MY LIFE IN INK --

We welcome our reader in the Philippines who joins us this morning. Glad to have you with us.

Quint is upstairs waiting for the gravel man to bring his big dump truck with 5 tons of gravel for the driveway. That ought to keep us busy for today, tomorrow and the rest of next week.

Oh, life comes at us in stages. We have to move a few tools -- like rakes, shovels, yard brooms, etc. -- that are standing at attention against the carport wall. Once they're moved out of the way, then we can put the gravel down in the carport.

In order to really be efficient about it, I need to go ahead and put the springloaded hooks onto the walls in the storage closet at the end of the carport. And in order to do that, I need to move the lawnmower out, and Quint's wheelbarrow, and my little red wagon that has a bag of dirt and a bag of mulch in it. They need to come out of the closet so that I can walk around in there with my handy dandy little Dremmel that I use to make pilot holes, and my cordless Black & Decker super screwdriver.

After all that, I'll be able to hang up the tools. I bought a dozen of the springloaded things. That ought to do it. I've been waiting for a day when it wasn't 110 degrees in the closet. I'm not kidding. It's been too hot to work in there.

Everyone knows that ladies aren't supposed to -- well, you know -- perspire.

It's only 60 degrees now. So it will be a good time to start hanging things up. That is, after I finish painting the patio furniture.

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PERFECTIONISM -- IT JUST DOES NOT EXIST

Perfectionism is a cognitive distortion.

In the real world, it doesn't exist.

In a world of magical thinking, perfectionism is a much sought after goal. It ranks right up there with the princess being rescued by the dragon slaying prince and they ride off to his castle where they get married and live happily ever after.

That's perfectionism. Walt Disney made millions and millions just by repeating this simple, magical plot to so many of his stories. And through these stories came a serious flaw in thinking because there is no Prince Charming. He lives, with his dragons, within our imaginations.

Most of us can survive the reality check that puts magical thinking back in the little jewelry box that has the dancing ballerina. She stops dancing when you close the lid, right?

So where does all this need for perfectionism come from?

Probably from different places for different people. If you grew up in a family where it was not safe to be flawed, then you're going to strive to be perfect. Being perfect was the expectation that you picked out as you were growing up.

Maybe you weren't really expected to be perfect, but you may have thought that was the expectation. And it's possible that you packed that mindset into your mental tools that you brought into adulthood.

Well, I have a liberating thought for you. Anywhere along the way and certainly by the time you cross the threshold into adulthood, you can throw that old thought away. The thought of perfectionism, that is. It will not serve you well. Ever.

All you can ever hope for is to be the best you can be. Accept the very real fact that your psyche has little chinks in it. And that's okay. Those little chinks were earned from the lumps you took on the hard road of life.

During one of my rest breaks the other day, I was watching a design show. One of the designers had made a really nice bench for a newly redone room. Then he came onto the set with a chain which was wrapped around his hand. When asked what the chain was for, he said, "I'm going to put some stress marks in this bench so it will fit in with the antique decor." Then he started beating up on this poor little bench.

To my way of thinking, he ruined a good little bench. But he wanted the look of "distressed" wood. Huh? I think I missed something. I guess because everything we had in our house when I was growing up was old hand-me-down pieces of distressed furniture. I longed for the day when I could grow up and have smooth wood and unstressed furniture. I do have a few antiques that have been handed down to me, but they are pieces that have been cherished and well cared for.

But that's as far as the analogy to human imperfections and furniture imperfections go. In real life, imperfections with my peeps don't mean a loss of love.

Quite the contrary, acceptance and forgiveness undo any preoccupation with perfection.

And maybe that's the root where perfectionism comes from. Just maybe, we need to feel like people who love us will love us anyway. Even when they realize that we are less than perfect.

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Deuteronomy 5:1-33

Keep this homework thought in mind as you read verses 29 and 33: What do you read about the heart of our loving God?

Once again, Moses has gathered all the children of Israel around him. It was speech time, for sure. There were no PA systems -- no jumbotrons so everybody could get a good view -- it was Moses and God and the Israelites.

But somehow, through the powers of God himself, the voice of Moses could be heard by everybody who was standing around him. And they were all there. 

Wouldn't every pastor alive today just love to have 100% of their members sitting in the pews every Sunday morning?! You bet they would. And wouldn't it be great if people everywhere just couldn't wait to get in the door to hear more about God's love and acceptance and forgiveness? 

It was time for Moses to remind the children of Israel that the Ten Commandments were a covenant between them and God. This covenant wasn't between their forefathers and God but between them and God.

And the only reason God got in the middle of the children of Israel and God was because they kind of got freaked out with that burning bush and the big booming voice that was talking to them from the bush. That was when Moses got into the picture between them and God at Mount Horeb, otherwise known as Mount Sinai.

As if Moses, who was only human, could stop anything that God, who was and still is almighty, intended to do to the Israelites.

In this chapter, we have the entire restatement of the Ten Commandments. Just in case any of the details had slipped their minds.

Then a thought occurred to the Israelites. It goes all the way back to the stories their ancestors had handed down. That story was that if anyone even looked at God -- as if anyone could see him -- they would surely die.

Well, this burning bush scared them. Really scared them. Flames were shooting out of this bush all the way up to heaven. They knew that it was God speaking from the bush. Would that possibly mean that if they heard God they would die too?

I mean, what form did God have to take for certain death to come? Sure, they were scared all right. Can't you just hear them murmuring, "Does this mean we're going to die?"

At the end of verse 24 and through verse 27, they said to Moses, Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice the Lord our God any longer. For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.

Well, God heard them. God was listening to them. And don't think for one minute that this same God does not hear every word you say. Hopefully, what you say will be pleasing to God, just as the Israelites. But God gets very unhappy when he hears what people say sometimes too.

In the case of the Israelites, they finally got it. And God liked that. A lot. 

So he tells Moses to go on down there -- to the foot of the mountain and tell the Israelites to go on back to their tents, then come back because I have a few things I want you to write down. Kind of like taking notes so you get the exact quotes right. Just so there's no what I mean.

Moses brought this message from God to the Israelites, Walk in the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may life and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.

Wow! And there you have it. The secret of life from God himself.

In a more contemporary language, he could have said, "Just behave yourself. These are the rules. Follow them. If you follow the rules you'll live long and you'll live well."

How hard can that be? There are only ten rules. But they are rules, not suggestions.

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JUST SO YOU KNOW -- The last of the Korean hostages have left the country. Afghanisan, that is. Except for the ones who, unfortunately, were killed, all nineteen surviving hostages have been accounted for and are headed home.

The Taliban had killed two male hostages and released two women in the early days of the hostage-taking.

read more at: http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSCOL21739._CH_.2400

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SO WHO REALLY IS THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFULL WOMAN?

According to Forbes, it's Germany's Chancellor Angele Merkel.

Not HerMostWonderfullyRoyalSelf, Nancy Pelosi? Nah. Pelosi came in at No. 26, just behind HerMostSmartestWonderfulSelf, Hillary Clinton. Hillary was No. 25.

Condi Rice got bumped to fourth place. She was second last year, but the Vice Premier of China, Wu Yi, got her spot, and then there was that guy from Singapore, Ho Ching, who came in at No. 3. Ching is the head of Temasek Holdings. I'll get he's rich too.

Hey, Queen Elizabeth came in at No. 23. She even beat out Hillary.

Read the whole Forbes list at: http://www.forbes.com

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LESLIE VAN HOUTEN DENIED PAROLE

Remember her? She was one of Charles Manson's "family." She stabbed Rosemary LaBiana 14-16 times.

Because Manson told her to.

She wasn't sent out the night before on the "stab Sharon Tate" assignment though.

In 1971 she got the death penalty but it was changed to life imprisonment the following year when California abolished the death penalty.

Manson, who is 72 years old, was denied parole (again) last May.

Hopefully none of them will ever see life without a fence between them and us. Even if Van Houten was a cute little cheerleader. Looks can be deceiving, can't they.

Read the entire Reuters article at: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN3020841220070831?src=083107_1052_DOUBLEFEATURE_craig_tapes

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MY LIFE IN INK --

First of all, a cheery good morning to our wonderful friends in Wisconsin -- Joyce and Rich. And we pray for safe travels for you in your journal to Colorado. We also send a really big hi across the pond to our readers in Germany who are logged on right now, as we speak.

We had rain -- finally -- yesterday. Though Quint reports it was only 0.3", the thirst grass really enjoyed their heavenly slurpees.

We saw two deer at the back of the property yesterday. My good neighbor Anna called me and said, "Go look out back. You've got two deer in your yard." She had a clear view of them from her kitchen window when she was washing dishes. Her house is around the corner from our house but our back yards abut on the perpendicular, if you know what I mean.

And sure enough, there they were. I got some good photos. So today we're going over to Rural King and buy a salt lick to enhance their dining pleasures.

We don't have a really ambitious day planned today. I'm going to be painting the patio furniture (still). Will definitely get the second coat on the table and get it back onto the patio when it's dry. And one chair is ready for its second coat. Then it's just the three other chairs to get both coats on.

Then we'll rest up for the gravel delivery tomorrow. Maybe go get the movie we wanted to see the other day, "Remember the Titans." 

I actually found some watermelon flavored Kool-Aid so maybe I'll make a big pitcher of watermelon flavored 7-Up later. Then we'll just sit in the shade and talk about how much we like retirement. Still.

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OH, BROTHER. NOW IT'S SPINACH THAT'S BEING RECALLED

The culprit is salmonella. It's from California. And it's salmonella, not E-coli.

Salmonella was named after the doctor who discovered it -- Dr. Daniel Salmon. It's a bacteria. There are three different varieties in a subspecies of Salmonella enterica.

The first type of salmonella bacterium is "serovar Typhi." This is the culprit that causes typhoid fever. It's not common in the United States. It can only infect humans and comes from contaminated water. Don't drink the bad water and don't wash your fruits and vegetables with it either. Boiling is a good way to get rid of salmonella. Because it's a bacteria, it won't survive boiling.

The second kind of salmonella is "servovar Typhimurium." This one causes a typhoid like disease in mice and it can produce a discomfort like the Typhi type, but not as severe. 

The third salmonella that we concern ourselves with is "survovar Enteritidis." This is probably the most common cause of food poisoning in the United States. It infects chickens and gets passes on to humans.

So what can you do to make sure you don't get a good dose of salmonella? Two things right off the bat: wash your hands with soap and water. Before, during and after cooking food. And keep your cutting board clean too.

I immediately rinse my cutting board with hot running water from the sink right after I cut anything up. Then I wash it with hot, soapy water. If I've been cutting meats, I also get out the salt shaker and sprinkle salt on the side that had been used for cutting meat. I let the salt sit on the cutting board for a bit. Because I didn't dry the cutting board after running the hot water on it, the salt makes a brine that deters bacterial growth. Then the cutting board gets another soap and water bath before it gets put away.

Too much trouble? Not really. Better to be safe than sorry.

Read more about salmonella at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/29/tainted.spinach.ap/index.html

Fortunately, I don't have any spinach from my last shopping excursion. And another fortunate thing is that about 90% of the bagged spinach was halted before it even got out the door.

But just in case you do have some spinach in your house, you can check out lot numbers at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/29/tainted.spinach.ap/index.html

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40 ASSETS CHILDREN NEED TO SUCCEED

My name's not Oprah and ordinarily I do not recommend books to read. There are a number of reasons why I don't, but that's another story.

Today, however, I'm going to tell you about a book that every parent should have. It you have no other book in your home besides your family Bible and a good cookbook, this book is the one to add.

It's called What Kids Need to Succeed. It's available on line from www.freespirit.com. I believe it still costs $5.99, plus shipping, handling, taxes, etc.

It's written by Peter L. Benson, Judy Galbraith and Pamela Espeland. It's based on a gigantic piece of research and covers kiddos from 6th grade through 12th. 

These forty assets are nested within 8 topical areas that include:

1.) Support, including family support, other adult relationships and a caring school climate.

2.) Empowerment, including community that values young people and service to others.

3.) Boundaries and Expectations, including neighborhood boundaries and positive peer influences.

4.) Constructive use of time.

5.) Commitment to learning, including school engagement and reading for pleasure.

6.) Positive values, including equality and social justice, and restraint.

7.) Social competency, including planning and decision making, cultural competence, and resistance skills.

8.) Positive identity, including a sense of purpose, and a positive view of the future.

These forty assets are sibdivided into internal assets and external assets. 

But this is not just a learning book -- it has very specific things that parents can do in the home to grow these assets within their children. There are also things that schools, churches and communities can do to increase childrens' assets.

In each of the 40 sub-categories! 

The authors also share with you what the responses were from the kiddos to research statements. One such statement was "In my family, people care about me."

Or, "In my school, rules are administered fairly."

Or "my family has good boundaries."

The authors also tie the responses to school behaviors. That is, the more assets children have, the less likely they are to engage in high risk behaviors such as drinking and drugging, sexual activities, and illegal activities.

Conversely, the more assets a child has the better they do in school, at home and in their communities.

What struck me when I was going through the book was the low responses that the children gave for the categories. It seems that there's a growing number of kids out there who believe they are adrift at sea without role models, without good family boundaries, and adults who do not care about them -- either at home, at school or at church.

This research is not in language that requires a doctorate in psychology to be able to read it and understand it. Rather, the answers are from children who are telling us what's gone wrong, and what's working.

Listen to the children.

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Deuteronomy 4:1-49

In today's homework assignment, we are supposed to identify what we can do better in proclaiming God's Word to our children or grandchildren.

Pay particular attention to verse 9.

The children of Israel are getting the 10 Commandments restated to them in this chapter. Moses especially wants the Israelites to know that God is a jealous God and will absolutely not tolerate worship of anything or anybody but himself.

Moses is giving his big send-off speech and he tells his peeps that if they follow these rules and let others know what the rules are that have been handed down directly from none other than God himself, then other people will really look up to them and think they are hugely wise.

Not only that, but it is apparently obvious to everyone that the Israelites have God very near to them and he doesn't go wandering off. The difference, at least to me, is that people who have idols for Gods -- you know, things, are at a clear disadvantage because they have to pack up their gods and take them along.

On the other hand, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob goes with the Israelites. These people travel with God, not the other way around. To me, that's a big distinction.

Moses must have thought so too because he reminds the Israelites that they are lucky to have God with them wherever they go.

He does bring a warning to them in verse 9, and this is the verse listed in the homework assignment: Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

And just in case the Israelites might be tempted to minimize all that God was to them, Moses reminds them about the day when they were all gathered around the mountain and there was this big giant fire burning all the way up to the heavens, and just this voice without a body they could see, giving them the outline of what they should and shouldn't do.

How many other people could make the claim that their gods actually spoke to them? Not just little speeches, but a big booming voice that could probably have been heard for miles and miles and miles.

Wow!

And the Israelites couldn't see where this voice was coming from. "So you just watch yourselves," Moses said. "You'd just better be very careful that you don't go wandering off to those other places where there are these little tin gods that other people are worshiping. They'll corrupt you and you'll be in so much trouble. God will be angry with you and believe me, you do not want God to be angry with you."

And then, just to make sure he got his point across Moses told the Israelites that God had gotten mad at him. Mainly because of the Israelites. And now, thanks to the Israelites having worshiped Baal, Moses wasn't going to be able to go into the promised land.

And then comes the threat of future punishment -- all misbehavior carries consequences -- and the consequences of future infractions would be that God would scatter the Israelites.

But even if, in their scatteredness, they called out to God and asked for forgiveness, the mercies of God would be theirs because God said he'd remember this very covenant he had with their ancestors. In verse 34, Moses says to the Israelites, "For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers which he confirmed to them by oath.

At the end of this chapter, Moses talks about setting up Cities of Refuge for people who unintentionally kill another person, like involuntary manslaughter. The sanctuary cities were Bezer in the desert plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.

And then, just in case the Israelites were starting to feel like Mighty Mites, Moses reminds about all those battles they had been in. "It was God's doing -- not yours. You're not so big and brave as you might think you are. Just remember that."

---

So back to verse 9 and the homework question of what I can do better in proclaiming God's Word to my children and grandchildren.

Our first thought is, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Role modeling Christian faith is important. Our children and grandchildren know that we go to church every weekend. We could tell them how important it is to go to church but if we don't do it, the words, like seeds, fall on fallow ground and never take root.

With our adult children who are all at least forty years old, lecturing is not appropriate at this point in their lives. But Christian-themed gifts and cards are welcome. They bring reminders of the importance of the presence of God in our lives and their lives.

Speaking the words of affirmation and love is very important. God is love. Each child was given a Bible when growing up, and now each grandchild has a personal study Bible.

And most important, as the grandchildren are growing up, let them know that there is nothing they can do that would make God stop loving them.

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MY LIFE IN INK --

Some of you may think that this part of the daily blog is all there is. I was surprised to learn from some readers that this is so. But if you keep reading past this part, you'll find an article about something psychobabble and after that, I've just started a devotional from a Bible reading.

I am absolutely astonished with the growing Bible reading population. China and other places in the Far East are particularly hungry for Bible truths. So welcome aboard. I pray that your visits to this web site will help give you courage and strength in your daily walk with God.

We have a stowaway in our office downstairs (in the basement). It sounds an awful lot like Jiminy Cricket. We had one in the condo a few years ago. He stayed with us a long time.

Does anybody know what the life expectancy is for crickets? Just wondering.

I have a call coming in at 9:30 CDT so I'm not sure if I'll get all the segments of the blog finished by that time. But check back through the day when you have time because I'll pick up where I left off.

And then I'll be painting again. Tra la la la la. Makes my heart sing when a fresh coat of crispy paint goes onto things. The paint project now is the iron patio furniture. It's going to be a beautiful bright white.

That will take a few days, believe me. Mainly because Quint and I take a lot of breaks. When it's hot. Now that we're getting older, we rest more often and longer at a time.

Quint is headed out now to give the cute little pretties their morning shower since it's so hot. He says he has a basket of tiny little bars of soap and itsy bitsy towels for each one of them. He says he can actually hear them giggling with delight as they shower off the hot stickies from the 95+ degree temperatures of yesterday.

I wonder if they all sing separate songs, or if they join together in a chorus.

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GOOD NEWS: TALIBAN RELEASING SOUTH KOREANS

In an article just released to Bloomberg News, the Taliban has started to release South Koreans who were being held hostage. For nearly six weeks, the fate of the South Koreans had been in question.

Eight hostages -- 7 women and 1 man -- were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Three hostages had been released earlier.

The Red Cross was able to get the Taliban together with the South Korean government.

Four more hostages are to be released later today.

And what did the South Koreans agree to?

According to the article, the South Koreans promise to withdraw its military (some 200 strong) from Afghanistan by the end of the year -- and also promised to put a halt to Christian missionary activities in Afghanistan.

The South Korean hostages were members of a church group doing humanitarian work in Afghanistan.

Read article at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aV5LGdI3YV.M&refer=home

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MAKE YOUR OWN RANCH DRESSING -- IT'S EASY! AND ALWAYS FRESH

I mentioned the other day that I was going to make some Ranch Dressing  for lunch. This prompted a whole bunch of requests for this very easy recipe:

1 cup light or fat-free mayonnaise
2 T. lemon juice
2 T. chopped fresh parsley
2 T. chopped green onion
2 T. Equal, or 3 packets of Equal sweetener (I used 3 T. Splenda)
1 T. Dijon mustard
1-1/2 t. minced fresh garlic
1/4 t. salt
3/4 c. buttermilk

Mix it all up and let it set in the refrigerator for a couple of hours just to let all the flavors romp around and honeymoon for a bit. This also makes a wonderful dip for fresh vegetables.

