Refreshing RAIN

I don’t think when I was a youth and young adult that I appreciated the rain very much. It was more of a hindrance or a nuisance to me, back then.

Now, as a much older adult, I have come to enjoy the rain very much. I am one who also thoroughly enjoys fragrances....natural fragrances. There is nothing that quite compares to the fresh clean fragrance of the outdoor air after a good rain.

I also love to feel the rain on my face...it is very refreshing AND moisturizing. So that is a good thing, too!!

Besides the great aid and benefit rain is to Mother Earth, it also benefits and aids ME in providing and adding to my pure enjoyment and delight in the wonderful wet stuff.

What determines our "favorites" ?

Have you noticed how many people have differing opinions on what they classify to be their "favorite”, for anything? If you think about it...almost everything under the sun can be a candidate for someone’s favorite. A to Z.... you name it. Think about foods, sports, places, pets, colors, hobbies, movies, TV, etc. The list is endless.

Ok...we all have our favorites. So, what makes them our favorites?

I for one have my very own favorite male actors (of our modern day era). MY choices are based upon several things that I deem important to me. A few of them are: ability, style, talent, looks, (and this next one is VERY important and impressive to me, and always wins my vote, as far as I am concerned)....and that is, the extreme amount of time and work involved by the actor to thoroughly learn about his character enough to uniquely portray them. The films, “Walk the Line” (excellent in that regard), “Tootsie”, “Rain Man” and “Mrs. Doubtfire” are just a few that come to mind. I realize there are many, many movies like these.

Of course my favorite movies are not necessarily your favorites because I mostly lean towards love stories. And you may also look for different qualities in an actor, than I do.

Our choices are unique to us, individually. Take colors for instance. My favorite color is baby blue. Why do I LOVE that color so much? It is a warm, soft color. Blue compliments my skin color, eyes and hair. So I am drawn to the color blue.

Think about ALL of YOUR varied favorites. Mentally ponder the reasons you chose each favorite. It can be very interesting and it can teach you something about yourself.

Ok...so I know you are dying to know my favorite actors: Johnny Depp, Patrick Dempsey, Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, and Nicolas Cage.

Our personalities

photo from: http://www.petswithpersonality.co.uk/

We all come with distinct personalities....so many different types that it is hard to imagine. Are we born with our personalities or do we develop it as we grow and mature? Is it possible to change our personalities, if we desire to?

Sometimes I do not like parts of my personality. I feel like it gets me into trouble occasionally....and can cause others to want to distance themselves from me. I have this playful sense of humor, sometimes, that I think others don’t appreciate! Is it possible to consciously change my personality?

I went online and did some research and one site made the statement that: “studies done around Temperament suggest that we are each born with our temperaments intact”.

May I share more?

It was interesting to read about one persons studies and observations. He created the theory of temperament associated with types. He developed his own descriptions for the four temperament categories and the sixteen personality types that fit into one of the four temperament categories.

In case you are interested....I will continue.

I will now list his descriptions of the four temperaments, and below each one is the individual personality types that go with it.

“The Guardians” ...(security seeking)

* The Supervisors
* The Inspectors
* The Providers
* The Protectors

“The Artisans” ...(sensation seeking)
* The Promoters
* The Crafters
* The Performers
* The Composers

“The Rationals” ...(knowledge seeking)
* The Field marshals
* The Masterminds
* The Inventors
* The Architects

“The Idealists” ...(identity seeking)
* The Teachers
* The Counselors
* The Champions
* The Healers


If you want to learn more, click on the following link:

http://personalitypage.com/four-temps.html

Learning the hard way

We have all heard that expression. To me it means that when we continually take chances, have near misses, and don’t learn from our mistakes right off the bat.....then one day we are FORCED to learn the lesson through a hard, painful and uncomfortable way.

When that forced lesson comes upon us, we regret (or not) that we didn’t choose to learn it sooner. Life’s lessons are for a purpose...that we might grow and progress to be the very best we can be.

With our learned experience, we can in turn, help others learn. Obedience to laws....whether nature’s, man’s, or God’s....temper us that we may be molded and refined into wonderful beings.

