Didn't bake, staying home, visiting neighbors

 I guess those words cover yesterday and today.  No, I did not bake yesterday.  My SIL came over and did move the Skylight calendar to another location.  Hubby's comment when he got home and saw that it had been moved?  "Why did you move it?" "Because you threw a fit about moving your golf picture."  "I got over that yesterday; you could have left the calendar there."  RIGHT.

I did go visit Ms. Diane at the new Senior Care facility her kids placed her in.  My heart breaks for her as she is so lonely and just wants to die.  She barely smiled the entire time I was there - which was nearly an hour.  It is a huge 'house' (has ten 'guests' so at least 10 bedrooms) in which her room contained a twin bed, a small side table, a small recliner, and her wheelchair.  TV is on the wall; she has a bathroom and a small closet. I would guess it is about the size of our screened area in the back. She was so glad I visited. Her daughter came by to drop off NEW medications... that poor woman - she said she counted 19 medications they give her - plus these new ones now. What in the world are they treating her for?  Seriously, at 87, unable to walk at all now, sits in a chair all day - does she really need cholesterol pills? Can not some of those pills be eliminated and let her die peacefully?  She did repeat herself a few times, but I mark that up to little interaction with other people; I'm sure she sits in her room most of the day. 

After visiting Ms. Diane, I decided to run over and visit Ms. Vicky for a little while.  We had a nice visit and then I came home and finished up pulling dinner together.  After dinner we both settled down to read (which made me happy).  I finished another book last night and I think I have 7 to go to meet my goal of 50 for the year.  It feels so close, and yet, so far away.  Hubby will have the TV on today watching any football game and then NCIS and will ask if I want to watch a movie.  He did leave it off Friday AND Saturday, so I can't tell him 'no'.  Give my eyes a rest from reading, perhaps.  

And... we are staying home from church this morning.  I was awakened at 3AM with the rain pounding on the roof and ground.  I got up and came in here, trying to go back to sleep, to no avail.  Hubby got up and took a shower shortly after.  I don't hear the rain now, so it has died down, but about 7AM I went to get a 2nd cup of coffee and mentioned to hubby about the rain and possible flooding of the roads.  He remembered there were large puddles at church he had to walk around yesterday.  It rained hard here for about 3 hours at least.  We walked outside as it was starting to get light and looked at our street - there is about a 6 ft path down the middle of the road; the rest of the road is under water.  I'm willing to drive to church, but we also discussed the way the parking lot is laid out.... yeah, there is upper and lower areas...  and I'm sure the lower areas are full of water. Granted, we aren't that far from the church and could possibly make it easily enough... but.... not knowing how flooded the roads are between here and there... long story short, we decided to stay home and watch on TV at 10:30AM.  I would be needing to get started fixing myself up about now if we were going... and here I am in my jammies still. :-)  Maybe the rain is over here... I hear birds chirping.

Today my youngest (and his wife and son) are 'celebrating' their birthdays. I have a box I want them to take to my little sister (and save me $$ on shipping charges!) (did you hear where Trump has given the post office permission to raise shipping rates through the Christmas season to help boost their finances?).  I have some heavy and large things in the box that would cost quite a bit to ship.  We've decided to just exchange cookbooks for Christmas as of last year - so I may as well go ahead and get these things to her so that I'm done with that. My little sister's husband's cancer has spread to his hips now and he will be on chemo every week versus once a month.  My cranberry pumpkin bread is the only thing that he can taste when he is on chemo so I will make a couple loaves for him.  My sister says she doesn't eat it cause she doesn't like cranberries.  Wah.  Try it, you might like it!  I'll make it for him.

And now my thoughts are rambling and I need to get off here. Didn't even come up with a scripture as my mind is all over the place this morning. Maybe it is the second cup of coffee I'm drinking?  I just reread the above and deleted a bunch of ramblings.... you are welcome.

Proverbs 1:8-9 (NIV):  Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

Yeah, I had to put one in here.  I like the part of 'do not forsake your mother's teaching', don't you? LOL  We all want our children to be independent thinkers - and want them to stand up for themselves. But if we have parents who love the Lord and give good advice, it is worth following.

And with that - I'm off here.  I got some more time to be with Jesus this morning and I'm going to snuggle up with my journal and chat with Him.  Then maybe I'll cook breakfast; I have time before the service. Advantage of staying at home. :-)  Hope you stay in and stay dry.

Blessings!

