Feeling better.....

Thank goodness, I'm finally feeling better. I believe I've slept my way to a cure for this crud. Haven't slept so much in all my life. I want to share with you a beautiful prayer that my friend Marilyn posted on Facebook last week. I've never seen the prayer and I'll bet some of you may not know of it either. I do believe it could be a life changing prayer for us all. Here it is

Jesus Prayer by Cardinal John Henry Newman(This prayer was recited daily after Communion by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her Sisters of Charity.

Dear Jesus,

Help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go. Flood my soul with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that my life may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul.Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus! Stay with me and then I will begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.

The light, O Jesus, will be all from you; none of it will be mine. It will be you, shining on others through me. Let me thus praise you in the way which you love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for you.


In this season of Lent it may be a good to take up this prayer daily instead of giving up something. If we pray this and really mean it, life will never be the same! Thanks for sharing this with us Marilyn! Till later----
Sharon

Just a quick note to let you know I'm still here. I've been sick for the last week and just have not felt like doing anything! You may remember that I kept Luke the Friday we had the first of our snows here in Bama. Well that night he ran a 102 degree fever. The next morning his mother took him to the doctor. Ear infection and congestion in his chest. Poor baby was really sick for about 4 days and he is only 3 months old. Still has some congestion. Anyway, the following Tuesday I started with a scratchy throat and ears that felt stopped up. Let me just say it went downhill from there. I can not remember having a cold this bad in years! Nose is running and sneezing, cough with deep chest congestion----the works. I know you've heard of typhoid Mary; now I'm calling Luke "Coryza Luke". Coryza is the medical name for the common head cold. The last couple of days have been beautiful with temps in mid to upper 60s and sunshine! Would you believe our weather forecast is calling for snow flurries on Wednesday?!! No accumulation expected but with this rollercoaster temperature weather, we are going to all be sick. Will spring please hurry up and get here! Oh well, sniff sniff - awchoo!! I'm going to bed. Talk to you later!
Sharon

Reasons to live in Alabama.........

I received an interesting email the other day. 101 reasons to live in Alabama was the title and some of them were quite interesting. As I read through the list there were things listed that were true of other states as well as Alabama but if you take the list as a whole, well it is unusual to find them all in one state! I enjoyed it and hope you do as well. Here is the list