I wish I knew where I got this recipe, but I don't. It probably came from one of those magazines where I rip out half the recipes with the most earnest intent of actually cooking whatever it is. 

About once a year -- usually around New Years when things have slowed down a bit, I go through all the recipes and too probably half of them. But even so, if I live to be 200 years old, I'll never be able to make all the recipes.

This recipe is easy to adapt. I've added salsa; also fresh crumbled bacon bits; tiny little cucumber bits, etc.

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ALIENATION FROM OTHERS -- THE LONG, UNCOMFORTABLE  ROAD TO SHYNESS

There's something that all shy people -- socially anxious people -- alienated people have in common: they don't mix with other people for fear that they will be evaluated.

This fear of being evaluated, or judged, is an underlying theme that runs through anxious peoples' psyches.

My psych students were having a rather spirited discussion about shyness one day in class. The class had gone well and the semester's psych offerings had helped some students to start to come out of the turtle shell they have built over the years.

They were absolutely amazed -- deer in the headlights amazed -- when I told them not to ever worry about people at a social gathering evaluating them.
 
"There's one reason why you don't have to worry about that," I said. "That's mainly because people in a group are just not all that concerned about what you're doing. They're thinking about what they're going to do or say next."

"And," I continued, "If you're ever at a gathering and you don't know what to talk about, just go up to someone and let them talk about their favorite subject. Themselves."

Works every time.

Think about it. We'd all be better communicators if we were really listening to what someone else is saying. But most of the time, we're rehearsing what we're going to say next.

It's good therapy to make it a practice to go up to someone you don't know, or someone you hardly know, and get into a short conversation with them.

Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it about them. Works every time. Unless, of course, they're on the phone. Don't be a nincompoop who stands there waiting for someone to hang up. That'll make you look like you're eavesdropping so don't be surprised if you get a quick, "Go away."

You do have to pick your moments, but you don't have to be laborious about it.

Still can't do it? Then go all the way back to baby steps -- make eye contact when you pass someone's desk, or someone in the hall. After you've gotten comfortable doing that, then try a "Good morning." Now say it like you mean it. No mumbling.

Then you can advance to something like, "Have a nice weekend." Unless, of course, it's Tuesday. In that case, "Have a nice day" will do.

According to Dr. Phil Zombardo -- the clinical psychologist who wrote the book on shyness -- (yes, his book was literally called Shyness), shyness is a prison that people build for themselves. And the doors are locked on the inside. So the good news is you can get out anytime. Kind of like a cocoon. And just like the butterfly, you're going to have to come out all by yourself.

Don't worry. It's risky. But it's okay. You know that butterflies can't fly very well when people help them get out of the cocoon. Somehow their wings get damaged when they are hurried out of the cocoon by well-meaning butterfly-grower-uppers.

You have to take the risk and just do it. That way, you get to own your own success. And no matter how uncomfortable it is to take such a risk, it's not nearly as uncomfortable as those horrible feelings of alienation and isolation, is it?

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IT WEDNESDAY: Deuteronomy 3:1-29

This is really an add-on to yesterday's lesson. The question was "What are some of the ways that you use your hands during the day?" The most obvious answer came to me just before I drifted off to sleep last night. Prayer. I use my hands when I pray because I fold them out of respect for God when I'm praying to him. And of course I would think of this when my head hit the pillow, because that's the last time of the day that I pray.

The question I'm supposed to ponder as I read today's Bible truth is this: What can you do with the Word of God to increase the Kingdom of God?

Oh boy. And I just printed something about the South Koreans agreeing not to do any more Christian work in Afghanistan in exchange for the release of the hostages held by the Taliban. But I'm just curious: how is that different from denying Christ on the world stage? Then again, getting the hostages released may be a part of God's bigger plan.

In this chapter, the Israelites are on the move again. They had stopped briefly to beat up the Amorites and were richer for it, I might add.

Now they are coming up on Og, king of Bashan.

I always wanted to meet someone named Og. "Hello, Mr. Og. My name is Ms. Blog. How are you today?"

The Israelites must have been showing some signs of wear and tear after their last big battle because God told them not to worry about it; he had their backs.

But oh my goodness. Mr. Og had sixty cities. They took no survivors. Just the booty. They destroyed everything except Mr. Og's bed. It was made of iron. It was more than 13' long and 6' wide.

Actually, guys, it's not so much a bed as a room. Maybe that's where the term bedroom came from.

And so, the Israelites came to a point in time where things were going to start to be divided up. They were standing on the edge of a high plateau overlooking the vast lands that were to be theirs.

Note the similiarites in verses 16-17: But to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory extended from Gilead down to the Arnon Gorge (the middle of the gorge being the border) and out of the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites. Its western border was the Jordan in the Arabah, from Kinnereth to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea), below the slopes of Pisgah.

to Mark 1:16-17: As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

A footnote that my study Bible says that the Sea of Galilee is fed by the upper Jordan River. It was called the Lake of Gennesaret in Luke 5:1 and the Sea of Tiberias in John 6:1; 21:1, and in Old Testament times it was known as the Sea of Kinnereth in Numbers 34:11.

I find it interesting that this tract of land given to the Israelites was still being bestowed again in the New Testament to a new group of message deliverers -- the disciples of Christ.

But back from the sidebar. The Reubenites got some land. And the heirs of Manasseh got their acreage too.

Then it was time for everybody to rest a while.

They were free from any outside conflict. There were no plagues to bother them. They had the promise of lands that the Lord God himself had bestowed upon them.
 
Now comes Joshua's time. It's his big commission. And God reminded him, just in case it might have slipped his mind, that God was going to be right there with him, in the trenches so to speak. God promised to fight for him. This was a most serious reminder that unless you have God with you, you're never going to enjoy any victories. Anywhere.

Before this chapter ends, Moses makes one last urgent plea. If he wasn't going to be allowed to go into the lands that God was giving Israel, could he at least just have a peek at the lands?

Well, okay, then. God relented just a bit and said in verse 27: Go up to the top of Pisgah and look west and north and south and east. Look at the land with your own eyes, since you are not going to cross this Jordan.

It was going to be Joshua who would lead the people of Israel across the Jordan River into the promised land.

The Israelites had come home at last.

---

And back to my question as to what I can do with the Word of God to increase the Kingdom of God.

Simple. I'll can share. I'll bring a contemporary version of this important Old Testament lesson to people who might otherwise find the Old Testament a bit stuffy. I do not. Never have.

The Old Testament is alive with battles going on everywhere. I mean, I always thought the Battle of Gettsyburg with its 58,000 casualties in a single day was a bloodbath. That was nothing compared to what God could do when he wanted some ne-er do well king defeated.

Bam! You're done. And then he'd say to the Israelites, "Now go in there and get what you want. The plunder is yours for the taking."

And it wasn't even looting because God had given the plunder to them. When you think about it, everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God. He just lets us use it for a while.

But you'd better make sure you have his permission to use it. He doesn't like looters. That's stealing. And "Thou shalt not steal" is one of God's Big Ten. So don't do it.

We are here on earth to build God's kingdom. We can build his kingdom by talking about who God is and sharing with people that we have God in our lives.

Reluctant to do that? You'd be surprised how easy it is.

For instance, the other day we went into the video store to get a copy of Remember the Titans. It was out. The clerk said it was due back on Wednesday so we'll go back for it. Then she pointed out that it was a fairly old video. I said it didn't matter because our pastor had used a clip from it in the sermon on Sunday and it looked interesting so we wanted to see the whole movie. Besides, we're Denzel Washington fans.

Then she asked "What church do you go to?"

Bingo! We told her and she asked for the address. I asked her if she went to church. She said, "Not regularly. But any pastor who uses movie clips sounds like someone I'd like to hear."

So we left it at that. You know the standard, "Hope to see you there." But I always add, "If you don't have anyone to sit with, look for us. We'd love to have you sit with us."

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Welcome to 449 readers from the U.S., 1 from France, and 3 from China this morning -- as we speak. Don't know exactly who you are because I only get the country from which you are logging in. But it's exciting. I hope you'll return often.

I will admit that I was very surprised with the response I got from the devotional yesterday. Thank you so much for your kind thoughts and prayers. Love your e-mails.

Just remember to put something that will tie you to this web site in the subject line of your e-mails.

Well, we got the patio painted with the second coat yesterday. The blue color is much more to our liking and will look very nice with the patio furniture painted a crispy white. The furniture is today's project. Not that I intend to get the table and all four chairs finished, but we shall see.

The weather here is holding out for us. Going to be another dry, un-rainy day with low humidity. Good for painting.

There are thunderstorms threatened for tomorrow, but they're "isolated."

We're actually finding triplicates of a lot of things. Mainly cleaning supplies and first aid supplies. I guess we weren't nearly as organized as we appeared. But now we have all our stuff under one roof and it's a lot.

I think I could open a little medical clinic in an undeveloped country somewhere. We now have found no less than six tubes of hydrocortisone cream. Hey, it's good for what ails you. If scratchy is what ails you -- like mosquitoes or poison ivy. I think we may be set for life.

And cleaning supplies -- well, I could keep Molly Maids going for at least a month. I have just about every kind of new product that's out there. A lot of them are just sitting collecting dust now that I've discovered a product called Awesome. I get it at the Dollar Tree. Have never experienced anything like it. If you're looking for an absolutely awesome cleaning product, this is the one.

But that's what happens when we had an office, a condo and a house. Then, all of a sudden, we only have the house. We do go through an awful lot of dish detergent since the house doesn't have a dishwasher yet. And dishes aren't allowed to stand in the sink for more than, say, ten minutes.

Actually, I don't mind not having a dishwasher as much as I thought I would.

In short, we love being retired. Quint and I have each worked more than 50 years. The hardest, longest jobs we ever had were when we worked for ourselves. We are absolute slave drivers.

Even Anna, my kind neighbor lady, tells us to slow down. We're wearing her out just watching us.

##

KIDS ARE QUICK -- from Alice Stubbe

Teacher: Maria, go to the map and find North America.
Maria: Here it is.
Teacher: Correct. Now class, who discovered North America?
Class: Maria.

Teacher: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
John: You told me to do without using tables.

Teacher: Glenn, how do you spell "crocodile?"
Glenn: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L
Teacher: No, that's wrong.
Glenn: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spelled it.

Teacher: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
Donald: H I J K L M N O
Teacher: What are you talking about?
Donald: Yesterday you said it's H to O

Teacher: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago.
Winnie: Me!

Teacher: Glenn, why do you always get so dirty?
Glenn: Well, I'm a lot closer to the ground that you are.

Teacher: Millie, give me a sentence starting with "I."
Millie: I is...
Teacher: No, Millie. Always say, "I am..."
Millie: All right. I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.

Teacher: George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louis, do you know why his father didn't punish him
Louis: Because George still had the ax in his hand.

Teacher: Now, Simon, tell me frankly. Do you say prayers before eating?
Simon: No. I don't have to. My mom is a good cook.

Teacher: Clyde, your composition on "My Dog" is exactly the same as your brother's. Did you copy his?
Teacher: No, teacher. It's the same dog.

Teacher: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
Harold: A teacher.

##

A GOOD WOMAN -- from Brenda Moore

A good woman is proud of herself. She respects herself and others. She is aware of who she is. She neither seeks definition from the person she is with, nor does she expect them to read her mind. She is quite capable of articulating her needs.

A good woman not only protects her children but she protects the men in her tribe.

A good woman is hopeful. She is strong enough to make all her dreams come true. She knows love and therefore she gives love. She recognizes that her love has great value and must be reciprocated. If her love is taken for granted, it soon disappears.

A good woman has a dash of inspiration and endurance. She knows that she will, at times, have to inspire others to reach the potential given to them.

A good woman knows her past, understands her present and moves toward the future.

A good woman knows God within by her character. She knows that with truth, the world is her playground, but without truth, she will just be played. Or continue the cycle of abusing what balances her. A good man. A good woman does not live in fear of the future because of her past mistakes. Instead, she understands that her life experiences are merely lessons, meant to bring her closer to self-knowledge and unconditional self-love if she displays Truth, Honesty, Love and Freedom.

##

REGISTER YOUR CELL PHONE ON "DO NOT CALL LIST" -- from Alice Stubbe

In a matter of days, all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls.

You will be charged for these calls.

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:

888-382-1222

It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It won't take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years.

You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked.

You cannot call from a different phone number.

Tell all friends. It truly only takes about 20 seconds.

##

SELF-ESTEEM -- GET SOME!

Actually, we all have self-esteem. Some just have more of it than others. That is, some people enjoy a greater self-esteem.

Today, I'm going to show you how to measure your self-esteem using the Reinheimer Self-Esteem Model.

The first thing you need to do is identify yourself.

I mean, if you can IDENTIFY something, you can MEASURE it. And if you can MEASURE something, you can MANAGE it.

When it comes to identifying who you are, you ought to be able to identify at least 15 different roles that you plan. These roles might be:

1 - Spouse
2 - Adult child
3 - Parent
4 - Sibling
5 - Grandparent
6 - Other adult relative
7 - Employee (or Employer)
8 -Job (different from being an employee)
9 - Driver
10 - Money manager
11 - Housekeeper
12 - Friend
13 - I have fun
14 - I take care of myself
15 - I am cheerful

I like to add those last three in, no matter how many other identifiers people come up with.

Yes, you can use phrases to identify yourself.

Besides, these last three items go a long way in helping you increase your self-esteem.

Step 1: On a scale of 1 - 5, with 1 being pretty much the lowest mark you could give yourself, and 5 is sailing along pretty satisfied with how you're doing in this identifier, you'd have a total of 75 maximum points.

Step 2: Draw a number line. Make a mark at the midpoint -- and write "50%" at this point. Then divide the midpoints again and write "25%" and "75%" in their places.

Step 3: Review the list again. This is where you evaluate how you're doing in each of those identifying categories. I'm going to evaluate a fictitious person so you get the idea. I like to add the last three categories into everybody's list. These are three items that really drag down self-esteem. They're a challenge for people to work on -- but they need to.

Spouse - 3 (I stay at the office sometimes too late, miss too many dinners at home, and sometimes don't call when I'm running late)

Adult child - 3 (This is a hard one. I think I'm doing okay in this category but deep down I think I could do more -- maybe just sending a birthday card once a year isn't enough, or Christmas presents)

Parent - 4 (I work hard at this one -- never miss a birthday, keep in touch mainly by internet because the kiddos are spread out all over the country. But there's always room for improvement so I'm going to leave it at "4.")

Sibling - 2 (Oh brother. My brothers and sisters are spread out all over the country. Sometimes it seems like I've lost track of them. I really need to work on this item more.)

Grandparent - 3 (This one is a mess -- there's blended families where the kiddos have 6 grandparents, divorced kids where the mom won't allow contact with our son's kids, illegitimate grandkids, some just disappeared because of a divorce. We have 7 grandkids but we're only connected with 1 of them.)

Other adult relative - 2 (I'm an uncle so I evaluated this one. I only have two nieces and a nephew. One niece told me she hated my mother at my mother's funeral. She hasn't contacted me since. Another niece lives in Europe. She changes her cell phone every other month so it's difficult to keep up with her. The nephew who lives in this country is a workaholic and never answers his phone. It always goes to voice mail so he's either too busy to engage in family conversations or he's screening me out.)

Employee - 1 (I rated myself low because I've been written up twice at work for spending too much time on the internet during working hours. If I get caught once again, I'll lose my job, so I'm feeling pretty nervous about that right now. I try to stay at work to make up for the time I use on the internet but my boss says that's not the point. I'm supposed to be working while I'm at work.)

Job - 5 (I'm an accountant and a darned good one. I go to seminars every year to keep up with changes in the tax codes, etc. But I really need to buckly down and finish my degree.)

Driver - 4 (I got a speeding ticket last year, otherwise, I'd have given myself a 5)
Money manager - 2 (I've been spending a little too much time at the boats, so I'm giving myself a low number here. Mainly because I've let some credit card payments go just so I have a little extra cash to use for my new gambling hobby.)

Housekeeper - 3 (I guess I'm about average. I don't get around to running the vacuum as often as as I like. I'd definitely need more than two hours notice before I'd want friends to come over. Drop-ins would definitely be an embarrassment.)

Friend - 5 (I think I'm a good friend. A very good friend that you can count on.)

I have fun - 3 (I'd like to have more fun but I'm worried about my job and my family.)

I take care of myself - 2 (I thought I was doing okay until I started talking about the different categories. I need to work on this one. Big time.)

I am cheerful - 1 (Are you kidding? The wolf is at the door. I may get fired next payday. Especially if my boss finds out what web sites I've been going to. Can they find that stuff out? Sure hope not. I really need to cut that out.)

Step 4: Add up the total of your evaluation points. In this case, the total comes up to a raw score of 43.

Step 5: Divide the total evaluation by the perfect score of 75. In this case it's 0.57333.

Step 6: Multiply this number by 100 to get a number you can put on the number line. This person's evaluation would be the number 57.333.

Okay, so this person's self-esteem is just barely more than the halfway point. My experience with clients over the last seventeen years or so tells me that people feel much better about themselves when their self-esteem scores at the 75 point or better.

So, for this person to get up to a "75," a raw score of 56.25 is needed.

Subtract the real raw score of 43 from 56.25. This gives a number of 13.25.

In other words, if your real raw score was 56.25, you'd place yourself at 75 on your number line. You'd feel a whole lot better about yourself if you were way up there.

So how do you get there? Remember, I said if you can identify something (we did with the list of roles), you can measure it (we did that too by evaluating how this person was doing in each of the categories).

And if you can measure something, you can manage it. That means that you can start to grow your self-esteem.

This person needs to pick up about 14 points. Where could 14 points come from?

Well, for starters, I'd strongly recommend curtailing those trips to the boat. That would bring up the Money Manager category. Over time, that "2" could grow into a 4 or 5.

The potential disaster looming across the horizon is the "employee" category. It is clearly time to have a heart to heart talk with the boss. The fact that this person wasn't fired on the spot says that there's still some thought of being a valuable employee. There's clearly a compulsion going on here with some internet sites that could, in fact, threaten the job. Some of these sites can be addictive and I think employees have to look at them like that. You can't smoke at work anymore, and you can't look at some off limit internet sites. This person needs to get into some kind of behavior modification program. Fast. Doing so could raise this score up a couple of points. Going back to college to finish that degree will also help.

By doing so, this person could also pick up a point for "taking care of myself."

Being a more considerate spouse will get another point.

An adult child can become more accessible. That's worth a point.

Same is true for the sibling category. What could you do to bring that score up one point?

Think baby steps. Little changes make life changes.

Anything you can do to make your score on the number line start moving to the right will help you manage and grow your self-esteem.

I suggest re-evaluating and adding to the list every couple of months. Keeps us on our toes.

##

BIBLE STUDY: Deuteronomy 2: 1-37

The Israelites are on the move again. And they have their marching orders, so off they go. Back to the desert.

Their instructions are very clear. They are not to pick on anybody along the way or go stirring up any wars with the Ammonites.

They're just supposed to pass through the Ammonite land and stay on the roads.

Somewhere along the line, the Israelites got ahold of some silver. I'd have to do some research to find out where their money came from. I mean, when they left Egypt, they were slaves.

Slaves don't get paid. So where'd the moolah come from?

Anyway, God told them -- through Moses -- that if they used any food or water while they were passing through, they were to pay in silver.

The Israelites are walking around on land that their ancestors had tred before them. They hadn't been born in this land though, so it didn't look familiar to them.

