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 |  Fibro fog, pain, writing sandwiched in between. Quotes. Sermon notes. Encouragement. |
A Texas Sunrise  A friend, William Taylor, took this picture. He visits Surfside Beach with his dogs almost every morning, watching the sun rise while the dogs prance about at the water's edge. This is only about ten miles from where I lived in Lake Jackson, Texas. Sadly, I only visited this beach about four times in the six years I lived nearby. Each day is a challenge. A challenge to get by without thinking about the fibromyalgia pains. A challenge to stay awake when chronic fatigure wants to take over. And a challenge to navigate through fibro fog. I haven't been writing as much as in the past. For years, I wrote at least 500 words a day. Now, I'm lucky if I write 500 words in month. Sigh. For more information about what my day (or life) is all about with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chronic pains, IBS, depression and everything else thrown in, check this out:
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| Please go to this web site and vote for my church, Salem Community Church. While you're there, you can see the video our pastor sent. We're one of ten churches selected, in the running to get $60,000 for outreach. Our church does a great job with outreach now, but we're not a big church. This would be so helpful. Here's the link: http://greatoutreachgiveaway.com/vote  "My Favorite Neighbor"  "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| I don't know who you are, but as I looked at my statistics for this blog I noticed that between 8 and 12 people view the page each and every day. Wow. I guess I'll have to look more closely to see how many of those views from inside the Writing.com community and how many are from outside. So what's up with me? I had my teeth all pulled in November of last year, due, they tell me, to both having fibromyalgia and the medications I take for all of my various maladies. By June I should have had my permanent dentures in place and looking like a million bucks. But that's not how things work for me. I'm still wearing the "intermediate" teeth which looked great when the were put in in November, but as they've been changed (adding linings and scraping linings away as my mouth changed over the months) they're now rather ugly. So why haven't I gotten my fancy new permanent dentures? For one thing, my mouth still keeps swelling and that makes it almost impossible to fit something comfortably. And for another, the stress over my stupid mouth and dentures caused the cataracts that had been quietly lurking decided to go into full blast acceleration. Yeah. And did I mention that I turned 60 in April. Yep. This young 60 year old has denture problems and now cataracts. Unbelievable....to me, anyway. I had one eye operated on July 31 and the other should be on August 21. If all goes right, I'll end up with better vision than I've had for the past 50 years. So keep those prayers coming, okay? "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| Go past the first few seconds where you might want to punch the young woman out. Hopefully this video will go viral. An Apology to President Karzai on Behalf of Americans |
| Mindfield is just one site where I'm active. http://mindfieldonline.com/referral/81e2fffd |
| Today God sent one of our 15 year old members to my portfolio. There she found this item that I posted long ago: "The Answer Is Prayer" What a blessing it was to have someone that young encourage me. It was also good to revisit something I wrote long ago about prayer. When I taught a Vacation Bible School class in about 1987, the kids loved to pray. One boy simply asked, "Holy Ghost, help me pray." Then he got quiet. A girl asked, "Well, are you going to pray?" The boy responded, "God's Spirit is going so fast that I can't keep up. Just listen with your own heart." The other day my son, who is now 27, told me that it's difficult for him to understand that his mother is no longer the active women that he remembers from his childhood. Back then, I was a regional director for a home party plan. I taught Sunday School. I was a Lay Speaker at our church. I volunteered in the community and at the private school where Derek attended. Our life was a whirlwind. He also remembers having grandparents who were active in their 60s and 70s and it concerns him that his mom, who hasn't quite reached those ages is not that active. Boy, oh boy, did I want to shout at God about how unfair it is that I cannot do the things I once did. Fibromyalgia stinks. So does arthritis. And all the things that go along with them. I hate the choices I face - constant pain without medications or feeling drugged with them. I hate that. I hate that "fibro fog" makes me do crazy thing, like opening the refrigerator when the microwave timer dings. I hate that. But as I sat that afternoon talking with God, I was reminded that even though I don't even write as much as I once did, my words are here for the world to discover. Cianter   discovered some of my words today and gave me the encouragement I needed.Thank you, Lord, for sending someone to visit my portfolio today. Thank you for sending a young encourager my way at a time when I needed some human encouragement. |
| Want some inspiration? Check this out: The Voice (and the Heart) of a Child |