Genealogy....are you doing it?

Genealogy.. is the search for information on our ancestors. It is compiling a list of our ancestors and their descendants and discovering where WE fit into the pedigree line. It is learning more about a certain ancestor...what kind of person they were and what they did in their life. It is coming to truly KNOW and understand the family we came from. In order to know and understand ourselves better....we need to know WHO we came from.

I have two blogs that I devote to Genealogy....one of which is writing about your life story. In order for our descendants...our posterity... to know about us way in the future....we need to leave something about ourselves in the here and now.

Click on the following links to learn how to begin doing your Genealogy and how to start writing your life story.


http://stepatatimegenealogy.blogspot.com/

http://wwwyourlifestory.blogspot.com/

Learning patience

They say that “patience is a virtue”.

The word virtue means any admirable quality or merit that is of excellence.

The word patience means the quality of enduring without complaint; the exercise of sustained perseverance; forbearance toward the faults or infirmities of others.

The word patient (in this sense) means possessing quiet, uncomplaining endurance under distress; tolerant and forbearing; capable of tranquilly awaiting events; persevering.

So.....with all these definitions of “patience is a virtue”......where do we individually stand? How easily is patience learned?

To really and completely and fully learn patience and all that it entails......IS truly a virtue.

What is a home?

A home can be many things to many people.

A home can be a place where our precious family abides. A home can be a place of refuge, safety and protection from the world and the elements. A home can be a large debt that weighs us down. A home can be a place filled with love, peace, happiness, and God. A home can be a place where we store all the accumulated “stuff”, or items, we have collected all our life. A home can be a fancy showplace with expensive furnishings and such. A home can be a place of learning and growth. A home can be a haven for a friend in need. A home can be a “heaven on earth” for all who dwell therein.

The word "Happiness"

(see the January 18th post)

HAPPINESS is....enjoying; marked by great pleasure. (according to the dictionary).

How many of the things in life do we thoroughly enjoy? What value do we give to each of these things that we enjoy? I am using the word things in a very broad sense. Do we feel that these things bring us happiness? And what level of happiness do they bring....momentary, for a day or week or a month, or longer.. say years? And here is the big test of happiness....will it bring Eternal joy and happiness? What could possibly bring us this Eternal (forever.. without end) joy and happiness? I will let you think about that and ponder and meditate on it.

Maybe you could make a list of all the things that bring you joy and happiness...then rate each one on a scale of 1-10. Ten being the most happiness. I expect “family” to be on your list!

Valentine's Day has come and gone

I had a friend ask me this last Tuesday... “Well, are you ready for single’s awareness day?” I am sure I had a puzzled look on my face as I said, “I have never heard of that.” She said, “you know...Thursday...Valentine’s Day...the day we are made very aware of our single status if we DON'T have a husband or a boyfriend?”.

I wish she hadn’t have told me that, because ALL DAY on Valentine’s Day I was sad because of MY status.

Hmmmmmmm.....maybe I should have posted this article on my depression blog..... http://upsy-downsysblog.blogspot.com/

Grieving

We have all lost someone we love through the process of death. And we all know how hard and difficult that time is for us.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a family member. It was a very special, uplifting service. One of the speakers made the following comment, that I would like to share. I am not sure I have the wording exact. He said, “The only way to get rid of the pain of grieving, is to get rid of the love in life”. Pretty profound, I thought.

What is a legacy?

Webster says it is “something left by will; a bequest; something handed down or derived from an ancestor or earlier time”.

Do we have any legacies left by any of our ancestors? Their journal, diary, or life story? If we do, we know the great value and treasure these things are to us. These legacies left, help us to know about that ancestor.

What if we did not have anything left by any ancestor? What if they never wrote anything about themselves? What a tragedy. How would we be able to know them?...To know the kind of person they were, their feelings, thoughts, the kind of life they lived, what they did and accomplished. Honestly....how would we feel?

