Smart Goals

I found a good post about making New Year's Resolutions at Life's winks, blinks and tears...: Life's Winks - New Years Resolution. We need to think more in terms of goals that are measurable, simple, attainable, and time bound.

Here are the ones I came up with:

1) Take the stairs between floors at work rather than the elevator.
2) Read at least 50 books again this year.
3) Do not spend any more on any marketing endeavor for my book.
4) Keep on learning new things and continue to post them weekly every Friday on this blog.
5) Continue to write down the sweet things Gerard does.
6) Install CommentLuv on my blogs.
7) Join that gym and actually go 2-3 times a week.

What Holiday Drink Are You?

Here's my results that are 100% accurate so I decided to use this one. Take the little quiz and share what kind of drink you are in the comments.

I am Cider

Your holiday personality is cozy. The holidays are your favorite time to stay home, stay warm, and spend time with those you love. (Which is exactly what we did.) You don't need a lot to make you happy over the holidays. Seeing an old relative or favorite holiday film is enough to make your day. Here is a list of my favorite Christmas movies: Bells of St. Mary’s (Yes, I know it’s old but SO good!) Best Pageant Ever! Miracle on 54th Street Eloise at Christmas I like watching these every year!!! What are your favorite Christmas movies?

Gerard is hot chocolate:

Your holiday personality is generous. The holidays are your favorite time to practice the art of giving. You enjoy picking out presents, sharing treats, and making everyone's day a little brighter. And you don't even notice if you don't get anything in return.

What Holiday Drink Are You? Click here to find out

DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE . . . WE WISH EVERYONE A HAPPY, SAFE AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!

We Still Miss You, Moe!

We got Moe from the Parma Animal Shelter June of 2000 at approximately 8 years old. He was a great cat as you can see from these pictures.

Moe and Gerard liked reading together!

Ain't I cute?

A rare occasion, Moe on Karen's lap.

Moe playing with the feather on the string in his younger days.

Moe was a nice, soft pillow. He didn't usually mind me resting my head on him.

I never saw another cat with exactly his markings. Some were close,

but none had the black on the nose like Moe did.

Moe liked to lay on the newspaper right under Gerard's nose!

Here's a good shot of Moe, he was such a nice cat!

Here's Moe lying under our bedroom dresser.

Here's Moe being a bit playful, hiding under Buddy Bear.

Moe lived to be 15 1/2. He survived fatty liver disease which he had when we first got him and later developed a thyroid problem. I had methomizole (I called it ear goop) that I had to put on his ears alternately every night. We both still miss Moe. He died during the night of New Year's Eve 2008 and is buried in our back yard. We use his picture as our screen saver on our computer from time to time.

Moe was a very good cat. He never got into any mischief at all but didn't much like to be held and was not a lap cat. We missed him and Spunky seemed to be a bit lonely without him so in May, when a friend of mine had to get rid of her cat, we decided to take it. That was Manny who is a great mancat and although the beginning was rough, he is now our "Mr. Nice Nice."

Our Best Reads For December

Gerard's Best of the Month and the Year is Final Salute by Jim Sheeler
I give this book 50 Stars for each state in the country represented in this war! It's so powerful!!

Hard to know where to begin about this book. I thought "Dewey, The Library Cat" was my book of the year, but this is now my book of the year. This is about Major Steve Beck who is a casualty notification officer. The book tells the story of the men who paid the ultimate price for our freedom and the families they left behind. "Final Salute" is so filled with emotion that at times I just had to stop reading. It got to me. You will not forget the men and the families you read about in this book. I hate to admit it, but I read about men killed and forget all the people it affects. This jolted me back to reality! I'll never look at death causalities like I did before. My heart goes out to their families who are now in my prayers. I salute all our service people. Maybe Christmas is not the time to read about this, but then again, it probably is to know that people are out there especially hurting at this time of celebrating our Savior's birthday. You must read this book. God bless the USA and thank you service men and women!! May God bring you home safely.

Karen's is Love Your Life by Victoria Osteen. This book moves right along and gave me the feeling that Victoria was a friend chatting with me. It is packed with lots of good advice and is very encouraging and uplifting. I liked that she included summaries of “anchor thoughts” at the end of each chapter.

