DEAR GOD: THANK YOU, THANK YOU AGAIN

Seems like I always have so many things to Thank You For, Dear God.  But I really mean it.  I appreciate all You do for me every single day of my life.  I have no complaints in my life.  Everything is always o.k.  Some days are harder than others, but so what.  You have always seen me through those dark times and into the light again.  So I Thank You over and over again.

Today, we finished lunch and my daughter went to her room.   She was planning to brush her teeth.  Then I set about sweeping the kitchen floor.   Suddenly, I heard this beautiful sound.  It was my daughter singing quietly, softly.  I think that was the most beautiful sound I ever heard.  Complete innocence.  Complete beauty.  Just wonderful to hear.  You see, she has had numerous problems since birth and this is the first time I ever heard her sing all by herself.  It is truly the most beautiful sound I ever heard.  She didn’t sing long, but I am sure I will be hearing it again.  How do I ever thank you enough for that special treat.

Added to that this week, we had a thunderstorm the other night.  It began about bedtime and I was waiting for it.  I have had hearing problems for years.  Got a new set of hearing aids recently and can actually hear again.  So I was waiting to see if I could hear the rain.  I sat in the darkened bedroom and just listened.  And I heard the hail hitting the house.   Then I heard the thunder as it rolled.  I could see the lightning and it all made sense with the thunder and the lightning together.  Then I heard the sound of the rain hitting the house.  It was truly wonderful hearing all these sounds together.  What a wonderful blessing to be able to hear the storm as it passed over.

So, You see, Dear God.  I have so much to be thankful for – and this is only the last few days. Just think of all the blessings I receive all the time that I never even notice.  Thank You, Thank You Again!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Hi and hope all my friends have a wonderful Merry Christmas.  Will be back with my opinionated opinions just as soon as I get caught up from the Merry Christmas I am having here with all my family.

And, hope all of you know that 2012 is going to be the best year we have ever had.  Yay!!!

BIRTHDAYS AT MY HOUSE

Hi again:  We have a lot of fun with birthdays at my house.  We also have a good time celebrating Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and all other necessary celebrations.  There are a lot of people in my family and so we really enjoy the visits with one another.  Everyone has such a good time just laughing and teasing and talking and visiting about everything from politics to old times.

We only celebrate birthdays every 3 months.  And it doesn’t have to be any particular time during that three months.  We might have it on the first weekend or the last weekend.  Never know.  We just try to do it when the most of us can come.  And then comes the presents.  And those are some presents, too.  We trade gifts back and forth.  I usually give the kids some money, but it isn’t much.  Then everyone usually gets some candy or treats of some kind.  After that, it is ‘hold the buggy, betsy!’  You just never know what might be in that sack.

For instance, one of my daughters and I trade a cheap, ugly statue back and forth, so we are going to get that if it is our turn.  That’s for sure!  Another child and I have been trading an ugly puzzle that no one could possibly work.  It is all in shades of black and gray and not even a good picture.  He originally got it at the dollar store, but we trade it every birthday.  Then, one son gave me a bag of plastic balls and said, ‘have a ball’.  Another time, I got a gold brick.  I have also received a stimulus check in the amount of $2 million.  I am still trying to cash that.  It came from one of my grandsons.

So, as you can see, presents are just for fun.   There is no great expense to this.  No one has to spend much money.  Sometimes they even make their own birthday cards with cutouts from magazines.  Always fun stuff.   We don’t usually put a limit on the money for birthdays.  No need to.  No one is going to spend much anyway.  And it is well known that not everyone has to get a gift for everyone.  Sometimes we have a lot of birthdays and there is no reason for anyone to be obligated.  It is all just for fun anyway.

I buy a cake at WalMart and put everyone’s name on it  Then we all sing, Happy Birthday to Everyone.  After that, we enjoy visiting some more and have our ice cream and cake or ice cream cones or whatever all those kids want at the time.  We have colas or tea or coffee to drink.  And a great time is had by all.

We do this same thing on other holidays.  Only we usually have a limit of $5 for gifts.  When my own children were younger, there was a limit of $1 for presents for Mother’s Day.  No reason to spend more.  I didn’t want anything anyway.  I usually got typing paper or envelopes or something in that range.  One year, my daughter who had grown up and was working went to get me a present for $1.  She saw a mirror that stood up in the bathroom.  It said, ‘Hi Gorgeous’ so that was what she wanted to buy for me.  When the clerk took her money, my daughter was laughing and saying that she was buying it for her mother for Mother’s Day.  This made the clerk mad and she said my daughter had no respect for her mother and made my daughter feel really bad.  I thought that was truly ridiculous.  Since when did the amount of money spent for a gift have anything to do with respect.  I treasured that mirror for many years.  It was always one of my favorite gifts.

