FunnyBlog

My monster’s attitude of gratitude
I meant to post this picture for Halloween.
Oops.
Sophia made some pretty cool art pieces
with her birthday clay.
In an upcoming post I will show you
Caroline torturing the poor things.
One tooth at a time.
Posted by Picasa

This morning I found a worksheet 
Sophia brought home from school.

I thought it was poignant
into the mind of a child that is truly grateful.
T eachers
H appiness
A merica
N ets
K indness
S ophia
G reatness
 I nternet
V acations
I ce Cream
N iceness
G randparents
I think I am grateful for all the same things, but I most enjoyed her insight into “nets”. 
What would we do without nets?
I’ve been posting daily on facebook things I am grateful for. I thought you may like to hear.
I have adopted an attitude of gratitude in my life in the past few years
and it has changed my very nature. 
I have so much more joy than I used to when I thought so negatively all the time.

Count your blessing. Every day this month tell us something you are thankful for. Big or small. Day 1 – I am thankful that I am not diabetic. I am pretty sure I would be dead sometime in the last 24 hours.

Day 2 of gratitude (Did I start this? because if I did that’s cool) I am grateful that I understand that when I love myself AND others at equal levels I am happiest

3: I am grateful for all my ladies (whichever state or religion they belong to). Laughing with the ladies last night at church was the highlight of my birthday.

Day 4: Today I am grateful for prayer. God is always there for me and He really does speak when we learn to listen.

Day 5 (belated) I am grateful that families can be together forever.

Day 6 (belated) I am grateful for amazing parents who although flawed are amazing examples of Christ-like love and devotion.

Day 7 (belated) I am grateful for a body that although flawed can work and serve. I am grateful for a sister with whom I can ALWAYS laugh. Love you Renee Wills Rymer. I am grateful that God got me home throw the snow-storm last night and that I had full confidence that he would protect me with a voice of warning.

Day 8: I am grateful for the great minds who put words on a page that touch my heart and mind. Books are quite possibly my best friends.

Day 9: I am thankful that I have been blessed with such a strong love for my husband and that I have the assurance that he loves me too because today I really need that. ROFL When are we ever going to get the honeymoon phase?

Day 10: I am grateful for the privilege of being a mother. My daughters amaze me every day. They are growing so fast and are always so beautiful. My daughters are God’s way of telling me that I can’t be all that bad. Thank you God for entrusting them to me and letting me watch them become amazing young ladies.

Day 11: I am grateful for a toddler who will watch TV. Even if this makes me a bad mom (especially for admitting it publicly) I get some much needed scripture/prayer/meditation time in the mornings when she watches TV.

Day 12: I’m thankful for old photo albums and great memories. Man, we thought our lives were hard when we had three kids under 4; those were good old days…I need to remember that on the hard days now.

Day 12: (I guess this is really a second entry for yesterday since today is Day 13. What can I say? Sundays make me extra grateful. 🙂Today I am grateful that my husband and I have made such great progress…we can actually go over the budget and still be speaking. It only took 14+ years for us to finally meet in the middle. Now, he spends the money and I tell him not to.

Day 13: Today we had a lesson at church about The Millennium. We discussed how the ones who won’t be destroyed by fire will be the good people of all faiths and even the good people who were agnostic. Came home to many status updates from friends of all religions who went to church anywhere and everywhere today…so grateful for so many GREAT friends who are indeed GOOD people. Hope to see you all at The Second Coming.

Day 14: I am grateful for sleep, even if I have to take medication to get it. It’s so nice to wake up in the morning knowing you were able to rest your mind and body.

We love our Veteran
We were so happy when we got the word
last month
that Uncle Tyler got home
to his base in Italy
safe and sound
from being deployed
We are so grateful for the sacrifices he makes for his countrymen.
We are also grateful for the sacrifices made by his family.
Thank you to all our service people.
You are our nation’s greatest assets.

