Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

"One is Evil - It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other is Good - It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Thank you to my brother Patrick for sharing this with me.

Join Shaklee for Free!

Now through Jan. 16, 2010 give the gift of health and prosperity this holiday season with Join Free with 50 PV!

For a limited time, we're waiving the $19.95 fee for new Members who join with a 50 PV order. Take advantage of this great offer today!

For more information visit Join Shaklee

Hurry, Join Free with 50 PV ends Jan. 16, 2010.

The Christmas Pagent

This was sent to me via an email.
I wish I knew who wrote this as they definitely deserve credit for this hilarious story that I am willing to bet is true!


My husband and I had been happily married (most of the time) for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby. I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with His word as my guide.

God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son.The next year God blessed us with another son.The following year, He blessed us with yet another son.

The year after that we were blessed with a daughter. My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old. I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me,"If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella."

I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn't want to disappoint Him.

I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks.

I tried to be understanding...when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs .

When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.

In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.

While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother - I didn't even come close... I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God. I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to worship God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus, too.

Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."

My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant.

My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man.This was their moment to shine.

My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes."
My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes."

A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.

I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama."

Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived.

My other son stepped forward wearing a bath robe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur."

The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.

"I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes. "For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur."

"My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.

Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.
Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.
Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.
Had no army, yet kings feared Him.
He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.
He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today.

I Have Been Very Busy....

I don't believe in human cloning..... except for myself.
I have been so busy that I have let my blog slide. I apologize for that.
So, I just may share some things that have been passed on to me I hope you enjoy.
Merry Christmas everyone!

I Have Been Christened Into Motherhood Today

This morning my son decided it was time to baptize me into motherhood. He got sick all over his bedroom carpet and me. Actually he got sick three times. A more experienced mother probably would have reacted quicker, but they came so fast and I was just stunned. He had never become sick before and I felt lucky. Guess my luck finally ran out. He made it to almost 22 months. Is that a record? Do we win a prize?

I guess my prize was the hug he gave me afterwards. I believe he was surprised, too. When he saw me and my shocked face he just burst into tears. Poor little guy. I did my best to console him and tell him it was alright. He was hit with a lot of shrapnel and I was only winged a few places, but I couldn’t deny his hug as he definitely needed consoling. So I went from only being winged to being mortally wounded with it – it was now in my hair from his hug around my neck. Oh well.

I was then faced with a terrible dilemma. Who changes their clothes first? If I changed him first, how was I going to do that without transferring it back to him as I dressed him? If I changed first, I knew he would follow me from room to room depositing it everywhere. I quickly decided to strip us both down to our skivvies and then clean and dress him first, then me. Since I know I needed to do the clean up in Aisle 3 first before showering, I would sacrifice another outfit to do so. We were all out of Bio Suits, so I relinquished to the fact that my sweats would have to be the ones to sacrifice themselves to the task.

After carefully piling the turned inside out clothes on top of one another I began the long, tedious task of cleaning up the toxic spill. All the while I was being watched by the manager. He seemed quite interested in the task and was eager to “help”. Though I appreciate his supervision and attempts to improve my technique at cleaning, I felt I could handle the job better alone and encouraged him to watch the cartoons. Thank you “Super Why” & “Sid the Science Kid”!

Later after talking with my husband, we discovered that we both gave him a double dose of milk this morning with breakfast and to top it off, the milk might have been a little too old. Oops. Big mistake. Mix that with him getting upset with me over clipping his nails, which he hates, and you have a perfect recipe for an incident that is definitely appetite reducing.

Though it wasn’t the start of the day that I had planned, it is just another episode of motherhood that I’m sure I’ll look back and laugh at. How long do you have to wait till you can laugh at episodes like these?

Adventures In Child Portraits

Have you ever taken a small child to get their picture taken? Well, I did for the first time and I must say it was an adventure. I have never been to a portrait studio before. Well, not as an adult anyway. I know I have been in one because there are a few pictures of me as a child that look professional, but I have no recollection of it nor do I remember any stories from my mom about the difficulty in getting just the right shot. Let alone how hard it is just getting to the studio.

