How Can You Pass This Up?


If we only followed half of these, how much better would we feel?

1.) However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

2.) Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch with them.

3.) Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

4.) Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. God provides remember!

5.) The best is yet to come . . . in Heaven!

6.) No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

7.) Do the right thing!

8.) Call your family often.

9.) Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: 'I am thankful for __________.' And 'Today I accomplished _________.'

10.) Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

11.) Enjoy the ride. Remember that this is not Disney World and you certainly don't want a fast pass. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy the ride.

12.) LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH. LIFE'S A GIFT ... UNWRAP IT!





Quote:
Learning makes a man fit company for himself. --T. Fuller


Blessings

An Interesting Thing . . .


What catches a writer's attention.

You all know my varied interests in writing. Of course, as I informed some of my critique friends the other day, most of my novels have a touch of suspense in them, even if they're romance. Can't help it. Love that suspense. Laugh.

But, we writers have a multitude of interests. Let me give you some examples:

Three of my critique friends novels they're working on right now:

M: contemporary, a little suspense with a lot of women's fiction in it.
S: contemporary, young adult
R: historical, mafia theme
J: contemporary with military touches (altho her real skill rests w/western historical
L: contemporary, archeological suspense
C (not me): historical, (one, a jazz, twenties period; another: civil war period)

There are so many possibilities out there that at times my mind boggles. I know--just from the top of my head--I have four stories I want to work on--or finish--not counting the series that I'm writing now. Some will take a lot of research, others not so much.

Where do we get them? Lots of places. Ideas from others. Events. Places of interest and history. Maybe a news item will spawn a thought that can be developed into a novel. An accident. A name. Or a phrase.

Thing of it is, I may run out of time before I get them all down.

I'd better get to work . . .


This is one of my favorites I've loved through the years. Quote:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. --Robert Frost


Blessings

Journal Books


I love them.

For one thing, there are so many great looking covers. Almost anything you're interested in or like, you can find a journal depicting that interest.

Another thing, there are endless possibilities in which to use them.

notes
history
future plans
ideas


I've filled several with quotes. Love those things and I gather them like a country woman gathering eggs. Here, there, and everywhere. Some tidbits of words catches my eye---my attention--and I'm scribbling it down.

I've used them over and over. Here on my blog, of course, but as fillers on my research papers, encouragement on cards, smartie sentences to friends.

I also like the thought of filling my journals with memories.

For awhile now, I've toyed with the idea of setting down in words, good memories from the past in my life. I wish I'd started earlier, but I didn't. I'll probably forget lots of stuff. But I WILL remember some things. And I'd like to write those things down.

Will anyone ever read my scribblings of my personal life's enjoyment events? Probably not, other than perhaps my boys.

But I'll get the enjoyment of writing them down.

I don't want to feel pressured, like its something I have to do, so I'm going to go slow. Scribble as something comes to me. I'll probably ramble a bit (well, probably a whole lot). I may get boring. I may mess up and scratch out what I wrote.

But it'll be my journal for now, so I guess I'll be allowed to do all that, right?

I just got a lovely, old-look journal (old-fashion picture of children with one of those old wagons on it. Pages inside have a "yellowed" look to them. Makes me want to hold the journal up to my nose for a sniff of a well-used book) from a friend. I've been trying to decide what to do with this beautiful thing. Haven't quite made up my mind, but I will one of these days.

Anyone up to joining me in a jounal craze?
Anyone with ideas on what I could do with this special journal?


Quote:
It is enough that I am of value to someone today. --Hugh Prather

Blessings

Something to Think About (And Act Upon?)



1.) Smile and laugh more. It will keep the energy vampires away.

2.) Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

3.) Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4.) Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5.) You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

6.) Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

7.) Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

8.) Ladies - Go on and burn those 'special' scented candles, use the 600 thread count sheets, the good china and wear our fancy lingerie now. Stop waiting for a special occasion. Everyday is special.

9.) No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

10.) Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will all this matter?'

11.) Forgive everyone for everything.

12.) What other people think of you is none of your business.

13.) Time heals almost everything. Give time, time!


Ah, words to the wise . . .