101 Dang Good Reasons to Live in Alabama

1. Cheese Grits
2. We're the reason God created Football.
3. World's last outpost of good manners (and fading fast I'm sorry to say)
4. Humidity eliminates need for expensive home sauna.
5. You can put a license tag on anything, drive it down the road, and no one will stop you.
6. Sweet Tea
7. Barbecue
8. Unlike some Yankee states, it only takes one snowflake to create a statewide holiday.
9. Supermarkets have cute names like Piggly Wiggly and Winn-Dixie.
10. No official limit on height of hair-do’s
11. Children address adults using Sir and Ma'am - (again, this is fading fast)
12. Police Officers greet you by name when pulling you over for a traffic violation.
13. Cultural trends take hold at a leisurely pace so everyone can get on board
14. Crocuses come up before the last Christmas decorations come down.
15. New York and California are not taken seriously
16. Gulf Beaches
17. Everyone knows how to tell a good story
18. Politics are more entertaining than in other states.
19. Auburn-Alabama Game
20. Front porches
21. Back porches
22. Corn on the Cob
23. We have our own way of tawkin'!
24. We have our own music
25. More family reunions than any other state
26. Best darn joke tellers in the world
27. Plenty of elbow room
28. Fried Pie
29. People still know how to dress up
30. At every get-together, there is always someone who can pick a guitar
31. Unlike hum-drum Yankee supper tables, there's no skimping on side dishes
32. Vintage automobiles are given the respect they deserve
33. Highest per capita cosmetic skills in the nation
34. More books and songs written about Alabama than any other state.
35. Azaleas
36. Fried Okra
37. Cornbread
38. Farmer's Markets
39. Flea Markets
40. Neighbors rarely come over empty-handed
41. If you break down on the side of the road, someone will always stop to help
42. Soda pop brands have more colorful names, like Nehi and Grapico
43. No part of a pig ever goes to waste
44. Church suppers on the ground
45. Citizens generally know the difference between right and wrong
46. Wild Blackberries
47. Bluebirds in the spring
48. Children use the quaint expressions "Please" and "Thank You"
49. Tent Revivals
50. River Rats
51. People don't generally pass through -- they come to stay
52. Small-talk skill level highest in nation
53. Handshakes still effective in business dealings
54. We might fight but we always make up
55. Fishing that borders on religious experience
56. Knowing someone will always hold the door for you
57. 365-day golfing season
58. Palm Trees, Dogwoods, Sycamores, Live Oaks, Fig Trees, Sweet Gums, Red Buds, and Magnolias
59. Never a shortage of advice on any subject
60. Traffic laws subject to individual interpretation
61. Central Air
62. Sweet Potato Pie
63. Misty mornings in the mountains
64. Wild Muscadines
65. Dirt Track Racing
66. Family Recipes
67. Sunsets in November
68. Red Tail Hawks
69. Homemade Ice Cream
70. Peach Cobbler
71. Snow flurries on Thanksgiving
72. Heat waves on Thanksgiving
73. No legal limit on quantity of exterior Christmas lights per household
74. There are still people who talk without cussing
75. For those who must cuss, a wide array of original expletives is available.
76. Backyard Gardens
77. Sawmill Gravy
78. Neighborhood block parties
79. Volunteer Fire Departments
80. Mayors who conveniently also sell insurance and used cars
81. Camellias blooming in February
82. 'Nanner Puddin'
83. Mee-maw's Coconut Cake
84. Pa-paw's Tomatoes
85. Folks who know your Mamma and Daddy and their Mammas and Daddies
86. Bluegrass Festivals
87. Going barefoot in March
88. Butterbeans
89. Fried Catfish
90. Certain homemade beverages (moonshine & homebrew)
91. Cockroach species guaranteed to scare the wits out of unsuspecting Yankees
92. High ratio of morning radio shows with hosts named Bubba
93. Siestas on summer afternoons
94. Strangers say hello on the street and instead of running in the opposite direction, you say hello back
95. Home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World: the infield at Talladega on race day
96. Misguided national news coverage of state keeps obnoxiously heavy, environmentally damaging tourist traffic to a minimum.
97. Children grow up bilingual, speaking both English and Southern.
98. State leads the way in culinary presentation of the peanut.
99. Leading number of women named Velma
100.Men named J.B., J.R., J.D., J.P., J.C., J.T., or J.W
101.You can leave Alabama, but you'll always come back home
What a great place to live~~~~

Hope you got a chuckle or two from this list! Seriously, no matter where I go, I'm always ready to get back home to Alabama!!! Have a great rest-of-the-week!

Sharon

Snow bound.....

We finally got our snow in Alabama!!! I think this is the third time this winter snow has been predicted; and the third time school and businesses have closed anitcipating snow and this time we got snow. Now those of you from New England and places like Montana and Wisconsin that REALLY know about snow, try to to pee in your pants laughing at us but here it is:


Not much, is it? But it is snow. Went to bed with the weatherman promising that snow would start falling around midnight. I stayed up till 12:30AM ---no snow. Got up at 3:30AM and looked out the window----no snow! I knew it wasn't going to snow. We've only had one really good snow here in my lifetime and that was back in '93. Joy brought the boys in for the day (since school was out and snow predicted) at about 7:00AM---no snow. Finally about 10AM the snow started to fall and it fell until 3PM and this is all we got.

As you can see the roads were not covered in snow. In fact, the temp stayed above or at 32degrees all day so no icing on the road either. In the picture above you can see the line of Bradford pear trees we have in our side yard. They are full of big buds for the spring. Hope they didn't get ruined again. Last year's blooms were ruined with a late freeze.

