Month: December 2020

Daily Thoughts

Once Upon A Time

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Since it’s the Magical Season where we are suppose to be cheerful and joyous, Randy is being saved from being a victim on a 48 Hours episode!

The story begins like this….

Once Upon a Time there was a husband named Randy. Because his wife Trudy had been having some hip and leg pain, and the pain was worse at night when she slept (or tried to sleep but could not because her leg hurt so badly) he shared that maybe it was time for them to buy a new mattress! Well, Princess Bakesalot spoke up and said “what if we buy a new mattress and find out that the pain is still bad and we spent all that money for nothing, when I could have had a brand new sparkly newcrown”. Mr. I Have a Great Idea says ,

” I know, let’s switch out our king mattress for the newer more firm Queen mattress that is in the guest room before we go buy a new one! That way we can see if having a better mattress will help you before we waste money on a new one!”

Well, Princess Bakesalot agreed that indeed they should try it. After all. how hard could it be? So working together they decided to drag the queen mattress from the guest room to the master bedroom and would just put the queen mattress on top of the king mattress so they wouldn’t have drag the king mattress to the other room. Since all the elves were off on holiday from being so tired from Christmas, the couple decided that they still had it in them to make this change! As they discovered, the queen mattress did not have any handles on the sides to help hold or guide it! Mr IHAGI told the Princess if she could just walk backwards holding onto the end to guide it, he would be at the other end to push! All was well until they tried to hoist it over the footboard and knocked over a lamp and desk accessories! As the mattress finally cleared the footboard, the Princess fell backwards onto the floor with the mattress on top of her! She proudly picked herself up and declared that she was fine and they proceeded down the hallway. Upon arriving in the master bedroom, once again trying to hoist it now over the king footboard, they discovered that there was no way on Gods Green Earth that either of them would be able to climb into bed without the use of a 8′ ladder or a cannon to shoot them onto it! So at this point they felt that they now needed to lean the queen mattress over to the wall and remove the king mattress so they could put the queen mattress on the box springs! At least with a good running, start they might be able to get up on this “higher than they were use to” mattress! the king mattress had handles that allowed them to grab onto to hustle it over the footboard since there was not enough room to move it to the side! After as much breath that it took to”huff and puff to blow your house down” the king mattress was now off the box springs and covered the doorway to the bathroom! But alas, the couple decided that at this point it was easier to walk down the hall to the guest bathroom than to try to move the king size mattress! This is how it will stay until we move in 3 weeks! Neither Mr IHAGI or Princess Bakesalot have the energy to change it again!

The moral of the story is this….

Go to a mattress store that allows you To buy mattress with a 30 day return policy and be sure to have lots of ice to put on your hip, your leg and your foot if you attempt this terrible ordeal!

Am hoping the sweeping goes down enough in my foot that will allow me to walk to the bedroom tonight to try out the new mattress!

Also, if you’re wondering why Mr IHAGI and Princess Bakesalot did not just sleep in the guest bedroom the answer is very simple. The Princess is afraid of lizards and a month ago a lizard was spotted in that bedroom which was never found! The End!

Daily Thoughts · Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

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This year is so different but as I sit here without being with kids and and family I can’t help but think of some of the gifts that I am treasuring this year. We went to Christmas Eve service last night! Did we wish we had family around us? Of course but, we are so blessed to be able to belong to a church that is open and has such new music! That is another gift! Ears for hearing the Carols of the season and eyes to see the gorgeous lights that sparkle in trees and outline houses and bushes! Yes we are missing being with family this year! But Joy comes in the Morning and “this too shall pass!” Rejoice in the God of our salvation and give thanks for the things that are given to us by our Creator! And of course, our greatest gift of All…Christ the King of Kings, who because of his birth, we have salvation!

From our hearts to yours, Merry Christmas! Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born! He is the True Light of the world!

