I have an early morning one again!

 At least it isn't REAL early, but I do have an 8a training appointment this morning.  Since Morgan had her 2nd child, and now because her hubby has switched jobs and hours have changed, she is trying NOT to do evening hours (like 4p on) so that she can be with her family.  So she is moving her clients to mornings. And, since it is not a big deal for us... as I work from home and as a rule can get away (using my lunch break), today I am scheduled for 8a.  Which means I need to leave by 7:30a.  Which means once I sign in on the work computer, I better get dressed and ready to go.  It's all good.  Usually.  But I didn't sleep well last night.

Had I bragged too much about sleeping well a couple nights this past few days?  Last night made up for it. My hip bones were aching bad during the night.  I'm still going back and forth on calling Dr. Mark's office and see if he would just refer me to an ortho doc and I not have to come in.  After all, you can't 'see' anything on the outside of the skin. Whatever is going on, is on the inside and it will require expensive x-rays or CT scans or whatever.  All I know is that it hurts.  I can still move, so that's good.  And then I also think I had a really tough leg workout yesterday.  Could some of this soreness be coming from that workout? Very possible as I had to do a lot of standing lunges with weights.  And squats.  And both affect the hip bones.  So, may wait this out and see if it fades back out.  I need to get walking more; perhaps that will help.

I should get several items from Amazon today.  These I ordered last week as no rush to get them. I remember I bought a couple more workout tops with sayings on them - just to tease Morgan.  She laughed at the "I would have quit by now but my trainer is scary" one I wore yesterday. She said I was the 4th person to wear it!  I still thought it was funny.  She did too. I think.  But then, that workout was tough yesterday... maybe I need to rethink wearing these shirts!

Geez! I'm having trouble thinking of things to write about this morning - what's up with that?  Oh - I DID get one set of the minutes completed yesterday. Also updated an exclusion report I used to submit for the board members.  Because they didn't change, I was told I didn't have to submit anymore - unless there was a change. And there was, so got it sent in yesterday. 

I was reminded this morning that one needs to 'speak to the mountain' that is before us.  I hope I can say this right.  When one has accepted Christ as Lord, they are filled with the Holy Spirit.  When sickness or troubles come upon us, we generally run to doctors, to pastors, to other people, right?  Pray for me! we say.  And that doesn't mean we shouldn't.... but.... we should not only pray ourselves, but 'speak to the mountain' of whatever is before us. Just like you would 'cast out' something out of someone.... tell this disease, this sickness, this pain, to leave!  I need to find the scripture or where I read about this so that I can make it more clear.  Yes, I pray for my daughter and my sons and their spouses and children.... I pray for them when I know things are going on with them.  I pray over them when I don't know things are going on.  I need to research more on what I'm trying to say, for my thoughts are running all over the place. So - perhaps this is just a reminder that God allows you to speak in His name, to call out those things that should not be.  Let's dig into this, together!

I told you I was mentally searching for things to write about!  I didn't seen any pigeons in the courtyard yesterday.  Maybe my solar owl and the spinners ae finally working. That first day, though, that one pigeon just strutted through the courtyard like he owned it!  Haven't seen any quail either.  Perhaps that is also a good thing.  I did cover the furniture back up yesterday as they say 'monsoon season is here' and we might have gotten rain.  At some point I know I will have it off and will let it go - and the furniture will get wet, but for now... I know I need to buy a couple new furniture covers; one has ripped, and two have somehow gotten what looks like honey on them - which will attract ants.  I'll go check today, and if ants are crawling around there, will remove them until I can get to Lowes to get new ones. Or order from Amazon, as that is where I got these.  That might be easier and faster; I don't seem to make it to the store on any regular basis.  Still want to go look at washer/dryers... and I just get lazy and don't do it.  

Hosea 10:12 (NKJV):  Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

I memorized that verse a long time ago.  What does that mean?  The fallow ground is the hardness of your heart.  Break up that hard heart.  It IS time to seek the Lord.  He is waiting to rain righteousness upon you... how bad do you want Him?

I often have to also pray that prayer over myself when I feel I've gotten someone immune, or 'hard-hearted' against people or things.  I pray and ask God to soften my heart and make it a fertile ground that love and compassion and kindness will grow.  And indeed, He does.  When was the last time you prayed that God would break up the hardness of your heart and fill you with His love, His compassion, His kindness?

