I had done something similar with a recipe I tried recently, but instead of putting non-cooking items on that thread, I'll have this as an alternate, and I will use this for anything that's non-cooking that I find interesting.
Excellent advice all around
EXCEPT for “eat dinner like a college kid with a maxed out credit card”
I don’t know - 2 boxes of instant mac n’cheese doesn’t sound very healthy.....
Example of Circle Work
What’s the feeling? anger
What’s the thought? There is something about our relationship that triggers my physical self to feel angry, defensive, and protective.
Is that thought helpful? No
What would be a more helpful thought? It is my spiritual choice to love and accept that person just the way she is today.
good to remember these
Interesting list, have fun with your thread.
Preachy. I guess we need you to show the way,huh.
Bluberries,wild Alaskan salmon,almonds,all expensive. You buying?
Archiving
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one I have known about for a while,
Self talk: Repeat positive messages to yourself, and you will program your mind properly.
Joya, what a beautiful thread. What beautiful words of wisdom, NO MATTER WHO WROTE them....no matter the title of the thread.
Those words of wisdom for ALL of us are what count. God bless you!!
I had missed this thread. Those are great suggestions up top. :)
This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes...
My father never drove a car. Well, that’s not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.
He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. “In those days,” he told me when he was in his 90s, “to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.”
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:”Oh, bull!” she said. “He hit a horse.”
“Well,” my father said, “there was that, too.”
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars — the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none.
My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we’d ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. “No one in the family drives,” my mother would explain, and that was that.
But, sometimes, my father would say, “But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we’ll get one.” It was as if he wasn’t sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn’t drive, it more or less became my brother’s car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn’t bother my father, but it didn’t make sense to my mother.
So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father’s idea. “Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?” I remember him saying more than once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn’t seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.
(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)
He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin’s Church.
She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish’s two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.
If it was the assistant pastor, he’d take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests “Father Fast” and “Father Slow.”
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he’d sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I’d stop by, he’d explain: “The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.”
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, “Do you want to know the secret of a long life?”
“I guess so,” I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
“No left turns,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“No left turns,” he repeated.
“Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.”
“What?” I said again.
“No left turns,” he said. “Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that’s a lot safer. So we always make three rights.”
“You’re kidding!” I said, and I turned to my mother for support.
“No,” she said, “your father is right. We make three rights. It works.” But then she added: “Except when your father loses count.”
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.
“Loses count?” I asked.
“Yes,” my father admitted, “that sometimes happens. But it’s not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you’re okay again.”
I couldn’t resist.”Do you ever go for 11?”I asked.
“No,” he said “ If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can’t be put off another day or another week.”
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.
She lived four more years, until 2003.. My father died the next year, at 102.
They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one.
My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he’d fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.
A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, “You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.” At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, “You know, I’m probably not going to live much longer.”
“You’re probably right,” I said.
“Why would you say that?” He countered, somewhat irritated.
“Because you’re 102 years old,” I said..
“Yes,” he said, “you’re right.” He stayed in bed all the next day.
That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.
He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: “I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet”
An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
“I want you to know,” he said, clearly and lucidly, “that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.” A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I’ve wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can’t figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns. “
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it and if it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.”
ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!
Excerpt of an excerpt, link at end
... However, the real, living church of Jesus Christ can hide in caves, float on the water, or climb into Paradise. A member of the real church will know where the hidden stairs are located. That person can call for help, and we will let down the stairs so that he can escape. The real church is more agile than the battering ram. Living stones have feet.”
Then, like someone who had just remembered his manners, he said, “Would you like some refreshments? It would help you.”
“All right,” I said, trying to get my bearings.
A tray of fruit floated to us. “Here you are,” the angel said, gesturing toward the tray, “a choice.”
I reached to make a selection of fruit. Some varieties I had seen on earth, and some I had not. All were without blemish. We both made selections and began to eat.
“You need to get acquainted with the locations of the hidden stairs,” he continued.
“Is there a map?” I asked.
“No,” the angel laughed. “The map is in the Spirit. By following His leading, He directs you to the hidden stairs.”
I glanced toward the stair port. “These stairs look like glass,” I said.