Luke 2

Daily Thoughts

Rockwell Or Griswalds

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

Remembering a Christmas just a short 5 years ago makes me sad that because of Covid this year, plans had to be cancelled to go out to Phoenix for Christmas, oh but all the sweet memories of a Christmas Past:

It was the year 2015

Oh I could just imagine the sights and sounds we would get to have all around us. About a week ago, I began making cookie dough to put in the freezer so that all I had to do was unthaw and bake when the kids would arrive from Phoenix! I made sure that I knew how to find the Christmas music stations on the TV so the house would be filled with “Ring The Bells, Joy to the World and Silent Night while we snacked on homemade cookies, made just for the precious angels that would be running in and out all week. Making sure to have just everyone’s favorite cookie made, I had my checklist all checked twice and made sure that everyone’s favorite was made and on the platter the minute they walked in the house. Isn’t it amazing how we conjure up what we feel like would be the perfect way to begin Christmas. Visions of a pretty platter of peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip and sugar cookies sitting out, while listening to It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas playing in the background. The little ones would bring us the book,  Twas The Night Before Christmas while wiping sleepies from their eyes the first morning there. We would have the fireplace going with Frosty The Snowman movie on the TV while they cuddled on our laps. IS THERE A FAMILY THAT GETS TO ACTUALLY PLAY THIS SCENE OUT? If there is, please send me to them so I can see what that is really like!

So far, the visit went like this:

From Christmas Past:

The 14 old walks in from being in the car for 2 days, gives us a hug, disappears to go and work on his hair for 30 minutes then goes to his cousins house. Haven’t seen or heard from him since. But we still have the 6 and 2 yr old, right?

Well, after having the 6 year old in our bedroom on a makeshift bed, he awoke in the morning asking every 10 minutes, “can I open a present”! Literally, when we finally had to tell him that every time he ask that, we would take one of the presents out from under the tree and give it to someone else. So he rephrased the question to, “can I NOT open a present” telling us that he wasn’t asking “can I open a present now”, so it didin’t count so we couldn’t take any of his presents away since he wasn’t asking that question. After we got that settled and thought, “ok, we won that battle” he begins to stomp around the house singing,  “What do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor, so early in the morning?”

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know what I would like to do with a little 6 year old that sings that song over and over 15 times.

Maybe if I offer them some homemade goodies, they will be more in the Christmas spirit. So I bring out all the homemade cookies, that are sure to put a sparkle in their eye. They look at them and say, “Nana, do you have any of those Little Debbie Christmas trees you gave us last year when you came to visit us?” What? They are choosing Little Debbie over Nana?

Everyone left to go do last minute errands for a couple of hours! even Frosty left (probably is sitting in the car at a park someplace to get some peace and quiet) so I am sitting here, listening to Christmas Bells Are Ringing. At least I can have visions in my head of what some magical family out there is experiencing with family. And I wonder why our kids gave us a CD of Christmas Vacation with Clark Griswald. Maybe because our family much more resembles that family that the families inside the pages of Southern Living.

Do we really think it was an accident that Grandma stepped in front of the reindeer? Hum….maybe she just couldn’t take listening to “what do you do with a drunken sailor” one more time!

Merry Christmas to one and all! May you and your family make some precious memories in spite of this year of being separated because of Covid this year as you celebrate the birth of our Savior and Lord! Because of Him, we can have life eternal, peace on Earth and Joy….we give Him thanks for the laughter and joy that fills our home in spite of current circumstances! Frosty just puts his earplugs in and shakes his head, as I walk around singing “what do you do with a drunken sailor!”

I bet even Norman Rockwell would have loved that Strange Carol had his grandchild been singing it!