So many times we get our feelings hurt or we get offended at people when things don't go our way.  I know my youngest shared an incident last weekend which may have been avoidable for the most part. Ok, just erased what was on my mind.  But I heard about an incident that wasn't necessary. And it sounds like it was taken to the extreme. Big sigh. And I'll leave that there.

We all need to soften our hearts and turn to Jesus.  Once you truly find Him, you wonder what took you so long, and why you would ever want to leave Him.  It doesn't mean your life will be perfect. Trust me on that one!  Prayers don't always get answered the way we want them to.  Plans get messed up and not in the order we want them.  Children do their own thing and there is nothing we can do about it. Things happen.  Life happens. Just because you turn to Jesus, doesn't mean life will be perfect.

But Jesus IS perfect.  In all ways. When we surrender our struggles, our prayers, our lives to Him, He does give us the strength to endure whatever the devil throws at us.  For some of us, it can be a daily struggle.  But grab hold of Jesus and hang on - for although the 'ride' may be bumpy, He will still be holding your hand at the end, as long as you hold on to His.

Have an AMAZING day!

Blessings!

My scheduled messed up -

 It's Monday and my Tuesday gym appointment was changed to this morning.  As I was starting to get ready I started getting the 'lightening bolts' so It ook a tylenol, hoping to ward off the intensity of those - and did.  Thank you, Jesus!  Yes, I aws praying too.  It's hard to work out and hard to drive when I have lightening bolts flashing all around my eyes.  They went away by the time I left.  It's Monday and usually hubby brings me my coffee first thing - even when I work out - but this morning he didn't.  And now that I'm back home, he forgot he didn't bring me my coffee - and it is 6:40AM and I do not have my coffee yet.  I could go get it myself - and I will, when I'm done here, cause I will need to jump on the computer and get ready for work.  Oh joy.  Another week of fun.

We did go to church yesterday, then Tom wanted us to take a friend out to lunch, so we did.  It was a good visit with him. And, yes, I made hubby upset again.  I can't help it.  I love to teach, and read, and this guy and I got to talking about classes and books - and hubby got upset because I monopolize the conversation. I told our friend I can't help it - I just get excited when I talk about teaching a class or about a book I really liked.  Sigh.  With hubby sometimes it is just not a win win.  It doesn't matter if he taught the class before or not - he just doesn't get the excitement about it as I do.  And I still feel he only did some things so that we could do them 'together'.... heaven forbid I should do something that he didn't do... sigh.   Jealous and envy is a horrible, horrible thing in a marriage.

I'm down to one bag of cherries as the youngest stopped by and I was able to 'unload' some of the avocados and other fruit to him.  I still have about 5 bags of avocados.... I'm cutting up a bag and freezing at a time now.  Need to do something with this last bag of cherries too.  They sure are good eating just as they are.... but may cut up and freeze this last bag.  At least with one bag, perhaps my knuckles and fingers won't swell.

This year is really flying by.  It will be August tomorrow... then some birthdays in August... then VACATION!  I am really hoping I can enjoy and rest and yet do some things too.  I can't explain it. It is what it is.  But I'm ready to not have to work.  I may take my work computer and try to keep up on the emails.  At least delete the ones I don't have to do anything with.  I had over a 100 with one day off work - can you imagine 6 days off work what it would look like?  I will admit, it isn't all for me to do... I get meeting notices from 3-4 other people besides my two bosses... and that is because I have access to the calendars of these other people as they want me to make meetings for them.  But that also causes me to get their meeting notices too, and if people respond to their meetings, I get a copy of that email too.  Many times I'm just clearing emails to find the dozen or so I need to work with.  I think I only have about 8 this mornign to start with. YAY  Hopefully I can delete most of those.

And, I need to get off here and ... just realized I once again haven't written anything of value. Sorry about that.  I probably should just throw this in draft mode... but then you'd keep checking to see if I wrote something, right?

So here it is.  I've got nothing.  But at least you got to read something. :-)

Blessings!

Fri-yay for sure!

 Yesterday was a semi-productive day and we had dinner last night with 'old' friends.  It was a nice visit - but we were really disappointed at Coco's, where we had dinner.  Service was extremely slow.  I ordered an appetizer of chicken fingers for $10.00.  Now mind you, it said it would serve 5 people.  Seriously.  They brought the chicken tenders about 20 minutes later.... in a bowl.  The tenders were maybe 2 inches long, (and curled, so like two bites to a 'tender') and there were roughly 10 of them.  No more than that, for sure.  Very disappointed.  Hubby and I ordered the cheeseburger and fries as it is generally good - but even it wasn't that great.  One of our friends got the chicken fried steak and I'm looking at it going 'what'?  It was like a small piece of cube steak (like the size of your palm) with about 1/4 cup of gravy on it.  Seriously?  His wife has decided to go vegan so she ordered a salad... and that was the ONLY thing that looked the size it should.  I told hubby that's two places I'm not really interested in going back to unless it is just for a salad.

