Best Poem in the World

BEST POEM IN THE WORLD

I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven's door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.

But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp--
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.

There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.

Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.

I nudged Jesus, 'What's the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How'd all these sinners get up here?
God must've made a mistake.

'And why's everyone so quiet,
So sombre - give me a clue.'
'Hush, child,' He said, 'they're all in shock.
No one thought they'd be seeing you.'


JUDGE NOT.

Remember...Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian
any more than standing in your garage makes you a car .

Every saint has a PAST....
Every sinner has a FUTURE!

Ringing in the New Year! 2010 Here we Come!

Well I know I haven't been on in over 6 months but pregnancy and life just took over.
Not to mention Facebook being such a major contributing factor to that.
Funny, but we hardly even use our family email anymore, due to having our accounts set up with individual emails.
I don't really think it is a bad thing, we still use our hotmail.com account and quite frankly that's enough to manage.

This year was the year we moved from smart phones to Black Berry Storm, man once you get hold of the touch screens they're addictive.
Of course Verizon has managed to wangle an additional $30 per phone for Tom and I due to their 'Data' packages being mandatory for pretty much every function of the phone, from synchronizing contacts, to emails, and all the other app's they have.

Keeping the celebrations low key this year with the new baby being only 4 weeks away.
Gonna have my niece and her BF over, and not sure if the others we invited are coming over yet as their little men, Jake and Nick are both sick and not sure how the kids are let alone the parents from being up all night with them the last few nights.

Soooo much has happened this last year that I haven't shared [with not being on here for over 6 months], that it would be impossible to list them all here.

The biggest thing that happened this year was my dad got re-married in the last 2 months and that in itself has been a very large change for him let alone the rest of us. I am very glad for him and hope that his new life turn is everything he and his wife hope for and that they are happy for many many years and then some!

My pregnancy has been a major portion of the year and with this possibly being our last child/pregnancy, I want to make everything memorable for the 2 oldest kids and make a concerted attempt to use the blog more for remembering everything.
Facebook is great for sharing but it is temporal in comparison to a blog for tracking and memories.
Well, may each of you have a lovely day, enjoy your New Year celebrations and may 2010 be everything you hoped for and more!
May God have favor on you and may you receive more than your cup can hold in the upcoming year.
Much love and blessings be with you each and every day!
As always, have fun & be safe!
~Michelle/Breeze

The White House

Does anyone who might be reading this think that there might be some major changes to the White House happening anytime in the near or far future?

I've just been thinking about it lately and I was thinking if anyone would be making any major changes of that sort it would be this administration and this president.

Just curious as to anyone else's opinion on if they think that and if so what kind of changes do you think they might make -if they did? Remodeling needed huh? :o)

How was everyone's 4th of July?

Went to a couple different gatherings and took the kids to see a local display of fireworks, which was great for the kids.

I was glad to see gas prices were stable and didn't jump to the moon, how about you?

Buh-Bye!
~Breeze

Dreams -Waking from them or -Working towards them

Do you remember your dreams in the morning when you wake up?

Or are you in such a rush because you hit snooze 3 times that you never seem to be able to wrap your finger around any details?

Do you hurry to make the coffee, clean up and run out the door for that early meeting you forgot about; and then somewhere in the middle of the day you find yourself thinking 'Did I dream about that last night'? or 'Did that happen?'

A funny thing happened to me not to long ago when I was waking my daughter for one of her last few days of school. It was about her usual time to get up and she was moving around in bed and I told her "Pizza Party today kiddo, time to get up".

She replies, "Mom, I just wanna go back to my dream, I was playing basketball with Jo-Jo and I wanna finish".

I sat there and proceeded to tell her that sometimes we just can't finish our dreams, we need to get up and move on into the day ahead.

Looking back at my quick response to her, what was I really saying to her in that reply? Should I go back and re-address my small chat with her about dreams, or just think it really isn't going to have a lasting effect on her?

When we speak about 'DREAMS' [night time escapes to the hustle bustle of life/our minds way of helping us deal with things] or "D R E A M S" [our hopes and our aspirations] are they the same or different? Can the nightly hiatus from reality really be the same as something we long for and wish as an alternative to the doldrums of life?

My very first website was a Geocities/Yahoo page that I just recently unraveled. Heard the news, got the info that they were closing up shop and I moved like lightning to get old poetry and photos to a new home and now they are like pages ripped out of an old book, all un-assembled between my PC and online photo albums.

