Best Friends in Action

Wild Adventures with best friends was a real adventure! Here are some of the pictures! I have a rollercoaster girl and she has a friend that is also! It also rained us out so we took cover in a pinic looking area and they girls did hand jive.

No Pause response

Those that know Sydney have seen her with that index finger in her mouth at one time or another. Now she is eight (8) years old and should have beat this habit. But for some reason or another it has not happened. Her dad and I have tried many things like: socks on hand strings of reminders, money, candy, hot peppers (yes, hot peppers but then she put her finger in her eye... ouch :( oh no), dentist talking to her, letting her know about braces and breaking the roof of her mouth to fix the damage she is doing to her mouth. Nothing worked. I even had a boyfriend just tell her to stop one time and she does not like him at all. Not one bit not even after we are not dating any longer.

So... Sunday morning as she was going to get in the shower, I said, "I have to do something about that finger sucking and maybe it is not getting you a car when you want to drive." Without a pause she turned around and with finger still in mouth responded, "Well, if you don't buy me a car then you will have to drive me everywhere." Then she walked into the bathroom to get into the shower.

She is correct, that is a bad way to punish her for sucking her finger. But, the more important issue is that she is eight (8) years old with that quick of a response. LOL

Should I be worried about her letting people run over her? Not one bit and even though she was quick to respond to me she didn't say it rudely but just in a comment voice. Boy, what spunk! She will be that great Environmentalist Lawyer she wants to be and will put up some great responses!

If you knew what I knew....

"If you knew what I know, you would pile your [food storage] in the middle of the floor, throw a cloth over it, and walk around it." President Harold B. Lee

This quote hangs on the wall in the Bishops Warehouse in Jacksonville, FL. This is where I visited yesterday to work on my food storage. What an amazing program! I was able to get some great experience, load up on some much needed food storage (rice & onions). I found at great website that helps track food storage at www.trackmyfoodstorage.com and sends reminders for 72 hour kits and expiration of foods. It got me organized and I love to be organized. It is my hope that the needed food and household items will all be purchased for two people by the end of this 2008 year. Currently, there is enough food to get us through for some months except we need some items like more sugar, fruit and veggies.

See the video of me working hard at the cannery!

Family, it's about time!

Sounds like a commercial that I hear every so often. You might have heard it also. Well, "Family it's about time" is true. I have the blessing of a family hertitage of getting together once a year with other members of my family around my Great Grandfathers birthday (Lovick Pierce Shippey Sr. 6/26/1871-9/29/1949). This is done because he and my Great Grandmother had thirteen (13) children and they all like to be around each other. So, we met and ate and got caught up with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th cousins. Amazing! Some are getting up in age as we are all doing each day. Here are some pictures that were take of this great group of family members held on 6/21/08 in Dawson GA.

My Girls!

(Heather, me, Jennifer, at YC -6/19-6/21)

Two great girls went to Youth Conference. They are smiling and got to dance with some really cute guys! It was my first youth conference that I have ever gone to and had a great time in the end. We stayed at Troy University in the dorms called Trojan Village (I know this place as Troy State because that is where my Aunt Connie went to college and that is what it is called).

(500 Youth attended from four stakes)
There were 500 youth that attended. One exciting conclusion was that the girls need me in their lives. They are willing to let me take pictures of them dancing with cute guys and be a part of their lives. They are important girls and need to feel the embrace of love from me and it is my responsibility to draw them toward the right direction for their future.

(The old girls: Crissy & Nikki)
At the dances some of my old girls that were 14 when I had them were now 17 and boy crazy. They are always around to give hugs and love me. Girls need love from males and females. It has been my great opportunity to work with the Young Women of a few wards and help develop these girls.

Homeopathic "It works"

Cure yourself! There is a time for real medicine but there is time for research to avoid relying always on the doctors. Recently my sinuses were bothering me which means it will go to my ear very soon. It jumped to my ear in seven hours on a Saturday night. So, going to the internet saved me! I was able to find out a homeopathic way to fix my ear. It is a solution of Chamomilla. By the time I got to see the doctor the following week, it was gone. He could not tell I had an infection. Hoorah!

Next I had gotten a nail fungus, yes gross! How to get rid of was my first thought. Going to get your nails done I recall seeing that they put a polish on it. Did a little bit of research and found that Listerine kills nail fungus! I had that on hand and it worked! Who would have thought.