“Light,” the angel replied. “Nice, aren’t they?” “Do people ever fall off these stairs?”
“Not if they keep their eyes on Jesus,” he chuckled, “but I wouldn’t advise looking over the side. You might get wobbly doing that.”
“This is good fruit,” I exclaimed.
“Yup, everything’s good up here,” the angel said, mimicking a cowhand.
I laughed, bemused. He was not anything like my idea of an angel. “What is your name?” I asked him.
The Angel Azar
“AZAR,” THE ANGEL said, “I’m the one who answers when you call for help.”
“Is there only one of you?” I asked.
“You mean for the whole earth? Oh no, I couldn’t take care of the whole earth. We’re assigned to a small number to whose call we will respond, more or less according to lifestyle. Sometimes a stunt person will need one of us all by him or herself, but usually we can handle five. The boss chooses who they will be.”
“The boss?” I said.
“Well, our immediate boss, not the Lord; no, I mean the angel in charge of helps. While you are living on earth, I’m the one who will answer your call for help. So don’t take up mountain climbing,” he laughed.
He amazed me.
“Had enough fruit?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” I said. The tray of fruit disappeared.
The Suggestion
“Now,” THE ANGEL continued, “you can return the way you came. The present danger is past, but I would suggest that you take the path to the throne room. You must be here for a reason, but that knowledge has not been given to me. Your Father can tell you why you have come.”
“My Father?” I said, glancing out into the park, lost in reflection. It seemed inconceivable, not only that I was in Paradise, but also that I could go to see my heavenly Father as a child might go to see an earthly one.
“Certainly,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Just take the path.”
“Does this path lead to the throne room?”
“All paths here lead to God. They are not like the paths on earth.”
I looked toward the path as if it were a distant horizon too far away to reach.
“Go on,” he laughed. “Go see your Daddy. I’ll be here when it’s time for you to return.”
I turned to search his face.
“Don’t you want to know why you’re here?” he asked. “Yes,” I laughingly exclaimed.
He threw up his hands and shrugged, as if to say, “Well?” “Thank you,” I said earnestly.
He smiled at me and spoke quietly, “The Creator of the universe desires your company. Don’t keep Him waiting.”
I smiled and showed him that I was stepping onto the path. He called after me, “I’ll be here when it’s time to return.”
I waved to him, acknowledging that I had heard. Then, somewhat breathlessly, I set my face toward the throne room.
Sandcastles
MUCH TO MY amazement, the path on which I had begun to walk seemed to be in motion, like a conveyor belt or a moving sidewalk. I looked down at my bare feet standing on its smooth, advancing surface.
It was then that I noticed another pair of feet beside mine. I was not traveling alone. I looked up into the face of a large angel.
“Hello,” he said formally.
“Hello,” I answered. He was about seven feet tall, with blond hair that seemed to have lights in it. Perhaps the light was within him and shone out through his head and then his hair. I could not tell. His face was grave with the demeanor of authority.
He wore a long white robe and had large, strong, white wings.
“Who are you?” I continued.
Angel of Promises
“I AM A messenger,” the angel replied.
I could feel power emanating from him. “What kind of messages do you deliver?” I asked.
“Promises,” he said. “I help to bring God’s faithful promises to mankind.”
“That’s a big job,” I quipped. (I was hoping he’d become less formal.)
“Very,” he nodded stiffly.
He didn’t. So, I thought, perhaps all angels are not alike.
This spirit is very serious, like an ambassador. Suddenly I remembered that he knew what I was thinking. “Have you been delivering promises on earth?” I asked aloud.
“Yes,” he said, pausing to weigh his words, “yours.” “Mine!” I exclaimed.
“Yours,” he reiterated. “When you came into the kingdom, the Lord told you that you would see into heaven, did He not?”
“Yes,” I answered vaguely, looking out over the passing landscape. I was searching my memory. “That was years ago.”
The Promise
WHEN I CAME to the Lord twenty years before, it was a time of miracles. At that time He spoke to me several promises that related to my life on earth. Although I did not keep these pledges in the forefront of my thoughts, I realized that He was fulfilling most of them daily. But this one promise, this amazing promise, had not been fulfilled.
