November Blanket

This is for a little girl.

It is made with Homespun Plum. I think it's a pretty color!

It is 35 inches wide and 56 inches long.

Memory Verse Week 48

Proverbs 27:4 (New Living Translation)

Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood,
but jealousy is even more dangerous.

Thankful Thursday

Today is Thanksgiving. My turkey is stuffed and cooking away in the oven. I have all my side dishes prepared, and the rolls are rising.

We have no snow today and it reminds me of the Thanksgiving's of my youth when my Grandpa and his wife would come visiting. Cool crisp sunny days made for a walk.

Some years we went to my Uncle's house near St. Louis. I have fond memories of thanksgiving--being with family, and celebrating.

This year my gathering is small since my husband will be going in to work tonight.
So it is just my family and my mom.

Today I am thankful for:
* my mom--that she remains vibrant and healthy
* my daughter
* my little guy
* my husband
* my God and faith
* plentiful fresh food
* family being together
* my freedoms

I hope you all have a wonderful day whatever you are doing!!

Psalm 27:1
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

My aunt

I thought of my aunt today, as I do most days.

She is spending her sixth year in heaven and rejoicing and singing with the Lord.

I miss her. A lot.

The sting has lessened, but it is still there. There is so much I miss about her.

My cousin, her daughter, and I talked the other day since it was cousins birthday. She said, "why do we miss our moms most on our birthdays?" Well, because mom's are special and they always remember your birthday.

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Hebrews 13:8, King James Version

Thanksgiving

That time of year again.

I am making a full turkey dinner this year. It will be just my family and my mom.

This year I feel impressed to pray for our nation and the leaders of our nation.

Everyone from the President, Governors, Congressmen, Senators and any one else in a leadership position. I believe at this time in our history, our nation needs prayer. I try to pray daily for our nation and leaders but must admit that I don't make it each day.

I am eternally thankful I live here where I can freely worship and praise GOD. Though it seems to be harder and harder to do.

I am thankful for all my family members. Especially my mom and husband. I am also very thankful for my two children. They each have brought me something different and glorious at different stages of my life. Each child of mine is a true miracle to me, for many reasons.

I am thankful I can make a full turkey dinner and enjoy it with my family. I am thankful for a full cupboards and a full refrigerator--things I often take for granted.

I am thankful for friends in my life--past and present. I believe each friend was brought into my life for a reason and a season.

And today, I am even thankful for message boards and the people I have "met" through them.

I am thankful to have wonderful memories of family members that are no longer with us. I can remember the good memories, and the fun memories. Past thanksgiving celebrations with family members no longer here. Cherished memories of family members. These are good memories and sometimes they bring tears. Good tears.

It often seems to be a day of reflection for me too. I will continue to reflect throughout the week.

I hope you all have a wonder Thanksgiving celebration!!

Memory Verse Week 47

Proverbs 26:20 (New Living Translation)

20 Fire goes out without wood,
and quarrels disappear when gossip stops.

Thankful Thursday

Today Iris has chosen "life" for the topic.

Life... It can be so sweet and so painful all at the same time. This quote below is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. I can't start my life all over, or fix the mistakes I have made, but I can move forward and learn from them, which is what I, and many many other people have done.

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
Maria Robinson

This quote by Kierkegaard is so very true in every way. If only we knew then what we know now!! How different would our lives be?

But we must always remember the path we take is a path laid out before us. We have free will to choose, even if God has another plan for us.

I wonder how many times I didn't listen to God and made my own choices?? I often wonder how different my life would be if some of the choices I made were different?? I simply cannot imagine.

My life is not my own.

Life can only be understood backwards,
but it must be lived forwards.
Soren Kierkegaard

Today I am thankful for:
* my husband
* my children
* turkey on sale!!
* sunny days
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Galatians 2:20 (New King James Version)

20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.


Acts 20:24 (New King James Version)

24 But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself,[a] so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

November Blanket

This is a blanket for a little boy.

It's made with Homespun "Lagoon". I like this color for a boy, and as usual it self stripes.

This blanket is 37 inches wide and 54 inches long.

Memory Verse Week 46

Proverbs 25:28 (New Living Translation)

28 A person without self-control
is like a city with broken-down walls.

Thankful Thursday

Today Iris at Grace Alone has chosen Military/Veterans for the topic.

