Menu for Success

Ok, we are going to talk about cooking. It's getting colder and many of us enjoy a hot bowl of chili on a cold winter day. I know that there are so many varieties of how all of us cook it. The west cook it different than the east and the south cook it different than the north. Some put beans in there chili, some don't. Some put a variety of pasta ~ and again some don't! Some families have passed down recipes for generations, others watch the cooking channel and think ~ hmmm, I think I'll get that recipe and try it sometime! For those of you who have something different that no one has - - or you think no one else makes it the way you do - - - send me your recipe; I'd like to try it! Then Jesus explained: " My nourishment comes from doing the will of God who sent me, and from finishing his work. Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us...

I had a peaceful walk around the lake this morning! The leaves are slowly changing, squirrels are preparing for their winter hibernation, and the temperature is gradually dropping as well! God is a Master Artist that amazes me daily! Everything he creates is Perfect in his sight, including you! What has God changed from Glory to Glory (little by little) in your life? Taking better care of your health? Increasing your Love walk? Or starting your child's day off with positive words of encouragement! Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. II Corinthians 3:17,18 (KJV)

Will you please try it this way just for once? Why do we resist trying something a different way or basically change? One is fear, the other is I want to be in control of what I am doing?  God did not give us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of a sound mind. II Timothy 1:7. When I was married, my husband kept buying used cars at $1500 or under; however, every one would need major work. In his mind, he was saving money. That is not true if you don't have the money in your savings or checking account to pay cash for the repairs ~ now is it? If you are getting a loan to purchase the car and then another loan for repairs; both loans set you back and most of the time, the cars or trucks did not outlast the loans. This is not a win-win situation! How do you overcome fear?  - You overcome it with faith as your shield to stop the fiery arrows aimed at you by Satan. So use every piece of God’s armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all ov...

I don’t know about you, but I can’t function in a messy, cluttered home. I am all bent out of shape . I become frustrated, irritable, and disoriented. Many of us can organize something; it’s just what we make up our minds to organize. It’s easy to say, “I’ll take care of it later”! Six months have gone by and that “ I’ll take care of it later ”, is still there. Check out how you respond when you walk into that cluttered room. As soon as you walk into that room, immediately your mood changes and it’s not a good mood either ! Chaos emerges, dissatisfaction emerges, and blame emerges, should I go on? All of this negative energy keeps peace from emerging! Think about it ~ Where did I put those keys? After a short time of searching; you can’t find them. Now you’re mad, frustrated, LATE for wherever it is you are going and the most widely used one, it’s all your fault, you had them last! Does that sound like a peaceful environment? Clean out the clutter and only then can y...

Wow, did anybody else think this week went fast or is it just me? When we do what we enjoy, time goes at the same pace it always does. However, because we are what we call, "Living a life full of passion and joy", we are not fighting against the universe  Swimming up stream daily wears us down, we get tired, but continue to do it. At the end of the week, we are drained, moody and just plain tired. Yep! I know because I have swam upstream in my life many times and when Friday came, I celebrated on the couch with the remote. What a life (big smile)!  How about it, when we do something we enjoy, we don't notice the time and we don't tire easily doing it. In addition, we find creative ways to increase in every area of our life! What is your passion? But whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God, the Creator of all light, and he shines forever without change or shadow. And it was a happy day for him when he gave us our new lives, through the truth of his Word...

Seriously, SERIOUSLY! How did this happen. I was driving down the road…..of course, I was in bumper to bumper traffic; however, I was not speeding. I looked up and saw that I was getting close to the vehicle in front of me, but I kept hitting the breaks, but the car would not stop. Yep, I rear ended her. “Oh man”, I said. We both got out, checked the damage, and since her car did not suffer any damage, she wanted to leave. I convinced her to stay so we could get a police report for insurance reasons. When the police arrived, she was inpatient, but she stayed until he was done questioning her and she took off. Well, it was my turn. Pretty much, the car, a 1998 Mazda Protégé was totaled - - - -new tires and all. I hit her tow hitch that saved her car, but tore mine up. The cost to fix it was more than the estimated value. Yes, I hung my head low! No money, I was off work on medical leave, and no possibility of receiving temporary disability; because I was working for a temp agen...