I mean, they didn't have any photo albums or videos to look at. Don't even know if some of the old folks remembered anything that might have been familiar.

But you can be sure, God was watching out for the Israelites. That is, as long as they obeyed him and did what they were told. That is, they were supposed to bypass Edom, Moab and Ammon because these people had a blood relationship to Israel.

God has already given the land of Edom to Esau.

Lot's descendants got the lands of the Moabites and Ammonites.

And while they were marching along over hill and dale and across the Zered Valley, and across the Arnon Gorge, God put fear into the hearts of people they met along the way. When they crossed the gorge, God brought them face to face with Sihon the Amorite. He was the king of Heshbon.

God said they could have this land. Fighting Sihon would be okay. Oh, they tried to be nice to Sihon. They offered to pay him for the food they ate and water they drank when they passed across his land. Just like God told them to do.

But Sihon was not going to let that happen. Mighty kind that he was -- and a doomed one at that -- he was being pretty ungenerous. In verse 30 we learned that God had made him stubborn and obstinate.

Then God told the Israelites that they could go on ahead and have a fight with Sihon.

It was conquering time! Woohoo!

But it was God's conquest, not the Israelis. God delivered Sihon and all his lands, and his towns to the Israelites. They destroyed everybody -- men, women and children. No survivors. Just the livestock.

Oh, and they took some plunder too. They carried everything off.

In verse 36, we're told that not one town was too strong for us. The Lord our God gave us all of them.

So see -- you don't go making war with other people just because you want to. If it's meant to be, God will make it happen. In this case, the lands of the Amorites were handed over to the Israelites. This land on the other side of the rim of the Arnon Gorge was east of the Jordan River -- the territory known as Transjordan and Canaan. 

And if he doesn't bless what you're doing, you are doomed.

Back to verse 7 for the homework assignment: The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through the desert. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.

The question is: What are some of the ways that you use your hands during the day? Today think of one way you will use your hands to bless someone who needs the touch of the Savior's love.

I am blessed with typing abilities. So as I sit here sharing this Bible Study with you, I believe this is one of the ways that I can use my hands to serve God today.

Also, this afternoon I am going to catch up on my correspondence and sent notes to people who live far away.

Isolation is dreadful to people who feel lost and alone. Today I can bring a cheery message to others.

What can you do?

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

We enjoyed the refreshment of spiritual renewal yesterday, Sunday. We went to a new church and enjoyed ourselves so much! Quint and I believe that we have our new church home.

One of the things we like right away was Pastor Rensner's "homework" assignment. What a novel idea. In the worship bulletin was an insert that had assigned Bible readings for the week, with questions to ponder while reading.

I'm so enthused about it that I'll be adding a section each day as part of this blog. I hope you enjoy the readings. I know there are many of you living in countries around the world who do not enjoy the religious freedoms we have here in the United States. For that reason, any kind of Bible study is most like a very welcome treasure for a great mean of you.

Sad to say but we tend to take things for granted when we have them so readily available. I suspect that we'd all have a deeper yearning for Bible study if our Bibles were all confiscated and we were told that we wouldn't be allowed to study the Word of God anymore. It's one of the faith practices that we ought to engage in on a daily basis.

What a way to start the week. And a new reader from Macedonia -- and yesterday, a new reader from Puerto Rico joined us. Welcome aboard. Help you come back every day.

Quint and I painted the patio in back of the house. It's really just a concrete slab -- about 8 feet wide by maybe 12 feet long. It's a nice size and has plenty of room for a round table with four chairs. I do believe the furniture is made out of iron. It's very heavy. That's going to get a coat of crisp white as part of the patio project.

We had painted the patio last fall. Unfortunately, the color we picked out didn't dry exactly like the swatch color we'd selected. So instead of a deep blue, it looked like a very fake swimming pool aqua. The new color is more a deep federalist blue.

Better. Better. Better.

And the jasmine that I planted on next door neighbor Mr. Crabby's side of our yard will hopefully get very tall and block out his negativity. I'm hoping the jasmine gets about 8' tall. And 20' wide. If not, then I'll add some honeysuckle. That grows in profusion and wanders about. If all that doesn't work, I'll put a trumpet vine over there. Then we'll have a blooming jungle with lots of little flowers serving up gleefully giggling little smiles all day. Kind of like a foliating choir.

And we'll continue to pray for him.

##

HOLLYWOOD BREAKS THROUGH THE $4 BILLION BARRIER THIS SUMMER

We tend to go ga ga when it comes to billion dollar items. Like that's a whole bunch of money.

And indeed it is. The price tag for repairs for Hurricane Katrina is now set at $75 billion.

I remember reading somewhere that we spend $1 billion on our favorite beach and beach bum cuisine -- the hot dog.

But $4 billion on summer movies? That's a bunch of zeroes.

Of course, it took the Simpsons, another pirate show in the Caribbean, another Shrek show, another Bourne ultimatum, Harry Potter and another mission impossible to get it done.

But even with all those millions, how come the glittering ones out there in Hollywood are so unhappy?

They can't seem to make marriages work -- or even relationships if they kind of step over the marriage stage of their definition of permanence. But the kiddos start coming along anyway.

I thank God my mother had zero tolerance for all those shenanigans. I remember in days of yore when every Christmas yielded me another boxed set of underpantsies. With the days of the week embroidered on them. Remember those?

Woe be unto me if the laundry had some days missing. I can't even imagine how much trouble I'd have been in if there wasn't a pair in the laundry for each day. I would never have gotten away with skipping the underwear department when I went out on a date. But that's not the case for the Hollywood types these days.

Even Bruce Willis made a recent statement calling for the "ladies" to put their pantsies back on.

Horrible, cheap, trashy role modeling for the young people in this country. Every time we turn around, some glittering one is being held for a DUI, or going to jail for misdemeanor drunk driving. Or serving 23 days out of a 60 day sentence.

Can't they find anything useful to do?

##

THE 3 Rs OF ANGER

We'll come back to relationships, but today I want to talk about anger.

Anger can wreak havoc for relationships so in a way, it's appropo to speak of the two of them in the same sentence.

The 3 Rs of anger are: Resentment, Revenge and Rehearsal.

Your mind can snap up resentment for just about anything that someone does to you that you don't like. If you let it, that is.

Somehow, small-minded people just aren't able to let things go.

They're not worth a diddly squat when it comes to a powerful cognitive process called thought stopping. They can't change that old, worn out tape that keeps going around and around in their minds -- you know, the one that says "everybody is mean to me."

They can't jump out of bed and say, instead, "This is going to be a great day. I am going to meet someone today who is going to challenge me. Maybe even challenge my sense of Christianity -- like my ability to forgive as God has forgiven me. Thank you, God, for another wonderful day and for giving me an opportunity to serve you."

Nope. These unhappy people jump to revenge-baking thoughts. They, unfortunately, think of ways to bring misery -- even harm -- to the person to whom they have handed over the power to control their psyches through all this resentment.

Their mantras seems to be something like, "They're going to be so sorry for messing with me. I'll figure out a way to get even -- big time!"

That kind of thinking leads to the third stage -- which isn't really a final stage at all, but rather, a fork in the road -- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

At the left of the fork is the choice to start rehearsing ways to put your vengefulness in motion. I would pray that you never take this fork in the path, but I know that some of you often do.

When you choose the rehearsal fork in the road, you start writing your script, or developing a scenario that may not be fit for man or beast.

The reason you don't want to take this fork in the road is because every time you write the script that has you rehearsing your revenge, the resentments just get bigger and bigger.

Pretty soon, your resentments are too big to live inside you. And try as you will, they will sneak out sideways on you. You may think you have all of them under control and on a tight leash, but the first time you get distracted -- like in an argument about something else completely unrelated -- all those old resentments find cracks in your psyche and they start oozing out.

Kind of like pus coming out of a wound. It's toxic. It's where your wounds are.

So if you take the fork in the road to the other path, what's it like?

That's the path that leads to repairs and resolutions. You know, the wounds that forgiveness puts a balm on.

Healing. Ah -- healing. Feels good when the fevers of resentment start to heal.

You have to watch out for that left fork for another reason. It's filled with idolatrous thoughts of whatever caused your resentments.

Don't make the pain of your resentments your idol. Oh, yes. You certainly can make an idol out of your pain and suffering.

##

TODAY'S DEVOTIONAL: Deuteronomy 1:1-46

Moses is generally thought to the writer of the Book of Deuteronomy. Probably around 1400 B.C. They're all still out there in the desert, just east of the Jordan River. In the land of Moab.

You might think that once Moses led the Israelies out of slavery in Egypt back to the land of Canaan, that all they had to do was walk over there put their big toes in the sand, and the land would be theirs.

Because God had told them so.

Well, it was and it wasn't. First of all, they had to do battle with some people -- the Amorites -- to get land to travel through.

Oh, God had every intention of getting them safely back to Canaan. But it wasn't going to be some little Sunday afternoon stroll through paradise. All they had to do was trust in God to get them through it. To trust in God to show them the way.

Oh, there were troubles all right. "Travails," I think the Bible calls them. And there were more than just a few. Sometimes it seemed like every time they turned around, the Israelies were in some kind of trouble or another.

And just like today, 1400 + 2007 years later, we're all still going through our personal troubles. But God is with us. He never abandons us. Even when we're going through our troubles, he's watching over us. Hoping we pick the right path. Hoping we say the right thing. Hoping we make the right choice.s

And when we do all those things, he smiles at us with a big, huge approval.

But back to Moses.

Moses is getting ready to transfer his leadership of the people of Israel to Joshua and we have a farewell message from Moses. This farewell address is a kind of restatement of the laws that he had delivered earlier in his life -- those laws were very matter of fact, kind of like "here's what you have to do, because God said so." And who knows -- maybe Moses was the first lawyer to walk the face of the earth.

But now, here comes a new, improved Moses. He's speaking warmly from his heart and is really quite personable when he is talking to the Israelis.

And that's what we see in Deuteronomy -- the warmth of the love of God to the people of Israel. It's a reciprocating love because the people of Israel started showing their love back to God.

So God says in verse 8 -- See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore he would give to your fathers -- to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- and to their descendants after them.

In this very first chapter of Deuteronomy, God has the children of Israel divide up into different tribes with the instruction that each tribe was to choose a wise person to run the show for them. These smart persons, or tribal leaders, would have authority over the individual tribes.

But, in verse 18, these tribal leaders were told in no uncertain terms that judgment belonged to God. So if there were any particular cases that were too hard for them, they were to bring the matters to God and he would hear them.

Has it ever occurred to you that even today, you can bring any troubles that are too hard for you to figure out straight to God? God answers us when we do this and he helps us sort things out and he kinds of nudges us in the direction he wants us to go.

Are we lucky, or what!?

So there went the Israelites -- out into the desert again. You'd have thought they'd become good at nomading their way through deserts. But they didn't like it one bit.

This land of the Amorites -- that was a big "oh no" moment.

Pretty soon, here came the tribal leaders. They asked, "Don't you think it would be a good idea if we sent spies out to see what the Amorites are up to?"

And they were right. It did seem like a good idea to God. So he picked twelve men -- one from each tribe. (The tribes are named in Numbers 13:4-15.) They kind of went sneaking into the hill country and found some pretty luscious fruit. That's what they brought back to Moses. When they brought these samples back, Moses said in verse 25, "This is good land."

You could tell right away that it wasn't desert land. Not if it grew stuff this good!

Then Moses kind of adopted an "I told you so" attitude because he reminded the Israelites that they had been secretly grumbling in their tents about going on this little spy mission.

To their defense, the Israelites came up with the old blame trick -- something that has been going on since the Garden of Eden -- they said "their brothers" made them grumble. After all, these Amorites were bigger and taller. And they built huge cities with walls that went all the way up to the sky.

Moses reminded the grumblers that none other than God himself had promised to go before them -- kind of pave the way for their successes.

Moses said, "Open your eyes, folks. Don't you remember that God has done this for you time after time after time? All the way back to when we left Egypt? Then you got your grumbling suits on again and God said to you, "Okay, now you're gonna wander around the desert for forty whole years."

Counting up the years, Moses must have figured out that they had pretty much come up against the forty year deadline that God had pronounced in his anger a long time before.

But now the Israelites had gone and done it again. They had lost faith and sat around grumbling in their tents, trying to figure out how not to do the very thing that God had told them, in no uncertain terms, what to do.

It was that old "Woe is me" song.

Then God told Moses to tell them not to go fight the Amorites because nothing good would come of it now.

God said, "Fine. Now you're not going to see the land of Canaan. Ever. But your children will, because they're still innocent to where they haven't been contaminated by your moaning and groaning. You're not going to see it either, Moses. But Caleb will. And Joshua will.

As for the rest of you, I want you to turn around and head on out to the desert. I told you not to go fight the Amorites but you went anyway. In your arrogance, you thought you could do it on your own without me. Bad move. The Amorites came after you like a swarm of bees. You can cry all you want. I'm not hearing you."

Just a reminder here, folks. We don't want God to ever get angry with us.

So we'll pick up with Chapter 2 of Deuteronomy tomorrow.

Back to Pastor Rensner's questions for my own enlightenment. The first question is easy: We skipped church for two weeks. No good reason. We weren't sick. I don't know what we did, but I vaguely remember sitting around drinking coffee saying things like "We should have gone to church today."

So this Sunday we went to church. A different church this time. We found a wonderful group of fellow believers. And it will be a joy to assemble with them every week.

The church is people.

The second question is, "Recount evidence of God's faithfulness even when you were unfaithful."

Well, except for this gentle nagging at the back of my head that I had intentionally been disobedient to God's express rule that his followers are to meet in assembly with each other once a week, no great mishaps came to us. We were a big de-energized, not like our usual selves. We just got through the days feeling like something was missing in our lives.

It was. Worshiping God. We're back on track now.

Thankfully, we didn't sit around grumbling about how horrible life is and how dare God desert us.

He never has. Not once. Never will.

Thank you, God.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Boy, the folks up north are getting it. I talked with my sister this morning. She says that the sky turned an ugly dark last evening, with a greenish cast to it. Then the winds started. The tree branches started falling in her front yard.

There were 80 mph winds in the Chicago area -- caused lots of damage -- but  the meteorologists are saying it was a "straight line wind" not a tornado, even though some folks saw twisters. Technically, it's not a tornado until it touches the ground.

Yeah, sure. Technical damage still looks an awful lot like real damage.

We drove out to take a look at a church we want to attend on Sunday morning.

It was a Thursday so we thought we could just drive out and walk around the building, maybe peek into the windows and just generally be a bit snoopy. But lo and behold, the pastor was there and we got to talk with him. He gave us a tour of the building and we talked for probably the best part of a half hour or so.

We felt really welcomed and we're going back on Sunday for sure. We'll definitely transfer our membership if the rest of the congregation is as open and friendly as the pastor is. It'll be another "moving into the neighborhood" milestone. Worshiping is a big part of our lives. And being part of a community of fellow believers is important to us too. It's that "gathering in an assembly" that God kept talking about in the Old Testament.

But for today, while the temperature prances its way up to 97 degrees, with a heat index closer to horrors, we'll be doing inside work. Inside and air conditioned, that it. Except for dashes out to water the poor little pretties who are languishing in the hot sun outside.

Poor darlings.

##

WE LIVE ON A BUSY TOP LAYER OF THE EARTH

There are earthquakes everywhere.

Here's a web site that gives you the listings by day and time, magnitude intensity, etc.: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

There were even four earthquakes out in the middle of the Atlantic off the shores (NNE) of Brazil several days ago.

I have a curiosity about rumblings and goings on when there's a biggy anywhere in the world. I like to draw a line through the earth and see if there will be earthquakes in a week or so on the opposite of the earth.

It's just one of the ways I keep my thoughts occupied. That way I'm prepared with something interesting when Quint asks me what I'm thinking. He hardly ever expects me to give him a miniature earthquake report.

##

YOU'D THINK CONGRESS COULD PUT A SLIGHTLY MORE POSITIVE SPIN ON REVENUE RECEIPTS

More people are working. And because unemployment is low, people are paying more taxes. When people pay more taxes, the deficit gets paid down.

Is that good news or what?

According to their own report, the Congressional Budget Office is now saying that the deficit for 2007 will be $19 billion lower than they originally expected.

Isn't that good news?

Well, yeah. But there's still that huge deficit out there on the horizon. It $158 billion. (Read article in The Hill at: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/cbo-long-term-budget-outlook-still-daunting-2007-08-23.html)

Here's a thought. Quit spending money on stupid pork projects. Guess you call them earmarks these days.

Pay attention to the deteriorating infrastructure in this country and let some of those projects like sports stadia, art museums, etc. find ways to fund themselves locally. Those projects ought not to be federal concerns.

Providing for the common defense and keeping our infrastructure -- that is, the federal interstate system -- ought to be top priorities.

Take a clue from the bridge collapse in Minnesota. I read a headline that there were thousands more overpasses in this country that are in at least as bad shape as that overpass.

So, congressionals, if you want to keep your jobs, you'd better start taking care of federal concerns and stop licking the bootstraps of high rolling constituents in your districts.

I think the 2008 election is going to be the year of the big disconnect. And since the congressional approval ratings are in a free fall -- from 14% to 18% depending on which poll you read -- you can get a pretty good portent of which way things are gonna go.

##

FOCUS ON THE GOOD THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR PARTNER

And while you're at it, say something nice to your beloved.

I don't care if you've been married 50+ years, it's still nice to hear "That color looks good on you." See if you can focus on making nurturing comments like that. Who cooked dinner? Did you like it? Did you say "thank you" to the chef?

Don't waste your time doing catharsis kinds of venting. Venting doesn't work, you know. All it does is transfer discontent from one person to another. Besides, if venting or cathartic screaming truly did work, you wouldn't need to keep on going over the same old stories over and over and over.

Charles Darwin once said that when we express our anger, we multiply it.

I know people who are still moaning about things that happened to them twenty years ago. They wonder why they've lost their friends. Why people won't return their phone calls for days -- if then. Why people avoid them.

It's like people are saying to the harper, "Excuse me, but I've heard that story about 400 times now. Haven't you figured it out yet?"

Staying stuck is not a nurturing thing to do. Forgiving is. Going forward is. Giving up grudges is very nurturing.

Those are all attitudinal things that change.

Somewhere along the line, people have this inner plan that when things get better, their attitude will change and then their behavior will change for the better.

The exact opposite is how things really work. If you want your attitude to change, then change your behavior first.

If you want a warm, nurturing relationship with your partner, be more forgiving. Be more open. Be more friendly. Go out of your way to do nice things.

Remember, nurturing means filling the needs of someone else. That's one sure-fire way to get your own needs met because chances are, when you are nurturing to your true love, you'll get a lot of nurturing in return.

So toss the negativity and think positive. The positive energy comes back to you. So does the negative energy. Which do you want?

Hopefully you said you want more positive energy to come your way. If that's the case, then you're just going to have to start project positive energy out from yourself. Then sit back and feel it flow back to you.

Nurturing people get nurtured.

Do something nurturing -- that is, fill the needs of someone or something else -- no less than ten times today. Make this a daily routine.

I have news for you. This is a big secret that happy, contented people know. But I don't think it ought to be a secret so I'm telling everybody to be nurturing if you want to get nurtured.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

It's going to be a sitting-in-the-shade kind of day today.

I don't know about you folks but I'm growing a bit weary of living in a broiler. And to our friends this morning in Germany, Finland and Norway who have signed on, you can take some of this heat away, thank you.