| I shared three YouTube videos here: Welfare in America One is titled Welfare in a Free America. The second: Welfare: How Freedom Was Lost in America. And the third: Welfare: How to Get Freedom Back. About the third, I wrote: Pay special attention to what the past comptroller says about what Social Security is and what it is not in the third video. He says it's a wealth transfer program, not a savings program. It's an unrecuperated tax. It's a tax now and spend now scheme. Nothing that you pay into the system will be there when you retire. Not one penny. It was never designed that way. If you doubt this, go and look at the official site of Social Security and read the history. If the first woman who collected Social Security retirement income put in for only 3 years - a total of $24 - and received checks of $22 per month for 30 years, how could it be that she was paying for her own retirement? She obviously was not, nor are any of us. What you think you are entitled to is not your money. The money you will receive in retirement is what your children and grandchildren will be paying you. Think about that when you cry about how you don't want to lose what you paid into the system. You've already lost that. If your kids and grandkids are going to pay for your retirement, wouldn't you prefer that they hand you the money and not make it filter through the government? At about 20 minutes into the third video, listen carefully to the harsh words and think about what is being said. If you're a Christian or if you're a TEA party member, a conservative or a libertarian, these words need to be taken to heart. Are you really a freedom lover? Do you really value the Constitution? Do you really care about future generations? Or are you too selfish to sacrifice? Do you expect everyone but you to sacrifice? These are questions that we all need to ask ourselves.  "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| If you think you're too small to make a difference, you've obviously never been in bed with a mosquito. ~ Michelle Walker Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| All he would have to do is to list all the failures he's had that he has blamed on Bush, on Congress, on oil companies and jet owners and then do a turnaround and admit that he has failed the country. All he would have to do was to admit that he's been a horrible president, but a great divider-in-chief. If he did that, half of America would keel over with heart attacks and the ones who were left - his faithful - would gladly re-elect him. (They'd probably also bow at his feet as he changed the Constitution to allow him to be president for the rest of his life.) "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| Go ahead. Do it as a favor to me. I've been at RedGage.com for 2 years now and my total earnings is $23.75. When it gets to $25, I can cash out. Yippee skippy. So I need a few more page views here and there. Vacation in the Moutains http://www.redgage.com/photos/kenzie45230/vacation-in-the-mountains.html Rascals Chasing Customers in the Rain http://www.redgage.com/photos/kenzie45230/rascals-chasing-customers-in-the-rain.... Thanks for the help! Blessings, Kenzie  "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| Why haven't you seen this photo I took? http://www.redgage.com/#rf:/photos/kenzie45230/rascals-chasing-customers-in-the-... |
| I found out the other day that this slide show I made has over 10,000 views. Wow! http://www.gather.com/viewVideo.action?id=11821949021863467 |
| If you're looking for ways to earn some money for your Writing.com membership, and if you love getting into discussions, here are two possibilities: http://www.mylot.com/?ref=kenzie45230 http://kenzie45230.gather.com/ These surely have helped me. Just thought I would share. |
| Sometimes one pays the most for the things one gets for nothing. Albert Einstein |
| The Apostle Paul modeled praying well. He prayed for churches and for leaders. What a great place our world would be if we all took the time to pray for each other as Paul prayed. Imagine if we prayed like this for our friends and family, for our church leaders and our political leaders. Colossians 1:9-14 NIV For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Shall we pray that God fills the people around us with knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding? Shall we pray that our friends and family and leaders live a life worthy of the Lord and that their lives will please him in every way? Shall we pray that their lives bear fruit, that they grow in knowledge of God, that they are strengthened with his power and might so that they have both great endurance and great patience and that they joyfully give thanks to the Father? And shall we pray the same things about ourselves? "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| Perspective, Perception: I see the world from my eyes; you see the world from yours by Marilyn Mackenzie What we see is clouded or enhanced by our life experiences, by where we've lived (and, perhaps how many places we've lived). What we see is influenced by our parents and their parenting, by our extended families, by our friends, our neighbors and our teachers. What we see is influenced by our level of education, by the kinds of jobs we've held, by whether or not we are creative individuals (craftsmen, artists, writers) and by whether or not we have managed or owned our own companies. And, what we see is influenced by our faith or lack thereof. I thought about perception when I attended my 40th high school class reunion. From kindergarten through 9th grade, I lived in area that was predominantly white and middle-class. The first neighborhood in which I lived had been a rural farm area, but when we moved in, farms were being sold and blue-collar workers were moving in. My father was one of those blue-collar workers, and a union member. (And my disdain for unions stems from the treatment he received as a worker and as a retiree from that union, as well as experiences of friends