At first I looked and longed for its fulfillment; after a time, however, immediate demands crowded out anticipation until truly I had forgotten. “Nothing happened,” I continued, “and ... “ My voice trailed off. I started to say that I had forgotten.
“However, God has not forgotten,” he said, “and the fullness of time has come.”
I hardly heard him for I was trying to piece together the past with this present.
“Being ignorant of God’s ways does not negate their functioning,” he said. “Of course, great unbelief does hinder.” “But what does it mean?” I asked, searching his face.
“I do not have the authority to tell you. Ask your Father.
The Revealer of Mysteries will reveal this mystery to you.”
I was lost in the wonder of it, so he continued, “Our God is faithful and true, and He loves you.”
It seems that at times of great impact or distress, one can think of the most unusual things. Suddenly I wanted to know his name. “What is your name?” I asked.
“Seek for me in Scripture. Your Father wishes you to grow in confirmation from the written Word of all that you see and hear. Seek for my name,” he said, and then he was gone.
http://www.spiritlessons.com/Documents/the_heavens_opened/The_Heavens_opened_by_Anna_Rountree.htm
Birthday inspiration
http://www.birthverse.com/mybirthverse.cfm
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[How did they choose the verse for my birthday?
After God shared His creative idea with the founders of BIRTHVERSE, a team of excited people began the search for the very best Bible verse for each day. In earnest prayer they spent countless hours combing the scriptures, reviewing the selected verses, narrowing the list and prayerfully selecting the final verses. These 366 Bible verses are what we call BIRTHVERSE. And one has been selected for you!]
Want inspiration? Read this excerpt from “Share My Burden” by Gwen Shaw, link at end.
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Only God and I know the tears, the pain, the loneliness, the longings, the price I paid to fulfill my vow to God! When I began to make excuses—and try to escape that call—I nearly lost my boys. Danny almost drowned in the South China Sea. David slipped right in front of a fast, on-coming car, and Tommy was rescued out of a river that was more like a stagnant pond filled with sewage. I knew God was speaking clearly to me—telling me that if ever I put my children ahead of Him there would be a price to pay—a price that would be greater than the one I was paying. So again I said yes, and turned my face to India.
India, My Great Love
Beloved India became my great love. I always say, “China was my first love and India was my great love.” Twelve times I have served God in that nation. There are no words to describe what it means to feel God’s heartbeat of love for a nation. I would have gladly laid down my life for the Lord in India—in fact, that was my desire; but it was not His will. One of the greatest joys of my life of service to God was when He called me to raise a tent and preach in many parts of North India.
Argentina, the Womb of the End-Time Handmaidens
But India was not the end. Then came the call to Argentina where I again felt the heartbeat of God for the Spanish-speaking people of that great land. Throughout Argentina I had seen the mighty hand of God working with signs following the preaching of His Word. It was there in Buenos Aires one night that something happened which would change many lives.
I had just ministered in a large Assembly of God Church. God had poured out His Spirit. Miracles of healing had taken place. People had seen angels. God had come down to be with us. As I went to my lonely hotel room that night, tired and exhausted, I lay on my bed. I looked up to God and asked Him a question. “God, how can you use me? I am nothing. I make mistakes. I am far from perfect. Yet I have seen Your glory like a trail of fire following me everywhere. How? Why?”
He answered me! “It’s because you are willing to do anything I ask you to do!”
“Is that all, Lord? Then You could use anyone, any woman, who, like myself, would be totally surrendered to You!”
“Yes, My child, I could,” He answered.
“Then, Lord, raise up ten thousand women-women just like myself, who will pay any price, make any sacrifice, be totally obedient to Your will.” The year was 1966.
... I went back to the “drawing board,” back to the Cross. For another twenty-one days I fasted and waited upon the Lord—and He spoke. He sent a prophet to tell me I must begin to call out the End-Time Handmaidens.
God said there was an army of women out there, in the background, standing “idle in the market place, whom no one had hired,” and they were waiting to hear the call to go out and serve Him in the harvest fields of the world.