But I shouldn't complain. The people in Oklahoma and Ohio are deluged with too much water. I guess Wisconsin needs to be in that list too. Things look pretty soggy up there too.

I will definitely not be canning today. Or baking cookies. We'll just have to suffer through -- somehow.

Actually, it looks like today is the last of it. Tomorrow morning, hopefully, will break the 90s threshold and we'll just coast on into September with highs in the 80s during the day and 60s at night.

Quint thinks we ought to go exploring some today. That wouldn't be bad. Air conditioned car. Driving about. Dart into a cool (literally) restaurant for lunch. Then do some grocery shopping before heading for home.

Quint nearly panics -- not really -- but I did say nearly -- when he runs out of ice cream. And we're out of 7-Up too. I have been using the 7-Up to make carbonated Crystal Light beverages. Talk about refreshing! Wow! It does tend to expand a lot when you stir the two together so you don't want to put a lot of 7-Up into the pitcher until you've mixed the flavor packet in and stirred it around a bit.

We just absolutely adore the peach flavored 7-Up. I'm going to look for other flavors to taste test when I'm at the store.

We haven't incorporated all our books into the office yet. We're using 5-shelf bookshelves as room dividers. They won't hold all of the 3,000+ books we have in our collection, but we're getting really good at putting up shelves. But in the meantime, I'm at least trying to get the books put away onto the empty bookcases.

It's cool down here in the basement. We have a tower fan and a ceiling fan in our basement office. It's a good place to camp out on hot, sultry days. Even better than being under the shade tree out back.

##

SO IS BARE CHESTED THE NEW DRESS CODE FOR WORLD LEADERS?

Russian President Vladimir Putin goes fishing without his shirt on. And the world watched. In an AP article posted in the International Herald Tribune, a description of Mr. Himself goes like this: The 54-year-old Russian leader, who is married with two daughters, has long cultivated an image of machismo and manliness. Well-known as a downhill skier and black belt in judo, Putin has appeared on national television driving a truck, operating a train, sailing on a submarine and copiloting a fighter jet.

You can read the entire article at: http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7208732

The actual photo of him isn't included in that article though. I did find the photo of him wielding his fishing rod at this site: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070822/ap_on_re_eu/putin_s_image

Then the BBC ran an article about French Presidenteur Nicolas Sarkozy in a canoe without a shirt on. Except that the BBC article shows a slight maneuvering of Himselferino with love handles and without. I want one of those photo repair kits that would allow me to instantly look like I want to look like. At least in photos.

Here's the site for the BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6959180.stm

Today's Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com/) had the fixed up photos.

So I tell my kids they'll know when my diet is finished because they'll start to see more photos of me. And when Quint learns to snap the photo when my eyes are open! Nobody wants to see pictures of a slightly overweight grandma with her eyes closed.

So if the BBC can't supply me with their magic wand to fix my photos, I'll just have to stay on my calorie reduction lifestyle.

##

HERE'S A GOOD ONE YOU MAY NOT HAVE SEEN BEFORE -- from Alice Stubbe

Three women go down to Mexico one night to celebrate college graduation, get drunk, and wake up in jail, only to find that they are to be executed in the morning, though none of them can remember what they did the night before.

The first one, a redhead, is strapped in the electric chair and is asked if she has any last words. She says, "I just graduated from Trinity Bible College and believe in the almighty power o f God to intervene on the behalf of the innocent." They throw the switch and nothing happens. They all immediately fall to the floor on their knees, beg for forgiveness, and release her.

The second one, a brunette, is strapped in and gives her last words. "I just graduated from the Harvard School of Law and I believe in the power of justice to intervene on the part of the innocent." They throw the switch and again, nothing happens. Again they all immediately fall to their knees, beg for forgiveness and release her.

The last one (you know it), a blonde, is strapped in and says, "Well, I'm from THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN and just graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering, and I'll tell ya right now, ya'll ain't gonna electrocute nobody if you don't plug this thing in.

##

NURTURING FAMILIES PRODUCE UN-WOUNDED CHILDREN

So how do you know if your family is a nurturing one?

Simply put, nurturing just means that you are filling the needs of a living thing.

For a child, it could mean you don't drown out your ant farm. For a gardener, it means you keep the weeds pulled and you feed your cute little darlings. You can't just plant a flower and leave it alone and expect beautiful blooms all season long.

Nope.

Every time you walk past your flower bed and you hear that little chorus singing, "Over here, we're dying over here. Give us some kibbles and bits. Please, please, please."

But if you're one of those people who says, "God put them there, God can take care of them," that's okay if you want a garden filled with wildflowers.

There's nothing wrong with wildflowers. I admire them growing by the side of the road. Do I want them in my flower bed? No.

I want flowers that have been cultivated by horticulturists down through eons. Flowers that have the good, decent manners to bloom in double and triple profusion. I want flowers that immediately send up another flower shoot when the old blooms are picked off. I like civilized, well-mannered flowers.

In exchange for their profuse beauty, I feed them and water them. And I admire them. Do I talk to my little beauties? Yes, but I wouldn't tell anyone else but you, lest people think I'm the old kook who lives down the block.

Nurturing others is also a big requirement in relationships that thrive. And, like plants, if the nurturing isn't taken care of, the relationship withers.

Take for instance, nurturing children.

One of the most powerful ways that parents can nurture children is to set boundaries. Boundaries are rules. Rules that are enforced.

When there are rules, it tells youngsters that there are adults who are in charge. When there are adults in charge, then it's safe for me to be a child.

If there aren't rules, children become fearful and filled with a gnawing sense of unrest. They develop anxiety disorders. Deep down inside them, children know they don't have the resources to cope with all that life throws at them. That's what the adults are responsible for.

Deep down, children know they can't take care of themselves -- whether it's learning in school or learning social skills or learning how to live in a nurturing family. Children need parents who love them and care about them and care for them. Children need parents who fill their needs.

When parents don't fill the needs of their children, then the children become anxiety-ridden.

So the first thing parents need to do is set boundaries.

But don't expect these boundaries to be met with "Oh, this is great. I've been wanting rules for so long now."

Rather, it's like the rancher out on the plains. The rancher builds a fence to keep his herd from straying over too close to the mustard patch -- or too close to the cliff that would be dangerous if all the cows and cowlets fell into the ditch and broke all their leggies.

Do you think the rancher just sets up a fence and goes back to the ranch house and watches TV all day? Nope. He rides the range all the time. He checks out his fence to see where his four-legged herd pieces have breached the fence and left  gaping holes in the fence.

The fence is a nurturing thing for the herd. It protects them from their own inabilities to take care of themselves.

Not too long ago, Diane Baumrind did some excellent research on the types of parenting and which parenting style produced the most settled down, well-adjusted adults.

Was it the permissive parent? Definitely not. Children can't be allowed to run amok. They can't be encouraged to be narcissistic little tyrants who have no regard for the rules.

Was it the authoritarian parents -- you know the ones who have tight-fisted rules that are unbending, no matter what? Authoritarian is not the answer either.

Was it the authoritative parents? Yes. Authoritarian parents teach children respect for authority. They teach them, by role-modeling nurturance, how children can eventually nurture themselves.

Baumrind is a prolific writer and a well-seasoned researcher who has devoted a life study to how children and parents look in nurturing and not-so-nurturing relationships. Do yourself a favor and google Diane Baumrind.

She was an absolute favorite among my psychology students.

But not every relationship is a parent-child one, so tomorrow, we're going to take a look at nurturing the man-woman partnership.

And I have to tell you that I just got an airmailed article from the person who sits at the desk next to me. He's reading his latest issue of Science Magazine. The article is entitled "Missing Gene Makes Mice Compulsive."

I'm getting behind because last week he gave me an article entitled "Clinical Depression Linked to Abnormal Emotional Brain Circuits." This article is from Science Daily.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Now that Hurricane Dean is not a threat to the southern United States, the weather attention has shifted to something potentially more damaging -- there are floods everywhere.

We watch the weather in the morning. It's one of the habits I picked up from Quint in the early days as our marriage morphed. That, and watching the news. I can't believe that days and weeks would go by before I'd pick up a newspaper -- those were the days before the internet.

Now, we have become those statistical people who rarely look at TV news. We get 99.5% of our news from the internet. It's a lot easier to go to our favorite web site and click on the headlines we want to read about. No commercials. Just the facts, ma'm.

So CNN was interviewing this big cattle rancher in Oklahoma. The news reporter was asking this guy standing out in his field about what happens to cows when they get wet. The rancher said it's definitely not a good thing because the cow hooves get soft. And they have to be fed.

Well, looking at those big black angus on the hoof, I'd say they get fed a lot. Then, when it was time to move on to another mini story, the reporter thanked the rancher whose ranch was about 40% under water at the time. "I'm sure you speak for a lot of people out there in Oklahoma."

Yeah, right. The guy has a 7,000 acre ranch in Oklahoma and several more in other states. Sure. A lot of people can relate to that. I can't even fathom how big a 7,000 acre ranch is.

Two city blocks? More? A half mile? Don't know. If it's bigger than my back yard or the block I live on, you lost me. 

Speaking of back yards, we definitely will not have to mow this week. We're having a little mini-drought here in the middle of the state. That orange rain that was promised for yesterday turned out not even to be a spit. And there's nothing on the radar for the entire state today.

Going to be hot, dusty and dry. Unlike our friends in Ohio who are under water too. Kind of like the people in Oklahoma except you're not standing out in the middle of flooded fields.

I read yesterday that a seven mile stretch of I-75 was closed because of flooding. You know things are serious when they start closing the interstates.

It's going to get up to 92 again today. Time to bake cookies since we've burned the whole the yard trash pile. Sometimes it doesn't seem like we have good sense.
 
##

I'LL TELL YOU WHY PEOPLE AREN'T READING MUCH THESE DAYS

In the first place, people are either too tired, too bored, or too sleepy to be reading at night before they go to bed.

And 25% of Americans said they had not read any books last year -- not a single, solitary book.

People who do read are women and senior citizens. They read religious material or romance novels. Oh, and southerners read more books than their northern counterparts.

So big, long, windy books don't seem to be popular. Is the return of the short, quick composition now the norm? You know -- the essays or compositions that we now call blogs.

Blogs are short versions of long stories. Most blogs are three to five hundred words. That's something you can read on the run. Blogs are real people talking to other real people. They're not usually celebrities and their blog spaces aren't generally big commercial enterprises.

Some could say that the short, quick compositions are refreshingly entertaining. Not exactly O. Henry who was the master of short stories. But short and well-written compositions have become the genre of choice again. Especially if it's entertaining and informative at the same time.

Read this AP article that was filed by CNN this morning: http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/08/21/reading.ap/index.html

##

FEELING GUILTY CAN FRUSTRATE FEELINGS OF FORGIVENESS

I will admit that these little compositions are quick and to the point. And they could all be deepened and expanded.

For instance, I am going to pursue forgiveness a bit more in response to many, many e-mails wanting to hear more.

Actually some of the e-mails started out talking about the frustrations of understanding this notion of forgiveness not being a learned but rather -- a choice. Then the e-mails drifted into talking about powerlessness and not having feelings of self-control.

It's good to express those thoughts, but keep in mind that we think in perfect logic. It's only when the thoughts become out-loud-words that gaps in the logic appear.

And we feel unbalanced when our inner and outer worlds are not rational and logical.

So how could powerlessness or lack of self-control tie in with forgiveness?

Imagine those three elements as part of a chain -- all tied together. Heavily tied together. Strong when they're together. If you get enough of these heavy chain pieces, you can lift an anchor to a huge, big ship.

Bonded pieces of a chain. Ties together years and years of feeling powerless, out of control, and unforgiving.

And the ship? It's called the I Don't Have To If I Don't Want To. It sails the seas of torment and unhappiness. Can't find a port to put into that doesn't require at least some forgiving spirit. So this boat stays afloat -- just out there slightly visible against the horizon.

If it's your boat, you reckon that it'll head back to port someday. And maybe when it heads back, you'll be ready for it to dock.

So much for metaphors.

The easiest way to break a chain apart is to either eliminate or destroy its weakest link. Which link in our chain is the weakest, do you think?

Does powerlessness lead to self-control? Or is the opposite true?

One of them is a behavior -- the other is a cognition.

If you guessed self-control as the behavior, you are correct. The sense of powerlessness is a cognition, or a thought process.

You can change your sense of powerlessness without even getting up out of your easy chair. You can change it all by yourself. It doesn't require any interaction with anyone else in your life. This notion of powerlessness is a thought that exists only in that space between your ears. That's territory you can control all by yourself.

So work on changing that powerlessness tape that keeps playing throughout your days to something like these:

I can fix this.
I can ignore insults.
I can learn more about this... (whatever the subject may be)
I can rise above this.
I am strong.
I am a good sport.
I am an ethical person.
I like myself.
I am in charge of me.

Repeat that list to yourself throughout the day. Every day. Add your own power messages to the list. Just be sure they are positive and active.

What I mean is to not say things like "I'm not a bad person." That's a negative thought. Instead, say "I'm a good person."

Active thoughts keep you in charge of your thinking. Saying "I can do this," is so much more powerful that saying something like, "Good thoughts will help me." No no no. Change that to "I will have good thoughts."

You're in charge of your thinking. Start today to build a positive framework on which you are going to construct the new building of yourself.

These thoughts of powerlessness and lack of self-control lead to feelings of guilt. And shame. Everybody knows that, right? Stay away from guilt and shame. If you've done something you regret, remorse is okay. Then you probably owe somebody an apology.

But shame and guilt? They'll keep you in a perpetual state of needing forgiveness -- both from yourself and maybe from others.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

We have orange-red rain headed our way. It looks like it's going to get to us in about an hour. I can already hear the rumbling around up there so it will probably be a real frog strangler.

I love the internet. I know -- I know. It contradicts my small town comfort zone. But just think about it -- right now, while you are reading this -- and there are 254 people in the United States clicked on to this site right at this very moment. And so is one reader in Germany and another in Norway.

I just find that truly amazing. How in the world did all of you find this site? Just curious.

Did I tell you that I found a Crystal Light peach flavor here? It says southern joy to me. So you know what I did? Dissolved it in a big pitcher of 7-Up! We drank that up in the heat of the afternoon. Then I did the same thing with pink lemonade last night.

I also made a kind of strawberry shortcake quesadillas for dessert. Talk about "outside the box." But they were delicious. Just smeared cream cheese on two flour tortillas, then sprinkled with Splenda and covered one tortilla with sliced strawberries. Then put the top tortilla onto it and heated them up. Yummy.

For lunch today I'm going to made tomato/provolone/basil quesadillas.

Quint's poison ivy seems to be getting better. He got into a mess of it when we were burning the other day, but it was nothing like last year. That was bad. If you ever get into poison ivy trouble, we highly recommend Zanfel. It clears it right up. We got a tube of it from a nurse friend. Last year she took one look at Quint and said, "Whatever you're doing, stop." Then she turned and went out the door to the office and said, "I'll be right back."

See, it pays to listen to people who know what they're talking about. She came back with a tube of Zanfel. It's a scrub that Quint used for washing the poison ivy spots. It brought immediate relief for Quint's itching. The healing started right away. Within a week, his hands and forearms were back to normal.

If you live near woods or go hiking or go camping, you ought to have a tube of Zanfel in your first aid supplies.

Today is a day for more indoor projects. I'm still looking for two of my favorite saucepans. I thought I had all the kitchen supplies kind of corraled but somehow these two pans snuck away from the rest of the herd. I know they're in this house somewhere so today's the day I'm going to find them.

##

SHUTTLE SCHEDULED TO COME HOME EARLIER THAN PLANNED

It's not so much that the weather in Florida is bad for a landing, but rather, NASA isn't so sure about the weather at Mission Control.

I mean, we don't want to hear something like "Houston is a problem."

Better to be safe than sorry. Truthfully, though, I'll feel much better when the shuttle is on the ground safely. I don't like the look of those tiles that have gouges in them. And NASA says "We don't need to fix that right now."

A thought just struck me though. How come we can communicate so well with the astronauts way up there in the sky, flying around in orbit, docked in the space station, and we can't make a cell phone during a flight here on earth for fear of messing up the pilot's communications abilities?

I mean, a number of people aboard Flight #93 on 9/11 made cell phone calls and it didn't cause the plane to crash. Okay, so the plane crashed. But cell phone calls weren't the culprit. Bad guys were the cause of that crash.

Read more at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/21/space.shuttle.ap/index.html

##

TOXICITIES IN A RELATIONSHIP

When I talk about toxicities, I'm thinking about those little pockets of poison that people keep under lock and key. That's where they hide all the details of everything painful that's ever happened to them.

It's where scripts and scenarios are filed away. Over time, those little pockets of poison become giant file cabinets because of all the accumulated junk that doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

That is, unless you're one of those persons who needs to feel pricks of pain in order to feel vital and alive. It isn't that you want to feel uncomfortable and in pain. It's just that you never learned how to write your own original scenario that has happy endings. These are scenarios that bounce around inside you with gleeful, hopping-about joy.

These scenarios are a lot more fun. They reward you with belly laugh moments. They calm down to a wonderful feeling of well-being deep within your soul.

So, you may ask, how do you switch from toxicity to these feelings of wonderment?

I will tell you, but I'm not sure you're going to like the answer.

You have to be willing to choose to forgive.

Forgiveness is a choice. It's not something you learn. I cannot teach anyone to forgive. No one can teach you how to make a choice. It's something you decide you need to do.

What I can do is help you add up the reasons you ought to choose to forgive, versus the reasons you would continue to invest in your misery. Any good counselor could do that. But the choice of whether to forgive or not is yours to make.

Here's the rub: Forgiven people find it easier to forgive others.

So without getting in here too deep -- I mean, after all, this is just a column -- not a book -- I would want to know what an unforgiving person still feels guilty about.

Ah, there's that "g" word again. Guilt is an toxic thingey.

What is that all about?

I mean, there's nothing you could do that would ever make God stop loving you. And he promises forgiveness to each one of us. So if God is willing to forgive you, then whatever you did is erased from the heavenly scoreboard.

That only leaves your little pus pocket of toxicity that needs to be washed out, cleaned out, and doctored up so that healing can take place. First you forgive yourself. It's the beginning of loving yourself.

Maybe that's what God mean when he said, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." It starts with forgiving yourself.

There are other toxicities that plague us in our daily lives. And make no mistake aobut it -- it's our daily lives as human beings. We are not robots who can be expected to do the same thing exactly the same way each and every time. We are not perfect creatures who never make mistakes. We hurt other people as we walk through life. Other people hurt our feelings.

It's all part of our humanness. This is not paradise. There was a time when life on earth was paradise. But Adam and Eve messed that up for all of us. Since that time, we've all suffered from being sinful humans beings.

We cannot expect ourselves to be perfect. And we have no right to expect perfection in other people either.

But we must all strive to make good choices. Choosing to forgive is one of the choices you must make.

And don't tell me I don't "get it" when you hold onto those old pains. When you choose not to forgive.

I do understand. It goes like this -- self-mutilators slash out at their bodies. They continue to run shards of glass across their arms or legs. Or scissors. Or knives. And they continue to slash away until the very moment they feel physical pain. By that time, they are a mess. They mark their bodies with lines of pain and suffering.

Maintaining an unforgiving heart is similar except that the pain is toxic and psychological, not physical. An unforgiving person runs shards across their heart and soul. They continue until that moment when they feel their own psychic pain. 

Forgiving others is better and healthier and more loving.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

There is a huge big blob of green on the weather map and it's headed straight for us out of St. Louis. Should be here in about 90 minutes.