One thing that especially made an impact on me was the suggestion to keep a list of everything I like about my husband and everything he does to make my life easier. Instead of keeping track of his mistakes, or things he did that made me mad, this will help me stay focused on his good points and help me not to forget these things.

I also read the Sonshine Girls-Summer Secret by Rene Morris who is also a blogger. Although the idea is to just pick a favorite of the month for this post, I want to mention this book too because I did enjoy it and think it's great for young girl readers. This is the first wonderful Christian fiction book in the Sonshine Girls series which is geared to tweeners and young teens. Issues that are raised include friendship, bullying, forgiveness, Chrisianity, cliques and peer pressure. There are four main characters that make up the Sonshine Girls. As I read, I could closely identify with Kristin and Charli. The author has done a fantastic job of capturing the moodiness and general camaraderie that girls often demonstrate. In the back are tips for dealing with bullies which could be helpful someone who is being bullied. The book moves right along and is a very enjoyable read. You may want to visit the author's blogs, who is a mother of six, at The Sonshine Girls and Cheaper by the Half Dozen.

My Blog Is Fabulous Award--Thank You

Thank you at Mother Nos Best for the Fabulous Award!

The rules for this one is to admit my 5 addictions and then pass it onto another 5 blogs…

Hello, we are Karen and Gerard and we are addicted to…

Karen is addicted to:
1. Blogging
2. Entrecard
3. www.pogo.com games
4. Pizza
5. Cats

Gerard is addicted to:
1. Watching Boston Sports
2. Cleaning
3. Cookies
4. Ohio State Football
5. Exercising

We pass this award on to:
Jodi's Journey
The Junk Drawer
Maria Michelle's Furkids and Animal Rescue
Modern Mom
Lady Banana

Patience (Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore)

Patience is from two Greek words: (1) "hupomone": meaning patience in circumstances meaning to persevere, bear up under, endure and is inspired by hope such as Job had; and (2) "Makrothumia" meaning long suffering, forbearance, self-restraint related to people and inspired by mercy. The fruit of the Spirit quality of patience is from the second word, relating to people. When we are filled with God's Spirit, he enables us to forgive others, show mercy to them as God as shown to us and thus be patient with them as God is patient.

I thought it was very interesting how forgiveness actually plays such a big part in showing patience to others. I never realized before either that patience was broken down into two separate categories in the Greek. I found that to be very interesting once I got into it and saw the difference.

God is patient with us and forgives us so it shouldn't be all that hard for us to forgive others. (Matthew 18:21-35 is the parable Jesus told about the unmerciful servant that this truth is based.)

To recap the fruits discussed so far, love never fails, joy cometh, peace rules and patience waits.

Advice From A Squirrel

Here is one of my favorite Christmas presents--my squirrel sweatshirt! I love squirrels and it has very good advice on it from the squirrel which says:

Look both ways when you cross the road.
Plan ahead.
Stay active.
Eat plenty of fiber.
Spend time in the woods.
Go out on a limb.
It's OK to be a little nuts!

Manny & Spunky Doodle Find the Catnip

Manny Gets the Catnip Mice:






Be sure to watch the video of me this time below. I finally am the star in a video so don't miss it!

The bag catnip is mine!


Stop by the cats' blog at http://karen.pnn.com (Cat Corner-MEOW section). Don't forget to vote for what you think is our favorite toy on poll at the top right of our sidebar.

Four Things I Learned This Week--Part 15

I found this great giveaway at I Never Grew Up and just wanted to let all my readers know about it. You can get a free Flip Ultra Video Camcorder! Hurry, the giveaway ends Jan. 2 and of course, there are rules to follow. I love mine because it's small, easy to handle and I can make video clips for my blogs! Good luck! Did you see the one Gerard and I just made with Leo the Lion about the Detroit Lions? Check it out, it's funny.

Although a little late for this year, J Louis shared this great Christmas Card site for pet owners, www.petcentric.com/crittercarols/?DCMP=RAC-PETC-DogTm-Carol08&HQS=Blog in the comments on "My Funny Dad, Harry" blog at "Are You Sending Christmas Cards This Year?"
It allows you to create animated e-cards featuring a chorus of singing and dancing pets that bark or meow your favorite holiday songs. What's more fun is that you can even use your friends' or your own pet's photos. Here's the link to the card from: Spunky & Manny that I made. (You can only actually put one of your pets in it, but the one that was already there looks just like Manny anyway.)