And look at my poor daffodils! See those just-about-to-bloom buds? Hope they don't get ruined either. Oh well, doesn't take much snow in Alabama to get everyone in a tizzy!

The changing of seasons here can be rather dramatic! My favorite season is...........Tornado season! And it's coming up. I love storms and tornados are just the best!!! I know I'm weird but to me nothing shows the power and majesty of God like a tornado or a good ole thunderstorm. All that rain makes for a good nap, too! Once several years ago, a tornado swept through our area while I was in Walmart. Good bet I'll be in Walmart when anything happens around here. I didn't even know a storm was expected until I saw the warning and weather maps on the TVs in the store. Decided I'd get myself home before it hit so I headed for the checkout line and got through as quickly as possible. When I headed out the door the sky in front of me was clear and bright but for some reason I did notice that I was the only one leaving the store. I didn't get 20 feet away from the door and the rain began to over take me from behind. The wind roared and rain pellted me so hard I though I was going to die. No joke, I seriously thought I was going to die!! And of course my car was parked wwwwaaaayyyy down at the very end of the row. Most people with normal intelligence would have probably turned around and gone back when the rain started but I figured I was wet anyway, may as well go on. I'm telling you I've never been in such a bad storm in my life. In fact, I later learned that the tornado had gone directly overhead. It didn't drop down on me but I was definitely in the wall cloud or something. Anyway, I was terrified. I had over $100 worth of groceries in the buggy but when I got to the car I just let it go and got in the car. I could hardly get the door open the wind was blowing so hard. Once inside the car, it began to rock like it was going to fly up in the air. Oh, my ---I just sat there trembling. And I was mad as heck, too!!!! I was mad -no the better way to describe it is "I was pissed"-- because I didn't see any angels or have the Lord tell me I was going to be OK. I really thought with that sort of experience I should see or hear something from the other side if I was really loved and accepted! But I didn't see or hear a thing except my heart pounding. I know you can't believe this but I was really MAD at God for not saying something!!!!! Finally, the storm passed and I got out soaked to the bone, still shaking so badly I had trouble opening the hatch on my Durango and I chased down that buggy of groceries! Got them loaded in the back of the car (slung them in really) and was able to drive off with all those folks standing under the Walmart cover still watching me. I wonder what they thought about that idiot in the storm. Oh well, who cares! I told several people at work about my experience and did get some comfort about not getting any messages from the Lord in the storm. Seems it just wasn't my time to go so I didn't need any message. Still I think there was a message in there somewhere. See, snow is just nowhere near that exciting.

Sharon

Just saying Hi

Just wanted to let you know I'm still here but haven't posted in so long because.......I just haven't had anything to post. It's been cold and dreary so I've stayed indoors and vegetated forever! I can't wait till spring. Since I've retired I've become worse than useless, I'm totally unnecessary!!!

Went with Joy to have pictures of Luke made and here are a couple. I've posted one of Joy when she was Luke's age. Do you think they look alike?

Joy at 3 months age.

Luke at 3 months of age

Look at those little fists on Luke in this last picture. He looks to me as if he is saying, "You wanna piece of me?"!!! He looks like a little bully but he has the best little disposition. I'm thinking he is going to be a happy, fun baby. I hope so anyway. I kept him for the first two weeks his mother went back to work but I just physically can't do that for him. I feel so badly that I can't but just don't have the physical stamina to do it. So.... we found a young girl with two children of her own who wants to keep him in her home. Not too far from Joy and keeps him out of daycare centers! So, last week her two year old ( a little girl) bite Luke on the face. Made a pretty nasty looking place for a couple of days but it didn't break the skin. Of course, I feel guilty about that ,too. If I'd kept him he would not have gotten bitten. So, now I pray every day that Natalee won't bite him again. He is so small to be bitten. See, I told you I didn't have anything to post about. So, I'm going for tonight. Talk to you later!

Sharon