Monday already?

I am not ready for Monday morning.  My mind isn't, nor is my body.  For some reason, Macy's decided to start sending me text messages at 3:45AM and of course the ding woke me up.  A couple other places sent me a text message too right after that.  Don't they realize I don't want messages at 3:45AM??  It woke me up and irritated, I turned over to go back to sleep - after all, I had at least 15 more minutes before I usually get up... but alas, I finally gave in and got up.  So I have been trying to go back to sleep in here and I may have for a little bit.  A very little bit.   I need to make some decisions about this 4AM time... maybe move it to 5AM?  But then, it scrunches my time with God and with being able to type in here some mornings. Oh well.  It is what it is.   I am not ready for Monday morning.

We had company for dinner last night and enjoyed a good time of good food and a good game of Mexican train.  (do you ever wonder if people from Mexico will press charges against the company that makes those and say they are 'scarred for life' because their country name has been used to play a silly game?)  Stupid people with NFL and whatever the baseball league names are.   I think I heard that the Indians, I forget which ones, are suing because the Washington Redskins were forced to change not only their name but the logo - which was a representation of one of their chiefs - who had posed for the photo.  People are stupid.  Not the Indians, but the people who push for silly name changes because they think someone might be offended.  And how many people (and animals) have they called 'stupid' and 'idiot' - and yet, they are never called out for labeling someone and degrading them.  Ok - I'm rambling and enough said.

We had an overall good weekend, I think.  Church with Jentezen Franklin yesterday was good - our church had Pastor Mike (our worship pastor) speak and he was awesome!   

Matthew 22:35-40 (NKJV):  "Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing Him, and saying, 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?'  

Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

One thing Pastor Mike brought up from this scripture, is that if we know God and are following Him, we love Him, BUT, the second commandment is harder - because you cannot love others if you do not love yourselves.  How can you love others if you don't love yourself?  For you treat them how you feel you should be treated.  If you don't love yourself, you treat others as unloved as well.  Does that make sense? The way Pastor Mike explained it made a whole lot more sense.   It was an awesome service and he spoke the Word and the Word was truth.  You just had to be listening and apply it to your self.  

Bottom line - Love God, and Love Others.   That is the first and second commandment.

I was able to watch almost all of the Perry Stone service yesterday afternoon.  It was a powerful service too.  In fact, it was so powerful, Jentezen Franklin, as whose church he was speaking, asked him to come back tonight and tomorrow night at 7PM EST to speak again.  He did say one thing that I picked up on....

The war in Israel with Hamas is not a political war.  He said it is a 'religion' war.  If Hamas wins and succeeds in killing all the Jews, then the god the Hamas people worship is real.  If Israel is not demolished... then their God is real.  Well, we know which God is real... but it put a new twist on what is happening right now.    

Perry Stone gave a lot of information about the history and what is going on now... very interesting - and even more so about how the devil is doing his thing in the world.  I will have to watch tonight's program later as I have my gym appointment at 5PM and it will start at 4PM here.  I can listen to part of it before I head over.  I thought about changing my appointment but decided against it.  I've already been told it's 'legs' tonight... sure hope I can walk to my car afterwards!

So how are you doing on the 'loving others' situation?  Do you love yourself to where you can love others?  Maybe you need to sit down and think about it.  What is it about yourself that you don't 'love'?  We usually think about our appearance, our hair, our weight, our looks.... but let's take a look at the inside - for that is what God sees.  What is it on the inside of us that we don't like?

Is it our attitude?  Maybe we need to change it!  Maybe it is our behavior?  Maybe we need to relook at how we react to things.  Why not take a few minutes and just do an internal evaluation and see what it is that you DO like about yourself - and what you DO NOT like about yourself.  Then see what you need to change so that you can love others like you love yourself.

Some of us will need to make great changes, ya think?  I read in my devotional this morning about this guy who was constantly praying to God after he married, that God would change his wife.  He didn't go in to specifics, but that he was always praying that God would change his wife.  His wife woke up one night and found him downstairs and when she asked him if all was ok, he exploded on her and told her that he was praying that God would change her into the woman he wanted her to be... Hurt, she went back to bed without saying anything.  A little later God spoke to the man and told him it wasn't his wife that needed to be changed; it was him.  That brought about a whole nother outlook.  

Maybe we all need to look at what we want changed in others and see what we need to change in ourselves.  Maybe it is 'us'.... something to think about.

Blessings!