DON’T SIT DOWN IF YOU CAN’T GET BACK UP

You know what I found out this morning? It's not that easy getting down and sitting on the floor when you are a senior citizen and "fluffy" like me!

Let me tell you, it's even harder getting back up!!!

Since we have been having these cold mornings, I decided it was time to blow out the old gas heater that I use to heat my house. After I have carefully taken out all the clay bricks, I must blow all the dust out that has collected in it since it has gone unused. I can do this standing up.

Then I have to light the pilot light.

This is what called for me getting down on the floor in a sitting position this morning, which in itself is no easy task, let me tell you!  I don’t know how many of you have had the joy of lighting an old gas heater’s pilot light, so I will try to explain my experience this morning.

First off, you have to find  the sorry kitchen matches you bought at the ‘everything for a dollar store’. You know the kind…your first, second and third strikes across the side of the box breaks the match in half before it even lights. So, on the next strike, you hold the match a little closer to it’s head and burn your fingers.

Yep, that’s the kind I have and used this morning.

After you finally get the match to light, you hold it in your left hand in the front of the heater while you stretch your right arm all the way around to the backside of the heater. Trust me, just getting myself in this position was no easy matter. 

With your right hand, you try to depress the little red doo-hickey button and HOLD IT DOWN as you take the match in your left hand (that has burned almost half way down to your fingers by now), and stick it to the pilot light in the heater. 

It lights!

You quickly blow the match out that was in your left hand, but you can not immediately let go of the little red doo-hickey button that you are holding down with your right hand. Even though it was hard to push down and even harder to hold down, you have to keep holding that thing down for about 2 minutes and then you let it go back up….slowly.  

Then you watch as the pilot light’s little blue gas flame, like a tiny little blue ghost, seeps back into the hole from which it came.

The pilot light has gone out.

So you do it all over again…
and again…
and again…

until it finally and blessedly lights and stays lit.

Putting the clay bricks back in without breaking them took a long time in itself and then there is the little wire grate thing that snaps onto the front of the heater that you have to get back on. While trying to dust it off with an old rag, a piece of metal the size of a thick needle went through my finger! Hell fire damnation!

Thank God that I had Dan here to help me get myself off that floor this morning or I would probably still be crawling around trying to find something to hold onto!!

But Hallelujah, we now have heat!!!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

WE WILL NEVER FORGET

Years ago, some of us, who wrote in AOL JOURNALS, were asked to take part in honoring those who were killed during the 911 terrorist attack on The United States of America. We chose a victim's name and then researched  their lives. We wrote about them so they would live on through our words. As long as I can, I will continue to publish this each year, so that Margaret Seeliger will never be forgotten.
              SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
                        


It was a beautiful morning,with bright, clear blue skies, as Margaret Seeliger and her husband Bruce left their Manhattan apartment and stood in line to vote in New York's primary election. It was a sunny day with all the airports reporting 100% visibility. After voting, they would have walked on toward work together as usual, but Bruce had a doctor's appointment. So this morning, they kissed goodbye at the corner of 76th Street and Third Avenue.
Bruce stood watching as Margaret boarded the train that would take her to her job and unknowingly, to her fate. You see, only thirty-four years old, Margaret Seeliger was employed as Head of the Student Health Division of Anon Insurance.
Which happened to be located on the 100th floor at 2 World Trade Center in New York.
Margaret had boundless energy, and lived her life to the fullest. She felt and often stated that "you never know how long you have here on this earth" , so she was always busy. Many of her weekends were spent in Buffalo visiting with her mom, who had fallen victim to Alzheimer's. Margaret was a very important part of her mom's care, attending to even the smallest details for her.
Since her mother was no longer able to do so, Margaret had taken over the role of being "Grandma" to her 11 nieces and nephews. Looking so much like her own mom, the children had even began calling her "Grandma". She and her husband Bruce were constantly traveling to soccer games, or school plays in Rochester, California, Philadelphia and Atlanta, Georgia.
On some weekends, she and Bruce would catch a flight to Atlanta to visit with her sister Beth and her three children. It was on one of those last visits that Margaret asked Beth to hold on to the crib and baby clothes that she had in her basement...secretly confiding that she wanted to start trying to get pregnant that November.
November never came for Margaret.

