Monday, April 29, 2013
Why Road Trips are Better with your Husband
Steve and I braved the long and winding road to Duke University Medical Center last Thursday. We were excited to see his pulmonary specialist for a follow-up visit. Our trips are fun especially this one and here's how our comic journey turned out...
I ALWAYS drive! Steve got behind the wheel leaving our home. I was surprised and honestly relieved since I was battling a 5 mm kidney stone. He was so proud of himself for giving me a break
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Jesus Jokes!
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Sweet Short Story about my Dogs
All Dogs Do Go To Heaven
Nancy is my friend and she is a dog lover. She is an extreme dog lover! She has four Great Danes that live with her and her husband in their home. Nancy has been my friend for over twenty years and for over twenty years she has been encouraging me to get a dog. She assured me a dog would help me love more, remove stress and help me to generally feel better all over. But, I have a dog. I have two dogs, Percy and Tippy, both mutts, and I love them or at least I thought I did.
Nancy is the kind of pet owner that takes her dogs to the vet, A LOT! If they need anything, she gets it for them. She takes them to doggie daycare, she takes them to the groomer, she takes them to the park, she walks them, she buys them gourmet dog food and she takes them to the acupuncturist. You get the picture. Nancy loves, with a capital L, her dogs. She will do anything for these animals similar to the way I care for my children.
On the contrary, I love my dogs. I do. I feed them, most of the time. I play with them by barely touching their heads and saying their names on my way from my garage to my front door. They get a bath if they stand outside in the rain. When they get sick, I watch them eat grass in my yard and hope they will get better. I love my dogs.
I enjoy teasing Nancy Nancy Nancy
Our relationship started in business and grew into true friendship despite our religious convictions. She was a salesperson and I, a buyer of her commodities. Our friendship was simply two souls sharing like passions and beliefs, except one thing. She believed, just like the movie says, all dogs go to heaven. I believed that dogs, all animals, are soul-less and don’t go anywhere when they die, especially not to heaven! I don’t let dogs in my house, why would I want dogs in heaven with me? Many people don’t like dogs and heaven is a place for people, not animals. Nancy and I had this discussion on several occasions with neither of us agreeing with the other.
I remember a certain Thursday.
I didn’t want to hurt my friend’s feelings but at the same time, I can’t back down on my staunch religious beliefs. I said to her, as kindly as possible, “I’m really sorry about Tramp, but, no, I don’t think he will go to heaven”.
My husband is forever telling me that I should not always be so “black and white” but a bit gray. At this point, I think my husband means well. I understand what he is saying. He wants me to soften a situation. Don't be so abrasive with my views. Give a little understanding and so on. But please understand, he hasn’t experienced the religious convictions that I have. I think he needs to be more “black and white”, tell it like it is, stand on the promises, hell is hot and so on.
Tramp died that day. Nancy immediately starting looking for a replacement. A replacement is what I called it. Nancy saw another dog as another member of her family because there would never be a replacement for Tramp. But she needed another pet to fill the void Tramp left behind. This was all very odd and unusual to me until my dog Tippy started coughing.
Tippy is my very active, small, black and white female adult dog who would run a while then stop to hack. Her activities slowed while her hacking grew worse. My husband and children insisted we take her to the doctor. She was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. The vet prescribed medicine to help her breathe more freely by removing the fluid from around her heart. We took her home.
My dad rescued Tippy from an abusive situation. She had been our pet for about five years. Tippy, a very friendly dog, that loved women but very leery of men. We had her spayed. I told her all the time she must THINK she had died and gone to heaven because of the way she was treated before compared to the way she was living now. She always grinned showing me her teeth when I said that. I know she understood.
We had Percy for 15 years. He was a Chow mixture with a large plummy tail we got as a puppy. He had the sweetest face I ever seen on a dog. Perse was his nickname. Percy and Tippy were the best of friends, male and female, about the same ages, old for dogs. When Tippy became ill, Perse followed her everywhere like a guardian angel protecting her making sure that she made it home each night after roaming the woods or neighborhood. When she was safe, he could rest.