It started off like any other typical morning, but as we were getting ready to put our coats on to leave for the studio, I heard that dreaded sound of a child running, then falling, the crash sound the fall made, and then the high pitched scream of the little guy who hit his head hard on the corner of the door. When I ran in to get him I could see the “goose egg” already starting to form on his forehead. “Oh, no! I can’t believe this is happening”, I thought to myself. I was concerned mostly with his injury, but as I picked him up to console him I couldn’t help but think about the pictures we were scheduled to have taken. As I applied ice and watched the clock, I contemplated re-scheduling, but if I did that, then the pictures we wanted to give as gifts may not be ready in time.

After applying ice for 10 minutes and checking pupils a dozen times I convinced myself he was OK to go. Though I knew his head hurt I thought that the worst was over. Gee, that was naive of me. When I went to put his coat on the zipper got stuck and jammed. This seemed to be of great concern to my son and the more he squirmed and fought me, the hotter he got. The hotter he got, the more aggravated he got. The more aggravated he got, the more he cried. Ever try and get a zipper unstuck on a crying, squirming toddler? It can be ugly. I only pray my son doesn’t repeat at Grandma’s my under the breath comments that were made to the zipper.

Finally, the zipper gave in to my threats and decided to release my son and myself from its tortures grip. Then of course after making it to the door, my son decided he was thirsty. Since we live in a split level, we had to tromp back up the stairs to get a drink. This was good in a way as I had forgotten to pick up my keys, the gift certificate I had for the portraits, a comb for his hair and I had also remembered I needed to reload. Now when I say “reload” I don’t mean the reloading of a revolver, I mean reloading my purse with a baggie of Cheerios for those emergency melt downs. I had used all my previous reserves on last night’s chiropractic appointments. My husband and I both had decided to go see the chiropractor at the same time. What were we thinking?!

So after a few more minutes of chaos, I was ready to walk out the door. However, my son had decided that he now wanted to play with his cars. So my choice of timing to leave did not agree with him. There is nothing heavier than a screaming toddler that throws his head back and arches his back while you try and hold him with one arm, your purse in the other and get out the door and into the car. No wonder I have to see the chiropractor so often.

Now for the getting into the car. Pretty easy, right? Wrong. With my little car, there is barely enough room for the car seat and only enough headroom for an elf. So what do I do? I accidentally hit his head on the door frame when trying to get his still screaming, rigid body into the car seat. This of course causes the screaming to reach new levels. Of course the neighbors conveniently also seem to be leaving their homes at the same time and manage to see the abuse going on. I hear them mumbling their silent prayers for my son.

Did I mention it was very cold, raining and the wind was blowing? Of course it was, fate wouldn’t have it any other way. Once he was in the car seat, I somehow managed to get the straps around him and his thick winter coat. No easy feat even when he wants to ride in his seat. I guess the neighbors’ prayers did work after all.

I got in and took a deep breath. I asked myself, “Do I really want a picture of this child?” My answer was, “Yes, even with all this I still love him and want a nice photo to hang on my wall and to share with family.” So off we went. I said a prayer to help us at least get there without any more mishaps. God must have taken pity on me, because believe it or not the ride was smooth. We even found a parking spot on the ground floor of the mall’s garage near the door! Wow! Got to love those prayers!

Once inside the mall, my son forgot all about his troubles. He pointed and smiled at all the Christmas decorations. We went right up to the portrait studio and we were taken in to their room right away. The people who do that for a living have to be medicated. How else can they take a child who does not want their picture taken, who refuses to sit where and how they want and put up with parents expecting their child to look like the ones on the demo pictures out front? Whatever it is they are paying them, it isn’t enough. You’d never know that in every shot, I’m only about six inches away.

Actually my son did quite well on his first time and the pictures came out pretty good. I managed to hide the bump on his head with is hair, though the close up showed puffy eyes from the crying. The picture lady, in an effort to either be nice or sell pictures tried to tell me it wasn’t that noticeable, but you couldn’t help but notice, one eye was puffier than the other. I asked to see the other poses. In fact I asked to see the other poses a thousand times over. I couldn’t decide. I found myself apologizing for taking so long. This allowed her the opportunity to jump in and try to sell me their premium package.