That was cue enough for Quint to head to Menards and get downspouts that have not been replaced since the carport was repaired.  He has just enough time if he hurries.

We were sorry to learn that Quint's sister, Frances, passed away quietly in her sleep last Tuesday in California. A memorial service was held yesterday afternoon but we didn't learn of the death in enough time to head out there. She had Alzheimer's for a number of years. No matter how much you anticipate -- no matter how imminent death seems -- it's never the same as the reality of the finalness of a dear one's passing. Fran was the quintessential big sister who took care of -- and cared for -- and cared about everybody in the family. We'll miss her. She leaves a big open space in the family tree that can never be filled.

Yesterday was burn day. We finally finished the project of getting rid of years and years and years of twigs and pruned out tree parts, even some little trees. The fire pit was full of burning timber -- rotten timber -- dried out woody things for a good eight hours yesterday.

We even went down a little ways into the ravine and dragged out an old, rusty oil drum and watched the garbage men squash it this morning. I'm going to dig up some rooted upshoots of my trumpet vine and put back there. Trumpet vines will grow anywhere and the hummingbirds just love the trumpet shaped blooms. Maybe the trumpet vines will choke out the poison ivy that's growing in abundance back there.

First we have to get rid of all the ashes from yesterday's inferno. But no matter. We have moss spaces that need to have the acid level of the soil reduced. Ashes will do that nicely. And we have a pine tree that also has some spaces underneath it where nothing will grow. The ashes will fix that problem too. Ashes, I am told by my chemist husband, neutralizes the acidic soil. Go Quint! Thanks for that tip.

I know the ashes work because we already did that in the "no grow" spaces beneath what had been spruce trees before we cut them down. The spruces had become scraggly, starving and diseased. We probably used up all our carbon credits by cutting them down, but they were starting to go bad from the inside out.

So today is going to be an indoor work day. And from the looks of things, the rest of the week is going to be soggy too. We are getting the remnant rains from Erin's outer bands.

But you just wait until Hurricane Dean comes ashore. It looks like it's going to be a giant hurricane. I did not know that the water temperature out there in the Gulf of Mexico is 80 degrees all the way down to about 500 feet. That's going to be a real strengthening factor for Dean which is already a Category 4 hurricane.

It may not make landfall in the continental U.S. but its outer bands are wide enough to make a big mess with flooding and tornadoes and all kinds of wet disasters.

So for all our readers throughout Texas and the southwest, stay safe. And please stay out of the water that rises in your streets. It's called a flash flood and the water can float a car or truck even if it's only a foot and a half to two feet deep.

Besides, there are often big bad snakes in those waters. Even people walking around in Katrina's street floods got bit by water mocassins. Taking care of yourself means staying on dry land!

##

ILLINOIS LAWMAKERS GIVE THEMSELVES A HEFTY LITTLE RAISE -- 9.6%

But schools and hospitals that were waiting for the release of funds they believe had been promised to them -- as far back as 2002 -- learned that there is a slight little boondoggle (my word) that means their funds aren't coming this year.

According to an article in the Quad Cities Times, "Money for the pay raises, schools and hospitals is contained in a supplemental spending package that is separate from the main budget legislation lawmakers sent to Blagojevich last week. The separate legislation was approved by the General Assembly two months ago and was intended to be used by schools and hospitals in the fiscal year that ended June 30."

See, the schools and hospitals didn't fill out some additional paperwork that had a July 1 deadline.

Well, to the amazement of the agencies that were waiting for the release of the funds, they didn't know there was more paperwork that was required.

Read more at: http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/08/15//news/local/doc46c281123bdc5585392400.txt

##

EMOTIONAL BONDING

Emotional bonding is a learned partnership skill. It relies on friendship and cooperation -- not luck.

Too much investment in the thought that good marriages are the result of good luck means someone in the partnership is engaging in magical thinking.

Truth is, there's nothing magic about plain old hard work, and building a good marriage is often hard work. Just like building a friendship is also work.

And there's nothing magical about having a sense of cooperation. This spirit of cooperation is what I call a partnership imperative. We choose to cooperate.

Consistently being coopertive builds trust between partners.

The oppostive of cooperativeness is argumentativeness. People who are argumentative are hostile, angry people -- but that's another story. Hopefully you aren't in a partnership with an argumentative person.

This spirit of cooperation starts to build early in a relationship. It starts from the first moment that we notice someone who interests us.

First thing we want to know is whether or not this person is going to be available to us -- are we going to have access to this person?

From the start of a wonderful relationship that may bloom into a partnership, there is an attraction that pretty much confirms there are going to be interesting things happening.

We're going to be finding out things about this person who has captivated our interest. It's fun to share our personal history with someone who's doing the same thing.

We even find ourselves getting more and more candid with this other person. Maybe it's at this point that we realize we're becoming more and more emotionally intimate. This person likes us -- warts and all.

And we didn't even know there was such a thing as emotional intimacy.

And then something else starts to happen. It's so subtle that we may not even be aware that it's going on. But it is. Right there in front of our noses. The relationship is starting to develop what I call the rules of engagement.

"Oh no, not rules again," you may say.

It's true. Every relationship we have is a covenant relationship. That is, there are promises to keep. And there are consequences when those promises get trampled on.

These covenants make up the rules. The rules set the structure or the boundaries of the relationship. Suddenly there appears to be a definition of what the relationship is going to look like.

For instance -- is this a relationship that is utimately going to lead to marriage? Give yourself nearly a year to make that decision. No less than nine months, for sure. And no more than a year and a half.

You don't know enough about a person in less than nine months to decide whether you're ready to commit to this person for a lifetime. And you need time to develop a friendship building on the spirit of cooperation. It's not something that can be hurried.

On the other hand, if you're taken almost a year and you still can't decide, maybe you have decided. Maybe you know you aren't going to marry this person but just can't say it out loud just yet. Especially to the other person.

I'm not saying you have to be married within this time frame, but the decision to marry ought to be made within this nine month window. Very often, the people who do get married in less than nine months, or prolong the courtship to four or five years, are the very couples who show up for couple counseling. They want some help in finishing the social engineering process of building their relationship.

If this relationship is headed for marriage, will there be children? I've done a lot of premarital counseling with couples using a test called PREPARE/Enrich. The pastors I work with like this test instrument -- and I do too -- because it highlights a couple's strengths and identifies areas that could be a challenge to the marriage.

There is also an opportunity to answer some very personal questions, like "how many children do you plan to have?"

I remember getting the computer printout/answer guide for one couple where the bride-to-be had answered that she planned to have two children and the guy said none.

Prior to coming in for their premarital counseling, they had never discussed the number of children they planned to have until they took that test. They came for more than the required four sessions. They continued counseling after their returned for their honeymoon.

Eventually they worked it through and I got an invitation to a christening a couple of years later. I still get Christmas cards from them. They now have four children.

I'll bet they had some very interesting conversations over the years. They removed the barriers they had placed on their relationship. It's easy for a couple to do this if the barriers were put there by one person or another. Or both.

Is this relationship going to be a "let's take a look and live together first" type of relationship? If that's the case, you need to know that the research says the failure rate of cohabiting prior to marriage is about 87%. Those aren't good odds and they do not duplicate the commitments of a marriage relationship.

Is this a relationship that is going to have a strong faith base? If that's the case, are you practicing your faith together now? You don't have to wait until you walk down the aisle to go to worship every week. And I have to tell you another piece of research that says couples who become active in a church home have a divorce rate of 6%! Those are incredible odds for success. Becoming active in a church home means that you do more than just warm a pew or a chair on Sunday or Saturday, as the case may be. You go find yourself a job to do in the church whether it's teaching Sunday School, working in a church library, helping out with folding the worship folders, etc.

Cooperation with one another -- builds trust.

Trusting your partner -- builds intimacy.

Building intimacy -- lets you find yourself back to each other. Remember -- it's the partner who left who has the responsibility of building the bridges back.

Need help? Ask your partner for help.

See if you can recapture that feeling of something wonderful happening between the two of you.

Tuesday -- we'll talk about getting rid of the toxicities in a relationship. Warning -- forgiveness plays a big part.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Hah! We thought we were gonna sneak out to lunch yesterday after we updated our cell phones.

Then we looked at the sky. There were these huge dark clouds swirling about overhead that looked as if they could pick up our house and whisk it away. We made a mad dash back across town -- mainly to shut the windows -- then watched the blustry mess blow over. It left us slightly less than a tenth of an inch of rain.

But it did cool things down a bit. I'm grateful for that.

Not sure what we're going to do today. We still have a five-page Things To Do List. Problem is, whenever we finish one thing, three other things get added on. But no matter. That happens to be how we remember to get things done.

If I didn't have my paper and pencil brain, I'd never remember half this stuff.

##

THIS WOULD NEVER FLY IN THE UNITED STATES

Beijing is getting ready for the Olympics in all sorts of ways.

Not just building projects or stadia at various venues.

Nope. They're going to clean up the air. And how, you may ask, are they going to do that?

Well, they aren't going to scrub it, that's for sure. The game plan on the table right now is to cut number of drivers way back. Way way back.

Today is the first day. If you are a Beijing driver and your car ends in an odd number, your car is allowed on the road. What a great idea! Think it would work on our snarling interstates here in the U.S.?

Sure. Would anyone ever dream of doing it? Never gonna happen.

We'll see how happy the Chinese are after a few days and the novelty has worn off. There's a growing middle class of people over there and they have gotten pretty used to having their little car cars. Just like us in the U.S.

Don't mess with our wheels!

Read more at: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8R2QIGO1&show_article=1&catnum=0

##

DID YOU BRING YOUR CHILDHOOD WOUNDS INTO YOUR MARRIAGE?

Hey, listen. We all bring the unfinished business of carrying childhood wounds around for a while. Eventually they get too heavy a burden to cart around and if we can't make them get off our backs, we go see someone who can help us do just that.

There are a great many people who are able to clean up these wounds on their own after some good, cognitive nudging that leads them down a different path.

Cognition distortions are ways that a wounded self can confront reality that may be too threatening.

Cognitions are mental processes -- how we put things together in our heads. We are always trying to make 2 + 2 = 4. If our thought processes don't get distorted along the way into adulthood, things work out. Otherwise, we may get 5 or 6 for the answer. That's just a mathematical error. But when we come up with what looks like the right answer (4) by adding the wrong things together, we could have a distorted thought process.

So you say it doesn't matter as long as you come up with the correct answer. That's not necessarily a true statement in the real world of human relationships.

For instance, two children plus two parents equals one American pie family. But one child plus three parents also gives you four people. But see how things changed? In the first place, what did you do with the other kiddo? And having three parents? Do they all live under the same roof? Are we talking about a blended family where the "odd parent out" is a part-timer who gets visitation rights?

So it's true, though, that you ended up with four people who are interdependent on each other for nurturance, but the picture of how they interact with one another is quite different from my simple version of 2 + 2 = 4.

Perfectionism is one of these cognitive distortions. These kiddos grow up with the notion that they can't ever do anything right -- they never will either.

They don't get much nurture or affirmation as they race toward adulthood. But they keep trying. Harder and harder, they try. Eventually, lack of perfectionism just can't be tolerated.

They make exacting partners. Woe be unto you if you leave your cute little socks by your chair in the living room -- planning to pick them up in the morning. That just will not do.

And if you don't pick up your socks, you'll get a very unpleasant label tagged onto you -- something like irresponsible.

But it's just a pair of socks. I've always done that.

Well, not in my house, one partner says.

Oh, so now it's about your house. Funny, I thought it was our house.

There, now you've got a little mini-war on your hands. Now it's become a matter of territory.

Actually what has happened is that one partner has gotten too close to the wound. The wound, in this case, is perfectionism.

Can't fight about that. The parents always won that battle. But we can fight about territory. That kind of flattens the playing field a bit. We can kiss and make up about the territory thing. It's not a wounded part of my psyche.

But perfectionism? Never. Must never fight about that. The house must always be perfect -- like a magazine picture. No mess. Nothing out of place. Always dusted. Less than perfect is too stressful. Leaving your socks on the floor upsets my perfectionistic sense of order.

Why?

Because my mom said so. Or my dad said so.

Doesn't matter who said it. The problem is, you believe it. Time to clean out that wound, put some antiseptic in there and let it heal. All the way down to the psyche where the wound is resting. Just feel the soothing balm of the medicine reaching all those little outer edges of psychic pain as you let go of the perfectionism.

On Monday, I'll talk about another wound, though not necessarily a cognitive distortion. That is: having trouble bonding with your partner. It's kind of like lack of emotional intimacy but slightly different. Maybe deeper.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Yesterday was an adventure day. We drove over to Altamont and had lunch at the Dairy Bar. It has a nice salad bar and pizza slices and meatloaf and fried chicken, plus many side dishes.

Then when we were watching the news last night, some channel was doing an investigative report on salad bars in New York City. The cold dishes are supposed to be sitting there at no more than 41 degrees all the time. But all the salad bars that were tested -- there were seven of them -- had salad bar items that ranged in the 70 degree area.

Our salad bar at the Dairy Bar must have been okay because we didn't even get sick.

We had several big moments when we got back from Altamont -- registered to vote at the county building, filled out a homestead exemption form, got our library card, changed our address at the Secretary of State's office, and came home for some iced tea and burned more of the pile of yard rubbish that was piled up at the back of the property.

I've been writing about that pile of rubbish for some time. It was a good seven or eight feet high when we bought this place. No kidding. Well, we've been whittling it down little by little when we were coming down here on weekends. We are almost finished. That will be one project that we'll be glad to also have finished.

On the other side of the rubbish pile is a fairly deep ravine. Don't know if it had been a creek that is now dried up or just erosion or something else. But we are re-claiming the land that's underneath the pile of limbs that must have been accumulating over a long time.

It's hard to believe that we actually took ownership on this property one year ago today and that we've been living here full-time -- not just on weekends -- for an entire month.

And the referring insurance companies have found me and are sending new clients. So I guess the vacation is over. There went my short-lived retirement. At least I don't have to commute very far.

##

THAT WAS SOME EARTHQUAKE IN PERU!

So far there are 337 souls perished. Unlike the huge earthquake in 1970 that killed 60,000 owing to a landslide that was triggered by that earthquake which buried an entire village.

This earthquake's epicenter was out in the Pacific a little ways, nearly 90 miles south of Lima.

We lift our prayers for safe rescues for all the survivors.

##

THREE ELEMENTS OF BEING CONNECTED

No matter what kind of relationship we're talking about -- whether marriage, dating, work, or the like, we need three different elements that will make us feel connected to another person.

Those elements are: empathy -- sensitivity -- reciprocity

Big words. Lots of meanings. So I'll talk about them one at a time.

Empathy -- When we have an empathic relationship with someone, we are able to figure out what they mean when they say something.

Doesn't that sound easy?

It would be nice if it were. But it isn't all that easy. Different words have different meanings for different people. And we attach meanings sometimes when the words get filtered through feelings of discomfort or pain.

We need to really listen to the other person to see what they mean, so that we can figure out what we think they mean. Best way to figure this out is to say something like, "Let me see if I understand what you mean." Or "See if I got this right."

Now keep in mind that you aren't going to get it right 100% of the time unless you're one of those persons who can make the claim of being infallible. So far as I know, there aren't any perfect people walking about anymore, so you're going to have to give yourself a "check off" and at least be willing to say "Correct me if I'm wrong."

Keep in mind that the only person who really knows what the other person means is that person.

The second area of connectedness is sensitivity.

We all like to think we're sensitive people.

We like to do nice things for people we like.

We like to comfort people who are suffering.

When we are sensitive to other people, we try to accommodate their needs. If, for instance, a person is crying, we can offer them a hanky -- or embrace them.

There are many ways to show someone we care. Sensitive people seem to know how to do this really well.

The third area of feeling a connection with someone is reciprocity.

Couples who are surviving well are reciprocating in their relationship. A lot.

It's what my grandma meant when she said, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." Or "one hand washes the other."

If you do something for me, you're far more likely to get something back that you want.

And if I do something for you, I expect something in return. It's part of our humanness.  It's the way we play the game in relationships.

A sidebar here: a game is defined as a set of transactions. It's not checkers or chess or football, etc. In human relationships, it's an mental outline of how things are done.

This outline has a lot to do with what my expectations are and whether you are  meeting them.

If they aren't, I'm gonna think you've hit me a foul ball. I will not be happy.

We all make emotional investments in our relationships. The longer the relationship, hopefully the more emotional coinage there is in the piggy bank.

But I can tell you one thing for certain: when you are feeling depleted adn you go to that piggy bank to get some more emotional coins, you bet you expect some increase to be there. Reciprocity adds emotional coinage to what's in your piggy bank.

Without reciprocity, relationships just kind of sit there and stagnate.

For instance, going to longwinded, sometimes boring (mainly because I don't know much of what the lecturer is talking about) speeches with Quint is how I get him to take me to the ballet or a concert.

Reciprocity. Powerful, powerful stuff.

On Friday, I'll pick a topic from an e-mail to respond to. So if you have a burning question, send me an e-mail (remember to put something about my blog in the subject line so I'll know you're coming from this blog). Please do not leave the subject line blank.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

We are done with the ceiling fans. Last one went up yesterday in the laundry area.

That was a really big project -- kind of like getting ready for a big holiday and then, suddenly, it's done and you sit around waiting for family members to come over to help you celebrate.

So we'll sit around for a bit and see which one of our projects on the list we want to tackle next.

Maybe we'll just decompress a bit. You know, be good to ourselves. Have an adventure. Go check out one of the towns nearby. Transplant a blackberry bush that the next door neighbor is giving me. (The nice neighbor to the south, that is. Not Mr. Grumpy who lives just north of us.)

Quint says he's going to mow the back yard. So that means I need to make lots of iced tea.

Today is supposed to be the day when the inferno breaks and we get back to just plain old summertime. Don't know about you but this 95+ degree temperature is a bunch of nonsense.

Check up on your friends and neighbors to make sure they are staying cool and have plenty of water available to them.

##

JOHN EDWARDS IS THE RUDEST OF THE RUDES

Okay, so he's a politicians. We're not supposed to expect good manners from them, I guess.

But to leave a crowd standing and waiting for an hour and twenty minutes on concrete is ridiculous.

Was it hot yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa? You bet it was.

But a concrete parking lot? No trees for shade?

Who were these people who would stand out there for that long?

AARP members, that's who. I would have left after about fifteen minutes, folks.

So who are AARP members? Seniors, that's who. The very ones we're supposed to be concerned about when it's riproaring hot!

Shame on Mr. Edwards.

##

FOUR KINDS OF INTIMACY

There are basically four kinds of intimacy that make a relationship really, really work well.

The first of these is physical intimacy. If it weren't for physical interest, people wouldn't even get together in the first place.

First you meet somebody. Then you figure out that this may be an interesting person to get to know. Or maybe it's a person who is just plain old drop dead gorgeous. Or maybe it's a soothing tone of voice when you listen to this person.

No matter what, there is something physical that draws you to this person. When you are using your physical senses -- sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste -- you are developing physical intimacy.

Just wanting to be together. A telephone call. Meeting for coffee. Going to a movie and scrunching down in the seat to fit into each other's embrace. Measuring yourself up next to this person -- how well do you fit together? That's getting a sense of physical intimacy.

Next is intellectual intimacy. Okay, so now you've been introduced. And you like each other enough to at least go to lunch or dinner together.

Then what do you do?

You sit around and talk, that's what. And talk some more. And then you said ...

Intellectual intimacy involves sharing ideas. It could be writing letters or e-mails if you aren't very close to each other -- or talking on the phone if you aren't able to actually be within hand-touching physical contact.