Every morning my dogs greeted me as I left for work escorting me down my driveway and miraculously they'd be waiting to escort me back up my driveway every afternoon. I loved this daily attention from my dogs. I felt particularly sad the morning Tippy couldn’t make it up the road, much less back. Searching for her every morning became a deliberate action for me. I had to find her to check on her health before I went to work. Some short time after Nancy's Tramp died, I found my Tippy dead. She was lying in my yard just down the hill from my house. The air chilled my bones.
I cannot explain all the emotions that flooded my heart and mind. I began to cry. And, at that very moment, I believed all dogs do go to heaven. God reminded me that dogs are his creation, for his pleasure and mine. Tippy had such a sweet presence that I realized she would be loved in heaven just as she was on earth. I immediately called
Today, I have another dog, not a replacement because Tippy and Percy will never be forgotten or replaced. I deeply love my dog and my dog loves me. I got him right after leaving my career of 27 years. I’m not sure I would have made it through bouts of stress and anxiety without him. His name is Herman. His nickname is Hermie. He is a long-haired Dachshund. I have morphed into
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| Herman |
Addition: Yesterday, we laid our precious Little Girl to rest. She belonged to my daughter and granddaughters, Sydnee, Lisette and Milisende. We love you Little Girl and miss you already.
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| Little Girl d. 2/7/2019 |
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Can You Hear Me Now?
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Wheel of Problems
Let's face it. We have problems. Some big, some small, some solvable and some seem insurmountable. Take a look at the problem wheel. Do you see a problem you're facing right now? If we didn't have problems, we wouldn't need God! Truth is if we didn't have problems bigger than us, we wouldn't praise God for his awesomeness for solving them. "God is bigger than our problems!" If you have God, you have the best insurance or assurance policy money can't buy. He's better than the "Good Hands People" (Allstate), He's "On Your Side" (Nationwide), "Like a Good Neighbor, God is There" (State Farm), "Let God Be Your Rock" (Prudential) and my favorite "Get God, It Pays" (MetLife)! Today, when you survey your problems again,
REMEMBER...
- Be Assured - God has known the date, time and complexity of your problem since time began. You didn't have to report it to a claims office.
- Rest Assured - God has a plan to resolve your problem. You won't need to provide three estimates for his review.
- Stay Assured - God will never leave or forsake your problem. You are his #1 priority!
- "The best way out is always through" - Robert Frost
- "Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them" - Steve Maraboli
- "Once you become aware that the main business you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord" - J.I. Packer
- "Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles" - Harry S. Truman
- "Know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems" - Martin Luther King Jr.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
3 Fundamental ABC's for Life
Forgotten your abc's and 123's? Didn't think so! We learn our abc's and 123's very young. We don't forget them. We use them as a foundation for learning to read, add and subtract. I've put together a grown-up list of abc's and 123's. These are things I've learned and use everyday to help me keep it all together. If you have one you'd like to add to the list, please email it to me. I will share them next week.A. Accept Everybody. This means accepting everything about them (even the stuff you don't like).
B. Believe Anyway. When everyone else has moved on, trust your faith.
C. Communicate Continually. The only person who reads minds is God and even he wants to hear from you.
1. Take time and care for yourself. You'll be able to give more to others.
2. Soak up wisdom from your elders, especially your parents then...practice it.
3. Love Jesus with every ounce of your being.
Some may think that if you do number 3, the other things just come natural. I wish! We are born with a sin nature and struggle even on our best days. God certainly helps us but it takes extra effort to manhandle or womanhandle our beings into submission. Agreed?
2. Soak up wisdom from your elders, especially your parents then...practice it.
3. Love Jesus with every ounce of your being.
Some may think that if you do number 3, the other things just come natural. I wish! We are born with a sin nature and struggle even on our best days. God certainly helps us but it takes extra effort to manhandle or womanhandle our beings into submission. Agreed?
An important lesson I've learned lately...Life is best lived one day at a time! What have you learned?
Still learning,
Tammy
The Happy Handicap
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