I knew pointesettas are poisonous to cats, but through my cat/dog trivia game, I learned that Mistletoe, Holly and Christmas Cactus are poisonous to dogs! Have you played lately?




Actually, two Sundays ago our Pastor gave a message on Giving His (God's) Presence through showing compassion to others but since I already had a bunch of things I saved it for this week to share with you. He shared a web site, www.adventconspiracy.org with us that has this concept: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All. Here is the video that we saw in church that is on their web site:


Please be sure to read my related post to this that you may have missed before Christmas or because I did two posts in one day. Here's the link to it: "Is All Your Shopping Done, Better Check Your List"

Christmas Traditions Meme

I saw this on Fenced In Family and thought it was a neat way to share our Christmas traditions. I love Christmastime. It really is the best time of the year!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? both

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial, much simplier!

3. When do you put up the tree decorations? First weekend of December

4. When do you take the tree decorations down? New Year's Day

5. Do you like eggnog? Not much.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? My secretary that my dad made for me. I have it in my computer room.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Bosses.

8. Do you have a nativity scene? YES, a handmade one!

9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Both

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? White elephant exchange screwdriver set.

11. Favorite Christmas Movie? Bells of St. Mary's

12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Black Friday

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes.

14. Best thing to eat at Christmas? Pizza, I like it any time!

15. Lights on the tree? Sometimes, but they make me nervous.

16. Favorite Christmas song? Joy to the World

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.

18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? I can try . . .Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Rudolph (Is that all of them?)

19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel that my mom made one year.

20. Open the presents Christmas eve or Christmas day? One Christmas Eve and the rest Christmas morning, afternoon and evening--we like to spread them out through the day.

21. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Crazy shoppers that are mean, inconsiderate and rude and trample over employees.

22. Favorite ornament theme or color? Red & Green, the handmade ones by my mom.

Feel free to use this too!

Warning: A Tip For Parents

Kids like toys. In fact, when I was a kid, my grandma gave my mom some money and told her to buy something I'd like from grandma. What did my mom buy? Well, she thought I needed a new dress and although I didn't like dresses which she knew, she thought if it came from grandma, I would like it. WRONG! I was 5 or 6 and when I opened it I said, "Just what I didn't want!" My mom was all embarrassed and my grandma told her, "I said to get her something she would like!"

Is All Your Shopping Done--Better Check Your List!

I had a poem that I've looked all over for and can't find, but the gist of it goes like this:

Don't forget the Most important person this year-Is Jesus even on your list? Turn up your volume and check out this link: What Would Jesus Want For Christmas?

Is Jesus on your list this year? What will you give Him for Christmas, after all, it is His birthday we are celebrating. Here are some suggestions:

1) The most important thing we can give Jesus is our love and accept His sacrifice on the cross for us, receiving forgiveness for our sins. Once we've received Jesus as our personal Savior, then He wants us to love others.

2) I always make sure I give an additional Christmas offering to Jesus. Whatever your most expensive gift is, give that amount for Jesus too since He is the most important person on your list.

3) Give to a charity that shows the Love of Jesus to others. Here are a few that I can think of:
The Jesus Film Project
Compassion International
Children International
City Mission
Covenant House
Boys Town
World Vision
Local Food Pantries
Cleveland Pregnancy Center
The Salvation Army
Missions through your own church
Samaritan's Purse


Can you think of any other suggestions of what Jesus would want for Christmas?

Shopping Fun By Spunky Doodle

Spunky Doodle wanted me to post her video on my blog as well, so here it is:


Gerard had laid his big shopping bag on the table in preparation for our "Black Friday" shopping excursion. When I looked up, there was Spunky Doodle inside the bag as far as possible (it was folded up at that time), swatting at the hanging strings and just having a ball. I opened the bag up for her but that chased her away. Manny, however, noticed her having some fun and jumped up and went in to give it a try himself. By the time I got the camera, Spunky was already up there telling him to get out because she was ready to go back in!

Hey Manny, look what I found!


Bags are great fun, even better with strings!


All right, Spunky, you can have it back. I just wanted to try it out too!


Good thing Manny knows I am still the No. 1 cat around here.