Why do we think we are super women? I'll tell you what I did this afternoon. My daughter was at her in-laws and  I was waiting for her to come and pick me up and take me to the library. Well an hour had passed, so I decided to walk the two and a half miles ----maybe more ----- with my bag loaded down with two bibles, a folder full of paper, a bottle of water, a library book, and my computer. Doesn't sound like much, but before I got downstairs, my shoulder started to hurt....so what did I do? I ignored it and continued to walk out the door and cross the four lane highway anyway! I didn't get far ~ I remembered that when Jesus told the disciples to go and preach the good news, He said take nothing with you that will slow you down. I laughed to myself and immediately turned around, crossed the highway, and went back the 200 feet to the condo. Go ahead and laugh ~ it's funny! If you could of seen me, I looked like a comedy show! When I reached the second floor of t...

The strategy of the game, if you are able, is to land on an available property, purchase it and if anyone lands on your purchased property during the game, they have to pay you the fee indicated on the card. I never did understand the monopoly game as a child. Me and my siblings would sit and play that game for hours during a cold winter day!  - - -Which made our Mother happy, because there are five of us! I know the word monopoly means exclusive control, and our oldest brother always somehow purchased the avenues and hotels that allowed him to collect the highest fees from us - - - we would be so frustrated because, most of the time, we could not gain enough money to stay in the game. And of course landing in jail did not help either; because to get out, you have to pay a fee to continue the game. Those detours~ UGH! As the game progressed, all of us had purchased something that would allow us to increase our bank account; however, many times, it wasn’t enough to win ...

Yesterday was such a beautiful day and since we are approaching the month of October, we know the cold weather is coming soon.....so why stay in. My two year old grandson loves to be outdoors and he wanted to go walking! Why not, "I said!" Here is a picture of him on his tricycle in their driveway! Thank you, I do agree he's a cutie! Well they live sort of in a woodsy area that to get there you travel down a small incline and then up a steep one! Whew Wee! Imagine walking up and down that three times in one day with a two year old. I'm not sure if he's sore today, but I am ! Whereas; my body needs it. Yes, ladies as I have mentioned before our body is a temple and if we deprive our body of the good things it needs....proper nutrition, exercise, plenty of rest, and good laughter, it will decay! No exercise is not enjoyable; however, to live a quality of life, we need to exercise! I have researched over the years that any excess weight we carry in our bo...

 #5 - Aspiration - the realization of an idea; goal I am currently sitting at my son and finance's house and just happened to get up to throw away a napkin and noticed out of the kitchen window a deer. Oh Wow! Another one of God's sights that just takes your breath away to see up close.  It has been a week of amazing sights this week at their house; whereas, Clifty Falls State Park is just a stone throw away from it. I have seen, the biggest woodpecker in my life, a variety of birds in all shapes, sizes and colors, and of course things not so pleasant to me; such as bees, mosquitoes, and flys. However, they all have a purpose for being here and a mission to accomplish to keep the earth balanced! God's wonderful creations makes you marvel at what a wonderful artist He is. We also have to remember we are His creations also ~ in which, he marvels at how fabulous we are created! So I know you are wondering what does this have to with aspiration ?  ~~ When we ar...

Are we really entitled to anything ? Yes we do have the spirit of entitlement. It is easy to look at others and see what is wrong with them; however, we do not take a good look at ourselves.... nor do we want to admit to ourselves either, we have many faults also!   In Mark7:1,2 (TLB) it says, "Don't criticize and you won't be criticized yourself. Why worry about a speck in someone else's eyes, when you have a board in your own". We do have a right, by choice, to live a blessed life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; which is the Fruit of the Spirit! Wow, seems like a lot; however, we thrive on impure thoughts, jealousy, selfishness, conflict, complaining, criticism, anger, and injustice.......which leads to a life filled with severe dysfunction! I have heard it's "hard" more than I want to for someone to think positive. REALLY? It's not hard it's our own selfish motive........b...

