What I really, really want

On my 60th birthday, many years from now and God willing, these are two of the many things that I would desire:

The admiration and love of my ♥ husband, and... 

...long, beautiful, gorgeous hair!

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Frogs and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of

13.10.30.17

Summer Heat: Free Way to Cool Off

We barely got home from our walk with our pet, Mr Bubbles, when it began to rain. Yay, thank God for relief from the oppressive heat and humidity of the past week. As I got out of my wet clothes, the house became suddenly quiet. Where are my children? Why, outside, of course, enjoying the cooling rain. And ...horrors....actually holding hands in their fun and excitement ;-)

With or without umbrellas, I've never minded being in the rain, playing in the rain, or rain in general. The more intense the storm, the better. Times like these brings back happy memories of my childhood in the Tropics. No worries about looking like a fool, cleanliness, or infection (I thank the Lord for Tetanus shots, though); just acting like a child because you ARE a child, and enjoying the thrill of the moment. Cheap fun, courtesy of God and nature.

4.07.06.18

Barren landscape

There are two sections which never fail to catch my eye after we enter the cemetery. One, to the left, is the Muslim section (the sign says so). Invariably, there is a mourner or visitor present. Many of their plots have fresh flowers or plants; even balloons, baskets and toys. More than once, I've seen someone holding a hose and watering the sod (where are the spigots located, I would ask myself). And as mentioned, there is at least that one, ever-present mourner or visitor. On our way out of the cemetery,  there is yet another person driving in, making a beeline for this popular section. I have named their area The Hot Spot or The Happening. Muslims seem to truly miss their loved ones and are fervent to show their love and care.

Almost directly across from the Muslim section is a place that I've named The Neglected Ones. The keep-it-plain-and-simple area. What a contrast --- no flowers, no gifts, barely any memorial plants or trees.  I've never seen a visitor there. Just marker after marker of seemingly forgotten people. Is this an older section? Or a bargain-bin, no-frills-allowed spot? Maybe it's a section especially reserved for indigents? I don't know the answers; but what a contrast between this and the popular Muslim area. 

My parent's section is farther down. There are still flowers, plants, and other evidence of caring visitors, but it's taken on a lonelier air. Keeping in mind that we visit on weekdays, I've noticed that there is almost never anyone around except us. If this is the case even on weekends, I can't help but fear that the neglected/forgotten section, to the North, has started to creep-in and begin the process of claiming this area for its own . And this is barely 1.5 years after my Mother's death.

I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: 
I am like a broken vessel

- Psalm 31:12

**************

Smash. Wham. Bam.

Son Jared was set to return to WI Monday afternoon after completing some things that needed to get done for school.

However, he had a question for his Dad, my hubby:

Jared: Which route should I take to go back? I need to avoid the toll roads because of today's electrical problems.

Dad:  Route 20 is close by. Use it to get back to work.

Jared: I'm not familiar with that route

Dad: It's easy. Go on Route 20, turn right on Route 47; keep going North, and there you are. No big deal. Just watch for the speed limits.

Jared: No, thanks. I'll rely on my GPS

An hour later, you guessed it, he calls to say that he had gotten into an accident. He had gone on a different route than what we had suggested. He could not avoid the car in front of him which had stopped very suddenly while in heavy traffic. It was a  BMW 530i  from KY and its rear bumper was now ruined. Our car's front bumper, grill, and lights were caved in. What?! This after we had  put in over $700 in repairs a couple of weeks ago? We have a high deductible. How much will this fiasco eventually cost us? Higher insurance rates here we come. Oh me, oh my. Just shoot me now. 

Thank You, Lord Jesus, because...

- Priceless, irreplaceable Jared is  alive and well; and no one else was hurt

-The police concluded that no one was at fault

-Jared diid not get a ticket

- As awful as it looks, our car is still driveable (tho' we won't drive it on the road anytime soon)

-Jared eventually made it  back to WI  (driven by his dad)

It could have been worse. Much worse. No one died. We have car insurance.
Our car is just that ---  an inanimate car.  It's our children that count.

We were spared from sorrow once again, and I can't thank God enough.

May He provide for this expense.  

Declaration of Independence 1776

Happy Birthday, U.S. ♥ A.

 

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated: Column 1 Georgia:    Button Gwinnett    Lyman Hall    George Walton Column 2 North Carolina:    William Hooper    Joseph Hewes    John Penn South Carolina:    Edward Rutledge    Thomas Heyward, Jr.    Thomas Lynch, Jr.    Arthur Middleton Column 3 Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton Column 4 Pennsylvania:    Robert Morris    Benjamin Rush    Benjamin Franklin    John Morton    George Clymer    James Smith    George Taylor    James Wilson    George Ross Delaware:    Caesar Rodney    George Read    Thomas McKean Column 5 New York:    William Floyd    Philip Livingston    Francis Lewis    Lewis Morris New Jersey:    Richard Stockton    John Witherspoon    Francis Hopkinson    John Hart    Abraham Clark Column 6 New Hampshire:    Josiah Bartlett    William Whipple Massachusetts:    Samuel Adams    John Adams    Robert Treat Paine    Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island:    Stephen Hopkins    William Ellery Connecticut:    Roger Sherman    Samuel Huntington    William Williams    Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire:    Matthew Thornton