Yeah, I thought that was a really good one, too. 

A couple's happy married life almost went on the rocks because of the presence in the household of old Aunt Emma.

For seventeen long years she lived with them, always crotchety, always demanding.

Eventually, the old girl passed away.

On the way back from the cemetery, the husband confessed to his wife, "Darling, if I didn't love you so much, I don't think I would have put up with having your Aunt Emma in the house all those years."

His wife looked at him aghast.

"My Aunt Emma!" she cried.  "I thought she was 'your' Aunt Emma!"

Our young daughter had adopted a stray cat. To my distress, he began to use the back of our new sofa as a scratching post. "Don't worry," my husband reassured me. "I'll have him trained in no time."

I watched for several days as my husband patiently "trained" our new pet. Whenever the cat scratched, my husband deposited him outdoors to teach him a lesson.

The cat learned quickly. For the next 16 years, whenever he wanted to go outside, he scratched the back of the sofa.

My aunt's neighbor in New York had a beautiful black cat, Felix, who spent his days outside and came indoors at night. One cool October evening, he disappeared. The neighbor searched for him in vain. The following spring, however, Felix reappeared, looking healthy and clean. She figured he'd been sowing his wild oats. Everything was back to normal until that autumn, when Felix disappeared again.

The next spring, he returned. Perplexed, my aunt's friend began asking neighbors for clues. Finally, she rang the bell of an older couple. "A black cat?" the woman said. "Oh, yes. My husband and I hated to see him out in the cold, so we bought a cat carrier. We take him to Florida every winter."

Debp, As far as I know each banana tree puts fruit on once a year.
The part of yard we cleared the brush off of actually belongs to Water Management, (government). Our main concern has been having it cleared to reduce fire danger. Florida, is considered the lighting capital of the world. We have lots of really tall pine trees on the property, and we were concerned should lighting ever hit on of our trees, that if the brush got going it might spread faster than we could get it put out or control it. Also the last hurricane that gave us wind damage knocked down and broke off many of the trees that gave us some wind protection. As you can see in the background of some of the pictures is a line of brush. This was a invention of mine, as in putting up a small fence on treated stakes, the fence being light-weight mesh fencing, along the river side of property. This area gave us a  place to put all the weeds and fallen branches and cut brush, a sort of long compost bed. Each year the stuff will rot down and build up the bank of the river, and also give us a bit of wind protection. It provides a continual place to put yard waste while serving a useful purpose. For now we will be attempting to keep weeds from growing up again and hopefully be able to plant some grass or other low growing plant in there that is beneficial to wildlife in the future.
I plan to put up more pictures of our main yard so you can see how I manage plantings there. Glad you enjoyed the view.

Good idea about clearing the brush....we also have wildfire dangers here, but in the suburbs.  I'm in the heart of the city so no problem....we don't get the floods or mudslides either. 

The compost is a good idea, too.  But will your river bank ever get too high and block out the view?  Must be nice being so close to nature.  I like any type of waterways; even enjoy our fountains in downtown L.A.

Well we are back in business. The pictures are now up on my website. Go to "Road Not Taken" in navigation and you we see the fruits of our labors in the clearing of property that had been over-grown with brush.

If anyone runs into same problem I did with trying to upload pictures that were saved as jpg or jpeg, do the following if possible. Mine were sent to me by a friend. So I ask him to resend them in a different form which was gif. When I tried to save picture it only gave me the choose of saving it as a jpg again. So I saved as "Target" instead. This enabled me to save the picture as a gif file, thus something that my website would except. As most of you know saving a picture or as a target, is done by right-clicking on a picture giving you the options mentioned.
My website can be visited by clicking on the small earth globe on left side of this post, or by going to http://sweedpatch.tripod.com

That's quite a yard you have there, Islandboy.  The banana trees are some of my favorites.  About two blocks away there is a banana tree in the front yard of an apartment bldg.  Every now and then we see bananas on it, but not for long.    How often do they grow the bananas?

I have Yahoo and have never had a problem with it.  They put all suspected spam into a bulk mail folder which I delete in just a second after doing a bulk "check all" which also takes just a second to do.

The only thing is when I learned how to do email (a few years back), the young kid at the library teaching us....didn't tell us to use a username other than our real names.  So that's the only thing I wish I'd done differently. 

I am not so worried about the job decision right now.  I feel like I need to just stay where I am at, but I am afraid that I am going to be forced into moving and I don't want that.  I am capable of making my own decision sensibly.(so says every other 16 year old, too)

I have enjoyed being on here a lot.  I haven't been treated as a crazy opinionated teenager!  I don't get taken seriously as much as I feel I should. 

Thanks for your continued prayers.  I need them and so does my church as we look for a new pastor.

MJC

I have enjoyed getting to know you here....as I'm sure the others have as well. 

I am praying for this young girl she is 7 years old now we don't know how long she has been abused, but at least we know she is safe. We need to continue praying for her what she has gone through is very hard for a baby to deal with. She needs a lot of prayer and I have confidence in God that this child abuser will be caught and brought to justice, here and when God Himself passes judgment.

Yes, she needs prayer still.

Our news says this abuser might be in our area.....they are posting his photos so we can all watch out for him.

