It Was 15 Years Ago Today.......

Our Wedding Day!

     Back when I had color in my hair. and I could get down on one knee without falling over in pain and didn't need help getting up afterwards, I made a brilliant decision. I asked Yvette to marry me. Oddly enough she said yes!
    We haven't had a perfect marriage. I'm sure of that. I'm not sure any marriage is ever perfect. But we were perfect for each other. We're still perfect for each other. I love her. She loves me.
     I know there were people who thought our marriage would never last. I know this because there were a few who told me so. And if you looked at it logically, it shouldn't have. A woman who grew up in the city married a guy who had grown up in the country. She had 3 adopted children. I liked children "if they were cooked right". 15 years ago, 4 children ago. 
     And finally, after 15 years, we are going to have a honeymoon. 5 days and 4 nights with NO children. 4 nights with no children. Guess what we're going to do?

  That's right.

 Uh huh.

SLEEP! 

     No one crawling into the bed waking us up. Nobody waking us up to let us know they are home. No one waking us up to let us know there is squash in their room that needs to be killed. (Any flying bug in our house Jeremiah calls a squash, cause that's what Daddy does to them) No one waking us up to let us know they killed a squash.
     We're going to go on a cruise.
      And I'll leave you with this thought.

          I've been listening to this song almost everyday since I first heard it. And it's right. 

A Little Bit of Love, A Little Bit of Faith, A Little Bit of Hope.

     It makes for a cool song.

It makes for a dang good marriage!

 
And 15 years later, I'd do it all over again.

Can I Trouble You For a Second?

  I need prayers.  

Could you pray for me? 

Prayers Needed!

     If you have very many friends on Facebook, you probably see one of those phrases every day. Possibly even several times a day. To me it's pretty simple. I can either ignore their plea, or I can take a few seconds and ask God to help them through their problem. I may click on like, or I may not. Sometimes I might even comment that prayers have been sent.

       I grew up in church. I hadn't accepted Jesus then, but I knew who he was. I knew about praying too. We would have 3 or 4 every church service. Short and Simple Prayers. Long Involved Prayers. Loud Prayers. Whispered Prayers. (I hated the whispered prayers. You were never sure when they finished. And everybody was looking around to see if the persons lips were still moving)

     The idea of asking someone to pray for you, that was kind of unheard of when I was a child. I'm not sure how old I was the first time I was in a church service and the pastor asked for prayer requests. 

     But now. Oh, now, with Facebook and text messages and Twitter. It's easy to ask the world for prayer requests. And like I said, I'll probably pray for you. I don't care if you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or anything else. You want prayer, you got it. You ask for positive thoughts, you're probably gonna get a prayer said for you. I'm not going to judge whether you're worthy of my prayers. That man I'm praying to, I'll let him be the judge.

     And I hope you don't judge whether I'm worthy to be praying for you. Again, Somebody already has that job. 

     But if I ask for prayers, just know this. I don't care WHO you're praying to. If you pray to God, He will hear your prayers. If you are praying to Allah for me, God will hear your prayers. If you're praying to the left field wall in Wrigley Field for me, God will hear your prayers. 

     Omniscient. It means All Knowing. That's what God is. He knows your needs. He knows my needs. And I'll let him decide whether my prayers are worthy. Cause that's His job. It's not mine, it's not yours. It's His.

     And if you think the left field wall of Wrigley Field is God, I'll be praying for you.

If You're Easily Offended, Don't Read This!

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

This was one of my favorite signs for years, I always thought if you READ the top part,

Is the bottom part really necessary? 

I mean really, 

IS THIS NECESSARY?

Then a couple of years ago, I ran across this sign and the voices started running through my head. Like the final leg of a mile race. Flat out, full bore running.

Then I went a long time without seeing any signs that affected me.

Then Monday.

  

     I saw this sign and drove by it, then realized I may have missed something important so I turned around and drove by it again. And took a picture.

My first thought was that somebody had tampered with the sign.

Then those thoughts started running again.

Does that mean the sausage is shaped like a penis?

Is the sausage made of penis?

    I'm almost serious about that. I live in the county where the President of the NCBA is from. MAYBE this is a test market for a new National Cattlemans Beef Association product?

     But I really thought it was just somebody vandalizing a sign. But I shared it with a few people. And I got a response from one person, that well. It made me wonder. 

     What's Pizzle?

     A grocery store in Austin has been named in a civil suit. They sold Beef Pizzle as human food. Adulterated, non-inspected pizzle. Sold for human consumption. The outrage. The tragedy. 

     I'm not sure exactly how it happened. And I'm not sure if it was raw pizzle or something else. My mind is kinda drawn towards thinking they took the dog chew toys and sliced them up and labeled them as Smoked Boneless Turkey Necks. Which is sort of what a beef pizzle looks like. A turkey neck. 

    Try not to think of that the next time you are getting ready to eat your Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

Perspective

     I was thinking the other day, "Gee, I SHOULD write something on my blog". But what could I write about? I hadn't seen anything to make me want to write. At least nothing that made me want to write more than a paragraph or two on Facebook.
     Until Monday. Monday, I saw a story about a rancher in Nevada whose cattle were being rounded up by the BLM. They were seizing his cattle illegally (according to the article).
    The federal government (MY federal government) trampling on the rights of some poor citizen. I was horrified. But then I realized I had heard of this guy before. There had been something I had read with that name. 
     So I did a Google search. And I found it. Where I had seen the name before.
     Seems this rancher decided back in 1993 he shouldn't pay grazing lease fees to the BLM. Evidently he had been paying grazing fees before that. But for some reason he decided he shouldn't do that anymore.
     His decision for whatever his reasons, and there were evidently many, has led to lawsuits, court cases, news stories. 
     A couple of the reasons given: 
He should be paying the fees to state agencies, not the federal government
His ancestors were farming the land since the 1800's, long before there was a BLM.
     I wouldn't be real quick to use that second one as a defense if I were him, might lead to some other peoples then wanting to get some restitution from him. And I'm not sure he can use the first as a defense if he paid the grazing permit fees prior to 1993.
     But then in 1998, the desert tortoise managed to be found on the land he was grazing his cattle on. I don't know much about them but evidently they are considered a vulnerable species and need protection. Which means cattle were no longer allowed to graze on their habitat, whether the grazing fees are being paid or not. 16 years ago. SIXTEEN YEARS.
     If I read some of the news reports earlier correctly, this poor rancher had 1000 head of cattle grazing the contested land. According to that same story the rancher valued his cattle at $1000 each. 1000 head of cattle at $1000 each. That's $1000000 worth of cattle, if that story is correct.
     I'd like to say I'm on the side of the rancher. He's being forced out of his livelihood. 
     But then I look at it from a different perspective.
     A millionaire had been using this property rent free for 21 years. And is finally being evicted. 
     Same story, different perspective.
I'm editing this. After I read it I realized I had left out some things. There are 67 cowboys being contracted to round up the cattle. Evidently several federal law enforcement officials are out there to protect the cowboys doing the rounding up.
     I personally think this has made such big news because news reporters are doing there best to make it a big story. So they can convince their bosses that they need to be sent to cover this story. In Nevada. Clark County Nevada. Las Vegas is in Clark County Nevada. Coincidence?