So, I turn to the internet and homeopathic solutions prior to expensive Dr. Bills! You know the ones I am referring to if you read yesterday's blog about Rx's.

Nascar Driver... Random Thoughts

I should drive for Nascar! I did a 360 on the road Friday! Did not hit anything except I ran off the road. Almost flipped and thought I would have know what it felt like to flip the brown truck (like my rowdy stroudy brother did).

Did not want to get out of bed this morning. So, I slept. Sydney was late for her Dance camp. She does not want to be late tomorrow is what she told me. Oh to EFFEXOR XR... I need this medicine.

Rx.... Ok my goodness. Who would have thought medicine costs so much! Oh I wish for a generic drugs.... A 30 day supply cost $112 plus tax and that is after it is covered by insurance. Dang! Oh yeah... then I had to buy another Rx that was $83 that was a one time use. But, I feel much better! My stomach is much better!

Father's Day Gift for a friend.... I did a service for a great guy friend! Yesterday was Father's Day. Here is what I did.... Bought two cards one for each of his children to give him (plus bought one for Sydney to give her dad and made sure she had something to give her dad for Father's Day). Then, at 7:45am in the morning I went to his house and got the children up to make their dad breakfast.... They made eggs, bacon and hashbrowns for him. They did great! They had a fun time doing it. It was a neat for them to spend time with their dad and do something for him because he does so much for them. So, I share this plus the fact that I made ribs, cherry clobber and had vanilla ice cream. I do this because I love him so much and hope that he will be able to find a great girl to marry someday. Someone that will care for him and honor his love! He was undescribably grateful. I share because I am excited to have someone that is so special to me that I would spend my time, money and effort on.

Duck Duck BEG

Lake Ella (a lake named after me!) is filled with ducks! Usually they are in the water swimming and begging for food. Saturday they were seeking shelter at the picnic areas. This is where they found us: Sydney, Melinda, Tatiana and I eating our Publix subs. It was an exciting experience to me. These animals that are always out of reach were right at our feet. Sometimes too close for Sydney. We had bread and they knew it! When we started feeding them they were nice. I even had a few that ate from my hand directly. Being pecked by a duck's beak was a blunt feeling against my fingers similar to an eraser hitting my fingers. However, there was a time or two that I felt more than a blunt peck. Have you ever felt the side of an Aloe Vera plant? Its side is prickly but not sharp. The inside of the ducks months felt the same way. We finished the bread and they knew it. The begging was done, the rain had stopped and they went back to the water.

A Voice

I have a voice! My voice counts! Last Wednesday, I was signed into the NE Central Labor Council which is part of the American Union Movement through AFL-CIO. (The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions.) When I started working for American Income Life it was the beginning of my union involvement because AIL is a 100% union company. In July 2007, I joined the Office of Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) local 277.

The most exciting part about all of this to me is that I can speak my voice! All my life I have been worried about what people will think of me. Will I say the right or wrong thing, but when I am part of the union it is expected that you speak your voice. You have to be involved to get issues to move forward. My voices has been freed.

Boll Weevil a pest or blessing

My work takes me all over the North FL and South Alabama. It is today that it took me to Enterprise, Alabama which is West of Dothan, AL. In a meeting with a Credit Union President, he discovered that this was my first time coming to this town. So, I needed to drive down North Main Street to see the only monument erected that celebrates an agriculture pest, the Boll Weevil. I had heard of the animal but had forgotten the reason for the celebration of this bug. So, Mr. Paul told me the background. The boll weevil was from Mexico but made its way to Alabama in the early 1900's. It was destroying complete cotton crops and someone took the opportunity to convert the area to peanut farming. This taught the farmers diversify their crops, a practice which brought new money to Coffee County, Alabama. It made people take the negative and turn it into a positive situation. Just like you hear when you have lemons turn it into lemonade. These farmers did and it has paid off. They paid off debts in the first year of the peanut crops and this has made them more successful farmers.

So, my work brought be to this little town and a prayer in my heart to get business today. It is going to happen. I have a group that I am meeting with tonight.