One  last point on this is that when we forget about the three, and only think on the one, we lose the meaning. In other words when we focus our eyes on Jesus, (as we should), but forget about the Father, as some people do, the Father's words and commandments are sometimes forgotten as well. And in forgetting or laying them aside we lose the Holy Spirit, as well. For it is Him that helps us communicate with God the Father and Jesus the Son.

I agree...it's always important to remember each person of the Godhead.  Jesus, our Savior, Our loving Father and the blessed Holy Spirit.  Three but One God....God is able to do this.

A Christian architect came up with a way to add in some sort of strapping system inside of them that makes them really safe. The entire roof comes off now and the whole building collapses before the steeple will snap off.

That's good.  Also, they might check into the lightweight material like our church used.

[replicated]

In the paper today  there was an article about churches and insurance in the gulf coast area. Insurance companies are dropping their policies do to hurricanes. If a church has a steeple it get dropped because steeples are dangerous in high winds. Churches also are high risk due to their stained glass windows and expensive objects.
Homeowners are losing insurance as well, do to higher then normal increases in rates for some and others are being just dropped due to risk in hurricane areas. Only going to be very rich and very poor people left here. Rich afford rates and poor don't have insurance anyways.


Debp, haven't found much about poisenous plants and fruit trees yet but will keep searching. Remember when I first came to Florida, newcomers were warned against using certain flowering bushes to roast hotdogs on, down at the beach and at home, because it could kill you. The poisen was in the branches. They might have that problem in your State too. Up in PA we used maple & oak & apple branches. Never had that problem.

Hi Islandboy, did an errand and am just on the computer late tonight.  Had to check stuff where I'm a moderator, too.   Don't worry about the plant info, maybe I can find out somewhere else on the internet.

During the 1994 earthquake here (a rather big one), the church I now attend had to remove four, large, heavy "steeples" because they could have fallen down and hurt people or damaged the building.  Several months ago, they replicated these steeples with a light weight material that looks like concrete....and put them back on top of the church.  Now the original steeples have been place at the driveways.

This is a really great article and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing it with us.



Be not weary in your serving;
Do your best for those in need;
Kindnesses will be rewarded
By the Lord who prompts the deed.

You're quite welcome, Islandboy.  There are so many hurting people in the world today....I try to reach out when I see someone that is hurting.  Maybe it will make all the difference in their lives, especially when they know we are Christ's followers.

As a victim of unkind words all through my childhood and teen years and then being married to a woman who constantly criticized me, I know how destructive words can be. I think of a horse as the rider tries to break the horse's will without breaking his spirit. Once the horse's spirit is broken, he's pretty much useless. My dad broke my spirit. Peers added to that by their constant criticism of my shyness (and my second-hand clothes) caused by my abusive dad. In the military I was told that I was lower that whale manure. An abusive wife didn't help, but at least I could divorce her. Life in general hasn't helped any. Many people are so unkind and uncaring. I try to live the way God says to live and treat others as I want to be treated, but it isn't easy. Mostly, I just prefer to be by myself where there's no one criticizing me. Being retired I can do that most of the time.

Jon-Marc, I am so sorry for the abuse you received as a child, and then the other abuses throughout your life.  Although many of us suffered abuse from classmates, I think it is so much harder when one suffers abuse from a parent.  Because the home should be a place where the child can return to and receive some comfort, even when abused at school.

I pray that the Lord will heal your hurts more and more.....perhaps you can find some loving Christians as friends....even if you do not spend alot of time with them, just to know some nice people.  I pray this for you.  God bless you always.

Thank you for that.  I use that website some when I am preparing my lesson for my Wednesday night class.  I try to find simpler translations of some verses every now and then.

I have not been online much lately.  I have been so busy.  Now that school has started back I never have much time for anything.  I go to school all day and then I go to work.  I am getting 26-30 hours a week even while going to school.  I have just about got it all worked out though.  Now my bills are finally in order.  I've got a truck payment at the beginning of the month.  Then insurance falls somewhere in the middle, and any repairs I need can kind of work around that. 

I am kind of in the middle of a decision making process now.  I have been working where I am at right now for a year and two months.  In the past month I have had three job offers.  One from a NAPA dealer nearby, one from the gas station my mom works at, and one from another gas station about 6 mile from the house.  I found out about the last one today.  The owner talked to my dad.  I really didn't consider the other two because they are about 13 miles away in a nearby town, but this one is close to home and I would actually be making more money that I am right now.  I don't really want to move because I love it where I am and my bosses have been so wonderful to me.  I want to stay loyal to them.  They were the ones who went out on a limb for me by hiring a 15 year old girl they hardly knew.  I don't want to leave them.  There are a few other reasons too.  I think my dad wants me to move though.  He doesn't care much for my current employers.  I am worried that he will try to make me move or make me feel bad about not moving.  I am just trying to make the right decision.  I could use a little prayer in that situation.

I also have a praise report.  Sunday before last my eleven year old sister got saved.  And my dad has gotten back in church.  That is two answered prayers.  I am really excited about that!

Thank you all.  You have been so wonderful to me since I came on here.

MJC

Wonderful news about your dad and sister, thanks for letting us know!  Also, about the job offers!

A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection with him. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.

The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting
officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you,and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do" bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker and the chrome-plated fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."


-- Author Unknown