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A real incentive to de-stress!

You read a lot about the high price you pay for worrying and stress. Jesus tells us not to worry: "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6)

Dale Carnegie reminds us in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: "Remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worry in terms of your health. Those who do not know how to fight worry die young."

This has been a stressful year for me! My job has been nerve wracking. It hit me the other day how bad it's been when I noticed two frownie wrinkles on my forehead. These are wrinkles that are so deep, they will probably never go away. It was a true wake up call!

Someone should write a book: Worrying Gives you Wrinkles. Women would really latch on to that one!

A tip when taking an eye exam

Eye exams can be so frustrating, especially the part where they flip lenses and ask you to say which view is clearer. It seems that both are blurry, just in a slightly different way. I was fed up last time, almost in tears, because this was the exam right before my LASIK surgery, and if it ever needed to count, this exam was it!

The nurse finally gave me the revelation to simply focus on one letter in the row of letters. Wow! It makes it so much easier to distinguish the clearer view! If I'd only known this in 5th grade when I got my first pair of glasses.

I got a quick eye exam today, just because I hadn't had one since the LASIK surgery 2 and a half years ago, and it was probably the quickest, least frustrating eye exam I've ever taken!

First Gold Goes to US!

Wow, it was fun watching Michael Phelps with the first Gold medal! I was stunned when he popped out of the water after winning and he wasn't even breathing hard! Amazing. Makes me want to swim more for just because it's such a healthy sport.

It was a little disconcerting, however, during the awards ceremony on the podium when he was chatting with teammate Lochte who won the bronze. Is that protocol? Just not sure; it was probably just nervous excitement.

Definitely Maybe

I watched Definitely Maybe this afternoon on tv. Cute movie with Abigail Breslin and her on-screen father who is going through a divorce. She drills him in a loving way on his past relationships in an effort to solve the mystery of who her mother is. (I guess the dad got custody of her when she was a baby? The movie didn't say.) The dad tried hard at relationships, but they just didn't work out for him. His girlfriends had their faults too. All the daughter wants is for her dad to be happy, to find out who her mother is, and to see if mom and dad can reconcile. You can guess the ending... but which girlfriend will it be?

I'll recommend it just for Abigail Breslin! She's so adorable.

Disgusting!

I just read an article in the NYT that describes the new Waterboard Thrill Ride at Coney Island. It's actually more of a show that depicts two robots, one pouring water on the other to evoke the waterboarding torture that has been used at Guatanamo. It's supposed to make us realize how awful that form of torture is. Here's the full story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/arts/design/06wate.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=arts

Well, I'll tell you what awful is: how about scared humans beings on the top floors of the World Trade Center having to decide whether to die by fire or to die by jumping out the window? If Coney lsland wanted to evoke torture, they should have built a show depicting that scene!

Disgusting!

The Lieutenant's Lady

Thanks to my friend Sue's blog, who lists books in her library, I discovered a Bess Streeter Aldrich book that I hadn't read: The Lieutenant's Lady, so I ordered it as fast as I could from Amazon! It was a good book, not my favorite of Bess, however, but even a good book of hers is far superior to most of the garbage that comes out today. Miss Bishop is my favorite book of Bess Streeter Aldrich. I owe a big thanks to my sister-in-law Ellen who introduced me to Aldrich, and my other favorite author, Jamie Langsdon Turner.

Ok, back to the book at hand: The Lieutenant's Lady is about a young lady in the late 1860's who is compelled to travel way upstream the Missouri River into dangerous and  Indian-occupied land simply to tell a lieutenant in the army that her flighty cousin has dumped him! You can imagine the love story that ensues. However, it's a love story that begins in a very rocky and even harsh way. I honestly didn't know how it would end until the last page of the book!

I'm glad I discovered it! Thanks Ellen and Sue!

She has my mother's smile!

We saw my niece and nephew today for the first time since Christmas! I was amazed at how much my niece's smile reminds me of Mama's smile!

Here's everybody!

The Braves lost, but who cares?

What a sweet little child of God

This little girl is destined for great things!

A visual of just how far God will go (has gone!) for us

You gotta check this video out. A fellow at work showed it to me today. The story is that the son has cerebral palsy and the father wants him to experience all the things in life that a healthy person experiences. The father pushed the son's wheelchair the entire length of a marathon; it exhilarated the son so much that the father had to do something even bigger! 

It's about the boundless love that a father has for his son. And it's a good indication of the love that God has for us! He knows no limits!