Happy Autumn!

 

 

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff-- including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.

 

 

 

Popsicle (Craft) stick Nativity

Ok, that didn't really work.

Some of my friends who saw my Popsicle Nativity on Facebook  expressed interest in the pattern.  I tried but I obviously don't know what I am doing.  and I  should be paying bills. or spending quality Family Night time with my guys.  So this is what you get.  Good luck.  (you could search on-line)

These are the directions we were given at the Relief Society workshop.  Our organizer had gotten the supplies for us and had everything in neat little baggies.  She had pre-cut whatever needed cutting,

But here goes:
You need maybe 70 popsicle/craft sticks
1 or 2 tongue depressers
3 clothes pin dolls - cut so you have a small one only an inch or so?, a medium one, and a tall one
a star (you can get precut wooden stars at craft stores, as well as craft sticks and clothes pin dolls, etc)
a little raffia (or she also had some shredded grocery bag, but that was less easy to work with, I thought.  and I liked the look of the raffia)
quick set Tacky Glue
hot glue gun

Set aside 10 craft sticks to finish the back.

Now, begin:

1. Using the template of the frame of your stable which is upside down in this post (sorry) or whatever will help you keep your stable square, begin making the outline of a house.  Place one stick across the bottom and one stick across the top, then place one stick on the left side of the top and bottom sticks and one stick on the right side. Place them with a small dab of  tacky glue.

2.  Take two sticks and place them at the top of the house making a triangle  - the roof.

3. For the second layer and the remaining  layers, glue one stick on the bottom, the two side sticks and the two roof sticks - do not do the top cross beam again.

4. Turn the stable over so the back is up.  Take 4 sticks & glue them from the top cross stick to the bottom on each side of the frame.  Glue two final sticks at the top of the frame. (There is more space between the roof sticks at the top than at the bottom.  We glued a very small square of broken stick at the top to make it more even.)

5. Turn the stable over and glue the star at the top of the roof.

6. Use cut pieces of tongue depresser t make the manger.  Glue it with the hot glue gun.
Here is what directions I got say: "Take one of the long pieces with the slanted sides and one of the small pieces, with the glue gun carefully glue the small piece to the larger piece at the slanted end.  Now the glue the other small piece to the large piece at the other side.  Finally glue the last large piece ith slanted sides to the sides of the two small pieces making a rectangle.  Take the remaining piece and glue to the bottom of the rectangle.  You now have a manger."

The bottom of the manger was not as wide as the walls.  You do want it to be as long. It has to connect somewhere!

7. With the glue gun, glue raffia in the bottom of the manger.  Take the smallest of the clothes pins and glue it in the manger with the raffia.  Glue the manger in the middle of the floor of the manger at a slant.  Glue the middle size and the tall clothes pin dolls in the stable on either side of the manger.

YOU ARE FINISHED!


                                                                                                                                          

from a book called Disorder in the American Courts

IT CAN BE HARD KEEPING A STRAIGHT FACE AS A COURT REPORTER

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts and are
things people actually said in court, word for word, taken
down and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying
calm while the exchanges were taking place.



ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
______________________________

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his
sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ.
___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get
a new attorney?
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition
notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral...
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________
And last:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

 

Your House

 

Your House As Seen By

Yourself... 


Your Buyer...

Your Lender...


Your Appraiser..
And....
Your County TaxAssessor...

Hello Pumpkin

    

HAPPY AUTUMN

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin.   God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you.   He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff-- including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc.     Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see.  

Clay Balls

     
A man was exploring caves by the Seashore.  In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls..  It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.   They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him.  As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.  

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock .  Inside was a beautiful, precious stone! 

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls.  Each contained a similar treasure.  He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.   

Then it struck him.  He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves.  Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!  

It's like that with people.  We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel.  It doesn't look like much from the outside.  It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.  

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy.  But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.  

Thank you, Elaine L. 

There is a treasure in each and every one of us.  If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth. 

  
May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.   
   

APPRECIATE EVERY SINGLE

THING YOU HAVE, ESPECIALLY YOUR FRIENDS!

LIFE IS TOO SHORT AND FRIENDS ARE TOO FEW!

'The Pledge of Allegiance' - by Senator John McCain

from a speech that John McCain gave before the 1988 Republican National Convention

As you may know, I spent five and one-half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home.

One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian.

Mike came from a small town near Selma , Alabama . He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School. Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.

Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed it on the inside of his shirt.

Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event.

One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike's shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.

That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept. Four light bulbs hung in each corner of the room.

As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian. He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making that flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world.  You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country.

'I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'