Quote:
Men for the sake of getting a living, forget to live. --Margaret Fuller



Blessings

A Girl With An Apple
(This is a true story and you can find out more by Googling Herman Rosenblat.
He was Bar Mitzvahed at age 75)
August 1942. Piotrkow, Poland.
The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the men, women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a square. Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My father had only recently died from typhus, which had run rampant through the crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was that our family would be separated.

"Whatever you do," Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered to me, "don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen."

I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I might be deemed valuable as a worker. An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobblestones. He looked me up and down, and then asked my age.

"Sixteen," I said. He directed me to the left, where my three brothers and other healthy young men already stood. My mother was motioned to the right with the other women, children, sick and elderly people.

I whispered to Isidore, "Why?"

He didn't answer. I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her.
"No, "she said sternly. "Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with your brothers."
She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood: She was protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this once, she pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.

My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany . We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks later and were led into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms and identification numbers.

"Don't call me Herman anymore," I said to my brothers, "Call me 94983."
I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator.
I, too, felt dead. Hardened, I had become a number. Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin.

One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice. "Son," she said softly but clearly, "I am going to send you an angel."
Then I woke up. Just a dream. A beautiful dream. But in this place there could be no angels. There was only work. And hunger. And fear.

A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp, around the barracks, near the barbed-wire fence where the guards could not easily see. I was alone. On the other side of the fence, I spotted someone: a little girl with light, almost luminous curls. She was half-hidden behind a birch tree.
I glanced around to make sure no one saw me. I called to her softly in German. "Do you have something to eat?"

She didn't understand.
I inched closer to the fence and repeated the question in Polish. She stepped forward. I was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet, but the girl looked unafraid. In her eyes, I saw life. She pulled an apple from her woolen jacket and threw it over the fence.
I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away, I heard her say faintly, "I'll see you tomorrow."
I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time every day. She was always there with something for me to eat - a hunk of bread or, better yet, an apple. We didn't dare speak or linger. To be caught would mean death for us both.

I didn't know anything about her, just a kind farm girl, except that she understood Polish. What was her name? Why was she risking her life for me? Hope was in such short supply, and this girl on the other side of the fence gave me some, as nourishing in its way as the bread and apples.

Nearly seven months later, my brothers and I were crammed into a coal car and shipped to Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia . "Don't return," I told the girl that day, "We're leaving."

I turned toward the barracks and didn't look back, didn't even say good-bye to the little girl whose name I'd never learned, the girl with the apples.
We were in Theresienstadt for three months. The war was winding down and Allied forces were closing in, yet my fate seemed sealed. On May 10, 1945, I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00 AM. In the quiet of dawn, I tried to prepare myself. So many times death seemed ready to claim me, but somehow I'd survived. Now, it was over. I thought of my parents. At least, I thought, we will be reunited.

But at 8 A.M. there was a commotion. I heard shouts, and saw people running every which way through camp. I caught up with my brothers. Russian troops had liberated the camp! The gates swung open. Everyone was running, so I did too. Amazingly, all of my brothers had survived; I'm not sure how. But I knew that the girl with the apples had been the key to my survival.

In a place where evil seemed triumphant, one person's goodness had saved my life, had given me hope in a place where there was none.
My mother had promised to send me an angel, and the angel had come.

Eventually I made my way to England where I was sponsored by a Jewish charity, put up in a hostel with other boys who had survived the Holocaust and trained in electronics. Then I came to America , where my brother Sam had already moved. I served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War, and returned to New York City after two years. By August 1957, I'd opened my own electronics repair shop. I was starting to settle in.

One day, my friend Sid who I knew from England called me. "I've got a date. She's got a Polish friend. Let's double date."

A blind date? Nah, that wasn't for me. But Sid kept pestering me, and a few days later we headed up to the Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma. I had to admit, for a blind date this wasn't so bad. Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. She was kind and smart. Beautiful, too, with swirling brown curls and green, almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life.

The four of us drove out to Coney Island. Roma was easy to talk to, easy to be with. Turned out she was wary of blind dates too! We were both just doing our friends a favor. We took a stroll on the boardwalk, enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and then had dinner by the shore. I couldn't remember having a better time. We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing the backseat.

As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the subject, "Where were you," she asked softly, "during the war?"

"The camps," I said. The terrible memories still vivid, the irreparable loss. I had tried to forget. But you can never forget.