Daily Thoughts

Not That God

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A few years ago, a sweet friend, Janet, gave me a book which was written by her son– in- law, Ryan Smith. The name of the book was Not That God. This morning I again woke up around 4 am and could not go back to sleep so found myself once again up drinking a cup of hot tea . I began to read Not That God. It made me realize that my perception of God is quite often a result of how What I think it should be. In my desire to love God and trust Him I seem to fall into the thinking that if I am good enough, pray more and spend time in His Word, I will have a blessed life. (talk about “earning” your salvation) I was raised to fear God with a Holy type of fear. Not to be afraid of Him but to have a Holy respect which would make me realize that He is the Holy One! That He should be honored above all else and to obey His Word in complete trust. As I have grown in years and hopefully in my faith, it seems that I am doing just what I read. That my expectations of who I think God should be is a little off. At times, I think we all feel that if we walk according to His will and simply obey what we know we are suppose to be doing, that it will “get us something”! We begin to treat God like a genie. We obey, He grants our wishes! But as I continued to read, I realized that God is much more interested in our character than our comforts. He allows things to fall on us in order that our love, dependency, and faith in Him will grow. Those valleys that He brings us through are allowed so that we will grow our faith and begin to see that these times of sorrow, sickness or stress can be times of opportunity for us to reach out more to our Heavenly Father. We have a way of keeping God in our own little box of what we feel He should be and expect Him to do. We make our decisions and then expect Him to bless them. We pray and give Him our desires and our requests and then expect Him to answer in the way that we feel is best. So when He doesn’t answer in the way we feel He should, we become angry and wonder ‘where God is”? Not That God is a book that challenges us to rethink what we have always felt about God.

In this Christmas season, it is a great time to begin a new approach to how I really feel about God and His great love for all of us! We always hear that “He is the reason for the season” but as we heard in church last week, “we are the reason for the season” Jesus came to earth as a baby to save us from our sin. God was the first gift giver. We have Christmas because He came as a baby that we might have life eternal. He gave His Son willingly for us. He did it out of a great love for us. After His giving of His most precious Son, how can we not love Him enough to trust Him for the circumstances, the trials or valleys, which He allows to come into our lives? This season, may my heart be open to accepting that “His ways are not my ways, nor His thoughts, my thoughts”. That I will always remember that God is love, but maybe I need to learn to redefine ‘love” in order to understand a little more of what God is trying to do in my life.

*Not That God, written by Ryan Smith

Daily Thoughts

Fiction to Fact Christmas Letter

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Merry Christmas Perfect Family Letter

I was in such a hurry when I ordered the yearly Christmas cards, I didn’t realize until I got them back that I had not even put our names on them or wrote any type of greeting. So you are being gifted with a Christmas letter from Frosty and Noel. On the Card i had designed, I realized that I had made the bigger pic of us ,and the smaller pic of Baby Jesus and I felt awful. IT should have been the other way around. Shows just how busy we become when trying to get everything on our list checked off. My mind had been on so many things that day that I simply didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing. You are probably not like me. But that is how I roll. I act and then think. Well, now for the perfect Christmas letter saying we have a perfect little family. We have perfect gorgeous kids and grandkids who excel at everything they try. Our kids are all rich and in perfect health. They call us every day to check on us and allow us to just go on and on about our lives and then bring us amazing dinners, (since we can’t get close to them, they just throw the dinner in our car and run), but we are usually wanting to get home so Frosty can give me my nightly foot massage as I drink the hot cocoa he has so lovingly prepared for me with the box of chocolates he brings home once a week for my enjoyment.

Could life get any better? Now for the real story!

The reality of 2020. We began like most of you last December 31st, looking forward to a year of knowing that this year would be our best yet. We had friends over for a NYE gathering (I won’t call it party because we are old and we gather, we don’t party). Our somewhat, older than we are friends, decided that they had better start home by 9 p.m. if they wanted to get home before falling asleep. We decided that very night, that we were not going to be like the rest of the oldies. We would make this the year that we would find younger, more hip friends who could at least stay awake until 10. We were not going to let old age hinder our lives. I will be back after I finish watching The Wheel and finish taking all my meds before I fall asleep on the couch.