So, next time you are thinking of giving a family party, you might want to bring out some of these ideas and use them.  Makes for a lot of fun and a very close family.  Have a Happy Birthday and make it fun this year.

SUCH SORROW

I once knew this wonderful family.  The lady was beautiful, the man so handsome.   No apparent problems.  When they married, it was with a huge, beautiful wedding in the biggest church in town, complete with all the bridesmaids and flowers and groomsmen and huge reception afterwards.  Everything was wonderful!

They started out their life together.  He had a good job, she was a housewife and soon had a new baby on the way.  I remember being in their apartment one time and they didn’t seem to be too happy that day.  It was miserably hot and only a fan for cooling.  So I could understand why no one would be smiling just a whole lot.  They soon bought a home and life seemed wonderful once again.  After the first child came another and another and soon another one.  All boys.  She always wanted a girl, so eventually they adopted one.  Life was too good to be true.

Over the years, the father developed quite an alcohol problem.  And some of that was passed down to the boys as they grew up.  Trouble brewing.  The father continued to be a problem for many years.  The mother opted to stay in her bedroom almost all the time.  They lost touch with most of the world.  And the boys deteriorated.  One went to AA.  He got better and eventually had a better life.  Never did know just a lot about the boys as they grew up except what I heard from other people or read in the papers.

Then the youngest son deteriorated into being a really bad alcoholic.  He tried to work but could not.  Never had a family or anything to hang on to.  He finally killed himself at a very young age.  The father developed cancer and died in a hospital.  The mother didn’t live much longer herself.

Then today, I read where one of the boys was killed in a motorcycle accident.  He was 55.  And I am so sorry for so much sorrow.

Great beginnings.  Life just demanded too much day after day.  What a shame.  What a great sorrow for everyone.  What do you do.  How do you avoid such deep and lasting sorrow.  Just cluster together and help each other, that’s how.  Don’t write anyone off.  Everyone can be helped through love and understanding and  a closeness that only a family can bring to each other.  Stay close to your spouse and to your children.  Let them know you care.  Tell them often how much they all mean to you and mean it when you say it.

I contact or have contact with each of my children almost every day.  If I don’t hear from each of them every few days, I am on that phone or texting or emailing or doing something just to make sure they are alright.  I always let them know I care for them and for each member of their families.  I am there if they need me and they are there for me if I need them.  That is the way it is done.  Keep the doors open.  Keep the conversation flowing.  Love them.  Help them.  And maybe then there won’t be that uncalled for deep sorrow that this particular family endured day after day for many years.  It doesn’t matter what caused all the sorrow or how many arguments there were or what anyone said or did.  The point is to stay close as a family.  You know, that closeknit feeling that only a family can share together.  Who else do you know that knows all there is to know about you.  Who else was there when you were 4 or 10 or 20.  Always remember that.

Tell your family you love them.  If there are problems, work them out together or just learn to live with them.  Whatever happens, you are family.  Help each other!

TOAST MYSTERY OR AM I REALLY THIS CRAZY

Getting ready to put dinner on the table and decided at the last minute to have a piece of buttered toast to go with it.  Asked my daughter to please toast the bread for me.  I got two pieces of bread out of the wrapper and put them on the cabinet.  I saw my daughter put the two pieces of bread in the toaster and push the handle down.  When I finished preparing the dinner, she was walking across the room with her toast in her hand.

I asked her where was my piece of toast.  And she said, ‘I don’t know’.  Then she turned to walk on to the table.  I thought to myself, ‘what do you mean, you don’t know.  How can you not know.’   So I asked again where was my piece of toast.  She turned and looked me directly in the eye and said again, ‘I don’t know.’  Well, that was probably the silliest thing I had ever heard.  She was obviously through with the conversation, but I knew I had another piece of bread somewhere and it wasn’t in the toaster.  So where was it.

I looked in the toaster again, looked all around the cabinet, looked across the room at the other cabinet and started to get down on the floor and look under the cabinet.  Instead, I asked again, ‘where is my piece of toast’.  In exasperation, my daughter turned to me again and said, ‘I DON’T KNOW!’.

Well, you can’t just lose a piece of toast.  I have been reading newspapers forever and I have never seen an article that says, ‘lady loses toast’.  It had to be here somewhere.   I pulled the toaster out from the wall and looked behind it.  Not there either.  Again, I was about to get down on hands and knees and look under the cabinet.  Instead, I raked my hand along the back of the toaster and the piece of toast fell down on the cabinet.