Would we want OUR posterity, in time, to feel that way about us? Would we want to be a great big question mark in the mind of our descendants? Think about it. Down through the generations of our family...no one would have a clue about US...because we did not take the time to write about our self and leave it as a legacy (a gift of ourself) for our posterity. Our life story...what we are all about...will have been buried with us. What a tragedy that CAN be. But it doesn’t HAVE to be.

Let’s begin today. Let’s start writing our life story for our future generations of family. We do not want to be forgotten or unknown to them, do we?

So what do we do....how do we begin to write our life story?

Near the top of this blog home page, on the right hand side is a section titled “visit my 4 other blogs”. Click on my blog titled “Writing Your Life Story...one memory jog at a time”. Here I give you step by step instructions for getting started, some tips, and a multitude of questions that will help to jog your memory of happenings and incidents in YOUR life. These are the things you write about. These are the things your family would want to know about you.

So begin right now. It will be fun and extremely rewarding to you....AND a priceless possession in the hands of your family. It will be your gift of love to them.

Whimp?....not me!

On one of my other blogs, “The Mountain and Desert Beauty of...” (see the top of this blog for links to my other 4 blogs), I talk about walking around the school track near our house and what a beautiful day it was for walking. I choose to do my walking exercise outdoors because I love to feel the sun on my skin and to breathe deeply of the fresh air. It is easy to walk when the weather is so nice. But what about when the weather is NOT nice? Do I still go for walks?

When I was living in northern Utah the winters could get sometimes down to around 10 to 20 below zero a lot of nights. I used to get up just before sunrise and begin my walks. I remember walking on crunchy slippery roads in the early morning when it was that cold and even still snowing. I would just put lots of layers of clothing on....sweaters, jackets, coats, hats and hoods, a couple of pairs of socks, two pair of gloves and my nice warm lined snow boots. I would bring the tie strings of the hood of my jacket up higher on my face and tie them on my chin so that most of my cheeks and chin were covered. I KEPT TOASTY WARM.

Is that dedication, or what? I don’t even let rain stop me from my beloved walks. I just take my umbrella along with me. Remember that old Gene Kelly song: “Walking in the Rain”? (Or was it "Singing in the Rain")? It is actually fun, refreshing, and pleasant. Try it....you might just like it.

My daughter said to me this morning as I was getting bundled up to go over to the track.. “you going walking....it is so cold and windy and has been raining”? The sky was black...you couldn’t even make out any cloud formations. There were just a few rain drops coming down. “No big deal”, I said to her. “If it rains I guess I will just get wet”. I didn’t even take my umbrella with me. It never did seriously rain...the wind was strong, temperature was about 50 degrees....but I kept toasty warm and so much enjoyed my walk. IS THAT DEDICATION, OR WHAT?

While walking today, I noticed our close, looming Pine Valley Mountain just off in the distance (actually it looks as if it is only a mile away from us), was not viewable today, as it was under dense dark storm clouds. It’s snowing up there!!!! It snows in the higher elevations....but all we get down here is rain. No snow....we are too warm in the winters to get snow down here.

I hear many people comment that they didn’t go for their walks because it was too cold, or it was raining, or too windy. But I am “miss tough gal”......undaunted by the coldness or wetness of the outdoors.

I guess my many years of previous living in extreme cold winters has conditioned me to COLD...even though I do not like cold weather. Same thing goes for enduring the HEAT of summers. Once when I went to Sea World down in San Antonio, Texas, I stayed in the sun and heat to long and got heat exhaustion (or something). After that I could not tolerate the heat in the least degree.....UNTIL I bought a personal steam spa unit for my home and began sitting in it’s 110 degree temperature. In no time at all, I found that I was conditioned to be able to endure and handle extreme heat from then on. Our summers here are around 110.

Nope....not me...you will NEVER hear me using those excuses for not going on my walks. No one can ever call me a whimp for not walking in ANY type of weather!

The word "wellness"

(see the January 18th post)


WELLNESS is..... being well; feeling good; in good health; not sick; keeping healthy; getting exercise; eating better; and a host of other things.

When we are feeling well, we go about our busy daily life and almost take for granted that we DO feel well. When we fall ill, then we surely do sit up and take notice of that fact and have a greater sense of appreciation for the days that we feel good.

