Oh Say What is Truth...

There's a hymn in our hymn book titled Oh Say What is Truth...   We were talking about truth today in our Relief Society meeting, and I had that song pop in my head.  Have you ever heard it?

Here are the lyrics:

1. Oh say, what is truth? 'Tis the fairest gem

That the riches of worlds can produce,

And priceless the value of truth will be when

The proud monarch's costliest diadem

Is counted but dross and refuse.

***

4. Then say, what is truth? 'Tis the last and the first,

For the limits of time it steps o'er.

Tho the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst,

Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,

Eternal, unchanged, evermore.

Text: John Jaques, 1827-1900

                                                                   Music: Ellen Knowles Melling, 1820-1905

I like the last verse, where it says Eternal, unchanged, evermore.

What is truth to you?  I ran into a man on my mission that stated once you learn a truth, it no longer is truth and you have to go in search of more truth.

It kind of sounds like society today.  More and more the learned are saying that there is no God, or that morals are not necessary.  There is a great lack of civility in our interactions with others.  Polite society which was founded on morals and commandments from religion no longer rule the teaching of youth.

More and more parents are depending on others to teach those values and thoughts because they do not bother with them in their homes.  I work in education, but I'm not a teacher.  I'm a support staff to special education.  I see many classrooms and students in my interactions with teachers, and I see children that come from homes where no religion is practiced, and their parents don't care about values.  They will say, when confronted about their child, that they don't know where they have picked up the language (usually swear words).  We know it comes from their homes.  Sometimes it comes from video games they are allowed to watch.  

Even when you are trying to be an involved parent you can find out that the games you thought were innocent are not really.  I found out last week that there is an Anime type game that has pornography in it.  The teacher telling me about it said her son thought it was no big deal because it's Anime.  You can't trust anything to chance in today's world.  You have to protect your children and your family from what Satan has thrown out there as 'Okay' or 'normal' because if you don't, no one else will.  Porn is addictive...just another one of the addictions of society today.

There was a question thrown out on facebook that our daughter was telling us about - in effect it was asked, "should you be nice at a family gathering to make it more pleasant for everyone, even when your views are not the same?"  The response was no - you shouldn't bother attending family functions if they don't have the same opinions or ideals as you.

What ever happened to family being important?  More important than political or societal opinions?  Being politically correct over a sibling needing help?  It's all fine and good to tell everyone they need to be inclusive and all, but it's not okay to include those that don't have the same opinions as your own?

We are all human beings.  We are basically all brothers and sisters, regardless of what faith you believe in.  There is something to value in everyone - everyone has something to add to your life, to a community, to a nation - regardless of color or race or religion.

Just because I'm a follower of Jesus Christ doesn't mean I can't be friends with a Jew, or with a Muslim.  And as long as we can interact with respect to each other, it shouldn't matter what those beliefs are.  If you find that you can't discuss something with another person without becoming angry or upset, then perhaps you are approaching the idea the wrong way.  Are you just discussing or are you trying to convince them?  A person convinced against their will ....

We cannot force another to change their way of thinking or believing.  Everyone has their right to choice.  If you feel that everyone should be made to share with everyone else...have fun with that.  It includes you sharing all you have as well, and that's usually where that thought process breaks down.   It's all fine and good to have other's share their bounty with you - but your stuff is...well...yours.  Right?

And a opinion is our own.  We are free to express that opinion to someone else, but they are also free to either agree or disagree.  

It's like I told my son the other day when he expressed frustration at getting our dog to drink when walking them on a hot morning... "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

The same goes for everyone around us.

I would hope that families would desire to be together and love each other.  Sometimes political and religious views have to be toned down a little for a gathering, maybe dropped altogether so that everyone is comfortable.  However...if the majority of that family is of one opinion or belief, it's not fair to expect them to act like this big part of their lives is non existent.  When they are talking to other members of the family that believe the same, they should be able to talk about it without worrying about offending someone else who might hear.  And the family member who anticipates being offended is most likely to be offended, regardless of what happens, just because they are expecting it.  It goes along with that adage - you find what you expect.

So, I got a little carried away and rambled longer than I meant, but I can do that, I'm a grandma. 

This guy always has a good way of putting things...

I know it's a little different topic, but the idea is the same.  We can get along with other people!

Have a wonderful Sunday...

.

Lemonade day!!