On that bright and beautiful morning of September 11, 2001, Bin Laden ordered an attack on AMERICA, killing thousands of innocent people as planes crashed into the the Pentagon, an open field and The World Trade Center Towers…
Where Margaret worked.

I can not imagine the fear and the panic that had to be running rampant through the buildings as people tried to flee to safety, but Margaret Seeliger bravely gave up her space on the last over crowded elevator that would leave the 100th floor of 2 World Trade Center so that two of her colleagues could make it out.
MARGARET SEELIGER DIED A TRUE AMERICAN HERO.

So, Bin Laden…
MAY YOU FOREVER ROT IN THE HELL THAT WE HAVE SENT YOU TO.
YOU DESTROYED OUR TOWERS, YOU MURDERED OUR PEOPLE, BUT YOU DID NOT DESTROY THAT WHICH HAS ALWAYS MADE AMERICA THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD…
LOVE, COMPASSION, LOYALTY, BRAVERY…
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY;
OUR BELIEF IN THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD.

God bless you Margaret Seeliger and May Our Almighty God rest your soul.  May His Holy Spirit continue to bring comfort to your family and friends.
YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
FOR WE WILL NEVER FORGET

GOD BLESS YOU ALL
                  &
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ANNIE

      

Her name was Annie...short for Orphan Annie.

We found her at a flea market. Her so called owner was revving his truck up trying to get her to come out from under it. Why was she under his truck? Well you see, she didn't want to go back in that crate she had been in for hours in the hot sun. He said he had been trying to sell her all day, but had no luck. As he tried loading the crate with the little dog in it, the door had came open and Annie quickly escaped.

We happened to be walking by as all this occurred, so the man yelled at my (then) little girl that if she could make that $%#@ dog come out, she could have her. He didn't know he was talking to the animal whisperer. My daughter… the one who called two baby squirrels down from the pecan tree and raised them after their mother was killed.

Sure enough, Amanda coaxed that puppy out from under that truck and to my dismay we were headed home with a puppy…this after I had spent the hour of getting to the flea market making Amanda promise me that she would NOT ask for any pets this time.

After we got the pup some water and food, Amanda carried her to my van. She sat right in front of Amanda …not moving, but warily wagging her tail, never taking her eyes off Amanda.

I thought then and still think now, that Annie somehow knew she was being saved.

Years flew by and Amanda eventually married and left home. She left Annie with me and her daddy, since her new home was right on the highway and we were scared Annie would try to cross that highway to come back to her old home, not a block away.  Time moved on, Amanda was divorced and then remarried.

Eventually there was a little boy who came to love Annie just like his mama did.

Annie had been a part of our lives for many years, when one day I had went to town. I saw Annie out by the shed when I left. When I came back, she was lying down.. As I knelt down to see about her,  she looked into my eyes, wagged her tail and quietly passed away. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Annie had willed herself to hang on until I returned.

Never in all those years that we had Annie, did she give us any trouble or grief. That is until the day finally came for her to walk over that rainbow bridge…and to this day, I still grieve for her. 

I still miss her and I will always love her.

You see, Annie wasn’t just a dog or a pet….

SHE WAS FAMILY.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

 

TODAY’S NEWS

OKAY…I GOT TO DO SOME TALKING TO YALL…

First let me say this…..

Do I go by everything The Bible says?

NO.

Why??

Well, because I am a SINNER! To put it in easier terms; I SIN. I am so far from being perfect, that I am 100 %  IMPERFECT. ( The only perfect ONE was nailed to a cross many years ago.)

After I read the Bible through many years ago, I now just flip through and settle on the chapter that grabs me. What I read just now, as I wandered into 2 Timothy blew me away. I have read the Bible over and over and I say this not to brag, but in bewilderment, as what I just read didn’t sound like something that was written centuries ago, but like an editorial about recent events from a major newspaper.

In 2 Timothy 3:1 - 5  Saint Paul is telling Timothy;
"You should know this,Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God.They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!”

He goes on to say  in  2 Timothy 3:12 - 16 ;
"Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil people and impostors will flourish. They will deceive others and will themselves be deceived. But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

In  2 TIMOTHY 4: 3 – 4   Saint Paul says this:
"For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.They will reject the truth and chase after myths."

I can not prove that we, of this generation, are living in the last days… for the Son of God doesn’t even know the last hour.  Matthew 24:36 tells us this: ”But no one knows the date and hour when the end will be—not even the angels. No, nor even God’s Son. Only the Father knows.”

