Busy times around here.  I hope you all have a great day and weekend!  See you soon!

Happy Mother’s Day

A Mother’s Love

 There is no love, like a mother’s love,

no stronger bond on earth…

like the precious bond that comes from God,

to a mother, when she gives birth.

A mother’s love is forever strong,

never changing for all time…

and when her children need her most,

a mother’s love will shine.

God bless these special mothers,

God bless them every one…

for all the tears and heartache,

and for the special work they’ve done.

When her days on earth are over,

a mother’s love lives on…

through many generations,

with God’s blessings on each one.

Be thankful for our mothers,

for they love with a higher love…

from the power God has given,

and the strength from up above.

Happy Birthday to me!  I miss Mikey :sigh:

Gosh I’m gettin’ old! lol

MISSION POSSIBLE:

Ladies, your mission, should you choose to accept it….

My sister the spy.  lol

Yeah, this is Janet, my beloved sister, in whom I’m well pleased.

She worked and worked on the ladies’ conference theme of MISSION POSSIBLE (a revelation party for letting the women find out who had been their Secret Sister all year) along with several other women to make a wonderful and fun time for all this weekend.  There was a delicious meal served Friday evening at the new Marriot and a comedian who was really funny.  Then the MISSION POSSIBLE part where we were given out Lavender Envelopes with secret agent clues inside that would help us locate that certain person.

Xanga has BUGS!  Grrrr, I rarely lose info these days (because of frequently clicking the submit button as I go) but had added one more pic and about another paragraph last evening (this is early Monday morning) and just left it.  Maybe I can put things back later, but for now, this is the post for today.

This is the other pic, my niece Angie, to the far left, (my sister’s eldest) helped lead worship at our outing.

We had a very nice time.

I thought this was an email message worth posting.

GOD’S CAKE 
 
Sometimes we wonder,
“What did I do to deserve this”,
or “Why did God have to do this to me”.

Here is a wonderful explanation!

A daughter is telling her Mother how everything is going wrong…
she’s failing algebra,
her boyfriend broke up with her
and her best friend is moving away.

Meanwhile, her Mother is baking a cake 
and asks her daughter if she would like a snack, 
and the daughter says, 
“Absolutely Mom, I love your cake.”

“Here, have some cooking oil,” her Mother offers.

 ”Yuck” says her daughter.

“How about a couple raw eggs?”

“Gross, Mom!”

“Would you like some flour then?

Or maybe baking soda?”

 ”Mom, those are all yucky!”

To which the mother replies: 
“Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. 
But when they are put together in the right way, 
they make a wonderfully delicious cake!

God works the same way. 
Many times we wonder why He would let us 
go through such bad and difficult times.
But God knows that when He puts these things 
 all in His order, they always work for good!

We just have to trust Him and, eventually, 
they will all make something wonderful!

Also, there was an email I got from a friend in Bogota, Karla, that made me feel… very loved.  I mean what better message can you send on to someone… ANYone, than to let them know you prayed this…

“This morning when the Lord opened a window to Heaven, he saw me, and he asked:

My child, what is your greatest wish for today?
I responded:
“Lord please, take care of the person who is reading this message, their family and their special friends.  They deserve it and I love them very much”.

The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginnings but not its end.  This message works on the day you receive it.” 

Now, what better thought can you receive than this?  So… for my Xanga friends, I pray this for you this day.

Hugs and love to you for your day/week/month!

My great-niece Allie, is

webpage on Xanga and she’s such a sweetheart. I wanted to post her pics for her friends to see of her Yak N Snack birthday party two Sundays ago.

I have several pics and will post a couple here for her… shoot… I may post most of them.  LOL  You all KNOW how I am about pics.  This is me taking a picture of Alliekitten taking a picture of her Tinkerbell cake!  She loves Tink. And her cousins,

Alexis and Seth like Tink too I would suppose.  I mean, who wouldn’t?  This is Allie and her cuz’s  These three are such sweeties, they make me smile everytime I see them.   <—seeeeeeee.  and she LOVES purses too.  So I got her a picture frame that looks like… yep, a purse.  Then I printed her some of these pics to put in it.  Did you know I lOVE pics!? lol 

…and these are some of the friends from her youth group.  Caught in the act of eating!  heh heh   I’m good at that kind of shot with a camera.  

Then there were hugs galore for this birthday gurl!  I got a few of those on film too.  Like this one from an nearly adopted sister, Danielle, who spends quite a bit of time with Allie and Missy and the wee ones, Nick and Natalie.  Dani is a doll and such a sweetie too.  There is another ‘hug pic’ with Danielle and her sister, Tiffany here…  Of all the kids at the Yak n Snack, I know these two the best I guess.  What great kids.  About all grown up really   It seems impossible when you think about how quickly these guys go from a teen in youth to a young lady (or gentleman). :sigh:  …and you’ve gotta have the candles being blown out!  Ok, maybe this is enough for now.  I have a few more, but sheesh… this has become a long post as it is I guess.  I hope you enjoy them Alliekitten!!  Autie Deb loves you!

Look!!! 

I am sooooooooo excited!  It is SPRING!