"Oh man, not a flat tire, in the middle of the night, on the highway, with a van full of sleeping children, my Mother and sister-in law", I said out loud. We were on our way back to my home town from Indianapolis where we had attended a birthday party. Without notice, (well all flats are without notice), the van began to wobble, as any vehicle will do with a flat tire.... .you talk about the blues!  I had seen tires being changed many times; whereas, my Grandfather was a mechanic. However, I had never physically changed one. "What were we going to do now", I thought. I was the only one awake, so immediately I put the flashers on and pulled over on the shoulder of the road as far as I could get so as not to be too close to oncoming traffic.Once the van was pulled over, my Mother and sister-in-law woke up and asked what was wrong. Of course, no one wants to hear you have a flat tire at 1:00 am in the morning......so they were not happy at all either. Well i...

You are given $100; however, you cannot keep it. You have to give it away to a charity or a person. Who would you give it to and why?  This is a question that the students I was substituting for was given to journal. Almost all of the students argued that $100 was not enough money to give to anybody. "Hmmmm", I said. You can do quite a bit with $100  - - - - - -  Our Sunday School class did it with pennies! "How", the students asked. All of the Sunday school classes were informed that it doesn't take much to give to others and if they would begin to bring in pennies, we would be able to give back to those in need. The first year, they gathered enough pennies to provide a Turkey dinner and the roaster to cook it in for a family of five. In addition to providing clothing for a child at Christmas. Each year the giving of pennies grew; whereas, the giving to others in the community grew as well. So if they can do it with pennies, you can do it with $100. Wh...

Our Mother was to have a procedure done while at a Louisville Hospital; however during the prep time and other test, her blood pressure elevated and would not go down. They moved her to ICU and we asked if we could come with her. When we got to the ICU unit, the blood pressure was still way too high! "Hit it again", as she reset the blood pressure monitor! It's still too high! "Hit it again!" Once again she reset the blood pressure monitor. The nurse kept resetting the blood pressure monitor, until, FINALLY, it began to drop after more than three times of shooting the medicine in her veins through an IV. Thank God, was our reaction and the nurses. It stayed down after that due to the nurses quick reaction. Hallujah! When this happened, Mom was hospitalized to have angioplasty surgery about a month after she retired from work over ten years ago; however, after the doctors viewed the vein the clog was in, they decided the procedure would be too dangerous. The ...

Having babies was not something easy for me. Of course, carrying them was wonderful! Whereas, delivery was scary. I hemorrhaged with my son that could have led to the loss of both of us. The doctor told me not to have any more children ~it would not be beneficial. Well I went against his wishes and had my daughter close to three years later. No, it was not easier or better. In fact it was the same. The only difference was, when our daughter was born, the doctor requested I didn't get up until I felt like it. Against the doctor's orders, an LPN insisted I was fine and told me she was going to get me up to walk. I said, "I do not feel good"! Well she got me up anyway and immediately I started to hemorrhage. She did not yell but screamed to the nurses to get in my room QUICK! YES, she did get reprimanded! The next day, a doctor and a team of surgery nurses came in to my room, woke me up and said, "You are going to surgery"! "For what", I ask...

My daughter started running to lose weight and decided she liked it so much, that she would like to begin training for a marathon. I looked at her and said, "I'm am not interested in running a marathon, at all "! She laughed and said, "Why not? You used to run track in high school". "Yep", I said. But I don't like running that much to train for a marathon. I can discipline myself to lose weight, eat properly and other things; but running a marathon has never been on one of my list of things to do! Nope not at all!!      WHOA, whose idea was it to make this sandwich that big?  Believe it or not, this sandwich is actually healthy and "ok" to eat, just how are you going to eat it in bite sizes? It takes more than dedication, training, and eating properly,. It also takes a will to want to! Many marathon runners very seldom run the marathon for fitness; which is not my daughter's motivation to do it. But, people run the marath...

# 4 Discipline - train: punishment to correct poor behavior Already the majority of us who are reading this blog has some recollection of being punished for something we knew was wrong. And we can also recall how uncomfortable the punishment was at the time too! I had a co-worker who told me a wonderful story about her cousin, who became pregnant in high school (not sure how old she was at the time). I'm guessing this was in the early to middle 70's era as well! When the young lady delivered the baby, she told her cousin how she thought her Mother would help her out with the baby and on occasion give her a break to sleep in, get the baby up so she could get ready for school, and other assistance she needed to care for the baby. To this young lady's surprise, her Mother would wake her up about an hour before she normally got up to go to school so she could get the baby up, ready and fed before the baby went to a babysitter. When she got home from school, her Mother w...

