Guest Book
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Posted:May 17, 2008 11:58 am
Last Updated:Jan 14, 2010 12:37 pm 13040 Views
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Guest Book
Sign here, even if you don't comment on any of my posts....
Tell me something about yourself, your name, where you are from, how long you have been here.....
Or just say hi......
Sign here, whether you are new, or one of my friends already.....
Be part of my life, through my blog
And remember, a blog is only as good as it's contributors, so thanks to everyone who makes this blog such fun!!!!
WELCOME ALL!!
(Saw this on another website and thought it is cute)
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, 18 Pending
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How time flies
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Posted:Apr 3, 2009 6:23 am
Last Updated:May 26, 2009 3:13 pm 10955 Views
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Thought I would pop in today, have been on facebook most of the time lately.
I cannot believe we have been home for almost 3 months. A short update.
Tom and I took the plunge while traveling through Las Vegas, got married and extended our trip to include a honeymoon lol.
When we got to Kentucky it started snowing and we decided we may as well have the comforts of home if we have to spend it in snow. We returned to Wisconsin and are getting the sailboat ready for Lake Michigan. The fishing tackle is being serviced and hopefully we will not go hungry.
Hope everybody is doing great.
Blessings
Sonia
PS. May pop in once in a while, between facebook, hubby and life, it can get pretty hectic lol
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On our way home
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Posted:Jan 4, 2009 8:53 am
Last Updated:Jan 24, 2009 5:01 am 11192 Views
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Hi all, we are still in Santa Rosa, California and will starting our trip back soon. Some interesting sites still to go. Hearst Castle is a must see for all, it was so much fun and so interesting. California is beautiful and we viewed some amazing sunsets and sunrises along the Coast as we took highway 1, the scenic route. The winelands towards Santa Rosa is also a blessing and we hope to do some wine tasting today.
From here it is Las Vegas, hopefully the Grand Canyon, lol with the cold it may just turn out to be a peek. I want to see Santa Fe, wow I can get lost in all the art galleries and fun places.
We will be taking out all the brochures we have collected on our way here and plan our trip back. Any tips on things to do will be welcomed.
We are flying by the seat of our pants so we are free to change our route at any time.
Lol I hear they are having record snow falls in Wisconsin, so we are not too much in a hurry to get back.
God Bless
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Quartzsite Arizona
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Posted:Dec 13, 2008 9:06 am
Last Updated:Dec 29, 2008 8:30 am 11281 Views
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Hi, got into Quartz site in Arizona this morning and familiarizing ourself with the town. Looks like a lot of fun.
Spend some time over the past few days chasing ghost towns, and visiting some good wineries to get up the courage lol.
Arizona is a beautiful state although I am not too fond of Tuscon, too many people I guess. We will be avoiding some large cities for a while. Off to LA on monday to visit one of Tom's girls, so will enjoy the peace and quite for a while.
Have fun. Will check in when possible.
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Hi and bye
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Posted:Nov 28, 2008 5:48 am
Last Updated:Apr 4, 2009 5:13 am 12288 Views
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We are leaving on our trip tomorrow, lol so today is a packing, preparing snacks for the road, baking some more cookies (I bake and bake and it just never seems enough lol) .......day!
You guys play nice and I will see you again in about 6 weeks.
Blessings to all and have a blessed Christmas and New Year.
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Thanks giving ideas
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Posted:Nov 19, 2008 12:03 pm
Last Updated:Nov 24, 2008 2:54 am 11475 Views
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I just spoke to Mia and got a great idea from her, she is looking at volunteering at a homeless shelter on thanks giving. I am going to bake some cookies and add a bible text to the bag,
Num 6 : 24 - 26 and hand these out at the shelters.
What other ideas can you come up that will make a difference and add some value?
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Going on a road trip
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Posted:Nov 19, 2008 11:56 am
Last Updated:Nov 28, 2008 5:53 am 11408 Views
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I feel so blessed this morning. We just finalised a road trip that will take us through a number of states. I would love to meet some of my BC friends where possible. The planned itenarary is through: Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska en Iowa. We may also drop in at Las Vegas.
We will be leaving just after thanks giving and will return either between Christmas and New Year or just after New Year. We will do the trip at leasure and nothing is cast in stone. We will be spending some time in Texas, Silver City (New Mexico), Santa Rose and Hollywood (California) the rest we will make up as we go.
Please feel free to drop me a note should you wish to meet at that screaming mailbox you know the one starting with y....
My name on there is: note2sonia
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The Daffodil Principle
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Posted:Nov 4, 2008 8:43 am
Last Updated:Nov 5, 2008 2:54 am 11912 Views
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Several times my had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive. "I will come next Tuesday", I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.
Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy . I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.
"Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog and there is nothing in the world except you and these that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!"
My smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears and then I'm heading for home!"
"But first we're going to see the daffodils. It's just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this."