Last year (Well,we moved in late Nov. 2003) was my first in this home, we moved in during the late fall, almost wintertime really.  So I didn’t know what I had in the flower beds until this past spring and summer.  I found last season that the former owners had a number of early spring bulbs in the ground, like daffodils and a few tulips.  Then I saw her… ‘Rhoda’.  I was awestruck knowing the beauty she would bring, but alas, not a bloom, not one when it should have been full of wonderful and colorful blossoms.  I was heartbroken and feared I would have to replace her.  I knew from having had a Rhododendron at another home, that they are a bit fragile, and their lifespan can be a few short years, then they stop blooming.  So, when I saw no blossoms last year, this is what I thought had happened.  Rhoda had seen better days… BUT JUST LOOK at her NOW!  She’s awesome!  Click on the first picture to get a better view of her pretty purple blossoms. 

Then, in front of the house, there was another nice surprise and I still do not know what it is.  I guess I should look it up or something, but if you know this plant, let me know what it is.  Here it is before the blooms come out, but they’ll be out soon!  HUGE Purple BLOOMS when they fill up this lovely bush!  I can’t wait!!!!  These two pics are before I did some hoeing and broke up the ground and then added topsoil to the area around it and the rose bush and tulips along the front of the house.  Then I watered using one of those ready to spray feeders.  Looking much better up there now.  I’ll take a few more pics soon.  I also planted some seeds in pots.  I’ve not started my bedding plants from seeds in a long time.  It’ll be very fulfilling when I set them out among the other ‘adult’ plants.

OK, well, you all have a great day and I hope church was good for you.  I’ll have a potluck carry-in today after our service so I need to run.  Enjoy the beautiful warmer weather (I hope it’s getting warmer where you are).

Wifs Meet!!

The Texas Longhorn Steakhouse will never be the same!!!

Click the pics to see them larger as you go.  Many of you who stop by to see these will be others with whom we play at the site that made this such a fun get-together, Sim Hockey at the What if Sports site.

If you’re not a part of it, these may mean less to you, but you can see we had a good crew and a lot of fun.  

In case the text on the pics is difficult to read, I’ll do a run down of those attending this gathering.  using the pic to the left there is;

Chad(Matou), Jay(deathinahole), Mike and I (gollum & DragonflyDeb), Paul (Booman35), Chris (CPetsche), Teddi & Eric (the smerics). 

The pic outside was at the originally planned meeting place, but once we were there, we discovered the place was no longer open.  So Longhorn’s got the pleasure!   The folks to the right in this shot are the parents of Teddi, better known as smerics_wife.  They were really nice and Mike and I both commented on understanding where Teddi gets her sassiness & sense of humor.

I hope we can have another gathering soon and more can come to meet and share thoughts about the Sim and just have fun.

We should try to have one south of the border for some who are NOT Canadian… ahem.  

Jay

AKA deathinahole

The next gathering might need to be in OHIO MAYBE!

I sure wish we could get nearer to a few I have grown to appreciate and respect but I really don’t even know where some of these folks live.  I’d love for Brent (BigBuzz) and Bill (bb_icetime) and so many others, to get to be in on one of these gatherings.  Oh man, I’ve done it now. I started naming people and I’ll play heck trying to put them all in here… Back to pics for now…

Chris (cpetsche)
Named honorary ‘doctor’ due to the NLC press releases.  The new owner/GM of the Detroit Redwings.   Look out Senators! lol

Paul (Booman35) has struck a pose for your veiwing pleasure.  He enjoyed the Labatt Blue being his backdrop.  He’s done some tremendous ‘coming back’ with the Florida team in the NLC. 

His creative writing has inspired a number of ‘comeback’ articles in the press release arena of the NLC.  He’s pretty clever, and always a gentleman.

OMG! This pair, Eric (smeric) & Teddi (smerics_wife), have made many a league more interesting and the ‘chat time’ I’ve had with Teddi has kept me truly LOLing!  I loved getting to meet them and hope we can hang out some time again soon!  I have a couple more of these two… They’re also very photogenic!  

Eyerolling is a specialty of Teddi’s.  Of course, it would have to be due to being with such a card as Eric!  See that ‘chit-eatin’ grin’ on his face??? lol  What a fun couple!  I wish I could recall what he said to get the eyeroll but, it escapes me at the moment.  If I remember later, I’ll share.

 I thought I’d meet the kids, but we migrated on to the Longhorn before they arrived so I missed the chance.

Maybe another time Mike and I can babysit, so to speak, and tell some good tales to their lil sweeties about mom and dad!  heh heh

Ok, now the ladies together.  We had the guys take a couple so we could show the GIRL POWER that’s up and coming in the SIM.

OK, here we are.  I wish more ladies could have come.  Me,(DragonflyDeb) and Teddie again.

It was sure a chore trying to keep these GUYS all in line.  But with Teddie’s help, things went better than expected!  She is one gal who can definetly hold her own.   (Hugs gf!)

What a neat thing, the internet.  I’m so glad our former VP invented it! (smirking big time here)

All the nice people I’d never have know were it not for Mr Gore.  heh heh

Ok, more pics… we’re nearly done… no .. really.   

Happy Easter Everyone

We are in Canada, Mike will be staying a while due to his mom having been in the hospital for a while and they have decisions to make about her getting out and choosing a nursing facility for her that is appropriate.  Prayers for them and his dad would be appreciated. Things are drastically changing for his dad and of course for his mom.

I hope you all enjoy Easter services at some fine house of worship.  We’ll be attending services with the neighbors of Mike’s parents, and their granddaughter is singing for the service.  If I can’t be home at my own church, this will be nice instead.

He IS Risen!

Happy Birthday Michel

I hope your day is Super!

P.S. I linked his site to his name above so you can stop by with well-wishes for the day.  Remember he is about 6 hours ahead of us here in the Eastern Standard time zone as you leave him comments.  He’s such a nice fellow.