Tonight we are having dinner with friends from one of the RV parks at Applebees.  They had asked us to meet for dinner last week and I told them our fast starts this Sunday.  They didn't want any 'complications' in finding food for us - so Applebees it is.  Although I am thinking about suggesting McAllisters.   We enjoy McAllisters' and their spuds are huge!  They are about 8 inches long or so - and you can get all kinds of toppings on them.  Hubby generally gets it with everything on it.  I don't get it cause I know I can't eat it all.  I usually get a half club sandwich and a half salad - and it does me just fine.  Need to take my son there sometime - I think he will like it.  They have great sandwiches; at least I haven't been disappointed.

I was awakened at 2:15AM this morning with the desire to cough.  I told myself "no, you are healed of this cold" and fought it.  I was still awake at 3AM so finally got up and came in here, trying to sleep, but it eluded me.  Did some reading and writing in my journal.  Skimmed emails real quick.  Now trying to think of something to write in here.  

Oh - found out something interesting yesterday.  A friend of ours who has a touch of 'old timers' and has been diagnosed with such, says he did some research and he 'found' a couple things that he has been taking that has helped him think much clearer and remember things.  Lord knows we both need that, so I bought them as well for us to take.  Curious, though, I sent a photo of the bottle to a friend of mine whose son is a scientist in this field.  Not a pharmacist.  A scientist.  She sent me his response last night.  Interesting.  He didn't 'like' what he read about this 'drug'.  He suggested we check in to the 'Mind Diet'.  Oh yeah, the big D word.  Diet.  But I did go onto Amazon and there are books called 'The MIND Diet' and of course I bought one.  And the cookbook too.  Hey - anything that will help hubby and I think more clearly is needed.  They won't arrive until next week but at least they are on order.  I can understand that the food we eat does affect how we feel.

We overeat and we feel sluggish and tired and want a nap.  We eat 'normal' but eat things that really aren't good for us, and the same thing happens.  I have heard of people who have cut heavy meat and carbs out of their diets have found they have more energy, they feel better, and can move about better.  With us doing the Daniel Fast starting on Sunday, we will see how that will help us.  I know I have felt a difference before when I've fasted even just 3 days.  Get the toxic preservatives out of my system and I felt a lot better!  Stay tuned on how all that turns out.  It's been a year since I've fasted... I've gotten out of the 'habit' - I used to do it one day a week.  It wouldn't hurt me to go back to that.

In Jentezen Franklin's FASTING book he talks about it as 'King Stomach' when we give in to our appetites and over eat.  Even the Bible talks about overeating.  We tend to ignore that scripture, I think, cause there sure are a lot of heavy Christians.  I remember (reading, I think) about a pastor who was heavy himself and preached about gluttony.... to a large congregation of very heavy people.  I think he 'lost' a lot of people that Sunday.  But, that is what happens (heaviness) when we give in to 'King Stomach' and give it what it wants.  FOOD!! MORE FOOD!!  And oh how I love it.  I sat down with my bag of Limon chips the other night.  I don't want to throw them away; they won't be as fresh in three weeks as the bag is already opened.... so I was trying to eat them all before Sunday.  I still have time.  See what I mean?

I guess I've hit on that subject long enough now.  Fasting unto God isn't a DIET to lose weight, although it will and can happen.  FASTING and DIETING  are two separate things.  And we need to keep them separate.  Don't fast to diet.  I remember an elderly lady years ago saying that she could fast easily because she often went on a 40 day fast and not eat anything to lose weight.  She was still extremely heavy so that confused me.  But I'm not judging!   It's all what you want out of 'doing without'.  I want more of God.  If I need to give up food to get more of Him, I'm all for it.  Losing weight would be good too, since I'm eating my candy from Christmas too, along with the chips.  Sigh. 