One of my favorite quotes was on that page from the time I set it up in 1997 until the day I took it down. I am sure you have seen it at some point in a post or email yourself.

Watch your thoughts they become your words.
Watch your words they become your actions.
Watch you actions they become your habits.
Watch your habits they become your character.
Watch your character it becomes your destiny.

In my family it has been over a year that we have been without local or cable television and I feel we are better off without it.

Now I don't want to get started on that subject for a number of reasons, I am just making a note that I feel like I am able to watch more closely my own thoughts and that of my family; by not tuning in to what others may think and are spewing from their mouths on what seems like an hourly basis. Now I know I can get into just as much trouble on the internet if I went looking -but that's the point I am not.

I guess what I am looking at right now in my life is my mental well-being being effected by outside sources, and me asserting the control over those to keep out what I do not want or need.

Simplifying it for my kids, I suppose I need to fill their lives with loving, kind, positive influence and while not acting like there is nothing bad out there in the world, I am limiting it's HOLD and influence on how my entire family thinks and reacts to it.

I am working on quiet/alone time for my thoughts and working on keeping positive thoughts and songs and scriptures close to my heart to keep me moving forward...ahead of where I was before.

That's not to say I do not and will not worry about things; I am just slowing down so I can see clearly and really know what I am facing at that moment.

I know my mind can play the best of tricks on me and the last thing I want to do is to believe EVERYTHING that I think, because this is simply not true.

I am working on changing the way I look at the things around me and in my life; and you know what things are not what I thought them to be. Can something change overnight........or is it that maybe my vision was clouded and the view I had was impaired?

It is raining outside and it is a late hour for me, and even most night owls I know, so I am going to say Good Night!

Live for your dreams, Dream to live and most of all Live the Dream!

Love from me to you - Keep Dreaming.
~Breeze

It's Raining outside and boy is it GREEN!

Funny how you can be watching the rain just drizzle on down and feel so relaxed seeing the pitter patter hit the ground.
Then hours later you keep checking the basement to see if you hear the sump pump cranking out all the water that has managed to pour out of the sky in such a small period of time.
Local news sites have stated the rain was falling at an average of 4 inches an hour this afternoon and my back and front yards were proof of that. I suppose I could have jumped outside with my camera and snapped a shot or two, but the water has all but receded and it leveling off.

Some if not most of the main roads in town were or are closed right now due to high waters.
I knew it was gonna be bad when the kids got out of school and they were being escorted out 2 at a time with teachers and principal under umbrellas. The blacktop and parking spots were under water, but I was proud of the folks at Lutz Elementary for taking the extra time and energy for those scared little ones this afternoon.

Hubby is gonna be out of town tonight, due to a back log of work and a presidential run going through the area real soon. That is the prez of their company [CSX] not the USA prez.
So I am off to get the family room set up for a sleep over [that's what my daughter Marjke calls it when we sleep down stairs] and get dinner in their tummies.

Hope you are all well and are enjoying Springtime weather for all t's worth. The heat and humidity will be here soon and the kids will be home for the summer to remind us just how hot it is every 2 hours.

Happy Wednesday and Happy Spring to you all!

~Breeze

Family Life - Extended Family & Friends

It's funny how you hear the saying 'Can't live with them, can't live without them' and it's usually referring to a person of the opposite sex.

Well, in my case I guess it is pointing more towards my family from the day to day hub bub and talk going from family to family; to just feeling plain bad that you don't see them more often.

Maybe it is just a woman thing, maybe it's just a me thing -who knows.

I know after my mom died, my sis and I were talking every day and after a month or so and I would go a couple days without talking to her, I would really feel empty.

Was I using her to fill the hole in my heart, my day, from not seeing and talking to mom, I don't know -Maybe I was........is that really fair to her or me?

I know as you get older, you re-define things and define things you never needed to before and ultimately that leads to change.

I guess the best thing to do and what I have been doing, is to evaluate my life, my friends, my needs and how they all fit together.

I used to find myself *pining over people in my life, I mean I wanted to have a relationship with certain people because I felt we had soo much in common, and it would keep the common thread of family knit close. After many years of heart-ache and headaches, I finally decided there are just some people who were 'IN' my life, that were never going to be a 'PART' of my life.

I suppose the best thing to do is focus on those things that are important to me, my kids, my spiritual direction, happy marriage, and the rest will worry about itself.