I have noticed that when I am ill, I don’t like it and I find myself making plans to try harder to do the right things to keep me healthier so that I might not fall ill again.

Wellness is an earned gift for the hard work, time, and consistent effort we put into a health program that will keep us fit.

So....what does the word WELLNESS mean to you?

A single little word

Recently while viewing other blogs, I came across an idea from the blogger, Ali Edwards,

http://www.lifeartmedia.com/newsletter11.html

She talks about slowly incorporating small single words into our life...words that can help us to become a better person. Words that you can focus on, meditate on, and reflect upon as you go about your daily life. The word should also be something you want to bring into your life in a more tangible way.

For instance, take the word PLAY and what it means to you. She says, “Try to incorporate it more into your everyday and on your adventures out in the crazy world. Maybe it is a lot about living without fear – about being more open to experiences with an attitude of playfulness”.

I think this is a great idea to help me analyze words and their meaning in my life. The words can be a thought, feeling or an emotion....as long as they have personal meaning for me.

Always be Our Own True Self

I have noticed something in a few of the people that I know very well. When they are around me they act one way...when another person comes by or phones, they act totally different with them. Their voice and manner changes. They are like two people.

Why does that happen? What causes them to change the way they are when around different people? I don’t understand why or how people can suddenly change like that.

When my spouse and I were dating he told me once: “One of the things I like about you so much is that you are always yourself”.

What is to be gained by people changing their demeanor when they are with different people? Why can’t everyone just always be their own true self?

What I value and treasure most in my life

I have never desired tons of money....only to have sufficient for my needs (and a few “wants”). I have never coveted those large fancy homes (can’t even keep clean the very small place I have now)....or the shiny new cars (I don’t like payments).

I have never been out of the United States...never craved to. And I have only been to maybe less than a dozen states (either because I lived there or near there or my children live there).

Thought only briefly about taking a cruise a few times....but only very briefly. I would sooner visit the rest of the U.S. first.

I have been fortunate that I have not had to work most of my life (just a stay at home mommy)...so I have no “career path” that is driving me.

My interests are very simple and basic....I am more of a homebody and not even a “party-type” person. I am sure I sound very dull and un-interesting. But everyone is different in their needs, desires, wants, abilities, personalities, and interests.

So, ruling out all of the above as far as what I value and treasure in life....what IS it then that is so terribly important, precious and valuable to me? What brings contentment to my soul? What is it that I deem as my greatest treasures in my life?

My family...My faith...My Church...My belief and trust in God

That’s it in a nutshell....very simple, basic, down to earth, and extremely rewarding, peaceful, and fulfilling above anything else that I can ever imagine, or desire, for myself and my life.

New Beginnings

“Today is the Beginning of the Rest of Your Life”

For many, many years I could not figure out what that statement meant. Maybe I did not ponder it hard and long enough. Then a few years ago it hit me!! I understood its meaning very clearly.

To me, it means that TODAY... or any new day...I can begin to make good and right changes in my life. These new changes, if held steadfastly to, can in effect be the beginning of a new life for me and carry through for the rest of my life. In essence, it is putting away the old and heralding in the new.

A Wonderful Realization

I whine and cry and feel sorry for myself because I long for a special, close, buddy type friend. I have done this for years.

A few nights ago I had a sudden realization that I already have such a friend.....my adult daughter. Because of our situation, I am around her daily.

She understands me, supports me in the things I do, I feel very comfortable around her, I don’t have to be on-guard with her, we do things and go places together, we bear our heart to each other, we laugh and cry together, we know everything about each other, and we are there for each other.

I am very grateful to my only daughter.....she IS my BEST FRIEND.

A Question to Ponder..... from my friend L.

Is it wrong to DREAM impossible DREAMS?

No, I don’t feel that it is wrong to dream impossible dreams. Nothing is impossible if we have the faith and trust strong enough in our self and God to accomplish it. Whatever the outcome....we will have grown and progressed tremendously as a person, in our journey towards that dream.

Someone said to me once that they had this certain dream for them self....something that they wanted to obtain. I told them that they should have a dream, and dream their dream. They told me, “But my dream takes money”. If a dream is desired strong enough....there has to be a way of obtaining it, even if it takes most of our lifetime.