Book Review – The Watsons Go To Birmingham

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I can’t believe I never read this book until this year. WOW! Another great recommendation by my local librarian. This book was written by Christopher Paul Curtis, and was nominated for many awards including The Caldecott. It is beyond me why this book didn’t win and Bud Not Buddy did. Bud Not Buddy was also a great read, but this book was phenomenal. Phe-nom-e-nal!

The characters are so real and the story so honest that I really truly thought it was a work of non-fiction the whole time I was reading.

The Weird Watsons are loveable. So loveable. So real. So funny. The book has a very light feel to it until the very end when the family of 5 takes a trip to Birmingham, where they come face to face with an ugly part of American history: the racism and hatred in the South during the civil rights movement.

This book was emotional. It was raw. It was funny. It was so real. I felt like I was a fly on the wall to the home of the Watsons and to the soul of each member of the family. They are all absolutely entertaining and it’s fun to spy on a family dynamic that is fun.

The end was perfection. Pure perfection with the most unlikely of heroes. I don’t want to give away too much, but once again love conquers all.

View all my reviews

An Empty Well

I throw quarters in
but there is no splash.
I make my wish
as it clunks at the bottom.

I go elsewhere for water and wishes
because the well is empty.
I start making my wishes
for the well to fill
and keep dropping dimes.

I know someday the well
may be full of money
but then I will buy water
and make my greatest wish true.

Wells were made for wishes and water.

The Miracles of Life

I have tried to capture
a good photo of the moon
for as long as I can remember.

I have never had a real nice camera
and keeping it steady enough
to get a focused photo
is really tricky at night.

On Halloween,
I finally got my shot.
I looked and looked for
an inspiring quote to go with it
but I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

So I made my own.

I loved the story that I read by
Thomas S. Monson.
He is an inspired man of God
and his address titled
Finding Joy in the Journey
from 2008
is something that will get you
looking at your life
from a whole new perspective.

Many years ago I was touched by the story of Borghild Dahl. She was born in Minnesota in 1890 of Norwegian parents and from her early years suffered severely impaired vision. She had a tremendous desire to participate in everyday life despite her handicap and, through sheer determination, succeeded in nearly everything she undertook. Against the advice of educators, who felt her handicap was too great, she attended college, receiving her bachelor of arts degree from the University of Minnesota. She later studied at Columbia University and the University of Oslo. She eventually became the principal of eight schools in western Minnesota and North Dakota.
She wrote the following in one of the 17 books she authored: “I had only one eye, and it was so covered with dense scars that I had to do all my seeing through one small opening in the left of the eye. I could see a book only by holding it up close to my face and by straining my one eye as hard as I could to the left.”
Miraculously, in 1943—when she was over 50 years old—a revolutionary procedure was developed which finally restored to her much of the sight she had been without for so long. A new and exciting world opened up before her. She took great pleasure in the small things most of us take for granted, such as watching a bird in flight, noticing the light reflected in the bubbles of her dishwater, or observing the phases of the moon each night. She closed one of her books with these words: “Dear … Father in heaven, I thank Thee. I thank Thee.”
Borghild Dahl, both before and after her sight was restored, was filled with gratitude for her blessings.

We have so much for which to be grateful.
I know a God of miracles.
And I love Him with all my heart.
Dear Father in Heaven,
I thank thee also.
For all the miracles in my life.

I’m an idiot.

So, a week ago I set up comment moderation on my blog so that I could weed out the spammers more efficiently. They have gotten crazy as of late. So crazy that I considered becoming one to make some much needed cash. 🙂 LG forbid it. You can thank him for being the sensible one.

Well, the 38 year old that I am, had totally forgotten until cousin Kim made me aware that she had commented but it wasn’t showing up and it said it was waiting for me.

I do appreciate all the comments that were waiting for me…about 50 of them. Who is the oversensitive idiot now?

I am mostly just glad that you all aren’t missing out on what I consider my best giveaway.

I do feel God pulling me in another direction, but I want to reassure the few of you that showed some disappointment that I will keep blogging here. It just won’t have as much of my focus. And that is the way it supposed to be and I am happy about where I am and where I am going….much happier now that I know not all of you gave up on me all together and that I am just forgetful. God really does work in mysterious ways…sometimes even through our own brain freeze.

