Woman – Hazardous Material

Good New Years Eve friends. Hope you are safe and warm. In cleaning out my spare room to turn it into an office/writing room, I ran across some old books and papers I have not seen in a very long time. I wanted to share one that I found that, as a woman myself, made me chuckle and hope it brings you a smile for then end of this… “interesting” … year. I do not know where it came from but it was tucked in the quality control papers from my management position down in Alabama and fit the types of papers we dealt with assuring safety and quality within the automotive industry. It is titled “!!Hazardous Materials Data Sheet!!” Enjoy the chuckle with me.

Element : Woman

Discoverer: Adam

Atomic Mass: Accepted as 55kg but known to vary from 45kg to 225kg

Physical Properties:

Body surface normally covered with film of powder and paint.
Boils at absolutely nothing – freezes for no apparent reason.
Found in various grades ranging from virgin martial to common ore.

Chemical Properties:

Reacts well to gold, platinum and precious stones.
Explodes spontaneously without reason or warning.
The most powerful money reducing agent known to man.

Common Use:

Highly ornamental, especially in sports cars.
Can greatly aid relaxation.
Can be a very effective cleaning agent.

Hazards:

Turns green when placed alongside a superior specimen.
Possession of more than one is possible but specimens must never know of other possessions or make sys contact.

In reality, all women must understand their great value to all of mankind. While we can be possessive creatures, when it get down to brass tacks, we really want the best for everybody. So women – stay pure and beautiful as God made you and remember beauty is not always on the outside. Inner beauty always carries more power, courage and resolve…regardless of gender.

Have a very good new year and remember always to be kind.

At the End, It is a First

Hello friends. Crazy title for a post isn’t it, but that is what December has been like here in Iowa. We had crazy record breaking highs in the 70s combined with February cold in the teens. No wonder people are running around with the sniffles. But today is the first snow for December. It wont last. It will turn to rain by lunch but it is a sign of what is to come. This coming weekend may prove to be what the weathermen have been telling us all through the fall – winter is going to be cold.

The changes of the weather can sometimes be a reflection of the changes in our lives, some days hot, some days cold, and what we really want is comfort in the middle. My daughter gave me a fabulous gift for Christmas. Its a sandscape picture with soothing colors of blue, white, black and a smattering of glitter, The picture is filled with water and oil and as you flip the picture, it changes in a most mesmerizing way, soothing and calming to the nerves. I have heard these do wonderful calming effects for children in the autism spectrum to help them focus. I can see why, and can sit and flip it for the better part of an hour as every turn creates a different picture.

When you flip the picture you see the oil bubbles float to the top creating small gaps for the various sands to fall through creating a mountain range of various shapes. Coming from the southeast and the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, this reminds me of the peace and tranquility of those mountains. A most fitting feeling as we walk through the last week of Christmas being reminded again about the Prince of Peace coming as a small defenseless babe.

This sandscape also reminds me of life and how it moves, sometime fast, sometimes slow, and sometimes all at once that can create a mess if we don’t have our feet grounded.

But regardless of the speed of the sands of life falling, if we stop, listen and breathe…we will feel the peace and comfort of God surrounding us.

So as we close out another year, let us focus on a new year to come with sands of beauty as God gives us the strength to stand firm in however they fall.

Regardless of how your sands may look to fellow man, to God they are all beautiful. So share your beauty of your creation with others so that they too will understand the beauty of their own sandscape. And as always, remember to be kind. It helps unlock those doors of fear.

FOTD, November 29

I generally don’t have beautiful flower pictures this time of year, and these are in a vase, but they are filled with the color of fall and make my office look happy. Flowers make everything look better and happier.

I first thought the peach colored carnations clashed but the more I looked at them, they seemed to add a different look to the bouquet.

While the yellow mums up front are always a favorite, the multi-colored mums are bold and striking drawing you in to the full beauty of the mix.

The the golden Alyssum drooping from the sides ties them all together with fall colors of warmth and beauty.

Come join in with Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge and share the beauty you are seeing. Share the beauty of kindness where ever you go and its beauty will make you shine.

Reflections of Love, Loss and Encouragement

Good Saturday morning friends. If you celebrate Thanksgiving where you are, I hope It was a wonderful time of family and love. This past week we lost two women from our church family that were synonymous with their biblical names reflecting love, kindness and strength of character. I did not know Mary as well as Ruth but we as a church family will miss both ladies. Even in this last year as Ruth began to slow, her love of Jesus and people never slowed and the power of kindness radiated from her. Something we all should remember and try to copy.

As we start into this holiday season, first with this past holiday of Thankfulness, we next go into a season of preparation. A time filled with hope, love, joy and peace. Another fierce encourager in our church family gave out a small devotional book to help us prepare for this season, the season of Advent. I realize not all churches celebrate Advent but I think we should all understand its purpose and decide individually whether or not to celebrate this beautiful season. I hope to shed some light by sharing this devotional with you, each week until Christmas, to help us focus on “the coming”. So many of us focus on the coming of Christmas that I think we forget to focus on the coming of Christ. The nation of Israel focused for centuries on the coming Messiah and now that he has come, we need to focus on His return so that not only are we celebrating His birth, but we are focusing on our preparedness for His return.