As my husband posted on Facebook yesterday : I'm thankful for those that lace up their boots, ready their weapons and walk the patrol. Stay safe out there.

This says exactly what I feel. I am thankful that there are soldiers that volunteer to keep our freedoms and keep our country safe.

I am thankful that I signed up when I did and served the country and I am thankful for my husbands service. And my father, Father in law, cousins, Uncles, brothers that all served.

Today I am thankful for:
* my children. I am always thankful for each of them every day.
* my husband, that he works so hard so I can stay home.
* my mom, that she remains healthy\
* my cousin, who I miss, but who always has interesting stuff to talk about!
* my faith.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I Thessalonians 3:12
And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you

Veterans Day 2009

Today is Veterans day.

I am thankful especially this year for all the Veterans.

My heart aches for the families at Fort Hood this year.

I make a post each year on this day so you can read those too if you'd like. Here

Article

Veterans Day 2009, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day: The World Remembers
Veterans Day, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day


On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of each year, 11/11/11, November 11, also known as Poppy Day, is the day uniformed veterans stand outside grocery stores and hand out red paper poppies to pin to our coats. As grade school children growing up in the 60s, who knew what the significance was? A red poppy was a red poppy, given by an official uniformed war veteran, and therefore cool to a child.

Poppy Day – Remembrance Day
On November 11th, assemblies will gather all over the world to observe and recognize the significance of this day. Poppies are given out, and poppy wreaths are often placed on the graves of fallen heroes.

Children – young and old alike – can be reminded of the importance of the day, by taking part in special programs and lessons designed to honor the brave soldiers that gave their lives, and also the veterans still alive to remember.

If you are an educator or a parent that wishes to observe the day with your children, take advantage of the educational tools available. Veterans Day 2009 Free Lesson Plans, Coloring Pages are Teaching Kids is one such resource.

11.11.11: What is the Significance of Armistice Day?
Armistice Day – November 11, the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" – marks the anniversary of the Armistice that ended hostilities on the Western Front of the First World War. Every year since World War I, the world has remembered those members of the armed forces who were killed during war. The Day of Remembrance has many different names in different countries, but one thing all nations have in common – "We Will Remember Them".

Veterans Day, Armistice Day and Remembrance Day Around the World

* United States - Veterans Day
* France - Remembrance Day
* UK - Both Remembrance Day and Armistice Day
* Belgium - Day of Peace in the Flanders Fields
* Poland - National Day in Poland called Polish Independence Day
* Italy - Armistice of Villa Giusti (celebrated on November 4th)
* New Zealand - Armistice Day November 11th - Poppy Day (celebrated on April 24th)

The Significance of Silence
The Two Minutes' Remembrance Silence observed each year at 11 a.m. on 11 November – Armistice Day – was instituted by King George V in 1919 to commemorate the first anniversary of the end of hostilities on the Western Front.

The Remembrance Ceremony
The general outline of the Remembrance Ceremony is as follows:
Presiding Official: "Ladies and Gentlemen: The Remembrance Ceremony"
[Lighting dimmed and a short period of Silence observed.]
The Presiding Official then recites Binyon's lines:

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

All present respond: "We Will Remember Them"
[Lighting restored.]

Veterans Day, November 11th, 2009
The Veterans Day National Ceremony will be held on November 11th, 2009 at 11.00 a.m. on Arlington National Cemetery.
See Veterans Day 2009 for a list of closings and events.

Sources: wikipedia; www.rsa.org.nz

Written by Donna Diegel
Exclusive to HULIQ.com

WOW..............

Along with The Berlin wall coming down, today also marks the night in Germany called Kristallnacht. What a terrible terrible night.

My family left Germany long before this happened. I think my Great-great Grandpa came over in the 1860's--he fought in Civil war.

I posted about it last year here

Great site to read

Seventy-one years ago, on November 9–10, 1938, the Nazis staged vicious pogroms—state sanctioned, anti-Jewish riots—against the Jewish community of Germany. These came to be known as Kristallnacht (now commonly translated as “Night of Broken Glass”), a reference to the untold numbers of broken windows of synagogues, Jewish-owned stores, community centers, and homes plundered and destroyed during the pogroms. Encouraged by the Nazi regime, the rioters burned or destroyed 267 synagogues, vandalized or looted 7,500 Jewish businesses, and killed at least 91 Jewish people. They also damaged many Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and homes as police and fire brigades stood aside. Kristallnacht was a turning point in history. The pogroms marked an intensification of Nazi anti-Jewish policy that would culminate in the Holocaust—the systematic, state-sponsored murder of Jews.