It's talking about people, places and things.

Couples who are interested in each other want to eat, drink and sleep each other. They chatterbox all the time. "What did you think of..." they ask.

Or, "You want to know what I think about that?"

When this is going on, we have a couple in the midst of developing intellectual intimacy. This kind of intimacy will seek a new level of understanding that I call perspective taking.

Perspective taking is one of the most powerful things that can happen to a couple from an intellectual standpoint. It's being able to look at another person's point of view. Doesn't mean you have to agree with it. Doesn't mean you have to change your own point of view.

But eventually we all reach a level of maturation where we realize that not everyone on the planet holds the same point of view that we do. And even in our most cherished relationships, there are actually times when we disagree with what our true love says.

Hopefully, in those times, you can at least be willing to look at the other person's point of view. If you think you're really good and maturely grounded, I'd suggest you flip your points of view and discuss them. I sometimes have couples try this in a counseling session.

Is it easy? My goodness no. Is it a learning experience? Profoundly and powerfully so.

Third on the list is spiritual intimacy. This is where you find out, as a couple, where God fits into your lives.

It isn't about religion, specifically. Although it could be. Spirituality has to do with your relationship with God.

You definitely want to get this one powerfully embedded into your relationship before you start bringing children into the world. Parents are supposed to be spiritual lighthouses for their children. You don't want to launch your children into a free fall in space and let them find God on their own.

Spiritual intimacy, for you as a couple, works best when you both recognize that God is in control of your lives and that you are living within that God part of each of you -- your soul.

Your soul is alive deep within you. It's where God takes up residence within you. Believe in God. Live for God. As a couple, and as individuals.

And finally, there's emotional intimacy.

If you didn't build in emotional intimacy, it's going to cause unrest for all your days.

Emotional intimacy is where you become willing to be really risky with your relationship. You can finally feel like you can take a chance in confiding how you feel about yourself. Warts and all.

And all the time, you're hoping against all hope that your true love will still love you even when you divulge your flaws.

When you are able to do this, you have achieved emotional intimacy.

You need all four types of intimacies if you are going to head for the "run for the gold."

But which intimacy gets set aside? Emotional intimacy. It's the one that couples either don't work on because it's too difficult for them. Or they think it will just fall into place because they love each other so much.

That kind of magical thinking will get you in trouble fast.

You have to think of yourselves as structural engineers when it comes to building a relationship. Good solid relationships take time. They take a lot of work and effort. And if you're going to get married, or stay married, you'd better be willing to put in a lot of time and effort building and nurturing your relationship.

Otherwise, you're just wasting time.

On Thursday, and while we are talking about relationships, I'll share with you three different ways that say you're connected with each other.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

I doubt if you're going to be thrilled to know this but we are planning on installing the very last ceiling fan in the laundry area of the basement.

Then we will be done with our hanging ceiling fans career -- as in "stick a fork in me" done!

Yesterday we had an adventure. Went to Mt. Vernon to the nearest Lowes. Mt. Vernon is about an hour south of us. We needed another gallon of sand colored concrete paint to match the basement floor that we're half done painting.

Got it. Had lunch at Chilis and came back home.

Well, actually I stocked up on some other items. I'm going to try my hand at staining the linen closet door and frame that was recently built in a hallway. If that works out well, then I'll tackle window frames. But first I'll try refinishing a little step stool. That will give me practice in removing some pretty old stain.

When we got home I put up the trellis at the back of the carport and put up some very nice flowers we had gotten the other day at Wal-Mart. The yard is filled with color -- some real plants that are blooming profusely -- like the Impatiens and Petunias and Roses -- and others that are "planted" on the trellis and here and there.

I'm not trying to win a garden walk competition so I don't mind admitting that lots of the flowers are designer originals, the others are God's creations. Both types have been planted by me.

##

HILLARY'S RECORDS ARE GOING TO STAY LOCKED UP UNTIL AFTER THE '08 ELECTION

My, oh my, oh my! Where did the Freedom of Information Act go? And whatever happened to the "the public has a right to know?"

There are some 2 million pages of Hillary documents from her days at the White House that are locked up at the Clinton Presidential Library and they aren't going to be released until after the election.

Now, any adviser who's worth her salt would surely tell Herhonore the Hillaryness that hiding behind all that secrecy just makes the American voter salivate all the more to learn about what's been hidden away.

Schedules and calendars and documents galore. Hiding behind all that secrecy will cost her votes, doesn't she know that?

I mean, if she's got nothing to hide, then why hide?

Read more details in this LA Times article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clintondocs14aug14,1,1086895.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true

##

KARL ROVE RESIGNS EFFECTIVE AUGUT 31st

I just cannot resist a comment here. Everyone else is speculating and they probably don't know any more than I do so here goes.

First of all, Rove has a reputation for being the architect of Bush's success to the White House.

And then, there was all that scuttlebutt to keep tamped down.

Now, Rove is resigning.

What is it about the end of August?

Well, the speculation with a capital "S" is that Fred Thompson will be announcing his White House run in early September. Let's see now, Labor Day would be a good time to connect with the American workers, er taxpayers.

So who could he get -- who could he get -- who could he get to be his vice presidential nominee?

Why, none other than Jeb Bush, of course.

What a team that would be!

Karl Rove, the Magnificent, gets the work with another Bush dash for the Oval. Sort of.

There, fixed it. End of rumoring.

##

EMOTIONAL INTIMACY -- OR LACK OF IT -- THE ULTIMATE IN PASSIVE AGGRESSION

Well, at least, one of the ultimates.

You can have twin peaks. I saw a movie about that once.

But seriously, there are basically four kinds of intimacies: Physical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional.

Today I want to talk about the emotional intimacy because it's the one type that get's shoved aside, ignored, or just plain old denied.

If you've got emotional intimacy in your marriage, then you've got a really good chance of going for the gold. If you don't, chances are your marriage is going to dry up on the vine of good faith and die out.

So what is emotional intimacy?

It's a willingness to be vulnerable to the one you love. It's a willingness to take a really big risk and share all those feelings you have about yourself that you thought you'd never tell another living soul.

It's even owning up to admitting that you're less than perfect. And hoping against all hope that your partner will love you anyway.

Now, do you think a passive aggressive person can do all that?

Not likely.

The passive aggressive person operates on a day-to-day basis from a pallette that has shades of fear around the outside edges. If you start to get too close to the PA, they're going to feel like you're invading them. Meddling in areas that don't concern you. Trying to get on their good side. Must be up to something.

Start to sound just a teensy bit paranoid?

Of course! Where do you think that fear gets triggered?

Old, old fears. Reaches back across huge gulfs of time. Goes all the way back to times the PA would just as soon not remember, except that the memories keep getting pushed up to the surface anyway.

It's all those good feelings that are underneath the bad feelings. The good feelings are pushing the bad stuff up to the surface. Has a velocity of its own. Maybe one of these days all the bad feelings will come to the top and get blown away.

That's mostly what happens during lovers' quarrels. Most of the bad feelings get tossed overboard and what's left is a euphoric moment or two when life is absolutely wonderful. Just the two of you. Ah, it's so great to finally be understood and accepted and loved.

Then the cycle starts all over again because the psyche of the PA wouldn't let all the bad emotions get sorted out and tossed out.

Saved some, didn't you?

Well, hang onto the memory of those wonderful times. Life -- all of life -- can be like that when you finally are able to let the good memories come up the surface and stay there.

When you are finally able to say, "Just let it go."

When you finally allow yourself a mafioso moment and utter, "Just forgetaboutit."

When you finally decide that you will choose to forgive all those mean people who have been mean to you because they did mean things.

When you finally realize that you don't want to be passive anymore. Take full and complete charge about what that 3-pound organ sitting at the top of your neck is doing. Your brain will believe exactly what you tell it to. It's the most gullible organ in your body.

So just announce to your brain that you are in charge and it can just settle down and behave.

No more passive stuff. "I'm in charge here." Say it. And say it again.

Passivity is hostile. It's a quiet retaliation against all the shadows that live in the cave of your head. Aggression is hostile. It's an outward retaliation against anything and anybody that threatens to harm you, whether those threats are real or perceived.

Passive aggression is a ridiculous combo that does not serve you well. So put a leash on it and train it to just sit there and behave.

##

NOTE: Unless I hear otherwise, on Wednesday, I'll talk about the other 3 kinds of intimacies in a relationship.

Also, I've had a huge number of e-mails in the last several days that did not have anything at all in the subject line. They were deleted without being opened.

So if you are sending me an e-mail, give me some clue that you are coming from my web site, or, you can use my maiden name: HALTOM. Then I'll know for sure that you got it here.

When I was teaching psychology at Joliet Junior College. I used to tell my students to make sure they put the class in the subject line, whether it was Abnormal Psych, Intro to Psych or Life Span Development. But there would always be one in a class who wouldn't do that.

One such student disturbed me and I was tempted to open the e-mail. It was from a person who called himself "suicideattempter." So in the next class period I put his "name" on the board and asked the him to see me after class. It turned out to be a male student and why didn't he put the class in the subject line?

"Oh, yeah," he remembered. I also suggested he change his name. He didn't. His choice.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

It's still hot, hot, hot! Quint got the new thermostat installed so we kicked on the air conditioner to give it a test run. It was so successful that we decided to leave it running through the night.

We actually had rain in the wee small hours. More rain is forecast this morning. The lawns really need it. Those poor little parched blades of grass must be feeling pretty abused right now.

The big project of the day is to install the last of the ceiling fans in the laundy area of the basement.

Then I promise not to buy any more ceiling fans.

It's hard to believe that we moved in just a couple of days shy of a month ago.

The place is starting to reflect our fingerprint. That would mean lots of flowers. I had planted a border of bright pink petunias out front. I can just hear their happy little giggles when we pull into the driveway. Poor little things have nearly died of thirst though. On some days when it was over 100 degrees in our yard, I gave them a drink twice a day. They've survived nicely and the added watering kept them from dying off, I think. Plus, I feed them with a "blooming plant" food.

Yesterday we got two trellises at a wonderful store called Rural King. They were season closeouts and since I couldn't make them for the amount being asked, I grabbed them. Promptly installed them two minutes after we got back to the driveway. I have a handy dandy Black & Decker power screwdriver and I use a Dremmel to make the pilot holes. They're on the ends of a work area on the outside back wall of the newly repaired carport. I have some 2x12 shelves where I'm putting my clay pots. I also have a table for a nice flat work area for gardening stuff.

I went to Wal-Mart after supper and picked up eighteen bunches of flowers that I'm going to arrange on the new trellises. I have no shame. Artificial flowers are just fine -- especially when it's this late in the year and there's no way I could get anything planted in time to bloom.

Next year, I'll put some vining roses on the trellises and all will be well. In the interim, my roses' silk cousins will do just fine.

##

MORE HEAT TILE GOUGES ON SPACE SHUTTLE

This time it's the Endeavour which is already out there circling the earth.

Now, some spectacular photos of Endeavour's belly shows three heat tiles that may have to be replaced. NASA hasn't decided what to do about the yet, or even if the gouges are a problem.

They are contemplating the possibility of sending astronauts up there to fix them.

For the rest of the story and some spectacular photos by AP/NASA, go to: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070812/D8QVP7SO0.html

##

BIG SURPRISE: WOMEN DON'T VOTE AS OFTEN -- BLAME MOVING MORE

And yet, women have a lot to lose by not voting as much as their male counterparts.

They say they aren't as politically connected. I say get connected.

They say they don't know who to vote for. Find out. Research the candidates.

They say it doesn't matter. Oh, but it does. It matters a lot -- maybe especially to women.

But let me make something clear here -- I am not a feminist. I don't believe women should have more rights than men, but I do believe both men and women should have the same opportunities available when they are equally qualified to do a job.

Women need a voice. If you don't vote, your voice will not be heard. Don't believe for one minute that all the politicians running around out there on the campaign trail have your best interests at hearts.

Nope. There are more than a few who are just collecting campaign money and will fade away when they lose this election. You won't hear from them again until it's time to vote again.

So ask yourself: what has any of these politicians done for society to make it a better place?

Do they go to church regularly. For me, this is a big factor. I simply will not vote for a politician who can't even get up off his/her you know what once a week to go to church to worship God who provides all the bounties under heaven. If they aren't thankful to him for that, they don't get my vote.

I want to vote for someone who worships God, not themselves.

Learn to recognize talking points. Most of these can be ignored. Talking points are idle promises that politicians can't deliver. They either do not have the constitutional authority to deliver or they would need a majority in congress to deliver.

But talking points sound good. And they're very persuasive. They are meant to be believable. Mostly, they're B.S. Don't fall for the talking points. They were written by people who have been hired by the politicians.

##

PASSIVE AGGRESSIVES (PAs) THINK EVERYBODY'S PICKING ON THEM

Passive aggressive people perpetuate a feeling of victimhood. That is, until they get pretty sick and tired of being sick and tired.

PAs know they don't feel good about themselves. They'd like to but no one has shown them how to do that.

And I mean going all the way back to being a little kid when feelings of victimhood of set up in a child's psyche.

For instance, a child may make a mess. A big mess. Instead of letting the child clean it up -- or requiring the child to clean up the mess -- one of the parents will berate the child for making a mess.

It doesn't take too long before the child will get the idea that they can't do anything right. And that's a very short psychic distance from the thought of "why bother. I never get it right anyway."

And so the early threads of passive aggression start to weave themselves together. Pretty soon, PA, Jr. starts to look outside himself or herself for someone to blame when things don't go right.

Look, in a functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) family, when a 3-year-old spills a glass of milk, it's just something pretty cascading out of a glass.

When an adolescent makes a mess, the first thing the adolescent does is to look around and see who to blame.

When adults make a mess, they start looking for solutions to the problem.

Children who have been trained to be PAs could stay stuck in emotional adolescence for all their lives. They may be leading productive, successful lives within their careers. And doing very well, at that.

But their emotional lives are filled with heartaches and fears.

When they come for couple counseling, my first challenge is to describe what is going on in their relationship -- without making a blame statement about the partner.

Oh, that's hard for some to do.

They can't make psychic statements either. That's another crutch that PAs use. They want to convince you that they "know" what's really going on, what makes you tick, why you do things, and what motivates you.

Well, if they're so good about being psychic, they ought to go hang out in a restaurant and charge people $40 for a fifteen minute psychic session. The truth is, they don't know what their partner's motivations are unless they ask. They don't know what their partners are thinking unless that information is shared.

I am always amazed at what Quint is thinking. When he's been quiet for a while, I usually ask him what he's thinking about. Once, on the way to the office, he responded to that question with, "Oh, I was just wondering how much debris is trapped in the Arctic Shelf and where it came from."

Another time it was "How'd they ever figure to use horses as a gauge for measuring the power of cars."

Passive aggressive people can most certainly become good problem solvers. And in passive aggressive homes and families, it's just not possible to simple make a mistake. There's something more sinister going on that requires blaming.

But there's a better way. 

Learn to be self-forgiving and practice saying "Oops, wish I hadn't done that. I'm sorry."

Since passive aggressive people form magnetic relationships with other passive aggressive people, they have to both decide to re-engineer their inner psyches -- preferably at the same time.

The first step?

No more blame statements. That's where the faulty foundation is. It needs to be repaired with lots of love and acceptance.

On Tuesday, I'll talk about the passive aggressive's fear of emotional intimacy. Big surprise -- it comes out of today's message.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Success! The ceiling fan in the downstairs office (the basement) is duly installed. And the magnetized screwdriver worked like a charm. It reduced our installation time by at least an hour because we did not have to spend any time on our hands and knees looking for dropped screws and washers. Oh, the marvels of modern technology.

My big deal project today is to can about 6 pints of Salsa. That's been on my agenda for at least two or three days. Then I'm going over to the farm stand and get a whole bunch of green beans to put in the freezer.

We like green beans. A lot. I microwave the frozen green beans and when they're ready, put in a 3 oz. package of cream cheese. It makes a nice gravy and tastes delicious. The first time I prepared green beans that way, the grandkids kept asking for more. It's a good way to get both a green vegetable and calcium from the cream cheese.

Fortunately, the hot weather has relented a bit. I just may be able to get outside today and weed some flowers. I think the Impatiens and Petunias are a little perturbed at me because of the interloping weeds that decided to grow in amongst them.

And that should just about run me out of ambition for the day.

##

PEW RESEARCH CONFIRMS WHAT WE SUSPECTED ALL ALONG

That is, the American public does not trust the news media -- 64% says the news organizations' reporting is biased.

Too much editorializing (columnists) and not enough reporting.

And 53% of the people polled say that the news organizations don't stand up for America. To me, that's the worst of the worst. When did news organizations get to be so un-American?

Can we really put our fingers on the tipping point of when things started to change?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know this: the old-time newspapers are bleeding red ink on their balance sheets. Readers are running away as fast as they can.

When the readership keeps dropping, advertisers run away too. Then newspapers start laying off reporters.

The internet has played a part, for sure.

We don't watch TV news at all anymore. Can't tolerate the 16 minutes of advertising pumped into ever hour of broadcasting. But then, that's why we don't watch TV all that much either. And then, have you noticed that just before the advertising break, the commentators promise to have a news story that you may have been interested in, but you have to wade through all those commercials?

Don't do that anymore. If they can't report the news when they have it, throwing in a teaser is just another game they play.

Where did I put that clicker?

Breitbart ran the story this morning: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070809222839.jzdcwmy8&show_article=1

##

MERV GRIFFIN NOT DOING SO HOT

Two things I did not know about Merv Griffin: (1) he has had prostate cancer since 1996 and (2) he is 82 years old.

He is now in the hospital in southern California in "grave" condition.

That does not sound very hopeful.

We need to pray for Merv Griffin and all who love him and care for him.

##

PASSIVE AGGRESSION HAS ITS ROOTS WAY BACK THERE IN CHILDHOOD

In a perfect world, there would not be any passive aggressive (PA) people running around.

Their world is filled with fears -- fears of being intimate, fears of being called on to take responsibility for what they've done -- fears of being viewed as inadequate -- fears of being unable to deliver on promises.

And that's just a small little list of some of the things that plague the PA.

PA manifests itself in a lot of ways.

In what appears to be innocence and helplessless, a PA begs and pleads quietly. If they've somehow gotten the "right" partner, their lives appear to be blissful. Their partners seem to just know what the little darling hopes for and will do just about anything to alleviate the PA's frustration.

Here's where the roots start to emerge. The PA doesn't know how to set goals to get what they want. They spend much of their time and energy getting other people to recognize what they want and just, well, supply it.

Being psychic should help a lot when it comes to living with a PA. If not psychic, then being extremely intuitive will be helpful.

So if all behavior has a meaningful goal in mind, what in the world would be the goal of a helpless PA?

Simple. This is how they get their dependency needs met.

Oh, for sure, the PA yearns for independence and somehow equates this independence with having enough money to buy anything and everything out there. But somewhere along the line, the PA realizes that it isn't about money, or shopping their way through all those negative feelings about themselves. 

The PA doesn't really want to be dependent on others but they don't know how to become truly independent and autonomous. That is, self-governing. And if they can't have autonomy, they'll settle for control.

Remember that word -- "control?" People use control methods to make their lives predictable. And if the PA can't be autonomous, they'll try every trick they know to control their environment and the people in it.

Autonomous people can make their lives pretty predictable without having to resort to passive aggressive methods of controlling others.

Remember -- aggression is a hostile act. Passive aggression is hostile too, even though it appears that the PA may be agreeing with you. The PA may just be taking a recess and marking time for a while.

