12 Years Ago....

Tomorrow is my darling daughter's 12th birthday. I can't believe the little baby I gave birth to 10 minutes ago is now going to be twelve.

How did this happen?

I'm still trying to figure it out.

My son will be 14 on his next birthday.

Hubster and I are quickly realizing that, in about 15 minutes or so, both kids will be grown and gone. Makes me quite melancholy to think about it....

(By the way, she made the "dress" the bear is wearing in this photo from toilet paper and scotch tape - pretty impressive, huh? Just call her Vera Wang for Teddy Bears....)

A Prescription for a Happy Life

"A Prescription for a Happy Life"

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight
and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them'.

2. Keep your cheerful friends. The grouches will pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts,

gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An older idle mind
is the devil's workshop.' And the devil's name is "Alzheimer's."

4. Enjoy the simple things, these are many.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only
person who is with us our entire life is ourselves. Be ALIVE while
you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family,
pets, friends, books, keepsakes, music, your garden, hobbies, or solitude, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take long term guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even
to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.

We all need to live life to its fullest each day!! Don't worry about what you cannot change, but pray and give thanks for so many good things in your life. Have an Attitude of Gratitude!

Peace

Marcy from Blessings Each Day has shared the Good Word that tomorrow (October 18th) is Pray-For-Peace day...

So, in that vein, I'd like to encourage everyone (be they Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, agnostic, garden-variety-pagan...or something heretofore unmentioned....) to PRAY.

Just PRAY. For peace.

Because I believe God hears our prayers.

So, let's all pray for this broken, sad, twisted world which we call home (at least temporarily), that God might incline men's (and women's) hearts towards PEACE... and that we might live in a more peacable state, one with another.

Would you pray with me?

Miscellaneous Musings

Hey y'all - it's ME! The one who has NO free time to blog anymore! I am home from work today, sick. Sick as in "feeling-flattened-by-a-truck" sick. But my doctor gave me a steroid shot (in the ARSE!) and I now feel better....

So, I thought I'd share some things that have been floating through my stream of consciousness lately. Don't you feel lucky? :)

1. Work is going well. Very busy. One of the guys in my office (who I work quite closely with) is Total Eye Candy (and yes, that was capitalized on purpose), so that helps to make the days go by. Not quite as cute as Alexander Skarsgard or Stephen Moyer of "True Blood", but pretty darn close. Bonus for me. :)


2. Barack Obama's Nobel Prize. Now, y'all know, I almost never swear, but I did have a "WTF" moment (in my internal monologue) when I heard on NPR that our President had won the Nobel. Here are my three prevailing thoughts: a) I have lost TREMENDOUS amounts of respect for the Nobel committee because this award was, at least in LARGE part, a political statement. b) Further, President Obama should have gracefully thanked the Nobel committee for the honor, but then REFUSED to accept the award because he didn't DESERVE it. (Personally, I think the award should have gone to the post-election political protesters in Iran.... just as an example); and c) I expect to win a Heisman trophy any day now. That's right, ME. Because after all... I have great INTENTIONS of ONE DAY becoming the best college football player in the SEC. Ridiculous? You bet. Point made.

Now that THAT is off my chest... :)

3. We have had a lot of flooding here in North Georgia. You may have heard about in or seen it on the news. 500 year floods. People died in these floods. Bad news. My house is up on a hill, so I have not floated away, and thankfully we didn't have any damage; although my office (and many Atlanta businesses) were closed for a day or two during the worst of it. I've never seen anything like it. Mother Nature's power is awe-inspiring.

I think that's it for now. Hubster and the kids are healthy. We got our H1N1 vaccines and I would ENCOURAGE you to do the same. This is not a virus you want to play roulette with, my friends. I've spent a substantial time in intensive care units with sick children and trust me, you don't want to be there.

Hope all my wonderful blogger-buds are doing well - miss you guys like CRAZY.... just don't have the free time I used to!

DPH "Take Yo Mama Out" (to dinner....)

This is a re-post from many months ago, but bears re-posting.
The 3 guys in this band are 3 of the guys from the band at my church.
I LOVE this song (and that's saying a lot, because I don't like rap.... in fact, one of my favorite sayings is "You can't spell CRAP without RAP.") .... sorry, all you rap fans out there....

But anyway... I love this song. I LOVE the talent these guys possess.... I LOVE how their music makes me SMILE! :)