Ok, let’s finish!Yes, we do have great kids and so far, no one is in jail, everyone is employed (although some of the jobs, we don’t ask about, we don’t think we really want to know what they do) and 2 1/2 of them are married. So we feel pretty blessed. All of the grandkids still speak to us and we have finally been taken off about 25 robo call lists. Our cabinets have 25 rolls of toilet paper and a pantry full of flour and paper towels. Our goal this week before Christmas is to splurge on Hand sanitizer and possibly a new face mask for each other as gifts. So now you know the rest of the story. We truly are so grateful for your friendship and we hope that unlike me when I designed the cards, Jesus will be the “big picture” in your lives! Merry Christmas from our hearts to yours!

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Dashing Through The Snow

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OK, maybe I wasn’t dashing through the snow, maybe it was more like “dashing around the parking lot trying to find where my husband was waiting for me to come out of Walmart”! But it really was “dashing” at least.

We had been out running errands when I realized that we were in a different area than where we tend to stop for some of  our Christmas goodies at our (that’s right, “our” Walmart), when I told Frosty to just pull in to this new Walmart and drop me off at the door to see if they have any of the Christmas spatulas that I have been buying up at all the Walmarts around us. He let me off at the door, as the wind was gusting up to 40 mph and told me that as soon as he saw me walk out, he would pull up to the door and I could jump in. He is just so sweet and thoughtful.

FIrst of all, I have to tell you that these spatulas are just so cute and sell for $1.96. I have bought some from high end kitchen stores for about $12/ea and these are just as cute. I collect spatulas and so am always on the lookout for cute ones. They are my signature little gift for hostess gifts and I attach them with Christmas ribbon to packages or Easter or Valentine…you get the picture, right? So when I had bought all that Walmart had in our area, I went looking on Walmart’s web site and thought I would just go ahead and order some to be delivered but to my wondering eye should appear but “3 spatulas for $18.00?” you have got to be kidding me!!! Do the Walmart people realize that they sell them in their own stores for $1.96? And that is why I decided to just hop out of the car, risk ruining my hair being blown to younder and head in to this new unchartered Walmart. Now back to the story.

I wondered over to the baking aisle and there as big and bright as Rudolfs Red nose, were more Christmas spatulas. So I bought all my arms could carry and started out the door. I did notice that there were carts blowing around the parking lot due to the hurricane force winds. (maybe I am exaggerating just a bit, but I knew that maybe I should have used just a bit more hairspray that morning as mine was only stiff enough to hold in winds up to 20 mph). So before I walk out the automatic glass doors I look down a couple of aisles looking to see if I see Frosty, waiting for me when low and behold, I see him straight ahead down the aisle all the way at the end, about 20 cars down. Clear shot. Knowing that as soon as he sees me, he will hurry to pick me up seeing that I have my hands full and whisk me away to Starbucks to celebrate my new addition to my Christmas Spatula collection. Well, I stood there for just a minute and thought, maybe he is on the phone and just hasn’t seen me walk out the door. So I begin to wave furiously at him, waving both white Walmart bags over my head to get his attention. Nothing…so I begin to walk down the aisle, all the while continuing to GLARE and wave as I continue walking out to meet my darling husband, who in my mind is not so darling right at that moment. When I am about 3 cars away from finally getting to our car, he puts the car in drive and begins to creep toward me. By now, my hair is totally gone, my arms are sore from trying to wave him down and my attitude is not very jolly. When I am seated inside the car I look over to him and give him a “what in the world were you doing that you didn’t see me walking toward you with my purchases” look, he smiled at me and said, “it was you, I didn’t recognize you since  your hair looked different and you had on a jogging suit. I’m not use to you wearing a jogging suit or seeing your hair like that!”

