It’s War!

I noticed a couple of days ago that I was being host to some ants. The poor guys were just trying to keep dry... SO I set out some nice motels for them thinking they'd enjoy that. Hmmm, apparently they enjoyed it so much that while I gone they called 1,000,000,000 of their bestest friends. I came home to find a closely knit trail about 10 ants wide leading from my kitchen door to the recycling, then by the washing machine, the kitchen sink, across the kitchen, by the fridge, up the fridge, down the fridge, across the kitchen, up the cabinet, into the silverware drawer, out of the silverware drawer, down the cabinet, into the hallway, ALL THE WAY DOWN THE HALLWAY into the bathroom, onto my bathroom cabinet, off of the cabinet, under the scale, to the toilet, and back out into the hallway, across the kitchen, and out the door again. What I don't get is that there was no food for them anywhere, other than those godforsaken ant motels. I have become a total neat freak lately so the whole house is immaculate I have not used the motel thingies before but surely the point cannot be to bring all the ants in Indiana into my house and THEN kill them ("you will see fewer ants in about 1-2 weeks"). And by "fewer" we mean fewer than the population of China, but many, many more than were in your house and drove you to purchase Ant Motels in the first place. Whew. Basically, my house was filled with approximately a gadzillion bazillion trazillion ants... Just what I want to see after a spending all that money on ant motels. So I decided the heck with this Motel crap, I'm going postal. I pulled out a can of Ant Raid and sprayed everything. I lost my patience and started spraying Ant Killer everywhere). I had to wash every darn thing in the silverware drawer, which allowed me to notice that I have way too many spoons, and practically no knives. Where did all the knives go? I probably started out with a set of 8 spoons, 8 forks, and 8 knives. Well now I have 3 knives, 8 forks, and 18 spoons. WTF? Where are all these spoons coming from? Also, I had a bunch of those little drink umbrellas bought last summer in the hopes that I'd have a bunch of girlfriends who like drinks with umbrellas rather than a bunch of guy friends who drink beer. Well, you can't put pink umbrellas in beer and they were all covered in ants so I had to throw them away and now my fancy drink dreams are completely shattered.

This is a recycled post from last year.

The Old Man and the Shrimp

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier.. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts..and his bucket of shrimp.
Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.

Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank you. Thank you.'

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave.
He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place.
When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say. Or, 'a guy who's a sandwich shy of a picnic,' as my kids might say. To onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of
shrimp.
To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense.
Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters.
Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida . That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.
His full
name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a
famous hero back in World War II. On one of
his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his
seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of
the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and
climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By
the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No
water. They were hundreds of miles from land and
no one knew where they were.

They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the
raft.
Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull!
Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck.. He tore the feathers off, and he and his
starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines for
bait.. With it, they caught fish, which gave them
food and more bait......and the cycle continued.
With that simple survival technique, they were able to
endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and
rescued (after 24 days at sea...).

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull..And he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.
Reference: (MaxLucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp..221, 225-226)

PS: Eddie started Eastern Airlines.

Hooked up

gosh...I can't imagine life without internet. The World Wide Web has changed my life.....my computer is always on and am connected 24 x7 , 365 days ...well, that's no exaggeration ;)
Have you ever thought how life would be without these networking sites .... MySpace, face book, Twitter, etc???? yea?
A day without online chatting ? Well, that's all that's happening these days. Guess I need to get some immediate medical attention for this new disorder - internet addiction disorder. What you say? By the way tell me do we all spend too much time online? What do you think is the reason for this addiction? I think it's social interactions that is making it so addicting. I spend time with my friends exchanging information, support, and chit-chat . But then would we ever characterize any time spent in the real world with friends as "addicting?" Of course not. Don't we talk on the phone for hours on end, with people we see everyday ? Do we say they are addicted to the telephone? Of course not. People lose hours at a time, immersed in a book, ignoring friends and family, and often not even picking up the phone when it rings. Do we say they are addicted to the book? Of course not. So ...so ...guess there is no need to create all this hoopla about a new diagnosis.
I hope I can sort out this problem. enjoy your day :).

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest:
Each morning your bank would deposit $ 86,400.00 in your private account for your use. However, this prize had rules, just as any game has certain rules..

The first set of rules would be:
1. Everything that you didn’t spend during each day would be taken away from you.
2. You may not simply transfer money into some other account.
3. You may only spend it.

Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another $ 86,400.00 for that day.

The second set of rules:
The bank can end the game without warning; at any time it can say, “It’s over, the game is over!” It can close the account and you will not receive a new one.

What would you personally do?
You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right?

Not only for yourself, but for all people you love, right?



Even for people you don’t know, because you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself, right? You would try to spend every cent, and use it all, right?


ACTUALLY, THIS GAME IS REALITY!!

Each of us is in possession of such a “magical” bank.

We just can’t seem to see it.

THE MAGICAL BANK IS TIME!

Each awakening morning we receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us.

What we haven’t lived up that day is forever lost.

Yesterday is forever gone.

Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time…….

WITHOUT WARNING.


WELL, what will you do with your 86,400 seconds?


Aren’t they worth so much more than the same amount in dollars?

Think about that, and always think of this:

Enjoy every second of your life, because time races by so much quicker than you think.
So take care of yourself, and enjoy life!

Nonsense

*"If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"
*"Love is blind but marriage is a real eye-opener!"
*"A dog has an owner. A cat has a staff"
*"I'd like to have more self-esteem, but I don't deserve it!"
*"Red meat is not bad for you. Fuzzy green meat is."
*"Nothing is fool proof to a talented fool."
*"Bacteria - the back door of a cafeteria."
*"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."
*"Stressed spelled backwards is desserts."
*"As I said before, I never repeat myself."
*"Corduroy pillows: they're making headlines!"
*"Young at heart, slightly older in other places."
*(I'm) proof that evolution can go in reverse"
*"My reality check bounced"
*"If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?"
*"I hate people who steal my ideas before I think of them."
*"I was uncool before uncool was cool."
*"Middle age: When your age starts to show around your middle"
*"Do not disturb, I'm already disturbed."
* "If an open door is ajar, is an open jar adoor?"
* "March Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change."
* "Telepath Wanted: You know where to apply!"
* "The information went data way"
* "I'm bilingual - I speak English and SMACK!"
* "Mental floss prevents moral decay."
* "Why use a big word when a diminutive one will do?"
* "Why is abbreviation such a long word?"
* "I can see clearly now, the brain is gone."
* "Every morning is the dawn of a new error"

Sunrise

You Are Sunrise

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary.
You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward.
Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts.
All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.

You can take the quiz here