Have you ever seen the prices on these packages? I could buy a decent running car for that! Why would I want to spend that kind of money on a puffy eyed picture? I told her to keep going. Package after package kept going by. It started out with me, out of politeness, to let her explain the package and all you get with it, to asking what the price was first and saying, “Nope”, “Too expensive”, “Not in my budget”, to “You’ve got to be kidding”. This was of course after my son had tore through my Cheerios stash, dropped his toy car out of the stroller a thousand times, begged to get up out of the stroller, begged for a drink, begged for me to hold him then begged to get down a hundred times and then ran his stroller into every shelf, wall, and chair they had. After him nearly running over a little girl, I finally asked if they had anything for the budget minded parent.

Once I settled on a package I ordered my prints. Of course now that I’m home, I wished I had ordered more of the wallet sizes to give out. So to my family, I apologize if you don’t get a photo. I’ll email you ones taken from home. They are probably better anyway though they won’t have that puffy eye look. The next picture you see of me though, will be one with the tall drink in my hand because after we left the studio I decided to go get his picture taken with Santa……..

Extortion Ware

I just wanted to let you know about the nasty virus out there that we unfortunately caught on our computer.

Thanks to my nephew, he was able to help me via phone remove the virus, uninstall my antivirus software that didn’t protect me and download Microsoft’s security measures. It was a long process, but I feel very grateful to him for helping me at such a late hour.

This virus called, Extortion Ware. It is a fake anti-virus software. Apparently how it works is when you click on a website that is infected, it gets into your computer. Keep in mind that the site you visited that was affected was not the website’s fault. They were a victim as well. Even well know websites like CNN was infected. We were just visiting a site that is a legitimate site and I’m sure they are unaware of the virus hitching a ride on their site.

The virus then causes a pop up with a warning that looks like it is from Microsoft. Even the emblem looks very similar to Microsoft. It tells you that the page or file you are looking at is a threat and you must click here to activate your antivirus to protect yourself. If you click on it, thinking you are activating the antivirus program you already have or that it is Microsoft telling you to let them get rid of it for you, it gets into your computer and holds it hostage. It then tells you that you have to buy this extra protection to have it removed. If you click no, then porn sites start popping up everytime you try and access the Internet or it just won’t let you on at all. I guess they do this to scare you into buying their program. Of course, warnings keep popping up for you to let them protect your computer against this attack.

Nice isn’t it? They infect your computer with a virus, then tell you that you must purchase the “fix” for it. Hence the extortion name.

The name came up on my computer was called, Antivirus Pro, so look out for that, but there may be other names.

The fix was easy once found. Apparently the virus resets your Lan settings so that the proxy server boxes get checked. This allows them to dictate what you can and cannot access on the Internet.

We corrected that buy going to our Internet page (no need to be online) hit Tools, Internet options, Connections, LAN settings, unchecking all the boxes and saving. This was done in safe mode.

We then ran a scan to seek out and remove the infected files. I then removed the anti virus software that didn't protect me and downloaded Microsoft's security essentials. This process may or may not work on your computer depending on how it is infected. It was a long process, but worth it. My nephew is a lifesaver for sure!

These people who write these viruses and execute them puzzle me. They are so talented, it's just such a waste of a good life. They think that their greed and money they get from hurting other people will make them happy, but in reality if they use their powers for good instead of evil they would actually be even more happier and more successful!

Life As A Car Girl – The Early Years

This is the second story of this series. To read the first story see,
Life As A Car Girl – I Was Born Loving Cars

Upon entering school I was already playing with the same toys boys did. This became most evident during show and tell. For show and tell I would rather bring a live animal, but since bringing live animals to school was discouraged, I often brought one of my toy cars. If a teacher asked if there were any dolls at home I could bring, she was always met with a bewildered look. The girls seemed to be confused at my choice and would make fun of me, but the boys always approved and often would ask to play cars with me.