We all have the spirit of intuition and women have it by nature. It's a gift that God has given us when we are privy to it! I was a little girl and I overheard my Mother telling one of her friends how we were going to a family picnic and she kept having this feeling that she needed to sit down and not get ready yet. Of course all five of us children were ready, our Father was ready, and the food she was taking was ready and packed up. My parents below  ~ years ago! (Beautiful couple - don't you agree :) ?) She went on to tell her friend that her Husband kept getting frustrated with her and finally said in a stern voice, "Will you come on here, we are ready to go"! She responded back and said, "For some reason, I just can't get ready. Give me a just few more minutes and I"ll be ready to go".  When the feeling subsided, she got dressed, loaded up the car ~with five kids and the food, and started to the area where the family picnic was bein...

I do not own the Rights to this photo  I know we all have our favorite chewing gum that we like to chew and mine is Extra. I like this gum because  my jaws do not get tired chewing it  aannnddd the flavor last a long time.(chuckle chuckle) It's just good to me in all actuality! (SMILE) And my favorite flavor is peppermint! Yep! However, that is not what I find interesting about the gum. If you will glance at the picture on your left, notice the row the gum is standing up in. To us, it's the middle row, however, when any one grabs the gum, it's the easiest access to the gum and the quickest.........RIGHT?........right!! I have been buying this gum for YEEAAAARRS and just yesterday, I went to grab a piece of gum and grabbed the last middle piece! Wow! I just realized out of habit and easy access, until that row is empty, I kept grabbing from that row. Why not the left row first or the right row first?. Is it because it will take a little more effort to reach for th...

Ummm just the other day, when I decided to get back into my walking after my severe allergy mishap, I happened to look down and saw the cutest little lime green caterpillar. Of course I stopped to view it, and when I did, it stopped moving across the sidewalk as well to take a look at me. Ooohhhh I said, that is so neat! Then when I stopped staring, he/she decided to move right along to where ever it was going! I guess he/she was saying, if you are curious about what I'm doing, I;m going to be curious about what you are doing too (SO CUTE) God is so full of wonders and wonderful Blessings! So naturally, I had to look up what it meant, because I very seldom see caterpillars on my walks. Many of us learn in school that caterpillars make cocoons and then transform into beautiful butterflies, but I wanted to look up information about them any way and this is a brief FYI of what Janie wrote about in 2012 (If you want to read the entire article, go to http://www.finding-the-peace.com...

Over eighteen years ago, God gave me the knowledge to create a flyer ~ and to this day I am not sure how I created it. I know the knowledge came from God because when I went to go to the computer to re-design it instead of scan it in, I could not figure it out! Hmmmm I was a computer tech when it was designed and had the ability to figure out the ins and outs of creating a custom flyer as the one you will see shortly. But today, the knowledge is not there. It's amazing how God gives us the gifts we need at the time it is necessary to do it! ~ I know, I got off the path a little bit ~well back to the flyer and the message God wants us to receive. The message the flyer is portraying is so profound that I became ecstatic when in all of the wonderful creations from years gone by, I found this. OH WOW ~ was my initial reaction and then I ask myself, " What is it God wants me to do with this"? Obviously , there was work to do within me over the eighteen years to understa...

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend. It was a relaxing one for me. Since I am an empty nester, my sister and I took a road trip to visit our parents for the day. Appetizer #3 - Knowledge - the total or range of what has been perceived or learned. As I sit here at the library thanking God for the knowledge he has given me to utilize it for any thing I want to learn about, I marvel at how many of us do not utilize it as much as we should. There is a wealth of knowledge and resources in the library such as exercise tapes, music Cd's, and you can even rent pictures to hang in your house from local and national artist for a month or so; if they are available and if you seek it~~~ I'm not sure if the library still allows anyone to check out pictures anymore, however, the small town I am from allowed library card holders to do so.                                       ...