Well, hello my friends!  Today is the first day of school...and everyone is going crazy.  :)   Well, my granddaughters are there with the rest of them... the youngest is in kindergarten!! 

sigh.  It's not fair that they can grow up, ya know???
Oh well.  Isn't she just a crack up?  She chopped her hair again last week...found some scissors.  We can't keep them any where close to her...  I hope her teacher loves her...  :)

Her sister wasn't as thrilled...and her little brother was heart broken when she didn't go with him to day care.  sigh.  Life's tough when you're 2, right??

So...  onto the celebrations...lol

First - today is National Radio Day...  Radio!!  I don't know too many people that listen to the radio anymore.  My children included!  sigh.  I Do.  My hubby does.  Do you??  I grew up listening to AM radio.  I had a little boxy transiter radio on my bed side table, and I loved to listen to a station that I won't repeat the call letters here - I didn't realize how crude they were at the time.  😏  I remember in college a friend had records that were like opera, and we used to sit and listen to them.  I'm sure it was like a version of radio stories.  Remember the Christmas Story and Little Orphan Annie?  Ya....that was real radio.  Just for fun, here's a Studio C skit...

National Lemonade Day - one of my favorite things!!  I don't know what it is about lemonade, but I just love it.  I discovered last week that Olive Garden has a frozen lemonade... oh so good!!    If you haven't tried it yet, I'm recommending it.  😊   So, just because of the day, I'll post Mr. Boye for ya...

National Chocolate Pecan Pie day - okay for those of you who don't like pecan pie, I can understand.  I mean, most of the time it's some nuts with WAYYYY too much sugar.  But lately, I had a slice that was more pecan than sugar, and it was awesome.  I had no idea there was a chocolate version!!!  So, yes, you can believe I'm going to be trying some recipes on this.  Here's the recipe I'm hoping to make today...

https://bakingamoment.com/double-chocolate-pecan-pie/

Let me know what you end up with.  😊

and National Bacon Lovers Day - and of course, most people love bacon.  I'm not sure what I can make for dinner that involves bacon today, unless we're thinking BLT's...which are always good.  😊  What's your favorite way to eat bacon?

Well...  Hopefully you're having a wonderful day, and celebrating with one of these lovely ways will make it even better.

Welcome Welcome, Sabbath Morning!

I felt the words to this song SOOO strong this morning...coming to the end of a crazy week.  My hubby was working 10 hours overtime, and then we had a school carnival on Thursday, and the Ogden Balloon festival on Friday and Saturday.  UGH.  It's times like this I question why I'm doing this, lol.

Although I did feel a little like coming home when going up to Eden and walking across the balloon grounds.  That's where I started face painting, and the year I started pushing my art.  We are contemplating this is the last year we'll be doing the balloon festival unless we have more motivation next year.  Their booth price goes up each year, and it's getting cost prohibitive.

Anyway - when our leaders talk about Sunday being a joy, well, today is certainly one.  We got to sleep in and then took a nap after church, that's how worn out we were.

I have so many thoughts to share...  I'm trying to figure out which to express first.  Guess I'll go with the balloon festival first...  It was great weather!!  It got a little windy Friday night and so they didn't really do a glow, but it was nice.  Saturday the wind came up a little in the afternoon, as per usual, and then went down enough they were able to do the balloon rides and do the glow.  There wasn't very many balloons for the glow, but at least there was more than one.  The band that we remembered being scheduled wasn't the same one that performed, but the music was okay.  We were in a whole different spot, but the end crush was similar to what it usually is...  sigh.  I had some crazy requests.  I did several pikachus and my first request for a B52 bomber!!
This kid is apparently quite the fan, and it was crazy.  After I painted his, his little cousin wanted the same thing.  At least it looks like an airplane, lol.  He thought it was awesome, and that's all that really matters.  I also got to do balloons on one girls arm.  Only ones I painted the whole time.  It was suggested several times, but no one really wanted them.  The girl picked out the colors, so thats what we came up with.  I had a couple of women get their faces painted, and one father did a pirate for his little girl.  That was fun, I keep wishing I"d taken a photo of that.  My wonderful hubby came up both days and helped soooo much on Saturday.  I am always so very thankful that I married that man!!  Tips were better on Friday than Saturday, which was kind of strange, but whatever.  We also had a booth right next to us doing everything from Henna to facepaint as well.  She was nice and I think we worked well together, but it was odd and several people commented on it.  I think the organizers of the balloon event need to get together with other cities that do events and take notes...  Roy days for example...now that's a well run event!!

