Christ Fellowship Pink - Merry Christmas

Enjoy! This is my favorite Rap and favorite YouTube Video. I hope you enjoy this and pass it to as many people as you will. It definately has a message that we all  could abide by.

I am on my way to NC Verizon Wireless Purgatory this morning. The beach house seems to be in the Twilight Zone where cell service is concerned. NC may be be God's Country, but it is yet to be cell country. LOL. Love to you all and if I don't tweet, do facebook, or blog for a few days, it is because I cannot.

Take care and have a wonderful Christmas.

Love, Barbara

Driving to Louisville PINK

We stopped at Cracker Barrel in Mt Vernon IL. Another great dinner. Ray had chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes, okra, and biscuits. I had barbecue pork, with macaroni and cheese, cole slaw and cornbread muffin. My barbecue and macaroni was cold but the waitress was sweet and brought me another plate with HOT food on it. It was wonderful. I bought some more sock monkeys. I am buying a bunch of them and the only place I have seen them is Cracker Barrel. I am buying the 5 inch ones and I am going to embroider the initials of the grandchildren  on them for part of their Christmas presents. I always like to give a keepsake to them each year.

When I started writing on the blog, I remembered that I forgot the picture that we had made at The Legends Concert. I called the Hilton Landing in Branson and left a message for housekeeping to see if they could mail it to me. I will put it on the blog if they do. We are in the car driving toward Louisville now. It is after 7 p.m. and it is very dark. Not much on I-64 in this part of the world. We are listening to a sermon on the radio and I am happily blogging. I bought a new Verizon Samsung Fascinate cell phone. I love it. I am paying an extra $20 a month to have a mobile hotspot. That is so much nicer than the air card I had before. Seems to work very well. Still have a little trouble when we go to Verizon Wireless Purgatory in NC.

I decided to wear my wig today instead of a hat. The wig is warm and looks much better than me with a hat. LOL. It sure is keeping my head warm. I may wear more wigs this winter.

Did you know that God is Good, All the Time? Actually, Good cannot exist without God. Did you know that there is no temptation that God cannot deliver you from. If God has delivered you from a sin, you no longer need to tell everyone that you are a sinner, i.e., alcoholic, thief, etc. If you have been delivered from sin by Christ, you no longer have that label. In your mind, you realize that you need to stay away from that sin, but you don't have to broadcast it to everyone once you have been delivered. Live for God, regardless of the inconvenience you face. Always, let people know who you are. For myself, I bought a large silver cross in California when I was on a business trip. I used the per diem that the government provides for travel for the purchase of the cross instead of lots of expensive meals. I wear the cross most of the time and if not that one, I wear a small one. You would be amazed how it calms down a heated conversation. People who spew profanity usually take one look start talking without the swear words.

I love the quotation 'Profanity is the effort of a feeble mind to express itself forcefully.' I was told it was a quote from President George Washington. English is changing day by day and more people would be more cognizant of their language if they knew that intelligent people thought them ignorant because of their profanity. There are occasions where I have heard someone use a word for emphasis that wasn't very nice, but in the group there wasn't anyone who swore, so it was a very effective use of the word. Using profanity habitually does show ignorance and it also shows that that person does not care about anyone but themselves. Here I go on my soapbox again.

I am so thankful to my Twitter friends who follow me so faithfully. I actually went over 35,000 people this week. Isn't that cool? I know so many of them now, and miss them if I don't see them for a few days. It is amazing how many send me direct messages asking for prayer. I have spoken with them on the phone. I love to give council. I don't have a degree, but I have taken some psychology classes and some pastoral counseling classes as well.  I don't mind retweeting things for people that have to do with charity, and I do retweet a few friends who are doing business, but I choose them carefully.

I am praying for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for all my followers and friends. I wish you well. Lots of Love, Barbara

BRANSON MO PINK

We drove into Branson and went to the Wyndam Vacation Properties office and picked up our package. We were booked at the Hilton Landing Hotel in Branson. What a lovely hotel. I just love Hilton Hotels. They have such nice amenities.  The room was beautiful and overlooked the Branson Tour Railway.We had a lovely dinner at Famous Dave's Restaurant. We had some of the best barbecue we have had in years. They had all different kinds of sauce from different parts of the South. We ordered the special which was a huge platter full of ribs, pulled pork, chicken, fried potatoes, baked beans, corn on the cob, cornbread muffins. It was everything the brochure said it was. I don't remember eating barbecue that good in the past 30 years. We waddled out of there and went looking around until we went to the Legends show.

We had picked up the tickets in the afternoon for the Legends show. The stars were "Elvis Presley, George Strait, the Temptations, Patsy Cline, and the Blues Brothers. Of course, they were impersonators, but the were pretty good impersonators. Looks like this is a really good time to go to Branson. The prices were not too bad and there didn't seem to be a whole lot of people there. They had started the Christmas show and we really had a good time. We had our picture made with Elvis and George Strait. I am not one to be impressed by celebrity, so fake ones didn't do much for me. I was amazed that them for their talent. In fact, we saw them again on Branson TV doing their own thing and they were good on their own. 'Patsy Cline' and Jake from the Blues Brothers sang "Mary Did you know?" near the end of the show and it was a show stopper. It was almost worth the trip for that one song. It sent chills. If you are not a Christ-follower, you might not enjoy the shows there, because they are not afraid to proclaim his name. I had a wonderful time.