WHAT? I have been in the car with you all morning and you just realized that  I had on the new jogging suit that I bought 3 days ago? All I could say was I was glad I did have on my new jogging suit as at least I was prepared for the “jog” out to the car. And the different hair style? It wasn’t different before I had to walk the 3 miles from the Walmart door to the car? But in hurricane force winds, the hair is always the first to go. We rode in silence to Starbucks! Maybe paying the $18 for 3 might have been worth the money. I would have got my Christmas spatulas, not had to come home and re roll my hair and would not have had to pay for marriage counseling that week. Christmas….it’s the most wonderful time of the year, as long as you keep your marriage counselor on speed dial!

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Lead Us To Thy Perfect Light

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Isn’t it amazing how God works. Yesterday while sitting and having some hot tea before beginning the day, I was thinking back on when I last posted anything. Commenting to Randy that it had been over a week, I sat there and began to wonder if I should post a recipe or if the Lord had anything He wanted to me write. In just a matter of minutes, this song came to mind. A song that, if truth be told is probably one of my least favorite Christmas carols. But as I sat there, the words of this carol would not leave me and I began to sing to myself the words, “star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.” In all my 70 years, I don’t think this song ever just came to mind. Usually it is O Holy Night, or Silent Night, Mary Did You Know, or one of my old favorites, Ring The Bells, which I use to love hearing Sam Satterfield sing at First Bapt Corpus Christi.

But this morning, the words of that song, would just not leave me. It was then that I knew God had given me the next post that I was suppose to share.

We have all read so much this past year of keeping our eyes on the Lord, during this very hard season of Covid and seeing people we love experience the cruel hurts of this virus, some also loosing loved ones to it. And yet, we carry on, knowing that this hard and sorrowful time is one of the times that ask of us sometimes more than we want to give. How will God lead us to His Perfect Light? What will be my role in living a life that shows His love and faithfulness to others? Some of the questions that have crossed our minds are questions which need answers. But yet, we are not always given answers in the time we feel that they should be answered. It is during these hard days that our trust is grown and our faith sometimes either grows or falters.

This past week, I was ask to participate in a podcast next week in which they will ask me about traditions which our family took part in and also some Christmas recipes. (It is at this point that you are wondering what does this have to do with being guided to His perfect light, but hang on, I will eventually get there).

I texted my kids to ask them what they remembered about our Christmases when they were growing up. Having to admit that I wasn’t one of those moms who was big on lots of traditions, I dreaded seeing them answer like this, “Mom, I can’t remember a single tradition” Or “did we have any traditions? If so, they must have not been to much fun or memorable because I don’t have a clue.” But in fact, all 3 answered. Jamin wrote back to tell of several things he remembered. Jodi wrote back and told me the things she remembered and finally Jason called and told me that some of the things that he had read of Jamin’s response, Jason thinks he made up in his mind because he didn’t remember any of the things Jamin had written. But Jason did say that Christmas was always a great time and he remembered the fun and some of the big presents that he and the others were given. None of them remembered the smaller gifts. But it was always important to their dad and I that they walk in Christmas morning to see a Christmas tree that had a pile of presents under it. Because we didn’t have a lot of money, I would go to the Dollar Store and buy anything that would wrap and make it look like they were getting a lot of presents. When in fact, there were only 1 or 2 presents of any real value for each one. It was then that I began to think about how this relates to what I get out of Christmas. Do I surround myself with lots of worthless things that might give the appearance of Christmas or do I keep my eyes on the most valuable of all Christmas gifts…Jesus?

Of all the things that give me the most joy of human made Christmas decor, it is all the lights. Of course the Christmas music is wonderful, but the lights….that is what gives me, year after year, the most wonder. There is never enough time to drive around and see the beautiful displays of lights. For years, the lights on our Christmas trees stay on 24 hours a day. They simply give me such profound joy and excitement. And then comes January when the lights are taken down and this almost feeling of sadness overwhelms me as we see people out taking down all the beautiful lights. It is then that I am reminded that the One who is the Perfect Light will always be there, 365 days a year, 24 hours of each and every day. His Light will shine forth and never never go down. His Perfect Light is His Love shining down on us. Even during days or months of difficulty. His Love came to us so that we could be guided to His Truth. This Christmas may all of us allow Him to lead us to His perfect Light, Jesus, and only Jesus can make the valleys straight. Jesus and only Jesus will calm the storms.