Just as each day goes by you have to take the good with the bad but take time to find the positive direction. During my dinner, I was reading a book that Mauricio gave me and it say.... this about emotions which can be put in with life events. "Remember, emotions themselves are neither good nor bad. They are simply our psychological response to the events of life." The Five Love Languages

So the message for today is to express your feelings of the events in life and make the choice to find the positive reason for daily experiences. Take the pest and make it a blessing!!!! :D)

Where do we start? Enos....

Where do we start?

What does the spirit want me to share?
Been told that I should read scriptures and pray with him.

He is confused.
Where should he turn?
I am feeling that I have failed.

What to do?

He is on the phone telling me that he does not know about the LDS Church. He is not sure because his faimily goes to another church. What about his children. Will they feel comfortable at church? They do sometimes but not all the times. These are concerns I feel and ones he shares with me.

What is to be done?

I was in the bed going to sleep while he tells me these concerns. I get sad because the spirit told me to share the church with him. Have I not been a good enough example. Is it the wrong time or the right time for him. Well, he lives closer than any other person I have shared the gospeil with. I get in the car and take my scriptures and drive to his house while he is talking to me. I am mad. There is not dought about it.

What I start doing?

I walk inside his house and start cleaning his kitchen. I start putting dishes away and all the time he is wondering what is going on. Me, I keep cleaning. He starts to help. The kitchen gets clean.

What I did do?

We have a great conversation. He expresses his concerns and I listen. I express my concerns and he listens. We hold hands to help support each other in this difficult time.

What I did.

We read scriptures. During the day Mosiah had been a thought to read from and start from there but he had a scripture he needed to read D&C 112:10 "Be thou humble and the lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answers to thy prayers." Whao! What an awesome prayer, but how do you do this?

I turned the pages

And it is Enos that fell open. Started reading it aloud and then I started getting choaked up and tears started flowing down my face. Emotionally I am sharing how important the scriptures are to me. We discuss how some of the scriptures are similar to the Holy Bible but important to me was that I shared my spirit with him.

Enos 1:27 And I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for I know that in him I shall rest. And I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before him; then shall I see his face with pleasure, and he will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father. Amen.

We will continue to read together and grow. We ended the scriptures with a prayer that I gave and we knelt.

What will happen next?

A blog as a documentation of my life

That is what I had thought this blog would be about. However, I started out with too many pictures and thought I had to be extremely creative. That is not the case. So going to adjust my thoughts and writings. This past weekend, I was up in Columbus, GA celebrating my sister-in-law's (Jacie) birthday. We went to dinner at CiCi's pizza. Yeah! I got to have Mac'n Cheese Pizza, which made me feel like a kid again. Could not believe what the conversations turned into or for what reason it went in this direction but it was all too interesting. Mormon's talkin about getting drunk in CiCi's pizza was the topic. It was agreed that if Jacie or I or both were to get drunk we would be dancing on the tables. LOL!! One of the people with us said, he would not be worried about who saw him drinking but worried about what the man upstairs would think. That really makes a lot of sense. People here (on earth) worry too much about what other people will say and not about what the man in heaven will do. This was a great statement that shoud be taken to heart by everyone.

School is Done! I have a 3rd Grader

The school year is over and Sydney is so smart... She made Honor Roll and on her SAT 10 got 50% in reading and 91% in math measuring with her other students. But this is just the beginning of the story. She is already an activist and thinking about her future. While visiting with her Gam-Mommy, she was analyzing the flow of traffic. When she gets older if the on and off ramps were not fixed where peole could wreck, she would fix it. Plus, the trip up to Columbus, GA is where her activist heart and mind are centered. We drove by a lumbermill in Havana, FL where she saw all the trees waiting to be processed. It was then that she stated firmly, "people should not cut down trees unless they plant them". That people are destroying the animal homes, she said, "you know the animals are not really bother us". She thinks it should already be a law that you can only cut the trees that you plant. Sydney is going to do something about this if it comes down to it. She is going to be the lawyer that will FIX IT. My opinionated almost honest to a fault girl will make a difference. My dad said to my mom when I was young and strong spirited, that they just needed to direct me down the correct path and all would be good. If not then we are in trouble, he said. I feel the same way about this beautiful angel of mine!! Sydney Roberta Smith.... AKA Environmentalist Lawyer in the making! She will do it... It's in her blood! Go Sydney!