Special wonderful Site to Create a Personal Christmas Card Using Your Pets:
I would normally wait until Friday to post this in my "Things I Learned This Week Post", but then it would be too late since Christmas is only two days away! J Louis shared this great Christmas Card site for pet owners, www.petcentric.com/crittercarols/?DCMP=RAC-PETC-DogTm-Carol08&HQS=Blog in the comments on "My Funny Dad, Harry" blog at "Are You Sending Christmas Cards This Year?"
It allows you to create animated e-cards featuring a chorus of singing and dancing pets that bark or meow your favorite holiday songs. What's more fun is that you can even use your friends' or your own pet's photos.

Ho, Ho, Ho . . . What Would You Like For Christmas

How about 100 people signing our guest book on here. If you haven't signed in yet, please do! We're so close!

How about 25 followers of our blog? That would be wonderful! It really encourages us as we see more faces added to our followers.

How about some feature or topic ideas? We'd like to post topics of interest to our readers, of course, so feel free to give us any suggestions you have or let us know what type of posts you like best and we'll try to do more of those.

How about some more book sales and more good customer reviews? (If you read and liked "My Funny Dad, Harry," please spread the word. I really think word of mouth is the best publicity! Click here to order now.

I remember when I was a very little girl, in preschool actually, when I went to see Santa. I shocked him when I said I'd like "Checkers" for Christmas. He was a very nice person and offered to come over and play with me sometime. My mom was upset that he said that because she knew I would be thrilled and then disappointed. As soon as he said it, he knew he goofed. I was just thrilled at the idea that Santa would even want to play checkers with me!

What would you like for Christmas?

Detroit Lions Set Record

Here is a sports commentary clip by Leo the Lion and his friends, Rory and Flopsy Bunny on the Detroit Lions. Gerard and Leo would like to know what you think.

Peace! (Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore)

The third characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit is Peace.

One of the titles of Jesus way back in Isaiah is the "Prince of Peace." Jesus often said, "Peace be unto you." He also said, Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.--John 14:27

Peace comes to our hearts as we trust Jesus and submit to His authority. When Beth talked about this on the DVD, I thought of my new cat when I first brought him home. My friend said that he was upset because he was in a new place and felt he had to be "in charge of everything." Once he learned that I was the alpha in charge, he calmed down and let me pet him. He became less stressed. That's how it is with us. When problems come, we need to realize that Jesus will take care of them when we submit to His authority and give them over to Him.

Peace is not a lack of pain or grief though, but a lack of confusion and turmoil. Jesus went through a lot of pain on the cross and grieved when he saw people suffering but still had peace in knowing He was doing the will of His father. We too, can have peace in difficult situations as we keep our mind on Him. Peace comes with the authority of Christ in our life. The more we surrender to Christ's authority in our lives, the greater peace we have. When we obey God's word and seek to do His will, He gives us great peace.

Jesus' perfect peace in God's plan gave Him peace in His death. Before we can experience the peace OF God, we must first have peace WITH God by accepting Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for our sin that reconciled us to God. (Col. 1:19-20)

I love that we always have access to God through prayer and it is through prayer and submitting to God that we maintain peace in our lives. Philippians 4:6-7 says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

This is just so amazing and wonderful!

I hope you will submit to God and experience his peace today regardless of your circumstances. I am enjoyed this Bible study by Beth Moore on Wednesday nights at my church very much so will continue sharing here what I learned with you. It's so encouraging.

Free Drama Workshop at Parma Heights Baptist Church

Our church drama team has begun to have some Saturday morning workshops. The one we had this month was so much fun, that it made me consider taking a college drama class.

It started with a good breakfast. We had about 18 people attend including some girls of parents who participate in drama. Our church uses drama to make announcements of special events, to do some short sketches to introduce the Pastor's message and sometimes special Christmas and Easter presentations.

Annie and Georgine led some improv exercises that were a blast. I never knew actors actually did warm up exercises. These were helpful because they included general relaxing techniques to help you focus as follows:

Lie down with your eyes closed and just listen to the sounds in the room. Tense up, and untense.

Another was to roll your neck slowly from side-to-side.

A third was to bend over reaching for the floor and swing your arms like a monkey. Slowly, one vertebrae at a time, straighten up. Imagine 18 people doing this at once--it was pretty funny!