Twenty years ago............

The Berlin wall came crashing down!! Twenty-eight years of isolation--gone!


Why the Berlin Wall came tumbling down
Twenty years after the opening of the borders between East and West Germany, Charles S. Maier recalls how a bloodless revolution came about.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6519767/Why-the-Berlin-Wall-came-tumbling-down.html Berlin wall

By Charles S. Maier
Published: 12:56PM GMT 07 Nov 2009

Twenty years after the opening of the borders between East and West Germany, Charles S. Maier recalls how a bloodless revolution came about.

All states have frontiers. East Germany, aka the German Democratic Republic, became a frontier that had a state. When the frontier dissolved, the state followed less than a year later.

The Berlin Wall, which was breached 20 years ago on Monday, was only the most notorious segment of that frontier.

Related Articles

*
East Germans may have arrived in West Berlin hours before previously thought

On August 13, 1961, after consultation with their Soviet patrons, the GDR authorities laid down 97 miles of barbed wire around West Berlin – an island of western Allied sovereignty and West German constitutional liberty 110 miles within East Germany – to sever it from the Communist-controlled territory that surrounded it.

Twenty-seven miles of the new barrier zig-zagged north to south, along the urban boundary that separated West and East Berlin.

Soon, the rolls of barbed wire were augmented with a high concrete barrier with watchtowers, floodlights, and a no man's land.

Dramatic derring-do enabled a few to scale over, tunnel underneath and even crash through, but 136 East Germans would die trying to cross.

Just as daunting as the Berlin Wall proper was the German-German border to the West. It had been incised in the Fifties as an 860-mile scar of barbed wire, concrete obstacles, watchtowers, and self-triggering weapons. But this frontier had not stopped East Germans from travelling to their capital city and then crossing to the Western sectors, from where they could continue to West Germany by rail or air.

About three and a half million people, many with much-needed skills, had departed the GDR by 1961, hence the decision to seal Berlin.

As a young historian, I went to Potsdam to work at the East German state archives: only a few hundred yards from the GDR end of the Glienicke Bridge, known as the "Peace Bridge", where Cold War spies were exchanged, but a world away from West Berlin.

These were the years when the courtyard of the archives, along with other public offices, was piled high with briquettes of brown coal, which gave the East one of its characteristic odours, along with the disinfectant used for swabbing corridors.

On other occasions, I crossed to East Berlin from West Berlin using the elevated S-Bahn to Friedrichstrasse station, where the citizen of an allied power (or a German from outside Berlin) surrendered his passport to a guard behind a thick window, endured a wait designed to demonstrate GDR sovereignty, and finally continued into "Berlin: Capital of the German Democratic Republic" through a neighbouring bleak hall – dubbed the Palace of Tears for the family farewells that took place just outside, as West Germans left their East German relatives.

The GDR's existence depended on those barriers. The dominant impression beyond, in urban areas at least, was not of poverty so much as shabbiness: facades still pocked by bullets or bomb fragments; empty squares cleared of wartime destruction, but not rebuilt; bleak restaurants.

The melancholy state-run "HO" stores were punctuated by Intershops where, with Western currency, one could buy GDR friends a bottle of imported whisky or some perfume. And there were gracious remnants that had survived the war: large houses in the Dresden suburbs, the Christmas fair in Potsdam with gingerbread and Glühwein and, not far from Friedrichstrasse, the innovative Komische Oper.

Ultimately, the walls of the republic were vulnerable. Control of the frontiers required a commitment from neighbouring Hungary and Czechoslovakia to prevent East Germans from transiting to the Western lands they bordered.

By the summer of 1989, socialist fraternity was fraying badly, and Hungary was no longer willing to act as a gatekeeper. Once Budapest party leaders allowed East Germans to exit to Austria in September 1989, the final act of the GDR began.

Most East Germans, of course, did not want to leave, even if many longed to travel unhindered.

Throughout the late Eighties, encouraged by the reformist course that Mikhail Gorbachev was signalling in the Soviet Union, small numbers had joined earnest circles of environmental activists and disarmament advocates (originally encouraged by the regime as critics of the West).