John 8:12 “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the Light of the world. Whosoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Psalm 27:1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid.”

Lord, help us to look past all the artificial lights of Christmas to behold the real Light of Christmas. Jesus, the Son of God who came to earth for our salvation.

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Chocolate Castles2 Comments

One morning, a couple of years ago our preacher spoke from 1John of God’s love for us and what that truly means. During the Christmas season, we are continually reminded of that love, in that we see the nativity scenes everywhere and hear the stories of God sending his Son to earth for us. But in our everyday life, do we really stop to think of what this great love really means? That day in his sermon, he gave the analogy of when one of our children fall, do we just look down at them and tell them to “get up and get over it, the fall wasn’t that bad.” Or do we instantly bend down and scoop them up and tell them that it will be alright; That we are there and will take care of them. That is what God does for us. We are His own and He cares for each one of us. He ask us to think about the last time we truly felt God “love on us”. It was at that moment that I remembered a Christmas miracle, which happened the week I had just heard the sermon . It was one of those incidents which, at the time, reminded me that nothing is impossible with God, but I hadn’t thought about the fact that indeed, He was truly “reaching down and showing me that He loved me and cared about even the small things in my life. Here is the story:
A few weeks ago, I mailed a package to a friend for her combo birthday/Christmas present. It was a book she had been wanting and an apron that I had made for her. She is a strawberry fanatic and so the apron was made from material which had cute little snowmen and chocolate covered strawberries piled up around the snowmen. I was so excited to send these to her, knowing that it would make her so excited when she opened the package. In my haste to get it in the mail, I reused an envelop that I had received a Amazon order. Because it was a bubble envelop, when I tried to write my return address on it, it began to poke holes, so I didn’t put anything except my name. No address whatsoever. When I looked up her address in my contact list, I used the correct street address, but ended up using her old town and zip code, not the new town she had moved to over two years ago. Into the PO I ran and dropped it in the slot. I texted her and told her to be expecting a present in a couple of days. After a week, she still had not received it. At 5 am one morning, I awoke with a awful thought. It dawned on me what I had done. As soon as I could, I drove to the PO and told the guy at the window my story. I ask him if there was any way to track it. He assured me that because I had not put a return address on it, I would never see it again. That the package would go to their unclaimed mail station in North Carolina. I was so distraught. Realizing that not only was the present lost, but when was I going to learn to not do everything in a hurry. I texted my sweet friend and told her what I had done. It bothered me so much and I began to pray, telling the Lord that I knew that nothing is impossible with Him.
That week, on Tuesday, to be exact, I came home and Randy is outside. He tells me to go in the house and look on the dining room table. Asking why, he quickly tells me that the package was on the dining table. What? But how? there was no return address, how could it be here? I ran in (yes, I did run,because this was truly a miracle) and there it was. Apparently, someone had seen my name and had taken the trouble and time to peel off the top label to see where it originated. So they had returned it and here it was! Thanking the Lord for Him giving me a Christmas miracle, I began to think about what this really was. After that days sermon, it made me realize that God does give us those special little blessings to show His love for us, even during the routine days.

Also that week , Randy and I went to eat lunch. As we finished our meal, the waiter came to tell us that the couple sitting at a table over had already paid for our lunch. We were taken care of. Randy, of course, remarked, “well, shoot, if we had known that, I would have ordered the bigger breakfast”. He is such a dear. We walked over to thank them and they just said, “Merry Christmas”
This Christmas, my prayer is that I will be more conscious of God’s goodness to me. To look for the unexpected gifts that He sends to me and to also open my heart to someone who might just need to feel God’s love reaching down to them.