They also shared some vocal warm up exercises which included just talking gibberish as fast as you can while making funny faces. My favorite one though was to start making a very low sound and gradually getting higher and higher and then gradually coming down lower and lower again.

The improv exercises were taken from on of the college books Annie had called Improvisation For the Theater by Viola Spolin. We did three exercises from this that were all very fun:

1) Circle Story--We all sat in a circle and one by one would add a word to make sentences which made a story. I forget what it was now, but it was just ridiculous. The point though was to just stay in the moment and improvise. There was no planning ahead, no scoring, no competition and no winners or losers.

2) Mirroring--The point of this exercise is to connect with another person which helps to focus on the other actors that you are acting with. We each faced a partner and looked into each other's eyes the whole time. One partner would do a motion and the other would try to do the same thing opposite them at the same time as best we could to create a "mirror" image. After a little bit, we switched roles and the other partner led. Then, the real fun came when we could add sound as well as movement. It was a lot of fun.

3) Human machine--The purpose of this was teamwork. I liked this very much. One person starts by standing in the middle of the circle and making a motion and noise. Then another stands next to them adding a new motion and noise. And then another, and another, and another until everyone is doing some sort of motion and noise all at the same time! I was across from a young girl who was beeping. I stood opposite her and jumped and said "bop" after she beeped. When everyone was involved, then we were told to gradually get louder as a group. Then as a group, gradually get quieter. To end, they called out one at a time.

These things may sound stupid but they were really fun to do as a group.

Three Things I Learned This Week--Part 14

At Mother Knows Best, I learned the history of the "12 Days Of Christmas" song. It actually as a double meaning. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

I also learned from another post there titled Treat Your Kids To Chat With Santa that now kids can actually chat with Santa online at www.chatwithsanta.com.

Thanks to a little memory game at Lady Banana, I found out my short-term memory is better than I thought. I reached level 8 which was better than the others who played and shared their scores. I may have even done better if Gerard did interrupt me with "Look at the cats" and "Are you playing a game?" Click here to try it and see how you do.

By the way, we hit 100 visitors who signed our guest book yesterday and 20 followers! Yippee!!

Here is something I'd like to learn:
Since I got my photo scanner, when I choose pictures to use as my wallpaper on my computer, some still fill the screen as usual the way I want, but others show up as a bunch of smaller pictures of the same thing filling up the screen--I hate this! Can anyone tell me why this happens or how I can fix it so that they all show as one full screen picture?

Wonderful Wednesday--What A Great Surprise!

I saw in the PLAIN DEALER this morning that one of the dogs playing Marley in the movie "Marley & Me" is going to be at Tower City from noon to 2:00. I decided to go during my lunch hour.

Shortly after arriving at work, we heard there was a water main break that affected our building so the water was shut off. The building across the street closed and told everyone to evacuate the building around 10:00 so we, of course, were hoping our building would close too. It did! We got an email saying our building was closing at 11:30 and all attorneys and staff were encouraged to leave. They didn't have to tell me twice, I was out in about 15 minutes and headed down to Tower City.

There was only a short line when I arrived about 12:10. The dog was sitting nicely and we were allowed to go and pet him and get our picture taken with him! They gave free posters (as shown above), brochures on "Bringing a Dog Into Your Life: Tips from Marley and the American Humane Association," and the Animal Protective League had some dogs there for adoption!

Both Gerard and I read the book and liked it, except for the sad ending. It made me laugh and cry. Here is my review of the book that I posted on Shelfari:

I liked this book about a big dog because the things it did were so funny. I could picture the different incidents because the author described them so well. I love dogs and enjoyed reading about the funny things the dog did. Several parts actually made me feel angry at the owners and I felt sorry for the dog. It definitely brought out some strong emotions and that I liked. I enjoyed the majority of the book, just not the sad predictable ending. I found some parts very boring which made it move slower than I expected. I found myself wondering how long before he talks about his dog some more, but overall, I like it.

In fact, it actually was the book that inspired me to write "My Funny Dad, Harry" because I thought if people enjoyed reading about funny situations about a dog and the loving relationship with its owner, they might enjoy reading about a funny man and his loving relationship with his family, too.