As late as the summer of 1989, the protesting groups seemed small and fragmented, but then, encouraged by the sense of change that their own activity helped to generate, many more joined the prayer meetings in the large urban churches of Leipzig and Berlin, marched with their candles for a relaxation of press restrictions and, emboldened by those who were heading West, shouted, "We are staying here," and by September, "We are the people!"

Repeated Monday-night demonstrations in Leipzig swelled to 70,000 by mid-October, a week after the GDR celebrated its 40th anniversary.

The regime could no longer control its frontiers, and chose not to contest the streets. A divided politburo ousted its old-guard members, including party chief Erich Honecker, and after massive demonstrations in Berlin, it decided to relax travel restrictions, leading to the joyous confusion of November 9.

Was such a peaceful revolution inevitable? Three months earlier, Chinese authorities had opted to use force and crushed the pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing. Could the East Germans have wagered on a Chinese solution?

Politburo elders, including Honecker and minister of state security Erich Mielke, who were out of touch with the profound dissent growing across their little republic, might have believed that they could.

But we know from transcribed conversations that younger heirs to the state were despairing. Revolutions usually begin when a ruling group fragments, and the GDR leadership was deeply divided by late summer.

For all the loyalty it might muster, the GDR's existence, moreover, depended on the presence of several hundred thousand Soviet troops garrisoned originally as occupation forces and, since 1955, as Warsaw Pact allies.

Their tanks had suppressed the protests of striking East Berlin workers in June 1953, when local Soviet commanders understood that their fragile satellite might dissolve into the West.

Until 1989, the Red Army's presence remained a deterrent, deployed against Hungary's impetuous revolutionaries in 1956 and Czechoslovak reformers in August 1968. If there were violent clashes in the autumn of 1989, might Soviet troops be used again?

In public, Gorbachev helped Honecker, whom he found tiresome and didactic, to celebrate the GDR's 40th anniversary in early October.

In private, he was reported to have said that history punishes those who come too late. Discreetly, and through his embassy, he signalled that his Berlin wards were on their own. Russian troops would stay in their barracks.

Local East German officials understood that a crackdown could lead to violence beyond their capacity to control it.

The demonstrators enforced their own discipline and called mostly for dialogue. Their radicalism was limited: no one knew how much would change as the Wall was opened on November 9. Few leaders of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (the SED) and few of the demonstrators' ad hoc "civic movements" expected their republic to be swept away within a few months.

However, Chancellor Kohl soon concluded that he must outbid the East German reformers' vision of existing side by side with the West German state by manipulating economic and national longings.

Simultaneously, he persuaded Western leaders (Mrs Thatcher excepted) that the Germans would remain good Europeans and Gorbachev that German self-determination was no threat to Moscow.

The Russian leader, himself intoxicated by the momentum of change, did not expect that his own Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet federation would dissolve within two years, either. But he earned his Nobel for not resisting the dissolution by force.

The GDR's rapid collapse does not mean that the state had no loyal citizens: it did not rest on force and surveillance alone.

Two generations had come of age, enlisted from childhood in the mission of serving "the better Germany" as good anti-fascists and pioneers of socialism, peace and production. But after the Czech repression of 1968, ideals were hard to sustain in the Communist world. Even if East Germans did not know how zealously their leader Walter Ulbricht had urged Brezhnev to suppress Czechoslovak liberalisation, there would be renewed suppression of dissenters.

The continuing economic lag behind the West (glaringly visible on television), the pervasiveness of Stasi – secret police – control, the galling restrictions on travel, and finally, rigged electoral results – manipulated to inflate apparent popularity – overcame the loyalty citizens and intellectuals might have held.

At the end, the state socialist project could not retain its credibility. Its restrictions, its shabbiness, its reliance on snooping – and, in East Germany, its unnatural division of families – flew in the face of the ideals it supposedly stood for.

That the whole imperial structure of late communism could dissolve without vast waves of violence was a great achievement, not fully scripted in advance, but accomplished by those who marched in the autumn of 1989, by those who fled, and by those, such as Chancellor Kohl, who managed to channel the popular currents into a peacefully restored Germany and a reunited continent.

Unfortunately, the rush to liquidate the East's rust-belt economy, the unemployment that furloughed many workers and professionals over 50 while keeping the young in make-work jobs, and the feelings of victory on one side and of failure on the other constituted the shadow side of unification.