The circle of evergreen surrounding the candles of advent represents God’s never ending love for each of us. He came into this world to save us. The large white candle represents Christ, an ultimate gift of love from God surrounded by four other gifts from God to help us walk through this darkness.

As we prepare to walk through this season with these gifts from God, lets remember to share these gifts with those around us and to always be kind.

The Difference Between Need and Want

Good morning friends. I hope you are well this morning. I am afraid the winter grays are upon us here in the midwest. At least that is how I see it. During the warmer months, the sun shines its light and warmth upon us to reflect the beauty of God all around us. As the weather begins to cool, the cloud cover appears more often. But there is beauty there also, we just have to look a little harder to see it and feel it. The brightness of the sun is replaced by bright yellow and red leaves. Pumpkins and colorful gourds are in the markets and the corns is getting dry in the field to make food for farm animals. Proof that God is there to fill our needs. We have a needs for all things from God and He wants us to be filled with them.

Many people will not understand how much we need God in all things but those of us who follow Jesus understand just how important our need and His want for us in filling all those needs are tied together.

“Economically, they may manage; intellectually, they may manage; socially, they may get by. But down underneath the surface of rational man is a vacuum-a void that can be met only through Jesus Christ.” Billy Graham

Mankind will continue to believe he can fully fill his needs without Jesus, but the void God created in our inner most depths is to be filled by God Himself. The towers of Babel we try to build to fill that void will still crumble because He wants us to fill that area with Him. It’s kind of a simple hard task – we have needs and He wants to fill them. It’s simple because all we have to do is believe, but it’s hard because it’s a lifelong process. But He is ever by our side to meet any need. I think the trouble man has is understand the difference between need and want. We want a lot more than we need.

So let us reassess our needs today and enjoy God daily gift He wants to share with us.

Dear Father, help us to understand how you want to fill our souls with the beauty of your presence to fill our every need.

Have a blessed rest of the week and weekend and remember always the power of kindness. Kindness can bridge the concerns of a day and allow the waters of kindness to flow out to others in need.

Morning Encouragement

Good morning friends. Today in the Mid-west it is a wet and gloomy day. No rain but just heavy humidity and gray clouds. It is a great day to visualize and understand the true joy of Christ. In my reading this morning in Jesus Calling, Sarah reminded us that joy is not dependent on what we see, what our circumstances are or how we feel. We can be on top of a mountain enjoying the beautiful sunshine or in the bottom of the damp valley surrounded by foggy gloom. Regardless of what is going on around us, we can feel the true joy of Christ.

“True Joy is a by-product of living in God’s presence.” Sarah young.

We are creatures of habit trying to gain our happiness from the things we see instead of knowing or understanding who is standing right by us, that we may not see. God’s presence in our lives not only breaks through the gloomy clouds but can reflect from us onto others as we go through this life. And there is no limit to the love He wraps around us for us to give also to others.

And although we don’t like the trials, the trials can give us perspective, understanding and hope. And Romans reminds us that “hope does not disappoint”. It strengthens our faith to survive the trials.

The Holy Spirit is ever present reminding us of His constant love even though we may be hurting from the effects of this world. That pain is not forever, but His love is. He speaks of His love all through His Word, and He showed us His ultimate love by dying for us when we didn’t deserve it. So when you face gloomy days, remember the light reflecting off of His face, just for us. He is always close by.

May you feel His love and Peace engulf your possible gloomy times. Know that the brightness of His love will melt that gloom. Embrace it and remember to be kind. Giving kindness, even when not deserved, can show others the beauty of God’s love.

FOTD -“The Penthouse” Doth Fall

Cee Neuner has created a wonderful challenge called Flower of the Day where we can share beauty, amazement…and laughter. Today we are sharing amazement with a hint of laughter. Last week I posted a FOTD called “The Penthouse” where I highlighted my last sunflower that had been taken over by my Birdnest gourd with a gourd hanging from the drying flower. So we are going to give a little history of this summer’s fun time so you can get a better idea of “summer’s last effort” to hang on.

The sunflower itself grew 13.5 feet tall before it created the largest bloom of any of the other sunflowers planted. I thought it interesting that although all the seeds came from the same package…they indeed did not have the same parents. Or maybe its the magic the bees create as they move from flower to flower. Some plants created many smaller blooms and some created one massive bloom.

The picture to the left was one plant with 16 blooms while the picture to the right is one huge 9.5 inch bloom. The plant that created the penthouse was featured in a separate post due to the massiveness of the stalk – 4 inch wide and 13.5 feet high.

***Picture taken early summer , now much thicker***

“The summer’s last effort was a thunderstorm to mark the end of 90 temps of summer. While I love summer, this was a hot one and I am glad to see the season begin to change. Although if Farmer Almanac and my exterminator are correct – its gonna be a cold rough winter here in the upper midwest.