I don't like to be busy just for the sake of needing to be busy; I like to be productive and that satisfies many needs for me.
I mean if I just start rummaging through things just because I am bored, or if I am looking for something and start tearing boxes out or yanking things out of drawers, I usually end up finding what I am looking for.
BUT, the mess I leave behind is annoying and I usually don't end up very happy with the ends result. That would be me sorting and cleaning and organizing things when I might not necessarily have the time or patience. & if I end up leaving it, well it usually only gets worse and the point of contention later on somehow.

Family -Immediate
Extended Family
Neighbors
Co-Workers
Friends
Acquaintances

They all have an effect on us - just how much depends on the value we place on them.

I need to figure for myself, who I allow to influence me, my choice in the end to see what/who governs my mind and life.

I gotta go - I need to go do some thinking and changing of the way I look at things and what I do.

Hope you all have a Great Day!!

~Breeze

*Pining: Defined as a feeling of deep longing.

& Life Goes On.....It Always Does!

So my oldest child is only 7 and I am having to deal with kids breaking up.

Not my own, but if you have an extended family like mine then you will know that nieces and nephews move from b/f or g/f and then back again at a regular rate anymore and well my family is no different.

I have soo many mixed feelings and have had them for a very long time about my children and their hearts. You might wonder what I am talking about, read on and you will see.

Some years ago I received a book called I Kissed Dating Goodbye, written by Joshua Harris. Of course my library is pretty diverse, and I haven't read each book. Some I have flipped thru, some half, and well I'm sure you get the picture.

While I did not read this one, I get the idea of it from reading the back of the book and now that my kids are getting older, I am going to have to get it read.

To give you an idea of it's contents, here is a review:

Amazon.com Review
While most Christians agree to seek purity and save sex for marriage, few have been given a blueprint for how that should affect their view of dating and love. In I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Joshua Harris exposes the "Seven Habits of Highly Defective Dating" and offers a realistic outline of how to have a biblical vision of marriage. Harris contends that one must begin with a new attitude, viewing love, purity, and singleness from God's perspective rather than thinking that love and romance are to be enjoyed "solely for recreation." In such well-named chapters as "Guarding Your Heart" and "What Matters at Fifty," Harris encourages the reader to look at one's character rather than reveling in infatuation, to regard love as a truly selfless, biblical act rather than a feeling. He refutes the concept that we are victims of "falling in love" (that it is beyond our control), saying that "God wants us to seek guidance from scriptural truth, not feeling. Smart love looks beyond personal desires and the gratification of the moment. It looks at the big picture: serving others and glorifying God." Before you roll your eyes, moaning that this sounds terribly unromantic, know that Harris does a superb job of couching his convictions in the sincere belief that if we are purposeful in our singleness and date with integrity, a fulfilled marriage awaits us--in God's timing. --Jill Heatherly --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title

Personally, I did not have to go through what most teenagers experience time and again every year in their lives and school careers. Most adults went through it all and think it 'NORMAL' that their kids go thru this phase just as they did.

I don't want my kids to experience things on a level kids today have grown to
accept as the norm. This is simply because it isn't and doesn't have to be accepted as such. I feel strongly about this, as I know this is going to shape them into a life I would rather they not live and shape them into people I would rather they weren't.

I always tell friends and family alike that anyone who wants to get to my son or daughter are going to have to go through me first.

& whoever will be close to my kids, close enough to even be considered for a permanent or semi-permanent place in their life is going to be like a member of our family first.

Most people let alone kids and young adults do not accept responsibility for their choices in life, and there is no sense of accountability for anything they say and do.
So why in the world am I going to just hand my kids over to another who will act and react in life without thought of repercussion or outcome further than 5 minutes from now.

I cannot even begin to demonstrate here with the many stories in the news about kids being cyber-bullies, or groups of teens corralling one child into a secluded area only to physically as well as emotionally scar them -forever.

Before I rant on and on, I will close with these thoughts.

If we do not protect our children from a society that wants to rape and pillage everything of value from them who will?

I do not accept that 'DATING' is the way to go, not for my kids anyway; my children will be given and shown to see many other things to do with their lives besides the roller-coaster most kids ride today.

There will be plenty of time after they find direction in life, for them to see that someone for them to share their life with is out there looking too. Kids deserve to be kids, enjoying life as only a child can.

Don't rush to grow up my child - I love you and will help you in anyway I can for as long as I am able.
~Love Always, Mommy