and other relatives, and treatment I received in the only job I ever had that was unionized. But all of that is another story.) I was in the 6th grade when the first black family moved into our neighborhood. And I remember hearing the father of one of my friends ranting and raving to his wife behind closed doors that having "that family" in the neighborhood would make the values of everyone's property go down. My friends and I - there were about 8-10 of us in our motley crew - thought his comment was absurd. How in the world could having a family with a doctor and nurse as head of household bring property values down? Surely, having professionals arrive in the neighborhood of farmers and blue-collar workers should increase property values, right? (We had no idea that there were some adults who thought that skin color would de-value properties.) Although we lived in a different house and neighborhood in my junior high years, I attended the same schools. There were 2 or 3 black families in the school district by then. Then when I reached high school age, we moved back into the city and I attended a school with a much higher number of African-American students. What I learned at my 40th class reunion was how differently we perceived the student population ratio. As one who had been raised in a predominantly white area in early life, and because of the street where I lived in high school, I believed that our school had a ratio of 60% white to 40% black (with a few other people sprinkled in here and there, but no great numbers). Note: On the street where I lived in high school, white families lived at the top 1/3 of the street, black families lived in the middle 1/3 and whites lived in the lower 1/3 of the street. I learned from some of my black classmates, many of whom lived in predominantly black neighborhoods - with some of them living in areas that required them to take 2-3 buses to get to school - that they perceived our school as being about 85-90% white and 10-15% black. And I learned from some of my white classmates - the ones who had always lived in neighborhoods with different races - that they perceived the numbers to be more like 70% white to 30% black. Interesting, isn't it? What we saw was affected by our own race and our own experiences. And so it is today in all that we do, don't you think? Whether we like it or not, what we see is clouded or enhanced by our own life experiences. What is important is that we realize that what we perceive may not be the truth. And what the other guy perceives may also not be the truth. The truth - the real truth - may be somewhere between the two. And, what frustrates me more than anything is a person who will not even consider that what he/she thinks might be wrong or that what he/she has seen in his/her neighborhood may not actually be happening anywhere else in the country. Believing that the entire country is like your own backyard, is why we end up with laws being forced upon an entire country, when the problem was better solved locally. Believing that everyone who looks a certain way acts in a certain way prevents us from learning the true value of each individual. Each one of us is unique. Each one of us has talents and gifts given to us by God and developed on our own (or not) so that we have something to offer the world. And each one of us has eyes clouded by our own pasts and presents. Before we judge, shouldn't we remember that? Before we criticize, shouldn't we try to discuss our differences? Are your eyes seeing the real me? Or are they seeing the me that you think that I am? Have you bothered to find out?  "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
 It's hard to believe that WDC is 10 years old. It was a year old when I joined. Yes, in fact, my 9 year WDC anniversary is on Sept. 3. It's hard to believe that I've been here for 9 years. Wow. That makes me feel old, for some reason.  Oh well. Time to celebrate!!!  "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
| I found a site today where you can check to see if anyone has been using your words without permission. It's called Copyscape, and this is the URL: http://www.copyscape.com/ Just for kicks, I entered the title of one of my poems: Tumbled Towers, Humbled Hearts. Here it is my portfolio here at WDC: "Tumbled Towers, Humbled Hearts" And here it is at PoemHunter.com by a person named Resty Rivera without permission: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tumbled-towers-humbled-hearts/ I wrote to the administrators of PoemHunter.com. But in order to email the "writer" I had to register and it never did accept the password the site assigned to me. I hope the site administrators answer promptly. I'll let you know. |
| Do you Tweet? Is that what I'm supposed to ask? Are you on Twitter? Why aren't you following me on Twitter? Why aren't I following you? Here's where to find me: http://twitter.com/kenzie45230 How do I find you there? |
| Benjamin Franklin said, in November, 1766: I think the best way of doing good for the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but in driving them out of it. In my youth, I traveled much, I observed in different countries that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and became poorer. And on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves and became richer. Thomas Jefferson said: There is no substitute for hard work. And remember what John F. Kennedy said? Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Where are the wise men today? "My Favorite Neighbor" "Sharing Sunshine...It's What I Do!" "Admirable Women" "Whose Work Are You Stealing?" "The Potter's Cup and Saucer" |
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