Horses were a large part of my life and just the sight of a horse would make me stop dead in my tracks. That is a whole other story. But always in the background were cars and the roar of a loud motor passing by made me look with wide eyed wonder.

My HotWheels and Matchbox’s were well worn. Though I played with them virtually everyday, I never abused them. I did play with them outside, but never in the mud. If they got too dirty, they got a bath. I guess that was the girl in me.

I loved to take things apart to see how they worked and begged for someone to teach me how to put things together and answer all my inquisitive questions. Most of the time however, no one would. Being a girl at that time meant no one took my love of cars and mechanical things seriously.

Many men recall how as boys they took everything apart – radios, drills, electronic toys, etc. I too, started to do that until caught one day and was harshly punished for it. The threat of not fixing or replacing whatever I took apart on top of the harsh punishment I was to receive was enough to squash the learning on my own activities. They couldn’t squash my love of speed though. Bikes, skates, big wheels, wagons, you name it, I had to be the fastest. If only we had those Power Wheels back then.

Here is an example of my love of speed. A story from when I was young:

We lived on a street that had a very long, steep hill. At the bottom of the hill, both the street and the sidewalk made a 90° turn to the left. Since we weren’t allowed to play in the street, we had to learn to navigate this hill and that sharp turn at a high rate of speed. To top it off, at the bottom of the hill, right at the turn, lived a mean old lady. (Doesn’t every neighborhood have a mean old person living in it?) All of us kids were terrified of her. We were not allowed to step foot in her yard. She was so mean that just the sight of her coming out onto her porch to yell at us made us all scatter like a herd of gazelles. Her yard, being at the bottom of this hill made us experts at handling high speed turns though. You see, being able to handle that sharp turn at high speed was not only cool, to us kids it was a matter of pure survival!. We knew if that mean old lady ever caught us we would never be seen or heard from again! The thrill of it all made it worth it though.

Picture this, if you will. With our big wheels in hand, we made the push up the long, steep hill. (How I long for that cardiovascular strength today!) Upon reaching the top, we would wait for a car to come driving into the neighborhood. You had to have a car to race against down the hill!
Upon seeing a car heading our way we would begin our running push. When the car reached a certain point in the road, like a crack in the pavement to start the “race”, we’d hop on and begin madly pedaling till our feet couldn’t keep up with the spinning pedals. We would then kick our feet out and begin the mad dash down the hill and the harrowing left hand turn at the bottom. The big wheels that had the hand brake were required if you ever hoped to make the turn without spinning out in the mean lady’s yard.

Though I didn’t understand the concept of aerodynamics back then, I did figure out that I went a little faster if I tucked my head down and kept my legs closer to the center rather than have them sticking straight out to the sides. This technique along with my fast sprint at the top allowed me to be one of the very few (and only girl) to be able to beat most of the cars to the bottom of the hill! Keep in mind, this was quite an accomplishment, to ride a big wheel averaging 15-20 mph. My older brothers still remark to this day what an amazing feat that was. Seeing their 5-6 year old little sister flying down the hill on my big wheel with my long hair flying behind me, my feet sticking out, the pedals spinning so fast they were just a blur, then being able to make that amazing turn was a sight to see they say. It was a skill that would amaze everyone who saw it and made our mothers gasp in horror. As a kid, I didn’t understand why my mom would get so upset. As a mom, I now understand, but it was still cool!

My son is showing the early signs of a love of speed, being a daredevil and having a curious nature of how things work. I guess he comes by it honestly since both his father and I were like this as kids and still are. I hope I can learn to be the kind of mother that encourages this adventurous and curious behavior while at the same time keeping him safe. I just don’t know yet how to do this without trips to the emergency room and everything from the toaster to the computer ending up being taken apart! I may get mad if one day I find the appliances in pieces and a little screwdriver in his hand, but I won’t punish him like I was. Though I may love my toaster oven, I love him more and I will want to encourage his curious nature. Even if it means having to buy a new toaster!