To top things off, when I walked over to the bus stop, the bus came right away and I didn't have to wait at all for it! I was home on my computer by 1:15! My cats were surprised to see me home so early.

Well, today I'll even have time to play some on pogo.com!

Puppets Come To Life With Helping Hands

One unique activity Gerard and I are involved in at church is the puppet team. We use scripts that are on tape and Jim runs the sound and does the lighting. Different scenes are painted on sheets for background and the stage is made of a wood frame with sections on hinges for easy storage with material stapled to it.

We use a double stage with a front and back row. Puppeteers in the front kneel on old sofa cushions for foam rubber to protect their knees and the puppeteers in the back row can stand. This enable elderly people to still be able to do it.

The youngest member of our team is 5th grade. We have several 6th graders and then it jumps to an 18 yr. old, then people in their 30s, 50s, and 70s. A very wide range makes this a unique group. Pam, the children's minister at Parma Heights Baptist Church is our director who has been doing it for years and years. She is a visual thinker, well organized and easy to work with. She is very patient and always has a picnic for the puppet team at her house in the fall and a party at her house in January.

Here are the basic rules of our puppet team:
1) Always wear gloves when working the puppet.
2) Never let kids see a "dead" puppet (one that is laying around).
3) Do not let anyone know what puppet you have so that if someone goofs up, no one knows who it is and so that the audience will watch the whole production and not focus on one certain puppet.
4) Everyone helps set up and tear down.
5) Attendance at practices is mandatory (unless sickness or death).



Last Sunday we performed a Christmas presentation for the children in grades 1-6 during the 11:00 service. At the end an invitation was given to trust Jesus as their personal Savior and be forgiven. About 10-12 children prayed for forgiveness and accepted Jesus as their personal Savior! God has used this particular ministry to speak to children's hearts. Even some parents hang around to watch and are usually impressed by what an elaborate production it is.

Hubby List First Time Ever Meme

This is a tag from Wendy at Nurturing Nigel and Ruthi at Carpenter's Wife.
Hubby List
Can you remember the day you first met your hubby?
Yes

When was that? (doesn't have to be specific)
November 16, 2006 at Pizza Hut (read all about it here: Our Anniversary of Day We Met)

First impression.
He didn't look like much, but he was easy to talk to and I wasn't intimidated by him.

Were you attracted to him?
Not really, but we had a lot in common.

Were you friends before he became your bf?
No.

What was the sweetest thing he did for you?
We were in a long line at a food court and I was very hungry so he got out of line and went and bought me a cookie to hold me over.
He would send me surprise gifts at work which included flowers, balloon bouquets, food baskets and a Vermont Teddy Bear.
He meets me at the bus stop every day (unless I drive in the morning and park the car there).
We got out of an Indians game and he hailed down a cab for us instead of waiting for a bus to go home.
When I was getting dressed at the church for my wedding, he sent me over a little Teddy Bear to let me know he was there.


What are the things about him that you are thankful for?
He is very responsible and dependable which I like.
He is extremely helpful around the house.
He cracks me up when he plays with our stuffed animals.
He lets me handle the money matters and doesn't criticize me.
He understands me and supports me in whatever I do.
He carries things for me.
He looks out for me.



*Now the rules are simple.
Link it back to me.

1. Pick your sweetest picture when you were still friends and post it on top of the questions and answers.
2. Another pic now that you are together post it after the questions.
3. Share to how many friends you like.
4. Enjoy doing it c:
5. Let your hubby read it too!

I am sharing these questions to my happily married friends
Mountain Woman (Red Pine Mountain),
Tina (Creative Nerd),
Rene' Morris (Cheaper by half Dozen),
Jenn at (Kids are my world),
Monique (Blogging More)
Doylene (A Gracious Home)
.Cindy (Fenced In Family)

A Simple Woman's Day Book

I don't do many memes, but I thought I'd give this one a try. Let me know what you think of it.




FOR TODAY, Monday, December 15, 2008 ...

Outside my window . . .it is a gray cloudy day with only a bit of sun peeking out behind the clouds.

I am thinking . . . what posts I should work on next.

I am thankful . . . salvation, my husband, my home, my cats, my job, my church, eyeglasses, heat and electricity!

From the kitchen . . . I watch Spunky Doodle sitting on the dining room table next to my nativity set.