Somehow, some way, the toast had popped out of the push down toaster and wedged itself  onto the back of the toaster.  When I pulled the toaster out, it had remained stuck to the back of the toaster.  But when I raked my hand along the back of the toaster, it fell down onto the cabinet.

See, I really am not that crazy. Just a little looney now and then.  But like I said, when have you heard of anyone losing a piece of toast.  I was about to call the local news stations and ask them to run a story about my lost toast.  Luckily, I found it before I got to the telephone.

I’ll laugh about this one for awhile.  I have a whole pile of laughable stuff in my head.  Helps to pass the days sometimes when it really is looney around here.

THE REAL STORY

Hi    I have written a book you might find very interesting.  It is entitled The Real Story.  It tells the real story of the 1957 Little Rock desegregation crisis at Little Rock High School and Governor Faubus’ true decision, NOT what was reported in the media.

The Real Story also includes the story of one person’s recovery from severe alcoholism and how it turned him into a resounding success.

Then The Real Story chronicles the decline of the moral values of our country over the past decades and offers some suggestions as to what might be done to return our country to its former greatness.

The Real Story and some of my other books are available on Amazon.com and Kindle.

You can also order direct from me at BET, P.O. Box 2249, Benton, AR  72018.  Send check or money order for $10 each book ordered.  No cash or C.O.D. please.

You will definitely enjoy all my books!  Thanks, Bet

WHAT A WASTE!

I am not being judgmental in any way at all.  A friend of mine committed suicide this past week.  Everyone said the same thing when they heard.  They all said that it just made them sick.   They could not assimilate this information at all.   I had heard about it in the afternoon and that evening I called a friend and asked, ‘is this true?’  She answered that it was.  I was so in hopes she would tell me it was just a rumor.

But he is gone now.  No one can bring him back.  In an instant his life was no more for anyone of the many who were stunned.  It has been said that God never gives anyone more than they can handle.  I believe that.  God loves us and He takes care of all of us.  He asks more from some than from others.  But then how do you really know what God is asking of someone.  You cannot see on the inside and know what that person might be experiencing in his life.

My friend had some mental problems, depression, etc.  Could not handle his own affairs much anymore.  And he was fairly young for all this.  And then he developed some physical problems lately.   But then if he could have just waited a little longer, perhaps God had a plan for him.  Maybe God had something really special for him to do when he got a little better.  Who knows.

But then the homilist at the funeral said ‘Only God knows what he was experiencing at the time he shot that gun’.  So who really knows about any of that.  I just hope my friend knows that all these people are really sorry he is gone and will miss him dearly a lot of the time.  He was a very good person and helped a lot of people in his life.

I am so sorry he is gone.  I just wish he could have remembered that God never gives anyone more than they can handle.

What a waste!

MONEY

Do you know what is really going on with your money these days?  No, it’s not the scare tactics about the Social Security and the Medicaid.  In the first place, these things will not happen because for one thing if we are to be turned into a socialistic society, we must keep our Social Security and Medicaid.  Those are guaranteed to make everybody happy and that is the point right now.  You must be satisfied customers in order to vote the way you are supposed to in 2012.  So, you will be treated pretty nicely until after the election time.  But after that, better watch out if the same administration is still in power.

Right now, the squeeze is on about the interest rates being paid everywhere.  Simple economics will tell you that in order for this to be a capitalistic country, you must base it on capital.  That is the ultimate answer to everything in this country.  Like it or not, we run on money.  And that has been a great thing for everyone for many, many years.  But now you have the federal monetary people who know better than all those who came before them for over 200 years.  They know what is best for us.  Bull!!!!

They have cut the interest rate to absolutely nothing and that is supposed to save us all.  Only it won’t.  It will just cut out the capital in our capitalistic country.  If we don’t have investments, then we have no infrastructure to this country.  Our cities and counties and states cannot be build buildings, roads, schools, community projects, etc. etc. etc.  Without funds invested in the movings of this country, there is no progress.  Without a reasonable amount of interest paid on these investments, there will be no progress.  Period.   So we are at a standstill and it is not because of the debt ceiling or whatever they are calling it today.  It is because they have shut down all the supply of private money with which we fund everything that goes on.  No private money.  No progress.  No capitalistic country.  No nothing.

Jobs are being lost daily and the administration is still blaming George Bush.  In the first place, George Bush was a very good President.  The media harped on  him constantly for the last two years in office.  They did the same to his father.  Watch the media.  They pick and choose the candidate they want to win and then they ignore the others except for slaps now and then.  And they would have you believe the person they have chosen to win is an absolute saint.