"Carolyn," I said sternly, "Please turn around."
"It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."
After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read " Daffodil Garden ". We got out of the car, each took a 's hand and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight.
It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.
"Who did this?" I asked Carolyn.
"Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house.
On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet and one brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958".
For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.
That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time ‒ often just one baby-step at time ‒ and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"
My summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.
She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?"
Use the Daffodil Principle…
Stop waiting...
Until your car or home is paid off
Until you get a new car or home
Until your leave the house
Until you go back to school
Until you finish school
Until you clean the house
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you gain 10 lbs.
Until you get married
Until you get a divorce
Until you have
Until the go to school
Until you retire
Until summer
Until spring
Until winter
Until fall
Until you die...
There is no better time than right now to be happy.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination.
So work like you don't need money.
Love like you've never been hurt and
Dance like no one's watching.
Wishing you a beautiful, daffodil day!
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Is this true about halloween?
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Posted:Oct 23, 2008 4:37 am
Last Updated:Apr 4, 2009 5:14 am 11004 Views
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In South Africa we have not practiced halloween until a few years ago, and even now it is mainly the theme for fun parties. I received this email but are not sure of it's authenticity. I did check the internet and according to History. (website) it is true and some more. Wikipedia also gives the history along these lines.
Where did it begin?
It began over 2000 yrs ago with people known as the Celtics. They lived in what is today England , Ireland , Scotland and Wales . This was also the beginning of the Celtic new year, a time to give thanks to the sun god for the harvest.
What is it all about?
Halloween, All saints day, All hallows eve or All souls day is a festival. It was held to honor the Samhain the so called "lord of death". It was a Druidical belief that on the eve of this festival Samhain, lord of death, called together the wicked spirits that within the past 12 months had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals.
It was a pagan belief that on one night of the year the souls of the dead return to their original homes, there to be entertained with food. If food and shelter were not provided, these evil spirits would cast spells and cause havoc toward those failing to fulfill their requests.
Sacrifices were offered on this night to the dead spirits because it was thought they visited their earthly dwellings and former friends.
There was a prevailing belief among all nations that at death the souls of the good men were taken possession of by good spirits and carried to paradise; but the souls of the wicked men were left to wonder in the space between the earth and the moon, or consigned to the unseen world. These wandering spirits were in the habit of haunting the living...But there were means by which ghosts might be exorcised.
To exorcise these ghosts, that is to free yourself from their evil sway, you would have to set out food and provide shelter for them during the night. If they were satisfied with your offerings, they would leave you in peace. If not, they were believed to cast an evil spell on you.
In modern day Satanism and Witchcraft covens, this is the day when Satan himself comes to "fellowship" with his followers. Many changes have occurred over the centuries, but one thing ha stayed the same, the practice of giving an "offering" has stayed the same. Oh we do it under the name of fun but what is the real meaning? Is it still the same as in the old days? I say the answer is YES.
The Christian Connection
The celebration in the Roman Catholic Church, which was later to merge with Samhain, was known as All Saints' Day. All Saints' Day originated in the 7th century when the Pantheon at Rome was wrested from the barbarians, made into a cathedral, and renamed the Church of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs. Thus, from honoring "all gods" (which is the meaning of the Greek word "pantheon") the Pantheon became the center for glorifying all saints.
This day that honored all the "hallowed" saints was first observed on the evening of May 13, and was known as the All hallows festival. The day was officially authorized in 835 by Pope Gregory IV after it was moved to November 1 to coincide with Samhain. It began on the evening of October 31, which was called All Hallows Eve.
Thus, without forcing the pagans to drop their pagan practices and accept Christianity, the Roman Catholic church merely made room to accommodate the barbarians.
Just as it confiscated the pagan Pantheon for its own uses, this church incorporated the customs of Samhain to further its mission to convert the known world to Catholicism.
The two celebrations made strange bedfellows: one in respect of evil spirits, the other honoring "saints."
Nevertheless, the joining of the two celebrations produced a hybrid of beliefs about what was supposed to happen in the spirit world. Souls in purgatory appeared as witches and toads to persons who had wronged them. Halloween fires took on a new meaning and now were used to comfort souls in purgatory as people prayed while holding burning straw in the air.
Even the idea of trick-or-treating by evil spirits took on an acceptable church flavor: costumed went around on All Souls Day offering to fast for the departed souls in return for money or an offering.
As the Celts converted to the new religion, they did not forget their stories of the dead traveling to the afterworld on Halloween. Rather, exhibitions of this night became more evil and the observance adopted even more malicious overtones.
Where do Witches, Black cats and Jack-O-Lanterns fit in?
In America it's a pumpkin, but in Europe it was often a turnip, large beet, potato, rutabaga or even a skull with a candle in it. The fearsome face of the jack-o-lantern was representative of the god of the dead, Shamin, who would drive off less powerful evil spirits abroad that night. As glimmering lights flickered over an English marsh or an Irish bog, people imagined dead souls had returned to earth. They would place the jack-o-lantern on posts and in windows to ward off the spirits of the dead on Halloween.