I am wearing . . . warm, brown pants, my long tiger underwear and a white turtleneck under a warm green, white & brown print sweater.

I am creating . . . my lesson plan for Sunday School this week.

I am going . . . to have dinner with my boss and some co-workers after work to celebrate his retirement.

I am reading . . . Victoria Osteen's book, Love Your Life and just starting Sonshine Girls--Summer Secret by Rene' Morris.

I am hoping . . . I do not have cancer and I do not need anymore mammograms done until next year.

I am hearing . . . Christmas music.

Around the house . . . the cats chase each other. It's fun to watch them.

One of my favorite things . . . is reading good book reviews about the book I wrote in memory of my dad, "My Funny Dad, Harry" and hearing nice comments from people who read it.

A few plans for the rest of the week: cake and ice cream this afternoon for my boss with people on our floor, participate in chat at Author and Book Event Centertomorrow at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time and blog some more and play with my cats and some games on pogo.com.

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

Sharing the heater to keep warm!

Go here to find out how you can participate:
The Simple Womans Day Book

Joy! (Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore)

Jesus and Others and You,
what a wonderful way to spell JOY!
Jesus and Others and You
in the life of each girl and each boy.
J is for Jesus for He has first place.
O is for others we meet face to face.
Y is for you and whatever you do.
Put yourself third and spell JOY!

This was a song we used to sing in Sunday School when I played the piano for grades 1-3. I was reminded of it when my Bible Study was on the second fruit of the Spirit--Joy.

There many scriptures about joy in the Bible. The supernatural joy Christians (followers of Jesus Christ) have as a sign of being filled with the Spirit of God has several dimensions summarized as follows:

Joy of our salvation in knowing our name is written in the "Lamb's Book of Life."
Joy of discovery of spiritual truths that God reveals to us through His spirit.
Joy of restoration after being depressed or forgiven for sin. Sometimes God's will includes hardships and trials to bring us to spiritual maturity.
Joy of abiding in Christ daily by being in close fellowship with him.
Joy in fellowship with other believers.

One point I found especially interesting in this study is that when people see the joy Christians have, they want that. Christians should be the most joyful, loving people on the Earth! Are we? I think many would say "No." If we aren't joyful, we need to get back in fellowship with God and be filled with His Spirit!

One final note. We have a great hope of God's future kingdom that brings joy. Those who trust Jesus as their personal Savior are children of The King! I remember my mom sharing with me that when she asked Jesus into her heart as a child, she went home singing "I'm A Child of the King." (John 3:12) Here are the words to the song:

I'm a child of the King,
A child of the King.
With Jesus, my Savior,
I'm a child of the King!

We look forward to the day when we all get to heaven and see The King in all His glory on the throne. What a day of rejoicing that will be!

We certainly have a lot to be joyful about! Rejoice in the Lord Always!

Happy Birthday, Karen, From Gerard

Visit www.moblyng.com to make your own!

Today is Karen's 55th birthday! I wrote on my daily sign in our bedroom I thought it would be neat to make a happy birthday sign with a lot of xxxxx for kisses and ooooo for hugs. Then I enlisted Party Bear's help to hold the card. He goes all the way back when I surprised Karen on her first birthday after I knew her. I sent it to her workplace and she loved it!

I told her yesterday, she would get three presents. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. Her morning present was the photo scanner she told me she wanted. She called me on her cell phone from Brookstone all excited when we were shopping and said she'd really like that. So I was happy to present her with that. I didn't even know what it was! She was very pleased and I'm sure she'll get a lot of use out of it. (Karen already has two ideas for posts using this scanner. She hopes the pictures will turn out better this way than taking a picture of a picture.)

Then we went to Denny's for breakfast because Karen loves going out for breakfast! Then we did our Saturday run-around: Giant Eagle where she picked out her birthday treat, the post office (she mailed "My Funny Dad, Harry" to the winner of her contest, Abelle at "Only in Silence" who lives in the Philippines) and the library.