Somehow, that is what setting GOALS and working towards them is all about. We set different time increments to our goals. We take a bite at a time towards our dream. We help that dream to become a reality.

Small town girl at heart

Before I moved to St. George, Utah, I lived in a very small community of around 5,000 people. St. George has over 100,000 people.

Life in small towns is so much different. It doesn’t take 15 minutes to drive from one end of town to the other. Most everyone knows every one else and they greet each other with a big smile and a genuine “Hi, how are you?” Traffic is not made up of the hurried, harried, and road-raged drivers. It doesn’t take 3 hours to go to 3 different stops in town because town is not stretched out over a very large radius. There is not all the many great numbers of stores to choose from and thus less money is spent in impulse buying.

Sometimes I really miss the little town I used to live in. Life seemed slower, easier, calmer, more relaxed, and just plain nicer, then. Guess I am just a small town girl at heart.

Boy, am I glad that I didn't go!!

I am talking about the early morning day of….and the day after Thanksgiving BIG sales! People have been sharing with me their tales of shopping horror stories!!

Evidently some people are not very nice when it comes to going to several big name stores at 1:00 in the morning just to be assured of getting at the front of the line and standing there until 3 a.m., when the store opens for their “unbelievable early bird sales”.

Then when they open the doors, it’s like a stampede into the store, with running, pushing, bumping, and shoving. And once into the store, there is grabbing of merchandise, yelling at others that you had it first.

But, what the store fails to do, however, is to purchase a fairly ample supply of the sale item. Once into the store, you discover that YOUR item you had hopes of purchasing….well….the store only purchased 3 of them!! One nice mother, having just missed out on the last toy item she had hoped to get for her children for Christmas, overheard the woman who got the last one say, “I just bought it for the fun of it".

A story reported in Las Vegas, commented about the several fights that broke out in the lines that were waiting for the store to open. Police had to be called to the scene.

What gets into SOME people? Where are their priorities? Do they forsake kindness and consideration to others….just for the obtaining of a material object?

Christmas

Dove of peace




Christmas is a special time. But it can also be a hard time for some people. It shouldn’t be, but it seems to be that way in many cases. During this time of year there can be more depression, more sadness, more debt, more stress, more loneliness, and way too much busy-ness. This type of Christmas is not what it was meant to be like. Sometimes there is not enough love, peace, contentment, happiness, simplicity, and spirituality!! Think about how you could make it this kind of Christmas.

One word stands out for me….SIMPLICITY.

The things we take for granted

We get so comfortable with our life style and the things that make ease of living. But then one day, for whatever reason, those things temporarily cease to be there for us….and we realize how much we have taken it for granted.

For instance…telephones. Have you ever had service to your regular telephone or cell phone interrupted? My goodness, but we can’t function without it!!!! We feel that we are cut off from the human race.

Another is electricity. When we have a power outage lasting longer than 10 minutes we wander around lost, with nothing to do. Everything is run by electricity. I have been known to enter a room and try to switch on the light....out of habit.

Then there is our water supply. When the city decides to turn off the water for whatever reason… that’s when we realize how often we do use water. Automatically I am at the sink trying to wash my hands, or get a drink, or get a pot of water for cooking or rinsing food. Oh yah... then there’s flushing the toilet.

Computers that die….well say your prayers. Life almost ceases to exist then!! I really dread the day when that happens to me….again!

If you had 24 hours...1 day...with perfect and complete health, how would you spend it?

The title of this post came from the wonderful movie, "Tuesdays with Morrie", starring Jack Lemmon. He plays a professor who is dying from Lou Gehrig's disease and asks that question. It is a must see movie!

I was touched and inspired by that question and decided to write a post about it.

Whatever your health conditions are right now....pretend you have been given 24 hours of reprieve from whatever it is that you might be suffering. Maybe you have depression; or memory loss; or a physical deformity; or artificial limbs; or cancer; or are paralyzed; or are blind, deaf, mute; or have some terrible irreversible disease; or a zillion other health maladies of life. Whatever your health situation, close your eyes right now and visualize how you would spend the next 24 hours if you had perfect and complete health.