Hello? Anybody there?

I don’t want to be manipulative. I have worked really hard at learning that people have their own choices to make and that I need to give them the space to for their own choices. Boy, that was a hard lesson to learn too. Especially when you grow up in a family where everyone is always up in everybody else’s business.

But, I am curious. Does anyone even read this little blog anymore? I think I killed it to death. According to my stat counter, I know I get hits, but I was really really surprised that I just wrote a post giving away a free shirt with a value of $20 and I have not received one entry yet. Not one. Is it just that all of you don’t want to go over to their website before leaving a comment? Or is it that I harped on the modesty thing too much? Or are you all like me and think you will never win anyway? Or is there really just no interest in the amazing halftee?

Anyway, I’ve been blogging a long time and lately this here little blog has been in a big ‘ol drought in the comment department. I can’t even get a comment on a giveaway. I believe it may be time to hang up the towel. I am not saying that to make you feel sorry for me, but I’ve been open with y’all during the whole journey and I feel like I should also be open at the end.

I don’t blog solely for comments. I will always blog for my kids. I think they deserve their stories to be written and this here blog is the best place I have found for that to be done (with pictures to boot), but let’s face it, if nobody is enjoying this thing I may as well slow down in the posting department. It’s all good, I’ve got other ambitions and plenty of other avenues in the writing department. I have three books I have been too afraid to commit to and even if I am kidding myself with my writer’s ambitions there is always my neglected good old fashioned journal.

I wonder if everyone isn’t reading blogs anymore? Has facebook and twitter taken over? I know there are great popular blogs out there with large audiences so it can’t be that blogging is no more. I have recently had time to reflect that mine will probably never be one of those of blogs. It’s o.k! I think that it’s time for me steer myself in another direction and trust God to a greater degree. I know He’s got my back. It’s not that those other bloggers are better than me, it’s just that they found their callings in life, and I have not.

I have grown with this blog. It has been like the fertilizer to my roots, but I believe it may be time to not just bud, but flower. I need to flower in another direction. Toward the sun.

What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I believe it’s time for me to change. I believe it’s time for me to let go. I believe it’s time for me to grow some wings and fly away from the mediocrity of comfort.

This blog may not have the ending that I have wanted all these years, which is thousands of readers, but it’s not because of lack of effort and that is such a comfort to me. It will end with a fundamental change in me. That change is I no longer need thousands of readers. What good are thousands of readers if you aren’t doing what God wants you to do. I’ve given it all I’ve got. I’ve come to the conclusion that this blog is just not my calling in life, no matter how much I want it to be. I’m not saying that to get your sympathy. I just want to be honest with myself. I have prayed a lot about this very thing. What is my mission in life? I want to use the time I’ve got in the way God wants.

I have taken this blog to good places. I have gotten hundreds of thousands of hits. I have been recognized by other bloggers. Most of all I have made some wonderful blogging world friends. My greatest recognition has been the times when you, my friends, have laughed and cried along with me. It’s been a great ride. A great ride. It’s something that I am very proud of. I don’t walk away with my head hung in shame, but I will walk away with a greater vision and more courage than ever before. It’s time for Alice to let go of her desires and get more in tune with God’s will.

Yes, it’s time. No matter how much I want to fight it. I’ve given this blog almost a decade of my life and it’s time to let it go. Thank you friends for helping me get to where I am, even if it was just vicariously by being my imaginary readers. I thank each of you for being my audience because I know that took a lot of patience on your part.

I have scheduled out some posts and I have a bunch of drafts I need to finish, but after that I believe I will post only the family stories that I can’t bear to forget or things that God puts on my heart.

Wow, this is emotional for me, but it’s also exciting. God is so good to me. He has waited to let me see the need for forfeit after He gave me the strength for it and the vision for something else. Thank you my loving Father in Heaven. Thank you. Thank you for the past. Thank you for the future. But most of all thank you for the present moment when I know you are here with me.

This blog will never be by the wayside. It has been my northern star.