The word jack-o-Lantern is an abbreviation of "Jack of the Lantern." Jack is another name for joker or Satan. In the Irish tale, a man named Jack was fond of playing tricks on the devil. Annoyed, the devil tossed Jack a burning coal from hell. With the coal in his "lantern" Jack was condemned to walk the earth forever searching for rest.
The jack-o-lantern is a Halloween idol that keeps alive an ancient symbol of demonic superstition.
Witches and Black Cats
A pagan practice that was not eradicated upon the coming of Christianity was witchcraft. The word "witch" comes from the Anglo-Saxon Wicca, or "wise one." Witches were thought to be possessors of magic.
Witches, who worship the deities of nature, have living talismans or symbols through which they derive their dark powers. They invoke evil spirits to enter the bodies of their talismans. Some have dogs, owls, snakes or swine for their talismans, but the most common are cats.
The broomstick is a symbol of the male organ, on which the witch mounts and leaps high around the fields to "teach" the crops how high to grow. The notion of flying witches relates to the fact that witches believed they could fly great distances to their feasts by smearing their bodies with ointments containing drugs. The drugs gave them psychedelic "trips" making them think they flew.
Witchcraft is demonic worship in diametric opposition to the worship of the Heavenly Father Yahweh. Yahweh minces no words about it. He told Israel through Moses, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ex. 22:1 . He says in Deuteronomy 18:10, "There shall not be found among you any one that makes his or his to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch."
Cats have been closely associated with mystery religion from the Egyptians to the Norse. But the Celts had a particular fear of cats, believing they were humans who had been changed into feline form by evil powers. The black cat particularly was connected to demonic powers.
Black cats are the chief idol of the goddess of Wicca, Diana. In legend, she turns into a black cat to commit with her brother, Lucifer. Eventually the Druids themselves came to be regarded as witches. Witch hunting during Halloween became almost a national pastime in the colonial years of our nation. But that was yesterday. Halloween is regarded as the high "Sabbath" for practicing witches today.
Orange, black, and red, the devil's colors, are the colors associated with Halloween. Black prefigures black magic and demonic influence. The black of night is when these forces of evil are busiest, using the cover of darkness for their sinister works.
Skulls and Skeletons
The skeleton is a form of the god of the dead, the witches' "horned god." The Dictionary of Satanism by Wade Baskin says this about skulls and skeletons under "skull worship": "Skulls play an important role as sacred relics and as objects of worship among primitives. Among Polynesians and Melanesians, skulls of ancestors are worshiped in order to establish connections with the spirits of the dead. Like the head of Osiris in Egypt , the skulls of ancestors may also serve as tutelar deities. The head or its parts, each of which may stand for the whole, can be used as magical food or as a means of increasing the fertility of the soil." Under "Skull," the Dictionary of Lore and Legend says, "Symbol of death, often with crossed bones beneath."
Fire Rites
Being that Halloween is a Celtic new year's festival, many of its surviving rituals trace to the Celtic feast. The fire rite was practiced in many areas around the world on the night before the new year. The old fire was allowed to go out and a new one was kindled–usually a sacred fire from which the fires of the village were relit. The fires were thought to rejuvenate the waning sun and aid in banishing evil spirits. The Druids built hilltop fires to celebrate important festivals. Ghosts and witches feared fire, it was thought, and so fire became the best weapon against evil spirits. Witchcraft was punished by burning at the stake, fire being used as a means purification. The light that fires gave off was a sign of sacredness.
Apple Bobbing
Popular at Halloween parties is apple bobbing. It was a means of divination among the Druids and survives in cultures influenced by the Celts. Because the apple is also a common love charm, the practice of ducking for apples seems to have been associated with the selection of a lover. Apple bobbing was originally a fertility rite deriving from the Christmas observance, which was replete with various fertility rites.
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What if Obama!!!!
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Posted:Oct 21, 2008 3:27 am
Last Updated:Apr 4, 2009 5:15 am 11731 Views
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I do not like politics, as a matter of fact I detest it as I spent a number of years in it and know how corrupt and false it really is.
I have been impressed by the patriotism showed by the American people. They are proud to be American and the American flag is even raised at houses and businesses.
Being exposed to the pre-election time in the USA has raised some serious questions though, as the choice of candidate will have far reaching effects. Not only here but all over the world.
I have read various comments and conclusions by political watch dogs, listened to debates and statements by candidates.
I cannot help but wonder, if Obama is planted by Arab organizations, what would be the consequence of him being elected as President of the United states. Please understand, I am not saying he is, I was just wondering, if by some remote chance! The twin towers must have seemed an impossible probability by most Americans, though it happened.
This is not a political post.
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