Wednesday Medley ... a Plethora of Celebrations

Wednesday Meddlers, today Terri has provided the opportunity for us to share about making life more beautiful for others and being grateful when others do for us. Get the questions here and join everyone tomorrow to share your thoughts!

National Make Life Beautiful Day

1. Tell us about a time you made someone's life beautiful or someone made YOUR life beautiful.

Many people have made my life beautiful and I do my best to do that for others as well, but more recently it would be the surprise birthday celebration weekend for me by my brother and sis-in-law. Phil conspired with our daughter Sara and others to make a truly special weekend for me and I still am feeling the love from that!! They will never know fully what that meant to me.

National Smile Power Day

2.  Will you take on the challenge and smile more often on June 15th?  Why not start now!!  Have you been blessed by a smile that changed your day?

I smile a lot! When you smile at others, they will return the smile 99 99/100% of the time, I have noticed. It cost you nothing to smile at someone. Smiles come often when I think of how the Lord has been good to me and also when something goes well, or a problem is solved, or an idea is given. Smiling is also good for your face!!

National Random Acts of Light Day

3.  Terri is a cancer survivor.  Cancer has touched most of us in one way or another.  When did someone reach out to you with an act of kindness or when did you last perform a random act of kindness for someone?

My mother had leukemia, my brother had lymphoma, and I had breast cancer. I try to always be on the alert to do something kind for somebody … I don't know that that is random or not. Monday, just prior to a meeting, I noticed a woman I don't know standing off to herself looking as though she could use a kind word, so I approached her and listened to her as she told me all she was going through as a caregiver for her husband. It works both ways because it turned out to be good information for me as I too am a caregiver, and she surely felt better having someone to listen and encourage.

National Loving Day

4.  Terri admits that this turned out to be not what she thought it would be.  Our country has come a long way in recognizing that people are people and our differences are what makes life beautiful, but we still have a long way to go, unfortunately.  Your thoughts?

Terri, I agree with you! My remembrance in 1967 was working with a woman who was quite mysterious about her private life. Because of her reserved, standoffish attitude, everybody just kind of stayed away from her. One day somehow, someone discovered that she was in an interracial marriage and it is sad to me in looking back, that she was shunned from then on. I have to say that she didn't seem to want to be a part of the office camaraderie, but it would have been so much better to accept her. Now, fast forwarding ahead, over the past 52 years, it has become a very accepted thing, and I have many friends and a family member in an interracial relationship. Our church seems to be a magnet welcoming people from every race and culture and that is how it should be in the body of Christ. It grieves me that now our country seems to be more about division, than accepting people for who they are, and not their color or non-color.

Love this little family!

National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day

5.  Had to lighten it up a bit.  Terri is a total klutz in the kitchen.  Tell us about something klutzy that happened in your kitchen... by you or another!  Can you laugh about it now?

I have sliced my thumb and index finger many times. 

Oh, this one was a funny one. DH was upstairs napping and I was preparing dinner. I put the skillet with shortening in it for frying chicken. As I stood at the sink working with the chicken, the shortening got TOO HOT and flames were shooting up when I turned around!!! HELP, HELP, I yelled several times while processing what I needed to do. Flour on the fire is too messy, so I grabbed a cookie sheet and slammed it over the skillet to smother the fire. About that time, DH comes down the stairs rubbing his eyes, and smelling the smoke! I asked him why he didn't come? I was yelling HELP! This fireman's reply was when there is a fire you don't yell Help, you yell FIRE!!! 

6.  Share something about your week so far, if you would.

Jack spent the weekend with us and we had such a good time. What a fun little guy he is, but a little expensive. He wanted to go to the mall first to spend the last of his birthday money. He shops and pretty much has an idea of what he will get. His first purchase was a leather bracelet with "real" silver on it! That took all of his money, so the next stop was Field of Dreams which is loaded with all kinds of sports memorabilia and he wanted a mini New England Patriots helmet! "Will you be putting this on display in your room?" "No." "What good is the helmet then, I ask?" He shrugged. The salesman said it is good for getting autographs! My hope is that if the day ever comes for him to have opportunity to get autographs on that helmet, that he will be able to find it in his room! LOL! He told us he is the only Patriots fan in the family.

On Sunday after church he told me how class was and also recited the memory verse word for word. He then wanted to tell me the brief version!! He cracks me up!

"Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous or rude."

(the verse)

"Love, patient, kind, not jealous, rude!"

(his shortened version)

When I suggested he and his sister should go to VBS this summer, he told me that was a decision his parents would have to make! (Guess I need to myob??)

By Sunday morning, I think he was ready to go home.

On Sunday, on the way home from taking Jack back, a HUGE wind and rainstorm came and it was so scary, I couldn't decide whether to continue driving on home or get off the freeway and find shelter. aha! I will go to the mall and park underground. What a laugh! When I arrived, everybody else had the same idea and it was a long wait just to get in there, let alone find a parking place. Need I say, we all just sat there, occasionally moving an inch or two! Then my paranoid self thought about all the gas fumes in there. Yikes. At last, at last! they opened up the valet section just as I was at the exit pondering whether it might be better to leave. So then I was able to park and go inside the mall until the storm was over. Thank You, Lord!

This photo was on a Washington Post story. 

For some reason, I couldn't copy the link. (Hope it's ok that I post this.)