Twilight Zone Pink

Ray and I left Virginia on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day. The temperatures were in the 50/60s. Lots of sun and just cool enough to be comfortable. We drove through the mountains and I mostly read and slept. I really enjoy my Kindle. I started reading “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown. I don’t take his writing literally, but it makes for good fiction suspense.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel in Charleston WV. The food was great. Ray ordered Chicken & Dumplings, fried okra, and macaroni & cheese. I had the children’s bowl of Chicken & Dumplings. They brought fresh biscuits and cornbread muffins. It was very good and the service was excellent. I bought some more sock monkeys for grand children. We got to mother’s house in Lexington KY about 9 p.m. I got the key from the neighbor, since mother was on her way back from Dallas.

My brother, Sonny and his wife, Pat, along with their son, Jeremy, and mother went to my niece, Heather’s home in Dallas for Thanksgiving. Heather is pregnant with her second baby. They moved into a new home this year and Heather has never had the family come for a holiday. So it worked out great for them all. I am sure that I will hear the rest of the story when we get back to Lexington.

Anyway, we waited around Monday until after 2 p.m. for them to finally get back. Mother was so anxious to see Buddy, she couldn’t wait to go get him. Buddy is her little Yorkie who she boarded at the Vets. We left by 2:30 p.m. and drove a long and winding road. That is where the “Twilight Zone” comes in. We were on the Bluegrass Parkway and relying on “George” (our Garmin GPS) to lead the way. At first the weather was great but as the evening progressed, it deteriorated immensely. It started to rain and then there was lightning, and then George led us to two lane roads. I felt that we were in a very bad situation. It was pouring down rain, the two-lane road had deep ditches on the side and there were times that it was difficult to see the white line on the side of the road. I thought to myself if we skidded off the road into one of those ditches, we might not be found for days. Then at some point, we went across the Mississippi River on a two-lane bridge. That was scary in the dark on a rainy night. I was expecting to see Rod Serling’s face pop up at any time and say “ And now you have entered the Twilight Zone.” We got to a place called Sikeston MO and for some reason we circled it and came back to the same place we entered again. The GPS said we were at the Comfort Inn, but it was not there. We drove another half mile and came up behind it.

We unloaded the car and rode around looking for dinner. We couldn’t find anything, so we stopped at the Burger King in front of our motel (Comfort Inn and Suites). One of the employees was kind enough to direct us to Ruby Tuesday across the street, which even with direction, we had a hard time finding because it was on another street and the lighting was not very good. It was a beautiful Ruby Tuesday. There were lovely items on the walls and it was very clean. Even the bathroom was spotless. That says a lot to me. If a place has clean restrooms, then the kitchen is probably clean too. Ray ordered a huge burger and fries and I ordered broccoli and cheese soup. The waitress brought some garlic and cheese biscuits. They were really good. The whole meal was a pleasant experience. So if you are ever in Sikesville MO, Ruby Tuesday has good food.

We went back to the room and got ready for bed. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I was exhausted. Sometimes George doesn’t take you the right way. It may be the shortest or the fastest way, but not the smart way. We are a little like George ourselves. We have the ability to follow the smart way when we let God be our co-pilot. I know that there were times last night that I asked for God to slacken the rain so we could see the road, and it seemed like every time I asked, He did. He is always there for us if we just ask for his help.

This morning was good, we got up and took our showers and got away from the hotel early because of the time change. The Comfort Inn in Sikeston has a wonderful breakfast that is included with the cost of the room. There was a waffle machine where I made a waffle and split it with Ray. I had some egg and a little cheese and a cup of coffee. Ray had a biscuit with SOS and an egg, sweet roll, and a cup of coffee. The little dining area was spotless. We empathized with some of the other couples there who had gone through the rain last night. Did I ever mention, I have never met a stranger? We were in the car by 9 a.m. and on the road. The overall experience at the Comfort Inn was very nice. It was clean and neat. We had two double beds so both of us go a good night’s sleep. We are driving through some dreary country right now. I think that is because most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and there is no sun today. At least it is a four lane road. It is 35 degrees and windy this morning. I am not used to this kind of cold and my fingers are hurting as I type.  

My rheumatoid arthritis seems to be getting worse, instead of better. Everything hurts this morning. My hands are the worse part but my sciatic nerve in my back may be causing some of my pain. Ray is having trouble with his right food. It swelled up yesterday. We found him some ibuprophen last night but it hasn’t helped much. I gave him a small prednisone pill, hoping that will help.

In the news this morning, I listened to the case of the young man in the Army that leaked all the classified information to Wikileakes. How dumb can any one person be? I know that when I worked for the Air Force Air Combat Command, if you were dumb enough to mishandle classified, you could be fired and if you intentionally gave it away, you could be fired or persecuted and sent to Federal Prison for Life. You could be persecuted and end up being executed for treason. This young man’s father was in the Army at one time and he was trying to get on his father’s good side by joining the Army. I just cannot imagine how disappointed his dad is in him now. I know that the frontal lobe sometimes doesn’t fully mature in some young men until they are around 25. I heard that he was gay and has been teased and bullied all his life. Such a shame that he couldn’t have been just a good kid, who was loved. All children need love.