By the time the PA gets to be an adult, there's a whole menu of opportunities that have brought success in the past. For instance, these are the young adult whose parents have always been right there to solve all the problems and hand out a few bucks for emergency cash.

There's an interdependence going on here. The young adult becomes a full adult, but not an autonomous one. He's still hitting up on mom or dad when the car payment didn't quite get paid, or the rent. Mom and Dad don't mind. They shrug their shoulders and say, "Will he ever stop needing us?" or "What's she going to do when we aren't here anymore?"

The payoff for Mom and Dad is the continuing feeling of being needed.

The payoff for the PA in training is the continuing supply of needs and wants.

That's just one example of how the PA-in-training becomes a full-fledged PA.

But there's another aspect of passive aggression that's murky. They tend to be really good at sabotage. In a work environment, if another worker gets noticed by the PA's boss, you can bet that the PA is going to figure out a way to undermine all that. It might be an important message that didn't get delivered. Or a project only got finished halfway and sloppily at that. Either way, the PA is going to figure out how to make the other person look bad without it ever being traced back to the PA.

After all, PAs don't take responsibility for their mistakes. There is no accountability for the PA.

Their lives are driven by fears. And the primary #1 fear in their minds is that of being discovered for what they are. They are absolutely terrified that someone will see them as imposters.

Monday's subject: fear of intimacy (another passive aggression) -- and I can tell you that at 1 pm, there have been a lot of other questions about passive aggression in general, so we may stay on this topic for several days.

##

DE-BUGGING GLOBAL WARMING

As it turns out, 1934 is the warmest year on record. In fact, according to new data supplied from NASA five of the top ten hottest years on record all occurred prior to World War II.

Turns out that a Y2K bug showed up in the reporting software that NASA uses.

A blogger on the website littlegreenfootballs.com broke the story this morning. 

Steve McIntyre of Toronto, who operates the website www.climateaudit.org began to investigate both the data and how they were arrived at. McIntyre discovered a discontinuity in the data in the year 2000.

He then challenged NASA and, although NASA does not reveal its methods or its source code, the agency did quietly correct the data on its web site. The big news is that 1998 is not the warmest year on record. 1934 is.

Read the blog here: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html

So, do you think Al Gore is going to quietly correct his inconvenient truth? Or is he just going to fade away with all the other snake oil salesmen that rode into town during the frontier days?

Guess the answer to that question depends on which way the money tree is shaking.

I sure am glad all this came to light before congress made summer illegal, what with it getting hot during that time an all.

We just can't have any of this global warming. It's too hot. Someone make the sun cool down, will you?

Maybe we could send a giant space ship filled with ice cubes to the sun! Al Gore would be my recommendation for pilot.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Supposedly this is the last day of really hot steamy weather. Truthfully, though, I can't tell the difference in subtle changes in temperature when it gets into the 90s.

Then there's Quint who keeps saying, "These are the days we long for when it's 10 below in the winter."

And how about that tornado in Brooklyn this morning? That's something you never expect to see in the Big Apple. An F2 at that.

Well, let's see. We crossed off two things on our Things To Do List and added four more this morning.

We did get the pegboard hung up in the craft area of the basement and am using the back side of bookcases as a room divider with the pegboard above them. Then we put shelves on the pegboard -- two shelves, but we need one more. We already have the table for crafting, wrapping presents, etc. It came from the office.

High on the priority list today is installing a ceiling fan in the office area downstairs. We've been talking about it for days now. But today is the day when it comes to the top of the list and stays there. Then there will only be one more ceiling fan -- in the laundry area. Hopefully we will never need to put up another ceiling fan in our entire life.

Today we are trying out the new magnetized screwdriver. It ought to save us about an hour since we, hopefully, won't be dropping any more screws on the floor. Black screws going into the black housing of a fan motor to fasten blades onto the fan was a nightmare.

By the time the last one gets installed, we will have put up seven. There were two in the condo before we sold it: kitchen and dining room. Then, in the house: one in the office upstairs, one in Quint's workshop area in the basement, one in the kitchen at the house, now the office downstairs, and one in the laundry area.

I am forever grateful for my handy dandy Black & Decker cordless screwdriver. Got it for Christmas last year. And I have a cordless Dremmel which I use to make pilot holes. Quint and I can put shelves up in practically no time.

##

A WIND BLEW THROUGH BROOKLYN

It was 135 miles an hour of ferocious fatality. Trees uprooted. A lady died in deep water at an underpass she probably ought not to have been driving in.

Scary stuff for Kansas, huh?

But it was terrifying for Brooklyn. One neighborhood lost some 40 percent of its trees. Lots of them fell on cars. Winds blew off roofs. Even JFK Airport was in the line of fire. More than three inches of rain fell on JFK in less than an hour. That put a damper on landings. Same was true of LaGuardia Airport.

See the story on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/08/nyc.weather/index.html

##

THE MINERS MAY GET SOME RELIEF THIS MORNING

According to an article on Fox News, rescue efforts have a lifeline -- a 2" pipe that could bring fresh air -- within 200 feet of where the miners are believed to be. Another pipe that's about 9" in diameter ought to reach the chamber by Friday.

We pray that the miners will be found alive, and we pray for the anguished family members who are holding onto the thinnest thread of hope for their loved ones who are trapped in the mine.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292669,00.html

##

TIRED OF PAYING NEARLY $4 FOR A BOTTLE OF SALAD DRESSING?

If so, try this recipe for ranch dressing. It makes 16 servings.

RANCH DRESSING

1 cup light or fat-free mayonnaise
2 T. lemon juice
2 T. chopped fresh parsley
2 T. chopped green onion
3 T. sugar substitute
1 T. Dijon mustard
1-1/2 t. minced fresh garlic
1/4 t. salt
3/4 cup buttermilk

Mix all the ingredients together but the buttermilk. After everything is mixed really well, then add the buttermilk and whisk really well. Then refrigerate for a couple of hours to let all the seasonings get to know one another. Kind of like a little party going on in your refrigerator.

It's absolutely delicious. You can add your own variations to the recipe, like bits of bacon, or bits of finely chopped cucumbers. I've even added a little salsa and some ground red pepper to add some zip.

But if you look at the recipe, can you see anything mysterious that would warrant a huge price at the supermarket? I don't think so.

Enjoy!

##

MARITAL EXPECTATIONS -- YOU BET WE ALL HAVE THEM

Every couple ought to have a list of expectations -- an understanding of what they expect a partner to do and how they expect a partner to behave.

That list of expectations ought to be in two parts -- a short list and a longer list.

Newlywed couples coming back fresh from honeymoons will absolutely swear that they love their partners so much just the way they are and don't have any expectations of them.

Somehow or other, that list of expectations gets re-translated into "how I want my partner to change."

That is not the same thing as a list of expectations.

For instance, would you condone your partner's physical abuse? Of course not. So one expectation would be a marriage free of domestic violence.

And would you condone your partner's having sexual relations outside your marriage? Of course not. So another expectation would be fidelity.

And would you condone your partner's running up $25,000+ in Visa cash withdrawals to maintain a cocaine addiction? Of course not. So another expectation would be freedom from drug addictions.

There you have it. In less than five minutes, I've listed three biggies.

That might be enough for your short list.

The long list might include such things as expectations of being prioritized, of being told at least once every day that your partner loves you -- and is glad to be married to you. Another expectation on the long list might include some effort on both your parts to at least pick up after yourselves so that the house doesn't look trashed.

Your long list might have ten or fifteen things on it. But you can be sure that you do have expectations when you live in a close, emotional, passionate relationship called marriage.

It's a really good idea to get the list of expectations nailed down before kiddos start coming along.

It makes no sense to bring children into a war zone -- even if it's a "cold war" where words never quite erupt into a full-blown disagreement. They just sit there and smolder. And become snipe attacks during an argument.

Keeping disagreements out in the open for discussion would be a good expectation to add to the list above.

What's on your list?

Tomorrow: Passive aggression (unless I get e-mails requesting some other topic for discussion)

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

And we have another whole day of these monstrous temperatures.

It got as high as 100.6 yesterday afternoon. We're staying cool but we aren't doing much. We did manage to hang some pegboard in a craft area that I'm setting up in the basement.

The craft area is right in front of the deep freeze, lest there be any doubt as to who owns that little piece of basement real estate.

Today our big project is to install one of the two ceiling fans we have left. This one will go into the office downstairs. Hopefully the problem is solved about losing the screws and having to crawl around on the floor looking for them. We got a screwdriver with a magnetized head on it.

Duh!

As far as those teensy tiny little washers are concerned. A teensy tiny bit of rubber cement ought to keep them attached just long enough until the screw gets started.

Sometimes our genius absolutely astounds us. Quint and I together make one good brain.

Yesterday I made a kind of peach dessert. The peaches I bought from the Amish ladies were so ripe and sweet. Tastes like childhood memories.

Anyway, I had some  pizza dough that I had bought to make a kind of crispani where you roll out the pizza dough, brush it with olive oil, spread some sliced mushrooms and chopped onion on it, then some shredded parmesan cheese and pop it in the oven for about a half hour. (Got the idea from Panera Bread. We used to stop there on our way home from Monday night church services when we still lived in the Chicago area.)

Well, when I popped open the pizza dough, it wouldn't unroll. It just layed there on my cookie sheet like a defiant three-year-old saying, "What are you going to do about it?"

That called for an instant change of plans. So I rolled out the dough as far as my hands could push it, then put thinly sliced fresh yummy peaches (didn't need any sugar at all) all over the dough. I then very carefully and tightly rolled up the dough as if it were going to be a cinnamon roll. Worked out just fine, especially after I had sprinkled Splenda all over it. I baked it for about 35 minutes and kept a close eye on it after that.

Do I mind heating up the kitchen when it's 95 degrees out? Nope. When it gets above 90 degrees, I can't tell if it gets hotter or when it starts "cooling" down a couple of degrees so who cares!

I mean, you can't stop living your life because of the weather.

And for that matter, a big blob of pizza dough can't determine who runs my kitchen either. If you don't want to be a pizza dough, then you are going to become something else. Either way, you're going to get eaten, so there. (I had this conversation with a blob of dough, I know.)

##

THIS IS LIFE -- NOT HEAVEN

If you're one of those people whose goal in life is to get to a point where there's no more stress, I have sad news for you.

It's not going to happen.

The best you can hope for is that somewhere along the way, as you matured, you were picking up a whole trick bag of ways to maneuver around stressors, digging under them, flying over them, or just blasting your way through them.

But in any event, stress appears to be part of the human condition.

Stress doesn't have to shipwreck you, though.

By definition, stress can be measured by how far apart reality is from your expectation of how you want things to be. Changing your expectations is a lot easier than changing reality. That's especially true if your expectations border on wanting a perfect world.

It's just not going to happen. There was a time when it did. But Adam and Eve screwed that up for us. The rest of us down through the ages have had to learn to cope.

For instance -- if you lived in a little village of hunter-gatherers and your life depended on sending Bwana Husband out every day to catch a steak for supper, there would be stress. Especially if you had ten little kiddos to feed.

So after you get up, tidy up around the house, feed breakfast mush to the babies, then plant a good luck kiss on Hubby's cheek, then you could put your feet up for a couple of hours and maybe get a chance to watch the Weather Channel on the community TV out in the middle of the hut circle.

That way, if it's raining out on the plains, you'd have an idea of whether you ought to make a nice tossed salad to go along with the steaks. Or if there's a huge thunderstorm going on out there, it's not likely you're going to see a side of beef coming back to the village on a pole between two hunters.

In that event, you start looking around the pantry hut and try to figure out what you could make a big pot of porridge out of. Make it taste good too!

To alleviate the stress of never knowing for sure what you're going to have for dinner, you might daydream about moving into the big city of giant huts. That is, if you could talk Bwana into settling down in a condo. 

That would be a big change in reality.

Or you could lower your expectations of what to prepare for dinner in a variety of ways. Like having an alternative plan of a vegetarian dinner when Bwana comes back empty handed.

Either way, supper's on.

##

GOOD NEWS FOR BUSH -- APPROVAL RATING ON THE RISE

Last time Gallup measured how well Bush was doing, his approval rating was 29%.

It seemed to have bottomed out there.

This last measurement shows he's at 34%. Not a big jump but certainly going in the right direction.

And the economy is steaming right along. It even broke records not too long ago by closing at over $14,000!

Another good reason to have an MBA in the White House. America's economy is pretty complicated and it helps to have someone who understands finance and economics sitting in the Oval Office.

Not like, for instance, the Most Powerful Woman in the World -- Herself the Pelosi -- who says the $14,000 Dow is obscene and it's just one more reason (she says) to start levying some really big taxes on rich people.

"The rich get richer" will just not be tolerated on her watch.

But wait, your highness, lots and lots of working class people have 401(k)s that are invested in the stock market. If you start putting big taxes on those kinds of gains, aren't you undermining the future well-being of the plain old folks who are working toward retirement?

Doesn't matter, she says. It's just another way for the rich to get richer and I won't have it.

This woman is not your friend, folks. She wants all of her money. And all of her husband's money. And now she wants your money too.

But not to worry about her -- she'll get hers in the polls when the Republicans take back the majority of the house.

Back to President Bush. The surge is working. It's not just a perception. It's really working.

And people who read the tea leaves are saying that because of that, Bush's approval ratings are starting to swing back up.

So Bush is now at 34%. Congress is at 14% the last I saw.

The congressionals blame Bush for just about anything. It is not in their genetic makeup to take responsibility for anything. There's no wonder that their approval ratings appear to be in a freefall.

Why would anyone -- least of all voters -- have confidence in the congressionals?

Here's the link to the latest poll: http://blogs.usatoday.com/gallup/2007/08/a-hint-of-more-.html

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

The watch word for today is "stay cool." Even if you have to sit in front of a fan all day, stay cool. Even if you have air conditioning and don't want to turn it on, or can't because the cost of electricity is so prohibitive, stay cool. And if you really want to do something refreshing, sit in a cool bubble bath. Guaranteed to cool you down.

We are under a heat index until 7 pm Thursday. Since today is only Tuesday, I can tell you that I'm going to be making many pitchers of iced tea. Which reminds me -- I'll be right back.

I'm stocking up on ice for the weekend bounty again. I got a big bag of green beans when I bought the canning tomatoes from the Amish ladies. When they were all snipped down and cut into bite sized pieces, I got eight bags out of the whole deal. I like to put them into snack sized baggies for just the two of us. That provides a serving size for two people. Then I put the snack baggies into a gallon sized ziplock freezer bag.

Double bagging the freezer stuff goes a long way toward preventing freezer burn. Especially when I lay the snack bag on its side and push the air out before I put it into the second gallon sized freezer bag.

And, of course, you know I date all the freezer bags.
 
I do not have an inventory of what's in the freezer, though. It's easy enough to just open the lid and say, "Wow, that's a lot of stuff." Then close the lid real quick before too much cold air escapes.

##

EVER HEARD OF "ORPHAN EXIT" CHARGES FOR YOUR E-PASS?

If you have one of those electronic gadgets that let you zoom on through toll booths without having to slow down, come to a stop, toss coins into a coin catcher, then you can applaud yourselves for being efficient.

Unlike us dinosaurs who wait in line at toll booths for our turn to play "hit the bucket" with our quarters, dimes and nickels.

Quint and I very seldom use the tollways. So we never really felt all that inconvenienced because we didn't have the electronic gadgets.

Then there is this lady out in Pennsylvania who makes a weekly 20-mile trip on the Pennsylvania tollway. She figures it ought to be a 75 cent charge against the amount that gets reduced each time she drives.

Imagine her surprise when she learned that she was being charged $5 per trip for what is called an "orphan exit."

It works like this. If you get on the tollroad at mile marker 100 -- but the gadget doesn't reflect where you entered the tollroad -- and you get off at mile marker, that ought to have been a 75 cent charge.

But because the gadget doesn't know where you got on, it uses a different formula. Kind of like charging you for the entire mileage across the state's system if you happen to lose your ticket.

In the case of this lady in Pennsylvania, the tollway authorities said that since noone knew exactly where she got on, but they do know where she got off, they only charged her for 1/4 of the total ride across Pennsylvania.

Never mind the fact that she was only on the tollroad for 20 miles.

And not only that, but they didn't even send her a bill. She really had to go digging to the company's web site to find out what charges were gobbling up her fees so fast.

It's a very interesting story that's reported on today's Red Tape Chronicles, published by MSNBC: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/07/millions-of-dri.html

What I also learned as a result of reading this article is that the Indiana tollroad is operated by an international consortium headquartered in Spain -- Cintra-Macquarie.

##

DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE IPHONE BATTERY FEE?

Consumers waited and waited and waited. Then, reminiscent of the 100-yard-dash from high school days, they hurried off to get one of the latest electronic toys available -- the iPhone.

Problem is, the battery that powers this iPhone will only survive 300 to 400 recharges. This battery is in a sealed compartment of the iPhone, so you'll be needing to send it back to the company for a new battery to be installed.

This will cost you $79 or so. (plus shipping)

If you can't wait for the three or four day turnaround time, then you can rent an iPhone for $29.

Apple didn't mention this in the fine print of the much touted iPhone's advertising. So even if you'd read the mouse print, it wouldn't have mattered much. You pay anyway.

Read more: http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/07/why-was-iphones.html

Quint says Apple was really thinking ahead on that one. Mainly because all those millions of iPhones will probably go dead about the same time. And Apple has an automatic second market -- the sale of batteries.

Not to worry though. No doubt, this iPhone will be updated and replaced by some new improved gadget.

I guess we're neanderthals since we don't have any PDAs, iPods, iPhones, or pagers. We do have cell phones though. We use them a lot.

My darling grandson Jerry has a cell phone that he takes photos on. So one day I thought I'd go to the cell phone store where I got mine and ask them to show me how to take pictures.

I was told that I need to upgrade my cell phone because the one I have isn't programmed to take photos. So I'm due for an upgrade. Maybe tomorrow.

Or maybe I'll just wait until the next time I'm going to see Jerry. He has a lot of patience with his grandma. I think he may secretly giggle a little with my lack of electronic abilities. He did try to explain text messaging to me one time, which I still don't have the hang of.

I still don't know what "bluetooth" technology is. But then, it took me a while to get the hang of what a "blue dog democrat" is.

Hmmm. Wonder if they anything to do with each other.

##

LIGHTEN UP ON THE "CONTROL" WORD

The truth of the matter is that at a very early age, children learn to manipulate their environment.

They do this when they begin learning what happens if they do "this" or "that."

Pretty soon, even the littlest of kiddos have some idea that if they ask mom or dad for a drink of water, the request will most likely be answered. Now, you could put a negative twist on that simple request and say that little Susie has learned how to manipulate her parent into doing what she wants just by asking for a drink of water.

Like there's something sinister going on in the mind of a three-year-old that says, "I can make mom give me a glass of water. Watch this." That's just generally not the way most three-year-olds think.

Instead, the three-year-old builds a repertoire of successes. The kiddos grow and mature and add to this repertoire as they go through their young lives.

And my goodness, by the time they've reached early adulthood, there's a full range of behaviors that form what we could call "If ..." statements.

For instance, a 20 year old might say, "If I want this job, I will have to fill out an application and prepare for an interview."

"If I want good grades, then I'll have to study for the exam."

"If I want to get married, then I'll need to at least go on some dates."

We learn that we can make things happen in our world. We learn that people respond to us when we behave in certain ways. So, in that respect, we learn to control our world -- our environment -- and the people in it.

Each one of us does it.

And why is control important to us?