There would be a generation of loyal citizens desolate and orphaned by the loss of their state, and many in unified Germany would cling to the diehard Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to the Socialist Unity Party which dissolved among bitter reproaches in the winter of 1990.

People don't like to be told they were pursuing a fool's errand for most of their lives and that their experiment (as one regime stalwart conceded) was a mere footnote of history.

How to validate their 40-year experience without whitewashing an abusive system has proved an almost insuperable challenge – perhaps to be solved only by the final passage of the GDR generation.

Charles S. Maier is Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History at Harvard University and the author of 'Downfall: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany' (Princeton University Press) Return to Berlin

Memory Verse Week 45

Proverbs 25:27 (New King James Version)

27 It is not good to eat much honey;
So to seek one’s own glory is not glory.

Dinosaur!!

I received a gift card for Beth Bath and Beyond. My husband and I went the other day. I had in mind to buy some new towels. Ours are getting a bit old and frayed.

Hubby had a different idea! He found this dinosaur muffin pan and I got that with the gift card instead.

The little guy and I are going to make blueberry dinosaur muffins this weekend!!

Thankful Thursday

Today, Iris at Grace Alone is our host. Iris has chosen "trials" for our topic today.

I think of Moses and the Jews in the wilderness for forty years. What a trial that would be!

I believe we go through trials to make us stronger and build character.

There have been times when I have felt like I was wandering in the wilderness, just floundering about. I know during those times that God had my back! I know He was protecting me and watching over me and watching me make my mistakes.

The good thing about trials is most of the time we learn from them, and that is a good results from trials!

Trials also strengthen our faith!

Today I am thankful for:

* my daughter spending the day with us
* my little guy asking his teacher if sister could stay with him at school today!!
* sunny days
* my husband having days off during the week
* friends

1 Peter 1:5-7 (New Living Translation)

5 And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

6 So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while.
7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

Memory Verse Week 44

Proverbs 24:11-12 (New Living Translation)

11 Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die;
save them as they stagger to their death.
12 Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.”
For God understands all hearts, and he sees you.
He who guards your soul knows you knew.
He will repay all people as their actions deserve.

Ramblings

I can hardly believe it's November already. We had a cold and rainy, dark October. If it's cold, but there is sunshine, I am all for it!!

Thanksgiving is this month and I am hosting just my mom and my little family. I will be hosting Christmas this year for the whole family!

Yesterday I saw two flocks of wild Turkeys in the corn fields! I always love seeing the wildlife. We have had a lot of deer in our yard this fall already. The dark eyed Juncos have recently arrived from Canada to spend the winter in our much warmer climate. LOL. We get a whole bunch of them every winter and I tell my husband to throw some bird food on the snowy ground because they don't usually go to the feeders.

My mom got a new vehicle. She bought a 2006 Honda CRV and she loves it!! Her other car was older and she no longer felt safe driving it.

I can't wait for baseball next spring! We have a brand new OUTDOOR stadium!! I am so excited to go and bring the little guy to an outdoor stadium.

I am thinking of taking a trip to Maryland. Just me, for a long weekend to see my cousin. I haven't seen her for about two years now. I often think about my aunt. I used to fly to MD every three months to see my Grandma, who lived with my aunt, and to visit with my aunt. I had some really good times and I still really miss my aunt and grandma.

I still don't like yogurt. No matter what brand or type of yogurt I try, I just can't like it. I want to like it, but I just don't. Same thing with Candy corn. My kids and husband like it, and I buy it for them, but I don't ever eat it.

Husband has been working a LOT. We are continuing to pay down our debt, and we have bought some toys recently with some of his overtime earnings. We bought iTouches for all of us. And we all love them!! We didn't get iPhones because we don't get reception here with that company, so we just purchased the Touches!

We have a cousin moving to Ft Collins CO coming up, so there may or may not be a trip to CO. I think it would be a fun trip.

The boy is doing well in school. He is reading and writing well now. He is even memorizing some bible verses!! It's so fun to hear his little boy voice reciting scripture! I go once a week to serve lunch and that is always fun. He also started AWANA at church this fall and is doing well there, and having fun learning about the bible.

Daughter continues to do well at a new job, and is moving sometime this month--again. I hope she stays in this apartment for a while!!

Mom is doing well, as are my brothers and their families. I have another nephew in college. My nieces and nephews are growing up!!