When you have a huge sunflower, weighing in at 3.5 pounds, two Birdnest gourds, one weighing 2.5 pounds and mix in 35 MPH winds, that is no match for that 13.5′ high, 4 inch stalk, and down she came. The sunflower measured in at 14 inches and while one the gourds is still attached to the the mass of vines, one broke lose and I brought it inside to hopefully finish curing.

The glare on the tape of the first picture did not show its numbers so I added a second photo. You get a visual of just how large these flowers can get and then the gourd is no small fry. This is not even one of the bigger ones, so we will see how they all do.

Now I wait for the cold air to come in and dry out the vines. It will make an interesting Halloween decoration. Not a big fan of Halloween but it is what it is.

In closing I remind you the beauty and power of being kind. It creates a brightness like nothing else.

FOTD – September 8, and Macros

Cee Flower of the Day challenge to day looked to be a macro so I thought I would share some of mine from today’s play in the front yard. September is marching on by and this beauty we now have won’t be around much longer.

First off we have the FOTD star of the day, my last giant sunflower with the rich blue fall sky behind it. And of course the gourd trying to make sure he is in the picture as well.

The birds due to their messy eating habits planted 5 sunflowers this year but only two are currently blooming. These are smaller guys at 3-4 feet high.

I have enjoyed watching the different phases of growth on the sun flowers. Due to their size, you can get a good look at each stage of development. The bees are really enjoying these as well so I played a bit with my macro lens. You can see the hair on the bees legs as he gather the pollen to feed his crew.

***The breeze was playing havoc in me not getting a good clear shot but his legs are amazing*** *as he walks on top of stamens*

The beauty of macro is that you see things you just don’t see with the regular lens.

Check out the stripe of sunlight as it slipped between the petals, the curl of the pollen covered “thingys” and then the star topped “thingys” toward the center of the flower. Can you tell I know very little about flower definition. I know stamens but not which which is which. Regardless, nature is amazingly beautiful.

I am also showing other flowers currently blooming. My baby mums are lovely. And my double dianthus is trying to sneak out from under the gourd plant that has taken over the yard,

Both blooms are small, about 2 inches across but they shine with all their worth. The “bug guy” as we call him jokingly, came by the church today to do the monthly spray for insects and check for mice. He did not have good news for us about the coming season. He was telling us that the wasps, insects and mice are not behaving normal per this time of year. They are all ahead of schedule for their seasonal behaviors. He told us that last time he saw this behavior was the year we here in Iowa had the polar vortex. UGH!!. Even farmers Almanac is prediction a colder that average and longer than average winter. This was a really hot summer this year so it may be followed with a really cold winter. So enjoy the beauty of fall while we can and remember to always be kind.

Share Your World, 9-6

Normally with my blogging I am sharing my world but I thought this would be a fun challenge as I have never done it before. I had a birthday over the weekend and maybe it time to start new challenges. Melanie B Cee does a fun looking challenge called Share Your World where you answer a set of questions and since it is a holiday and I am home, lets play.

QUESTIONS

Do you believe in soul-mates? (my definition of ‘soul mate’ is the IDEAL partner romantically).

No. I do believe that there are things that attract us to people but if we rely souly on that for a marriage, then the marriage will fail. Marriage is a partnership of respect, work and love.

What are three scents you like?

A summer shower, especially after a hot day. Flowers while still in the garden, lilies are a favorite but roses come close. Christmas trees or evergreen boughs at Christmas time.

What are some things you might be considered too old to do, but that you enjoy?

Going on long hikes through nature. While physically I am sort of able to do that, but due to the stupidity of youth, my knees are shot.

What is one food you absolutely refuse to share?

I don’t think I have one. If I find something truly delicious I want to share it so we can all experience it deliciousness. If it is something I myself am making, I make sure I have plenty to go around.

***YUM!!!*** A truly southern delight – pork chop with gravy, turnip greens, black eyes and FRESH stewed tomatoes over buttered bread.

GRATITUDE SECTION (as always, optional)

I am grateful for my health. I told my kids on this birthday that I am not old…yet. When I turn 80, then I may be old. I see may friends who are younger than me who are having health issues usually associated with old age and I am grateful I am not experiencing them.

And in closing any of my posts, I always close with a reminder of being kind.

FOTD – August 28, The Workers

What would we have if we didn’t have the little workers who pollinate our flowers? We would miss out on all the photographs plus the unimaginable benefits we get from the work they do. Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge reminds us of the beauty we see all around us throughout the year. So today while I am showing various picture of my sunflowers(before they fell) the true subject is the bees that so loved these huge flowers.

When a bee lands on a flower, the pollen sticks to the tiny hairs on it legs. Then the bee takes this pollen, which is high in protein, to other flowers and finally to feed its developing offspring.

When water is added to the flower’s sugar, it creates nectar. The nectar is a food source for the bees that gives them energy to fly from flower to flowers, pollinating as it goes. If we didn’t have bees pollinating our plants, we would not have the vegetables and fruit we enjoy eating. It is all a part of the many intersecting rings of life.

So enjoy the many circles of life and understand how very much we need each other to survive. And in doing so, remember the extra advantage of being kind within all the circles. Kindness can be sweeter than any nectar from any flower.