One thing that I noticed happen yesterday made me want to give a shout out to the awesome mom.  She had a couple of kids that she'd brought to get faces painted, but one of them had taken off and been a pill.  As a result, she wasn't getting her face painted.  period.  And mother was sooo sweet about it.  She didn't get angry, shout, or berate the girl.  She just informed her that her own behavior had caused the situation and that she wouldn't be getting her face painted this time.  The little girl said she was sorry, she would be nice, and mom was like, that's wonderful- I'm so glad.  You should be nice all the time.  But you're still not getting  your face painted.  lol.  It was the most awesome parenting job I'd seen.  She kept telling her she'd give her all the hugs she wanted, she loved her and was so glad she wanted to make a better choice for next time, but she was still not getting her face painted.  I was so proud of her for sticking to her guns!
Kudos to you, unknown mom who will never see this and never know you were being observed. If only more parents were like that...we see so  many who are not in doing these booths.

There was one time when the parents were standing in front of our booth, and the little girl was trying to get her mothers attention.  She was tapping her on the arm, repeating "mom" several times, and her mother was either ignoring her or had totally tuned her out.  She went on and on - making some teenage girls standing next to her who were waiting to get painted comment to each other.  I felt bad for the little girl...  but you never know what the lead up to these situations are.  Perhaps this kido routinely interrupts mom when she's talking, who knows.  But she finally got moms attention and got her face painted.

I was also taught a lesson in humility - the woman whose booth was right next to us was not someone I'd normally associate with.  She was prone to using foul language in general conversation, and was dressed a little coarse.  Over the time we worked next to her and had opportunity to chat, we came to appreciate her sense of humor and her talents.  While we were doing this as a couple, she made mention that her husband spent every dime she made and never wanted to do anything fun.  I thought that was so sad...  She expressed appreciation that we had been so nice to work with, and I was ashamed at my first impression.

That leads me to Sunday School today.  We were talking about Roman's, and Pauls letters and how he was trying to encourage them to love everyone.  We got to talking about how many people say living in Utah and growing up here if you aren't a member of the church is very hard.  You feel ostracized.  Having grown up in California with a neighborhood of kids who belonged to the church, some active, some not, I had never seen that.  When I got to Utah and got married and started having children we discovered the issue with our own children and the friends they picked.  They were somewhat ostracized because of their friends.  I read an article a week or so ago about a young man who joined the church as an adult who had grown up with that.  It made me sooo sad to know that good members of the church were unable to show love to non member neighbors.

The Lord is calling on us to be better...  He is asking us to LOVE everyone, no matter what their beliefs, their income, their situation in life.  Life is hard enough without having to worry about if someone is good enough to talk to or work with.

I hope any reader who comes across this is willing to open their heart to all and love as the Savior loves.  I know I'm going to try harder to do so.

Hope you have a wonderful rest of your Sabbath.  God Bless.  :)

Well...it's the middle of August already!

Well...  I meant to post last week, but didn't get it done.  I tell ya, this summer has been soooo quick!!  Here it is the 15th of August and I've been back to work for 2 days already.  sigh.  Now it's the crazy time - between booths and work, there isn't a lot of time to breathe.  This is when I LOVE Sundays.  :)

Anyway - hopefully you've had a wonderful summer...and it's not over!  School starts next week for our neck of the woods, and so everyone needs to enjoy this week!

Just to help, here are some ways to pass the time today:

Best Friends Day - your best friend knows they're your best friend, you don't need a day to celebrate that, but ya know how things are.  Let them know, just in case their clueless, right?  And since we all have a best friend in that principal down in Texas, I'll share with you his post for today...









National Leathercraft Day - Does anyone remember growing up in the 70's where everything leather was awesome?  Leather purses, belts, headbands, keyrings...  I had a key ring I made in school that was with me on my mission and numerous children had chewed on (I know...ewe... but hey).  It doesn't seem to me that there is much leathercrafting being done anymore.  Now it would be considered an artisan type thing.  I don't think they even teach it in school.  I think I made mine at girls camp...  
 

National Relaxation Day - well, some of us can't relax all day...ask me at about 8 pm tonight if I'm relaxed, lol.  What do you do to relax??  We generally sit down with a silly movie or one of our Star Trek shows we like to watch.  In the winter, it would be sitting in front of a fire.  Summer, I'd LOVE to sit by a pool or in a hot tub and gaze at the sky.  What's your favorite way to relax?

National Lemon Meringue Pie Day - one of my hubbies favorite pies!  I'm just not a big fan of meringue, but hey, I love lemon!!  Find your favorite stuff and enjoy while you're relaxing! 


and Julia Child's Birthday! -  in honor of this day, I'm posting one of our favorite scenes from Julie and Julia...  Great movie - especially if you like food!!!


Whatever you do, have a great day!