban on partial-birth abortion, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, and the block of Federal funding for overseas “family planning” abortion programs.

One of the first orders that Barack H. Obama has signed as President is a reversal of the ban on taxpayer-funded international abortions. He also plans to expand the power to kill innocent lives via the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). We cannot print enough worthless monopoly money to solve our national and global economic crisis, but we still have plenty of hard cash in the budget for killing babies at home and abroad?

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, challenged Mr. Obama to include unborn children in his vision of life, liberty, and justice for all. Maybe he will be strong enough to abolish chattel abortion, just as President Lincoln abolished chattel slavery. If not, someday a great President will end the lucrative business of elective abortion. Someday the record will show who really cared about human rights. The rhetoric will end, and the record will stand.

Someday great reporters will have the stomach to expose the practices and profits of the elective abortion industry and the sale of baby body parts. The taboo on reporting prenatal violence will be lifted by men and women of conscience, who know that the blood of the littlest human beings should not be used to pay for the unprincipled behavior of adults who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of sexual activity.

Someday the violence of abortion methods will be as abhorrent as any other assault or physical abuse. The paradox of those who oppose the death penalty but promote abortion will end. Pacifists will oppose elective abortion when they realize that more babies have died from abortion in the last 36 years than all of the soldiers and civilians who died from all of the modern military wars combined.

Someday elective abortion, the ultimate example of age discrimination, will be unthinkable. Those who said that women were not legal persons could not prevail. Those who said that slaves were not legal persons had to fail. Someday the tiny human beings who are not yet born will have protection as legal persons. Medical and technological advances will continue to roll back the frontiers of inner space in defining the genesis of human life. Hands that grasp and hearts that beat will be more eloquent than the most self-indulgent right-to-choose, right-to-kill, right-to-privacy speech.

“Little Lamb, who made thee?” asked the poet William Blake in “The Lamb,” his most delicate song of innocence. He mourned the fate of chimney sweeps caught in narrow Victorian infernos. Someday a poet may write a parallel piece:

Little Life, who saved thee?
Dost thou know who saved thee?
Little Life, I’ll tell thee.
They are called by thy name,
For they call themselves humane.

Someday great poets will grieve for the grisly piles of fetal bodies incinerated daily in the land of the free. Someday great writers will grieve for broken lives of unwed undone mothers-not-to-be in the land of the brave.

Who will be the abolitionists? Who will participate in the Underground Railroad? Who will be the new Harriet Tubman? Who will be the new Mother Teresa? Will there be a Horton who discovers the “Who” of unborn personhood in universes of discourse more lovely than we can imagine? Let it be so. Let it be now. Let it be me. When future generations look back on our 3.5 decades of slaughtering innocents, when they recoil at the hypocrisy of our polite exterminations, when they rebuke publicly-funded genocide, when they condemn the press for its cowardly cover-up, when they wonder why nobody said anything, let them find my poor name in a pile of old newspapers, as one who said “To waste the flower of our love and to kill the fruit of our loins is wrong.”

CH

This is my effort to let everyone know that I stand immovable and steadfast in my love for my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is my desire to be like my Savior as much as it is in my power to do so.

Gloria

Pennies from Heaven

I must tell my story about pennies and my Mom. This story began a long time ago and over a period of time. Whenever my Mom and I would be together when we were visiting her or she was here with us, we liked to go for long walks. Whenever we’d see a penny, she would stop and pick it up. Now me, I never used to pick up pennies thinking them to be of no consequence.

After she passed away and I would see a penny, I began to pick them up because they reminded me of her and I loved thinking about her and replaying some of my memories of her. I can’t remember how or why I started this little game with myself, but I would playfully announce to anyone that was with me that Mom must be nearby because I had found a penny. I began to pick those pennies up and save them. It soon became a way for me to fill a need for her to be part of my everyday life.

When we went to Brazil, we had left our home in the warmth of summer and arrived to be greeted by Brazil’s winter season. Being a person who is miserable when cold, that first week there was one of great adjustment. I was cold and coming down with a cold, homesick, beginning what was tantamount to a new job working in the mission office and learning all the duties associated with that, couldn’t speak the Portuguese language, getting used to a different money system, and dealing with all sorts of stress. President U (the mission President) had invited us to go to Jacarei to attend a Rodeo with him and his wife. I told about this experience here.