Any of you readers of this post who care to, please comment and leave us your impression of a day spent with perfect health, compared to your limitations or health struggles you now experience.

If you were to create another holiday, what would it be for?

image courtesy of Celine Chamberlin

My friend L. asked me the above question. He sometimes gives me topics and thoughts to think and write about. So here is my writing about a new holiday:



If I were to create another holiday...it would be to honor the OLDER PEOPLE...everyone age 70 and over. It would be a celebration of their golden years and of a long life and their treasure trove of learning and wisdom. The name of the holiday would be "Senior Citizen's Day". They would also enjoy, on that day, a free dinner compliments of their favorite restaurant!

My nasty and eerie computer!

I am having some very strange experiences with my computer. I think someone put a spell on it, because it is out to get me. Let me relate a few experiences I have been having.

I enjoy watching a movie in the evenings to relax, and maybe it gets over around 10:30 or 11pm. I then consider going to bed…BUT…and here is the eerie part….my computer starts calling out to me, “come here, come here”.

I really try to resist but I feel helpless against it’s magnet-like pull. I keep telling myself not to listen and to go to bed so that I can get my restful sleep. But I am no match for my computer….I am too weak to resist. And quicker than you can sneeze, I find myself seated before the darn thing.

Ok…I will just check my e-mails and then I will go to bed. So I check my mail and then the eerie computer starts in again.. “now you had better file all those hundreds of e-mails in your inbox so you can find things”. I want to go to bed! “It won’t take long and you will feel so good that you did that”. Ok, but then I am going to bed!

So I finish filing the hundreds of e-mail and then I look at the clock….it is 12:30am, 90 minutes since I first sat down in front of this eerie machine! The computer won’t let me alone…what is the matter with it?!!!! Now it is urging me to check on a clip art website that it remembered I wanted to visit. I will do it in the morning! “Why put it off till the morning…aren’t you anxious to see what is on it?” It is like I am in a trance…next thing I know I am into the clip art site. “Oh that one is cute, you better save that…and look here at this one, better save that one too”.

Well, I again look at the clock and it is now 2:30am! I need and want to go to bed…NOW! “In a minute, but just do this one little last thing first”. Oh my gosh…I can’t believe it…my computer has hypnotized me! It is controlling me….help! help! Now it wants me to go into my file that I keep my clip art and other images. I am urged to start rearranging and organizing all my images!

What a mess that was to take care of. I look at the clock again…it is now 4:30am. WHAT! Where did all the time go?!! That’s it, hypnotized or not…I MUST GET TO BED! I take one strong will-power move (against all other unseen powers)…and click on the words: TURN OFF COMPUTER. There…I did it. I won this time. That computer can’t control me anymore. Good night.

That was last night. Tonight is very hopeful of an early bed time right after my movie. The movie gets over and I start getting ready for bed. Oh, no! Not that voice in my head again: “come here, come here”…as I glance over at my nasty, eerie computer. No, please, no…not tonight. I am so tired. I must go to bed to catch up on the sleep I missed last night. “It will only take a minute….didn’t you say you wanted to check out something on YouTube?”

What do I want to do, or be, when I grow up?

In my senior year of High School many years ago, I thought (for a short while) that I would like to join the Navy (Waves) when I graduated. That didn’t last long. I never learned to make goals and work towards them (still don’t). I just lived a day at a time back then, and come what may. If someone would have told me back then that I would religiously be where I am now…I would have laughed at them.

After graduation my Grandma must have been doing some heavy thinking in my behalf. Evidently she did not like my step-mother (I did…she was very good to me) and she thought I needed to get away from home life (or whatever her reason really was…..I don’t remember at the time). Anyway, she made arrangements with the family across the street from us. Their daughter just graduated college and about 5 other of her friends were going to California to be school teachers. I ended up traveling with them in two cars and my grandmother had made arrangements for me to go to the home of her nephew and his family, of whom I did not know.