Once we got back home from that, I went to Fitworks and the Geek Squad guy came to hook up our new 32" HD TV and VCR in the basement that we got for free with the Best Buy gift cards we got from Owens-Corning when they remodeled our basement which Karen posted about a long time ago. We waited to buy the TV until the Black Friday sale. (Click here to read the post about getting the gift card)

In the afternoon, was her surprise gift, a 3/4 sleeve animal print top that I ordered from a catalog. I think it looks great on her! Her third gift was Blogging For Dummies, another gift she told me she'd like when we were browsing in the stores so I was only happy to get it for her.

I had a very happy birthday today, Gerard. Thanks so much for making my day special and fun! Watch for my future post using the photo scanner coming soon: "Hubby's List" and "Making A Nativity Set" which will appear on "My Funny Dad, Harry" blog. I was waiting for this before I did it.

Also, yesterday at work two of my bosses surprised me with gifts: a big NFL Browns can of popcorn from the Popcorn Factory which I shared with my co-workers, and a gift basket of chocolates from Hattie Larlham's Cafe with a gift card to Talbot's so I'll be going there after Christmas.

Nine Things I Learned This Week! -Part 13

This has been one very educational week for me. This is the most I learned in a week since I've started doing these every Friday.

Thanks to Fenced In Family's Loss of Information post I finally backed up some of my more important files on a CD but still wondered how to back up my blogs. I found the answer at Blogger Tips and Tricks and also at Quick Online Tips. Unfortunately, there's no easy way so I guess I'll just select my more popular posts to copy the HTML code for it to my "notepad" on my computer as suggested at Blogger Tips and Tricks. To back up comments, by selecting the email notification you can save them that way. One of the commenters mentioned a free online service that might be easier: https://blogbackupr.com. Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks to Kathy at The Junk Drawer, I learned that once you publish a post, it immediately goes to feed burner sending to google readers and if you delete it, anyone trying to read it will get an error, not found. To fix this, the best thing to do is change the post content.


View my page on Author and Book Event Center

When chatting at Author and Book Event CenterI learned a new word: "lookiloos." I never heard this word before, but it means people who look at a site without signing in to join or participating by leaving a comment. Are you a lookiloo? Have you ever heard that word before? (If you'd like to chat with me, join me there at 7:30 Eastern time on Tuesdays.) In chatting with some other authors, I learned that newspaper ads are pretty much a waste of money, AFTER I already spent mega bucks for a 2" x2" black and white ad in a section with many other bigger, colorful book ads in the NEW YORK TIMES!


I found this very creative brownie recipe when visiting a new blog to me at Purr Prints. Before baking, you press in peppermint patties. Don't they look yummy! I sure would like some in my tummy!



Did you know you can buy special marshmallows for cereal? You can! I learned about this at I Do Things So You Don't Have To. Here is the link to Cereal Marshmallows where you can order some. They actually care about customer satisfaction even. There are also other things available too. I'm really beginning to think there is a site for anything!

Here's an easy way to add a search widget for your blog if you want to that Alan from Alan Gay and Straight left in the comments on my "Help, I'm Losing It" post:
http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/07/search-widget-for-your-blog.html (just make sure your logged in to the blog you want it on)
click "Add Blog Search Widget" or there is also a code you can copy if you prefer. I put this one on "My Funny Dad, Harry" blog although I like the looks of the one on this blog better. Still don't know where I got it from though.

Last Saturday I attended a drama workshop that our church had for anyone interested on the drama team or interested in acting. I learned that actors actually do warm up exercises before going on stage! This was new to me. I will share these with you in a single post.

I learned from Bumpy Path that when commenting on Blogger blogs, I should choose the "Name/URL" option instead of accepting the default Google ID because the link for the Google ID goes to the profile page instead of my blog! All those comments then that I left using that, don't even help my page rank any. The name you leave will be what shows up as the linked text. The URL you leave is the address to your blog, and it needs to be a complete URL with the http in front. I sure wish I knew this sooner!

See my new "Top Commenters Widget" on the sidebar? Thanks to Corpse of Attic I found an easy way to install it! Hope you enjoy it. It shows the top commenters over the last 30 days.

Spunky Doodle Enjoys My Christmas Village

This is actually something new I learned this week but I have so many things that I decided to make this one a separate post. I recently installed the update of my Kodak Share Software on my computer and found one new feature they added is the ability to write text on a picture. I found it to be much easier than using the "paint" feature listed under accessories.







You can see Spunky in action in this video (it's darker than I'd like though, sorry about that):