Getting back to the money issue, when funds dry up, the whole country dries up.  Offices are closing at an alarming rate.  Banks are in trouble.  Groceries are ever higher.  People cannot buy automobiles, houses, clothing, etc.  Prices continue to rise while we have less and less money in circulation.  Now I am not talking about the printing of dollar bills.  That is being done at an alarming rate, but they have less buying power  all the time.

This is what Hitler did in his time.  Only he did it with inflation.  But the point was and is today that the money is worth less and has less purchasing power all the time.  When people can no longer buy groceries or pay for gasoline, then we will see a complete shutdown.  And it won’t be because of the debt ceiling.  It will be because the government has dried up all the funds in this country.

Watch how you vote next time.  Pay attention to what is being done to your life.  Pray and Pray some more.  And by all means vote when it is time in any election.  Make sure you know what the issues are and what the outcome will be in your life.  And then pray and vote.  Thanks.

FAIR TAX

I’m sure you have heard of the Fair Tax.  If not, Google it on the internet and find out what all it can do for us all.

Mr. Huckabee sent me an email on his site that said he is going to Washington soon to testify before a congressional committee about the Fair Tax.  Hooray!  About time someone listened to some of that.   You can also look up Mr. Huckabee’s website and get on his mailing list.

The Fair Tax gets rid of the withholding from your paycheck.  Just think about that one for awhile.  What would it be like to actually get all the money you make in your check each payday.  I don’t ever remember a time when that was possible.  When I started  working, I was paying 25% of every dime I made because I was young, unmarried, and no dependents.  Sort of made a dent in that paycheck.   Ever since then, the withholding has always made a good dent in my paycheck.  And since the government is spending more than it is taking in, it seems to me  they are  pouring my money down a bottomless hole in the ground.

Nowadays, those in power and the media are touting the rich against the poor.  So anyone who has more than carfare in his pocket is considered rich and is hated by the poor and those who do not work and live deliberately on the poverty level are hated by the rich.  Some peaceful solution that is.

Support the Fair Tax after you investigate it.  It will help everyone and will put enough money in the coffers of government to pay all the bills without strapping our children and grandchildren and great great great grandchildren.  And it also will not destroy this wonderful country we have.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, someone will listen in that congressional committee and will actually promote the Fair Tax.  I sure hope so.  Would be wonderful for us all.  See for yourself.  And then make your opinions and comments well known.  All us citizens need you and your support.

 

CARE WITH DIGNITY

Every person is entitled to being treated with human dignity.  That includes those who are unfortunate enough to require care in their daily lives.  This includes those elderly, infirm, babies and the handicapped. I read every day in the newspapers of someone mistreating a child or an elderly person.   Sometimes it is those who cannot defend themselves who are the most mistreated.  I think that is a terrible thing.

People should be more mindful of each other and help those who need help.  Why would anyone want to harm an innocent child or an elderly person who has lost his way through this life.

In my case, I have had to depend on caretakers or babysitters a lot over the years.  Sometimes, I could tell when the person had not been kind.  Or if my child had been ignored or mistreated in any way.  My child requires a lot of assistance from time to time, but mostly she just needs to have some attention paid to her.

The last babysitter I had fed my child her dinner at 3 in the afternoon and then had her in bed before 7, telling her she was too tired and needed to go to bed.  This then gave the sitter the whole evening for herself.  I consider that to be absolutely disgusting.  My child did not know what time it was or when she should have gone to bed.  I would not have known about this except that one of my other children called and was upset over this.  Should not have happened.  To add to this story, then when my child could not sleep, he was blamed for staying awake all night and keeping the sitter up.

Another time, there was some problem and the sitter told other people that she was knocked in the floor. When I heard about this – from others – I checked into it.  Come to find out that was not the case at all.  My child had been pushed and she was the one who ended up in the floor.

On another occasion, my child had ‘acted up’ while sitting in her chair and had fallen to the floor.  Come to find out that she was acting up, that’s for sure, because someone else was allowed to go into her room and pilfer through her things and she had to sit in the chair while all this was going on.  I probably would have ‘acted up’ too.

When a person takes a job as a caretaker/babysitter, they should plan on doing  good job and taking proper care of their charge.  Or not bother to call themselves a caretaker/babysitter at all.  And it most certainly is not fair to spread stories about their charge.  This just adds insult to injury, lies, lies and more lies.

Needless to say, I no longer have that sitter and do not plan on hiring another one.  But I still maintain that a person is entitled to be treated with human dignity, no matter what their  problem may be.  As is said, ‘Whatever you do to the least of these, you do also unto Me.’   Would do well for the caretakers and babysitters of the world to remember that.