She nodded. "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far from Berlin," she told me. "My father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers."
I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant companion. And yet here we were both survivors, in a new world.

"There was a camp next to the farm." Roma continued. "I saw a boy there and I would throw him apples every day."

What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy. "What did he look like? I asked.

"He was tall, skinny, and hungry. I must have seen him every day for six months."

My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be. "Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving Schlieben?"

Roma looked at me in amazement. "Yes!"

"That was me!" I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions. I couldn't believe it! My angel. "I'm not letting you go." I said to Roma. And in the back of the car on that blind date, I proposed to her. I didn't want to wait.

"You're crazy!" she said. But she invited me to meet her parents for Shabbat dinner the following week.

There was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most important things I always knew: her steadfastness, her goodness. For many months, in the worst of circumstances, she had come to the fence and given me hope. Now that I'd found her again, I could never let her go.
That day, she said yes. And I kept my word. After nearly 50 years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I have never let her go.
Herman Rosenblat of Miami Beach, Florida

Quote:
Lord, when I am wrong, make me willing to change;
When I am right, make me easy to live with.
So strengthen me so that the power of my example will far exceed the authority of my rank. --Pauline H. Peters

Blessings

Too Good to Pass Up


I love these admonitions I post every now and then. These are especially good. Enjoy and follow!

1.) Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate antidepressant.

2.) Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if necessary.

3.) When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to________ today.'

4.) Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.

5.) Spend more time with family, play more games and read more books than you did last year.

6.) Always pray and make time to exercise.

7.) Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.

8.) Dream more while you are awake.

9.) Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat fewer foods that are manufactured in plants.

10.) Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts.

11.) Try to make at least three people smile each day.

12.) Clear your clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.

13.) Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead, invest your energy in the positive present moment.

14.) Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class ........but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.

15.) Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.


Well, what do you think? Good, huh?





Quote:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has. --Margaret Mead


Blessings

Remedies . . . Tried? True?

Who knows? But does it hurt to try?

SKIN INFECTIONS:
Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin infections.

WEIGHT LOSS:
Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast on an empty stomach and at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in one cup of water. If taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.

CANCER:
Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder for one month three times a day.

FATIGUE:
Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than! than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Senior citizens, who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts, are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M. when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, increases the vitality of the bo dy within a week.

BAD BREATH:
People of South America, first thing in the morning, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water, so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.

HEARING LOSS:
Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal parts restore hearing.


I'm making my own personal copy of these remedies. I always like to believe the simple things are the best.


Quote:
Health is not valued until sickness comes. --Dr. T. Fuller


Blessings

Back!

I'm back!

What? You didn't even notice?

Sniff. Some people don't notice anything important!!! LOL

We got home about 1:30 a.m. this morning after a strenuous ten days of camp. We had a great time, some meaningful services, and good times of fellowship with friends. The kids and youth were impressive in there helpfulness and behavior. All in all, a wonderful season of camp.

Of course, we're tired. It takes several days to re-build our strength, after going and going. Hubby and I are both so involved, from the very first day and give all we have to seeing that we have a successful camp.

Received some lovely gifts from friends: fresh veggies, a journal, songbook, bath and body works, special teas, brownies (smile), and lots of nice comments.

I was able--after the first weekend--to get just a little writing edited and some critiquing done for a friend. Other than that, my writing was at a halt. I'm back at it, headed toward the finish line in my historical! Yeah. Please remember me in your prayers and thoughts that God will soon help us (agent and me) find homes for these labors of love.

That's it for now. Just a brief update. Love you all.


Quote:
If you want to be listened to, you should put time in listening. --Marge Piercy

Blessings!

God Said No!

I asked God to take away my habit.
God said, No.
It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.


I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, No.
His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary.


I asked God to grant me patience.
God said, No.
Patience is a byproduct of tribulations; it isn't granted, it is learned.


I asked God to give me happiness.
God said, No.
I give you blessings; Happiness is up to you.


I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me.


I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, No.
You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful.


I asked God for all things that I might enjoy life.
God said, No.
I will give you life, so that you may enjoy all things.


I asked God to help me LOVE others, as much as He loves me.
God said . . .
Ahhhh, finally you have the idea.


Sometimes, we can be hardheaded!


Quote:
Being controlled by the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss God's purpose for your life. --Rick Warren


Blessings