I stayed with them for a few weeks or so and then they helped me get a car, a job, and a place to live. After several months, I met my first husband and we were married 3 months later.

Anyway, it seemed as though my life was being planned out for me by others after graduation. And after I became so close to my Church and God, I received a personal revelation about my life…and that is exactly what I truly believe that God was doing with this inward, shy, full of potential, young girl. He was leading, guiding and helping her to where he would like her to be…because he had something great for her in her life. And if she did not balk, and “do her own thing”…great things were spiritually in store for her.

Through the years of my life since then, it has been like many, many puzzle pieces of my life that was all coming together and forming a grand picture….mine for the taking!! But not without sacrifice and hard work. We all have the gift of free agency…to choose for our self what we want for our life. Do we want happiness and joy, or sadness and misery?
It all depends upon our choices.

If I Had All the Money and Time in the World, What Would I Do?

My friend L. gave me this question to ponder and write about.

1) I probably would not change my life style much because I am me and never have desired much of the things of the world. I can't justify spending money on worthless trinkets that can't help and benefit other people, OR MYSELF.

2) I would NOT desire large fancy homes or luxury cars...no matter the money. Never cared about that, ever!

3) It would be wonderfully fun to randomly pass out a $100 bill to people as I walk by them and see their reaction of surprise and delight.

4) I would love to stand by the check out stand in a grocery store and see the look on peoples faces when I pay for their groceries. THIS HAPPENED TO ME ONCE....but my groceries came to less than $20. The guy had a big roll of money and I was told that he did that quite often in the store. It was a wonderful feeling to have someone want to do that for ME.

5) I would pay off all my family members house mortgages and car loans. I would pay for all my grandkids to go to college.

6) I would donate money to the city for the purchase of a huge area of land to be made into an arboretum complete with animals and birds.

7) For myself, I would love to take a trip to Germany with all my kids, and spend several months or so just touring around. That is where my ancestors came from.

8) I would pay for a live-in maid or for a full time nurse in the homes of the very elderly who struggle along and who can't afford this and who need it very much because of their health conditions and circumstances.

9) I would create a large animal refuge park (like a zoo) with lots of activities and rides for families and have sort of a circus atmosphere to it. IT WOULD BE FREE FOR EVERYONE TO ENJOY.

10) I would pay for nannies to come and stay with children, while I would send their parents off on little romantic get-away trips so that they can have little honeymoons all the time to rekindle the flames of love and closeness.

11) I would go to small towns that do not have many wholesome activities for kids to do. I would build an indoor and outdoor facility large enough to hold all kinds of things for the youth to enjoy, such as skating rink, skate board area, game rooms, amusement park and rides, dirt bike trails and hills, etc.

Family

When you think about the evolution of a family it is quite amazing. We are born into this world as tiny helpless babies, totally dependent upon the care and nurturing of two other people….our mother and father (our parents).

We have grandparents…who are the parents of our parents. Our parents once were little tiny babies just like we were, and so were our grandparents, and so it was on down the line back through our ancestors.

Our parents take very good care of us and we grow and learn and grow and learn until we are old enough to find a companion and get married. Then we begin to have little babies of our very own. We become parents.

We raise our little children and take good care of them. They grow and learn and grow and learn until they are old enough to find a companion and get married. Then they begin to have little babies of their own. They become parents and we become grandparents..

The cycle goes on and on and on, through time.

Each family is very unique. The mother brings with her the background, culture, and traditions of the family that she was raised up in. And the father is the same. So here are two people from different backgrounds coming together and blending their different heritages. They bring forth children who inherit something from each of their parents backgrounds. Then each child in that family marries someone who comes from totally different backgrounds, cultures, and traditions. Then they have children who inherit the combined cultures not only from their parents, but their grandparents on both sides of the family on down through time. This creates all different backgrounds of heritages within the family.

What an awesome and marvelous thing it is, when you really ponder about it all. And life goes on and on through the ages….blending all these people and their different cultures and backgrounds together. What a tremendous potpourri of heritages.

Can you imagine what it will be like in the spirit world after this life, when we all meet again as a complete family. So much diversity! It will be very interesting, indeed.