As we wandered around the rodeo grounds, I looked down and sitting there in the dirt was an American penny. I was astounded. Here we were in Brazil, where the money is so far different than ours, and I find a penny; it made me feel that my Mother was really nearby and making sure that I knew it.

There was another amazing time in Brazil that I was at a major low point. We had just experienced having our apartment robbed of our laptop computer and various other goods. It would have been worse but we came home (although it was a little later than our usual time) and they didn’t have time to finish their raid (this is a whole story in and of itself). Shortly after that, we were walking from our apartment to the mission office and found a myriad of American pennies on the sidewalk. We picked them up and again I wondered if it was because my Mom was offering what comfort she could.

Since that time I continue to pick pennies up when I spot them. However, it seems like there are not so many pennies lying around on the ground these days. People are either hanging onto their pennies and/or picking pennies up where they used to pass them by like I used to do. We were shopping last Tuesday and as I walked out of the grocery store and moved toward our car, the thought went through my mind that it had been quite a while since I had found an errant penny lying on the ground. I finished that thought by thinking that perhaps I didn’t need my Mom to be so close any more. I no sooner than finished that thought, when I looked down on the parking lot and there was a bright, shiny penny winking up at me. As I picked the penny up, I marveled. I will leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions, but I hug my conclusions to me in love and gratitude.

Gloria

Christmas Cheer

Partial view of our backyard

Today is Christmas and it’s snowing outside. Here in our community we are really having a White Christmas. It snowed for five or six hours Monday, then it snowed for nearly that same amount of time on Tuesday, and now today we have that same amount being predicted. It makes for a truly winter, wonderland outside.

We followed our tradition of going to my son’s home for Christmas breakfast of orange juice, sourdough hotcakes and waffles, eggs, bacon, and little smokies. We love to gather together with as many of the family that can come to enjoy breakfast together and see what the kids are all excited about. Today was a little sparse mostly because of the weather. We have followed this tradition since their oldest child was a little tike—now she is married and the other four are growing up. It is still fun to be together on Christmas morning.

Down our street -- the wind was blowing and it was snowing but the pix doesn't show that

When we were serving our mission to Brazil, we decided to bring our traditional breakfast to the Elders who were serving in our area—there were about 8 of them. I had taken my sourdough start with me to Brazil by drying it into little chips. I mixed equal parts of milk and flour and added the chips and waited overnight then, voila! we had our sourdough starter with which to make the batter. We bought about 3 dozen eggs, got a ham which we sliced and warmed in the oven, and made the orange juice. Even though it was a hot summer day in Brazil, we had an enjoyable time together and I had no time to feel homesick. We have fond memories of that wonderful day in Brazil.

I pray that your day was as peaceful and full of joy as mine has been.

Gloria

Stupor of Thought--or What?

I have had ideas that I wanted to post, but somehow I just couldn't sit down and do it. And then I realized that the last time I posted was election day. That was the day I cried when it became certain who our new president was going to be.

I think I got stuck because of my fears. I decided that I must have faith, because perfect faith casteth off all fear. So, since the election I have been praying for myself, that I could accept the new president of our country. I have also been praying for him to accept guidance and direction from the Lord to do what is right for our country.

I have also been dismayed about the backlash from California's Proposition 8. I do not understand how "No on Prop 8'ers" could say we are hateful, meaning those who want to have marriage defined as the union of a husband and a wife, when it is they who are behaving in such a hateful manner. Everything is all backwards.

It is all in the name: marriage. The way I see it, the term "marriage" was copywrited long ago by God. If I created a new drink and wanted to call it "coca cola" I'd be hauled into court straight away. If I created a new shoe and decided to call it "nike" the same thing would happen. So, why can't they who want to live in a different style relationship create their own name? I fully understand their desire to have the rights extended to married couples, but they have been granted these rights in many states. I could see them fight to be granted these rights in all states without usurping the name “marriage” and changing the laws which would have far reaching consequences. Some of these consequences we know, but many that we would come face to face with if we are forced to go down that road.

We who are followers of the Lord and His Son, Jesus Christ; we who read the scriptures and desire to pattern our lives after righteous principles; we who are striving to live the commandments; we must all stand together and be united in the cause of righteousness. If we don't stand together, we will fall separately, one by one. No one wants that to happen, except maybe our enemies.

Gloria