Because it makes our lives predictable. We need to think with some certainty that if we want to get a raise at work, then we may need to get out our job description and make certain that we're measuring up to our boss' expectations.

If we want to be happily married, then we need to learn to live in a give-and-take relationship with another person.

You bet we like to have predictable lives. Because of that, we are all controlling persons. The question becomes how much control we allow someone else to have over us. And how much control over other people do we think is fair.

And yes, controlling our environment and the people in it, is a manipulative device. It's this manipulation that makes our lives predictable.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

Knock, knock, knock -- it was the sound at the back door late Saturday afternoon.

"Would you like some corn?" asked my neighbor.

"Are you kidding! Fresh corn grown in Illinois fields? You bet I would."

So in she marched and set a big bag of corn in the middle of the kitchen floor. She was followed by her son with another bag. Then her husband brought in a bag. As they were leaving, she said, "We'll be right back. There's more. Hope you weren't planning on doing much of anything tonight."

They came back with a big box of corn that was still warm from the fields. You could smell the fragrance of sweet corn goodness rising up out of the box.

In total, there were 106 ears of corn. They made a big mountain on top of the table. Quint dashed out to get big bags of ice and I started the water bath for our evening goodness.

Plans changed. I had been to the Farmers Market in town on the way back from the supermarket and picked up twelve pounds of tomatoes that I was going to make sauce out of.

Tomatoes could wait 'til tomorrow. Corn couldn't. Easy choice.

The repairs to the carport are finished, complete with a fresh coat of exterior paint. Our carpenter neighbor is now working on a linen closet in the hallway just outside the bathroom.

We went to church Sunday morning. That always feels like we've found our community. Don't know anybody by name yet. But that will come.

We're going to install a ceiling fan in the basement office. Little by little we're reclaiming pockets of stuff we'd move in haste. It's starting to feel really nice and settled in for us.

Well, the dog days of summer are still with us. Probably will be for another week or so. Quint tells me that it's called the "dog days of summer" because it's the annual time when the dog star does something. Don't remember the rest of the story. The ancients sure liked their cosmos lore to solve all their mysteries in life.

And now I have to make a quick dash upstairs to get my seven quarts of tomato sauce out of the water bath. Maybe after I turn off the 21-quart canner the humidity on the first level will start to go down. Do you think?

Hey, listen, some people pay hard cash money to go to a spa and sit in a sauna. I can get a steam bath for free and can the summer's glory all at the same time.

##

CONGRESS PASSES REFORMS TO SURVEILLANCE LEGISLATION

It's called FISA -- short for Foreign Intelligance Surveillance Act, according to an article published in The Hill this morning.

Since the surveillance act was first established decades ago, there have been technological advances on top of advances.

Electronic surveillance used to be just about telephone conversations. Mainly because that was just about all that was out there to listen in on.

Then there came the microwave transmissions. And faxes. And cell phones. And wireless laptops. And PDAs. Did I miss anything?

Terrorists, it seems, sit in those internet cafes all around the world pushing their evil little buttons in their evil little minds while waging war on anybody who disagrees with them (infidels, they call us).

Guess they thought they were protected by wiretap laws.

Now comes congressional legislation that says, "Yep, we can listen in. And if you're plotting to blow us up, you're going to be in so much trouble, because we got that on tape."

FISA now goes to President Bush for signature. It's a sure think because he says he's going to sign it.

Read more: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-passes-fisa-bill-boehner-blasts-dems-2007-08-04.html

##

CONGRESS REWARDS ITSELF WITH A MONTH LONG VACATION/RECESS

Congress rewards itself for all the hard work it did passing this one piece of legislation (FISA)  by giving itself a vacation -- called the August recess.

That's another piece of work that needs to be updated. The August recess has no place in a congressional building that luxuriates in central air conditioning for its inhabitants.

You certainly don't see the construction industry shut down in August. You don't see courts adjourning, or hospitals shutting down.

Why in the world do congressionals think they can just shut down because it's August. They get way too many vacations, as far as I'm concerned.

I know -- I know. They'll say they're out there working in the district.

Who do they think they're kidding? They're out there pumping their little hands up and down. You know, those hands that keep coming back for more and more handouts. Political donations, in other words.

Do golf outings and hosting fundraisers constitute working in the district?

I don't think so.

##

THE SECRET -- from Mark Stubbe

One day, one friend asked another, "How is it that you are always so happy? You have so much energy, and you never seem to get down."

With her eyes smiling, she said, "I know the Secret!"

"What secret is that?"

To which she replied, "I'll tell you all about it, but you have to promise to share the Secret with others."

"The Secret is this: I have learned there is little I can do in my life that will make me truly happy. I must depend on God to make me happy and to meet my needs.
When a need arises in my life, I have to trust Go d to supply according to HIS riches. I have learned most of the time I don't need half of what I think I do. He has never let me down. Since I learned that 'Secret', I am happy."

The questioner's first thought was, "That's too simple!" But upon reflecting over her own life she recalled how she thought a bigger house would make her happy, but it didn't! She thought a better paying job would make her happy, but it hadn't.
When did she realize her greatest happiness? Sitting on the floor with her grandchildren, playing games, eating pizza or reading a story, a simple gift from God.

Now you know it too!

We can't depend on people to make us happy. Only GOD in His infinite wisdom can do that. Trust HIM! And now I pass the Secret on to you! So once you get it, what will you do?

YOU have to tell someone the Secret, too! That GOD in His wisdom will take care of YOU! But it's not really a secret... We just have to believe it and do it...

Really trust God!

##

OUR BANK ACCOUNT -- from Mark Stubbe

This is AWESOME...something we should all remember.

A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.

His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready.

As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window.

"I love it," he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

"Mr. Jones, you haven't seen the room; just wait. "

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," he replied.

"Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged ... it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the  difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away. Just for this time in my life.

Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put in.

So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories!

I am still depositing. Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

This is going to be one of those days when I'm not moving around too much. We're expecting another day of 90+ degrees.

But I do have a trip to the local farmer's market planned. Depending on what I can find will determine how much I move around. Maybe I'll be canning some more with a fan blowing on me.

I was nice to myself yesterday though. No painting when it was so hot. But it's only 75 degrees now so I could paint a little bit. Maybe finish the wall that we're going to hang the bikes on. But that may interfere with Quint's putting in those little shelves that I want to store plant food, weed killer, Sevin and a whole variety of other necessities for the flowers and garden.

And we didn't burn any trash. My most ambitious project was watering my little pretties about six last evening. I could hear them giggling and slurping when I turned the hose on them.

Then I gave my dancing little roses some of their very special rose food. Well, I'm telling you, it must have been a T-bone the way they carried on. I am amazed at how well the roses are doing. This is my first year at attempting roses.

Having lived in a condominium for 29 years, my gardening has been severely limited to what would grow in containers. Quint called me the Queen of Jade.

I also had a Ficus Tree that I was very proud of. Bought it at the supermarket right after Quint and I got married. It cost $1.69 and was about six inches high. It grew and it grew and it grew. Got all the way to the ceiling. We cut it back a couple of times. Then it kind of held at about 5 and a half feet. It's now found a new home in our daughter Sharon's living room. Looks real nice there.

Hope you all stay cool today. Remember -- keep drinking lots of water or iced tea.

##

THE CONGRESSIONALS ARE GETTING STEAMED -- WITH EACH OTHER

If they aren't careful with how they're doing things, all the congressionals are going to end up in big pickles on election day.

And I do mean all of them. Take yesterday, for instance. It was time for the agricultural spending bill to come up for a vote.

Okay. That's a legitimate matter. Taxpayers have been noticing that the lawmakers haven't been legislating all that much. Instead, they've been conducting those congressional investigations that appear to be little more than photo op grandstanding.

So it was a good thing to hear that they finally were going to get about the business of legislating.

And good for them.

The problem is the agricultural spending bill just happened to include a lot of federal funds for handouts for undocumented immigrants. Gee, would that be the same thing as illegal aliens?

The voteswereclose. In fact, they were thisclose.

Details remain fuzzy, but numerous Republicans argued afterward that they had secured a 215-213 win on their motion to bar undocumented immigrants from receiving any federal funds apportioned in the agricultural spending bill for employment or rental assistance. Democrats, however, argued the measure was deadlocked at 214-214 and failed, members and aides on both sides of the aisle said afterward.

If you want to read a description of the whole sordid event, you can go to this site and take a look: http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0807/House_erupts_in_chaos.html

Guess the lawmakers didn't get down to making any compromises on this one. Taxpayers from back home are keeping a very close eye on how the congressionals from their districts on voting on things.

The subject of "undocumented immigrants" has become a hot topic for taxpayers. Lo and behold, taxpayers are calling their representatives and their senators. And we're sending e-mails and faxes.

Just to let you know, all you people up there under the Dome. We're paying attention. And we're going to the polls with slips of paper in our pockets that have your voting results on them.

If you don't vote the way we think you ought to, then we consider ourselves as not being represented by you. In that event, I'll bet you have an opponent running against you who'd like to have my vote.

##

MURTHA HAS THE MOST BACON OF ALL

In an article this morning in The Hill, Rep. Murtha managed to earmark some $150 million in pet projects for his district.

"Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense panel, has secured the most earmarked dollars in the 2008 military spending bill, followed closely by the panel’s ranking member Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.)."

Just got under the wire there, guy. The new Ethics Reform Package goes to the White House for signature. Hopefully, after that, you're going to have to spell out exactly what you intend to spend the money on.

And who knows -- maybe spending matters will somehow manage to get on the floor of the House for debate.

Apparently Bill Young didn't exactly earmark chump change either, coming in with a little more than $117 million. Read more at: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/murtha-nabs-150m-pork-2007-08-03.html

The problem is -- bacon frying smells like breakfast to me.

Then congressionals got greedy. Really greedy. Now it all smells like BS. From the top where Nancy Pelosi sits, all the way down to the Running of the Pigs in Balogna, D.C.

##

SURE DIDN'T TAKE LONG FOR SOMEONE TO BLAME BUSH FOR THE BRIDGE COLLAPSE IN MINNESOTA

U.S. Senator Patty pointed her finger at Bush for not supporting the Democrats for spending more money on critical infrastructure.

But hold on just a minute. Neal Boortz developed a list of pork projects/earmarks for Minnesota projects.

Curious that bridge repairs isn't on that list anywhere.

Let's take a look at Citizens for Government Waste's "The Pig Booklet" for the state of Minnesota for the year 2006. Take a look at all of the "pork" projects. I'll give you a taste of a few:

• The state bailout of the Minneapolis Teacher's Retirement Fund, which puts state taxpayers on the hook for $972 million in unfunded liabilities
• A new $776 million Twins Stadium to be paid for with a Hennepin County sales tax increase -- (approved by state legislators with no voter referendum)
• $97.5 million for the Northstar Commuter Rail line
• $34 million in subsidies to ethanol producers that have seen a 300 percent increase in profits in the last year
• $30 million for bear exhibits at the Minnesota and Como Zoos
• $12 million to renovate the Shubert Theater in downtown Minneapolis
• $1 million for a replica Vikings ship in Moorhead
• $500,000 for a skating rink in Roseville
• $310,000 for a Shakespeare festival in Winona
• $129,000 for state art grants for North Dakota museums and theaters

Is it Bush's fault that the congressionals from Minnesota didn't ask for some money to be appropriated for bridge repairs?

Should Bush had walked over to the Minnesota delegation and stuffed some good old cashola into their pockets and said, "Here's some money for you folks in Minnesota. You need to really look at the safety of your bridges."

Next time you're pointing fingers at the White House, think about how cozy and cute the new bear exhibit is going to be at your zoo.

Add that to the new sports stadium and you could have an additional $776 million.

Wake up all you people who are elected. You took an oath of office to look after things for the taxpayers. When you let bridges fall on our heads, you aren't looking after us.

Maybe your next campaign motto ought to be "Buy Bolts Not Bears."

Shame on each and every one of the politicians who could have brought up a budget request for bridge and road safety.

I think when taxpayers get killed because you don't look after public safety, you ought to be able to be recalled. Immediately. Clean out your desk and get out of town. You have funerals to go to.

Read more: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1875744/posts

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

The carport construction is done. Now I'm doing guess what? -- Painting!

Got the interior nearly half finished yesterday. Then Quint convinced me that it was too hot to be painting the inside of a closet. It was 93 degrees out.

Good for the pores, Quint. People pay hard cash money to get this kind of pore cleansing at spas. Didn't you know that?

Well, I stepped out of the carport into the shade of the backyard and walked over to the patio where he had brought me an ice cold tea. I was convinced. I'll paint this morning after I finish my blog for today.

But what we did after I stopped painting makes even less sense. We burned more rubbish. We inherited this giant pile of old limbs that have been pruned from trees, twigs and all manner of dead tree parts.

So when the temperature reaches 94 degrees outside, it must be time to burn.

Me and my handy dandy little power saw make pretty quick work of little limbs. We has a lopper and a bow saw. For really big jobs, he can always go get his chain saw but he hasn't seen fit to do that yet.

One of the neighbors walked across her yard to our backyard and asked if we wanted some more trees to burn. We could have some of hers. I looked over to her yard and sure enough -- she's got a good little pile started. Her name is Anna. She brings me tomatoes and cucumbers. So maybe I will burn some of her yard trash.

But only if the temperature gets over 90 degrees, mind you.

Otherwise, I'll be somewhere on the premises painting something.

My motto is: If it doesn't move in about 5 minutes, I either dust it or paint it.

##

BRIDGE COLLAPSE IN MINNESOTA

First of all, CNN has this video footage from a security camera:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1ab_1186054443&p=1

According to the latest news we heard this morning, four souls are reported dead, many injured, and 20 missing.

The bridge collapsed at 6 pm last night. That would be about the time when the evening rush hour was in full bloom.

Terrorism has been ruled out. Not sure how the powers that be figured that out. But apparently they know things that we don't know.

Please pray for all the wounded and for the families who have lost loved ones.

##

FISHER-PRICE RECALLING LOTS OF TOYS

No, it doesn't have anything to do with itty bitty parts that could choke itty bitty babies.

This is worse.

These are toys coming in from China. At least a million of them, says Fisher-Price. They are painted with lead paint.

Fisher-Price listed all the toys at this web site:
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_213211002.html

Guess I won't be getting the Giggler Grabber Chef Cookie Monster for Christmas.

But be warned: the toys carry the Fisher-Price label so if they go on sale just in time for Christmas -- seriously -- make real real sure they didn't come from China.

##

EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE OVER 50 -- from Mark Stubbe

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you h ave plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Tryto reach a full minute, and then relax.

Each dayyou'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.
 
After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato sacks. Then try 50-lb potato sacks and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb potato sack > in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute.   (I'm at this level.)

After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks. 

##

EPHESIANS 2:10 -- YOUR BIBLE WATCHWORK FOR TODAY

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

If you don't think you have something specific that you're supposed to be doing, go back and read the above verse again.

Each and every day of your life, there will be things required of you to do.

There will be people who cross your path whom you are supposed to meet. For some reason that you do not know yet.

God prepared these things in advance for us to do.

Okay, so maybe you're in tune with this verse and you think you've been doing all the right things. But you still get these angry people popping up in your life.

Maybe -- just maybe -- you haven't learned the lesson of this verse yet. Maybe angry people keep intersecting your path because your response to them is not yet what God wants.

Since I can't read God's mind, I would not know the answer to that. Becoming angry at or because of another person's anger is not exactly the peacemaker God has in mind.

Peacemakers are the people who are able to de-escalate conflict. They do not respond to other people's anger with anger of their own. Peacemakers do not live on an island called "Bad Vibes." 

So, heads up! As you go through today, be ever mindful that you may meet someone or may get into a situation that will challenge you. Ask yourself if you are having an Ephesians 2:10 moment.

##

MY LIFE IN INK --

The repairs to the carport are coming along nicely. Don, the carpenter, has all the right tools, his measurements accurate so he bought the right amount of lumber and supplies.

So my question is: Can I paint yet?

Painting is almost like a yoga experience for me, except for the repetitive motions. I guess it's not yoga though unless I keep still and stay in one spot.

Not going to happen.

Quint and I both have noticed that our clothes are fitting differently. Not quite as snug. We attribute that to going up and down a lot of stairs. All day long.

We don't need no stinkin' stairmaster.

And we have our cell phones when we can't find the other person. Or when we're getting ready to put up a ceiling fan and need to turn off the power from the main switchbox which is in the basement.

Even I know that it's very important to get the right switch so he can cut the juice. Cell phones come in very handy for that.

"Anything happening?"

"Nope."

"How about this?"

"Nope."

"Is this it?"

"Yep."

One of his next projects is to put a schematic on the inside door of the breaker box. That way he'd be able to tell right away. As it is, one wall of the dining room and the ceiling in the kitchen were on the same switch. Who would have ever guessed?

I did get my peach preserves made yesterday afternoon. I took a jar over to a neighbor, Anna, who had come up behind me at the checkout counter at the IGA. She asked me if I needed some tomatoes to can.

You bet I can use some tomatoes. That was going to be tomorrow's adventure -- driving out to the country and looking for farm stands to get a bushel of tomatoes. One bushel will give me eight quarts of good old tomato sauce. Low salt and sugar free. No bug parts or the FDA allowed number of rat pellets or little also allowable worms.

Just pure tomato sauce made in my own clean kitchen.

Today I planted yellow squash in one of my very big containers. The experiment with the squash on the clothes line didn't work. The containers were too small, but they were doing okay. I had some very little squashes. The problem was the watering. That was when we were still driving back and forth and I have learned that container gardening requires some diligent, daily watering. Can't just do it on weekends.

I'm hoping there's still time to get a few squash before frost. It doesn't usually frost until the end of October so maybe there's time. We shall see.

It's an experiment. Life is an experiment and for Quint and me, life is also an adventure that we're enjoying together. Hope you can say the same. But you have to find your own adventurer.

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OBAMA IS AN INSULT TO U.S. MILITARY

He runs his life as if he thinks life began here on earth the day of his birth.

He runs his political campaign as if he thought the Oval Office is where the King of the World operates.

Obama says he's going to invade Pakistan and hunt down terrorists. That's out of one side of his mouth. Out of the other side of his mouth, he's been known to criticize George Bush for not respecting the sovereign power of Iraq. Seems like I recall at least on one occasion where he thought Bush was being heavy handed in the Middle East.

He's operating as if he has the power to do all these things.

He seems to forget that he would need some approvals along the way from Congress.

I don't think the President of the United States can just start running across borders of countries to ferret out terrorists.

In an article for Associated Press written by Nedra Pickler, Obama said, "... Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid."

Read the entire article at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070801/ap_on_el_pr/obama_terrorism_1

Oh, that's a good idea, Obama. Threaten to invade a sovereign nation.

And while you're at it, threaten to withhold military aid.

Such threats will not endear you to your buddies on the left and certainly won't earn you the respect of conservatives on the right.

Besides, I thought you were supposed to be a centrist. When did you jump off the fence and become so hawkish? Or is this how he plans to "sit down with dictators" and talk about stuff. That's what he said after one of those silly "debates."

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SAY IT ISN'T SO, GRANDPA

Now it seems like old Grandpa Hilton is saying all those threats of disinheriting his blonde bombshell Paris were taken out of context. The inheritance is still intact and supposedly Paris will get hers, just like the plans were originally written.

Can't these people make up their minds?

Guess not.

Hopefully he'll still give the bulk of his fortune to charities that help people get back on their feet. Maybe that will be enough of a kick in the you know what to get Miss Priss Paris off of hers and start doing something useful with her life.

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