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The Beginning of a New Calling
I began to give the call, and they started to share my burden. The Holy Spirit prepared their hearts in the same way He had prepared mine, through fasting and prayer and brokenness. Maybe you wonder why you are alive. You feel you have no real reason for living, and that anyone could do your work as well as you do—or even better. I beg you, please don’t waste your life—answer that call of God upon your life which has been there since you were in your mother’s womb.
God’s Word says to you, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
You say, “I can’t do it. God says, “Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.” (verse 7)
You say, “I’m not talented. I have no gift to preach. God says, “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” (verse 9) ...
http://www.engeltalpress.com/Share_My_Burden.htm
Link to nice picture on webshots, I love the color of the butterfly, I’d call it turquoise or something like that, I’m not sure what Valspar would call it.
http://www.webshots.com/pro/photo/3264948&path=/animals-insects-butterflies
Living Forward, Understanding Backward
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman
Wednesday, December 01 2010
“The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:24
OS HILLMAN: When I was in my 20’s, I participated in a wilderness-training course in a desert and mountain area. For our “final exam,” we were blindfolded, placed in the back of a pickup truck, and taken to a remote area. We were dropped off and told to meet back at the camp in three days. We did not know where we were. We had to determine our location with our compasses. It was a frightening experience for four young people who had learned to navigate through the use of a compass only a few days earlier. With our food and water on our backs, we began our trek. It had just snowed that morning, so the way was difficult. We walked through valleys, canyons, snow-covered hills, and forests. In all, we walked more than 60 miles in three days. There were times when we did not think we could go another foot. Exhaustion and frostbitten feet were taking their toll. However, we finally made it to our base camp successfully, and to our surprise, we were the first ones among the other patrols to make it back.
At the conclusion of our journey, we were able to stand on top of a ridge, look behind us and see the beautiful terrain that we had just scaled. The pain of what we had just endured seemed to subside. We could not believe we had actually walked through those valleys and snowcapped hills. There was a sense of accomplishment.
Life is very much like this. It is often lived forward, but understood backward. It is not until we are down the road a bit that we can appreciate the terrain God has allowed us to scale and the spiritual deposits He has made in our life as a result. When you begin to realize some of this, you sit back and breathe a sigh of relief because you know that God was in control all along. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but He was.
Are you in the midst of a difficult journey that seems almost impossible to continue? Be assured that God is providing grace even now to equip you for that journey. There will be a time when you can say, “Wow, look at what God has done because of what I gained through that valley.” Trust Him with the outcome of where you find yourself today.
OS HILLMAN
“Man is made or unmade by himself: in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choices and true application of thought man ascends to the divine perfection.” James Allen, “As a Man Thinketh”
A link to a bit more from Allen:
http://jamesallen.wwwhubs.com/think.htm
Thanks for the thread.
Homeschoolers and everyone else too:
http://www.literaturecollection.com/authors/
Literature online.
Happened across this
http://www.watchmanscry.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7710
The Watchman’s Cry Forum
An End Time Fellowship Hall
Daniel Eggers’ Prayer
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4. 2 7 . 2 0 1 1
Heavenly Father, You have placed my feet upon the narrow way. By Your Word I have been freed from the chains of Egypt, set free by the blood of the greatest sacrifice, the Lamb without spot or blemish. Hallelujah! I am free!
Now freed, I receive Your law within my heart, such as can only be written by the touch of Your finger. Guide me O Lord, with your Shekinah glory, that I may be led day and night by the power and presence of Your Holy Spirit.
O Lord, keep me from the hardness of heart that causes men to perish and from the stiffness that keeps men’s necks from humility and repentance. Keep me in a place of sensitivity to sin, that my spirit would be grieved if sin I have embraced.
Lead me into the wilderness of trial that the generation of sin that has grown up within me would pass away and I would emerge a new man, capable of crossing the Jordan.
Purge me O Lord, from my unbelief, forever taking away the caustic doubt that rots the roots of men’s faith. Preserve me in Your plan, that I would be an eternal servant in the holiness of my LORD and Your Son -JESUS CHRIST.
Blessed be the name of the LORD!
Amen
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http://www.prayersforthepeople.com/id82.html