As you can tell, my mind is rambling this morning once again this week.  I usually only drink one cup of coffee in the mornings - caffeinated - and this morning (as with the last couple mornings), I think I'm going for cup two.  Still deciding if I will give up my coffee on our 21 day fast.  I can do without coffee, seriously I can.  But do I want to?  That is the question.  I have given up coffee before.  I can do it again. But do I want to.    I do have my tart cherry juice and we have a case of V-8 juice we will be drinking.  Do I 'want' or 'need' my coffee.  Things that make one go 'I don't know'.

Sorry - another morning of nothing burning in my mind to share. I think it's really tired with getting up so early, and if I stop now, I just might be able to take a 15 minute nap before starting work.  Might be just what I need.

Have a blessed day! 

Well, ok then....

I woke up this morning with a sinus headache that won't go away.  And I keep hearing these chiming sounds in the background.  At first I thought it may be my clock; but it only does it on the hour.  Then I thought that perhaps it is windy, and it is the wind chimes.  I finally opened the door to this room only to find that hubby is playing the cd player with some kind of chime music... which is irritating my head this morning.  Well, ok then.  He can listen to it; I just shut my door.  But it isn't helping my head any.   

I'm not doing too well today in getting things done.... I didn't want to get up; I turned my alarm off but hubby came in with my coffee at 4:20AM all perky cause he slept very well.  I slept very well too, but it's this stupid headache that annoys me.  I wanted to sleep a bit more.  Not that I could sleep .... but I just want to lie down.  In fact, it was so bad yesterday, while hubby was asleep in his chair yesterday, I laid down across the bed and slept 30 minutes!

Hubby did some of his Christmas shopping yesterday for me.  He wasn't gone too long.  When he got home he came in and said he had brought lunch.  So I go out and it is a Whataburger bag.  I always get the #7 as it is the junior hamburger, which is about all I can eat, small fries... and he got me a large chocolate shake!  Just what I needed.  So I sat down at the table and ate what I could. When I asked where his meal was, he said he had stopped at Popeye's for a 2 piece meal - getting me something was an afterthought after he had left.  Excuse me?  I'd rather had Popeyes!

And... I got my packages from my little sister yesterday; lots of gifts, for sure.  Probably much more than I will use... and I'll leave it at that.  It was full of nice gifts.  But I did get pajamas, and house shoes - but will ask a granddaughter if she can wear them - they are too small for me.  The shoes, not the pajamas.  She gave me a book too, and I started reading it last night and got about half way through it.  Interesting.

I am finished with everything, I think - well, except for making pickles and salsa.  Can't make the salsa until next week so that it will last longer.  I can make the pickles anytime, but took last night off.  If I'm up to it, will get it done this weekend.  I want to make eggs ole' next weekend - perhaps next Saturday, and give it to the two elderly neighbors I have - Ms. Vicki and Ms. Diane.  I'm worried about Ms. Diane... yesterday, in the middle of the day, all three of her children were there.  It always makes me nervous when it is in the middle of the week.  All three do come see her every weekend.  Her daughter is there every day - and the boys stop by frequently during the week.  I know she needs to go to an assisted living as her health isn't that good... but I would miss her.  I want to get over to see her, but she has to get up to let me in and I'm afraid she will fall.  So, now I wait until one of the kids are there... so will get over this weekend.  Ms. Diane wants me to have a key, and it would be easier for me to stop by and see her, but I won't ask the kids for one.  Who knows how long she will be staying there; her kids think she is winding down in life... and it could very well be.

You want to know what I wish?  Well, one of the things..... I wish my kids would tell me what they really want for Christmas so that I can try to get it for them.  I'm so afraid they will be disappointed this year.  Which reminds me... I still need to run to the grocery and see if I can find canned ham.  I looked last week and there was none.  Maybe I can find some decent ham at Costco.... haven't been there for awhile.. I don't like the crowds and I'm content to go to Sam's Club cause I love their 'scan and go' and don't have to stand in line. Hubby had to go to Costco the other day... he's without one hearing aid (again) for about a week - they have to replace it.  His warranty wears out soon... and that's scary.  Now he is fussing he wants the kind that automatically charge and not with the battery, which he frequently goes through.  So I turned to him yesterday and told him to start saving up his money; perhaps in a few months he can afford to buy them.  Ever hear a 'lead balloon' fall?  It did then.  

My head hurts, and need to jump in the shower so I'm stopping here... Sorry, nothing exciting to share today.  If my head wasn't hurting, I probably could think of something.  Maybe tomorrow!  Besides, if I get in the shower, maybe I won't hear the chimes of the CD.

Until then...

Blessings...