And please don’t think I am preaching when I say ;

I really do think that we all need to be praying more because;

When The HOLY BIBLE begins to sound like this weeks news, it won’t be long.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

TODAY'S NEWS

OKAY…I GOT TO DO SOME TALKING TO YALL…

First let me say this…..

Do I go by everything The Bible says?

NO.

Why??

Well, because I am a SINNER! To put it in easier terms; I SIN. I am so far from being perfect, that I am 100 %  IMPERFECT. ( The only perfect ONE was nailed to a cross many years ago.)
After I read the Bible through many years ago, I now just flip through and settle on the chapter that grabs me. What I read just now, as I wandered into 2 Timothy blew me away. I have read the Bible over and over and I say this not to brag, but in bewilderment, as what I just read didn’t sound like something that was written centuries ago, but like an editorial about recent events from a major newspaper.


 In 2 Timothy 3:1 - 5  Saint Paul is telling Timothy;
"You should know this,Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God.They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!”


He goes on to say  in  2 Timothy 3:12 - 16 ;
"Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil people and impostors will flourish. They will deceive others and will themselves be deceived. But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

 In  2 TIMOTHY 4: 3 – 4   Saint Paul says this:
"For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.They will reject the truth and chase after myths."

I can not prove that we, of this generation, are living in the last days… for the Son of God doesn’t even know the last hour.  Matthew 24:36 tells us this: ”But no one knows the date and hour when the end will be—not even the angels. No, nor even God’s Son. Only the Father knows.” 
And please don’t think I am preaching when I say ; 

I really do think that we all need to be praying more because; 

When The HOLY BIBLE begins to sound like this weeks news, it won’t be long.


GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

WHAT IS A HERO?

What do you consider a hero?

Who is your hero?

Webster’s describes a hero as this:
‘A mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability, an illustrious warrior and/or a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities.’

I’ve been mulling this over in my mind for a few days now and although I may not be as smart as Webster’s, I believe I do know what a hero is….

A hero is the guy driving a log truck for a living and when he tops the hill, there right in front of him are five cars stopped in the roadway. In the last car, there is a man who looks up in his rear view mirror just in time to see a log truck barreling towards him. Now, I don’t know if Michael Deraney saw this man look in his rear view mirror or not, but I do know that Michael chose to run off the road instead of plowing into all those cars with innocent people in them. Michael died being a hero. On a side note, the guy who looked up in his rear view mirror? He jumped out and ran to Michael’s truck trying to help, only to find him unresponsive, as Michael died instantly. This person told the deputy that Michael saved his life and many others and he wasn't leaving the site till it was all over. He too is a hero.

A hero is my daddy, who was one of the most kind and loving fathers there was, worked two and three jobs all his life with two hernias the size of grapefruits hanging from his sides, and feet that had corns, and callouses. Yet he WORKED to support us. We weren’t rich by no means..church mice were better off than us… but my daddy worked and he didn’t take a dime from the government.

Webster’s refers to a hero as a man. Let me tell you, I have known PLENTY of female heroes in my lifetime. The main one being my mama.

God bless her heart, she never worked an outside job, but spent 15 hours a day working at home to raise us kids. The woman got up before sunrise and went to bed way after midnight. Many a time I would wake up in the middle of the night to find her outside hanging up the clothes she had washed in the wringer washer, so she could get an early start on the next day. She chopped wood, slopped pigs, fed chickens, gathered the eggs, tended the garden, drew water from the well ( until it went dry) and then came inside to clean house, and make sure her six children were all fed and clothed. She did all this with two legs that were in such bad shape, that I don’t see how she even walked.

And finally; to me, a hero is a man who will stand up to corruption, backroom dealings, and plain out crookedness, while everyone else seem to  rear back on their thumbs and say, “what’s the use?”  A hero is one who will stand alone, if need be, to make sure there is fairness and equality for all. He is the one who forks over his own money in order to hire one single lawyer to fight against the morally unacceptable ways of those who can hire a fleet of attorneys… on the tax payers dime. A hero is the man who not only ‘talks the talk’, but also ‘walks the walk.’ Thank you Dee Lindsey for being our hero.

Yep, I think I pretty much got what a true hero is and I thank You Lord; for all the heroes that You placed in my life.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.