Imperfect And Wonderfully Made

                      In my life I have gained and lost many precious treasures. I can be cliche and say that my children are my precious treasures -- that goes without saying. But I'm talking about material precious treasures that have a sentimental value to them. I'm going to be sharing a few of those precious items in this blog. My first precious treasure that I received actually came from my Godmother. She bought me a beautiful 14K Gold Emerald Ring. It was delicate and had what looked like gold round daisy petals that extended outside the edge of the darkest of green emerald. That little ring I wore every second of everyday since the day she gave it to me. I had already worn it for years.  I wore that ring up until sixth grade. One day at recess, we were all taking turns on the round rings that we would hang off and go in circles until we couldn't take the pain on our hands and would then fall off. I had already been doing...

I have lived in so many places since I was a little girl. The earliest home I can remember living in was an apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire. I only know the place, because my mother told me my memory was describing New Hampshire. I only remember the kitchen and one memory from that apartment. I believe my biological parents must have lived near her relatives when I was born, because I was born in Los Angeles, CA. During my Mom's separation from my biological father in New Hampshire, my brother and myself were temporarily housed in an orphanage. After they separated, my Mom traveled back to California to be near her relatives again. We lived there until she met and married my step father in 1967, when I was seven years old. When my Mom was single, we were either living with her Mom or one of her sister's originally, but then she lived in a duplex on Riverview Avenue in El Monte for a short time. Later she would move into what we referred to as the yellow apartments, still...

  In previous blogs, I have spoken of my other two cousins briefly with who I grew up with and with whom I was very close. All three of us are near the same age -- one is a little older than myself only by four months and the other one is about six months younger than me. We were quite often referred to as the three amigos. Later we had adopted that we were Alvin and the Chipmunks. Where one was, so were the other two. Outside of my summers with my BFF from childhood, much of the other summertimes were spent with these two cousins. Remember my friends were far and few between, but my cousins were my constant. They loved and accepted me even with all my quirky characteristics. My older cousin lived next door to a dairy. I actually believe that is where I got my love of country air smell developed. She and I used to climb through the fence posts by her house and go visit the cows at the dairy almost on a daily basis when I was visiting her. I used to love petting the cows and offerin...

Today my companion and I were watching a Woody Allen movie that had a musical theme and it brought back a memory of mine when I was 12 years old and still friends with my best friend forever from elementary school. This was the same friend who my Mom had asked me why my friends who I hang out with seemed to have money. I told her I wasn't searching for rich friends. I just wanted a friend. Soon after that conversation, our lives drifted apart for a couple years and I found out through a mutual friend of ours that she had died in a car accident in Big Bear. I can still see my beautiful friend's blue eyes and blonde hair with her sweet smile when I recall her memory. Anyways, sometime in 1972, she and I got this brilliant idea to go see a movie together at our walk in theatre behind our neighborhood. We had a shopping center that had all kinds of fun shops and a J.J. Newberry's (remember that store?). We would quite often go spend hours on any given day just window shopping. ...

For years, it was too easy for me to be critical of other people who I didn't understand why they were the way they were. I didn't understand how they could be so evil, so opinionated, so rude, so hateful, so provocative, so confrontational, so crude, so left, so right, so careless, so full of rage, so snobby, so arrogant, so addicted -- just to name a few characteristic that I saw as flaws. I could never understand homelessness, extreme poverty, people who seemed not to care about anyone or anything. Far worse, I couldn't understand why they couldn't keep themselves hygienically clean. I can see why that verse exists about taking the log out of your eye, before you try removing the splinter from theirs. Years back I was told to quit looking at people at how I perceive them to be, but rather look at them how you think if Jesus were still on earth, how he would see them. Then several years later, I read a book named Looking Through Jesus's Eyes. I used to be that per...

Can you think of a time when you haven't been responsible for something? I remember as a child, I thought I really had it hard when it came to being responsible. I had to make sure my homework was done. I had to keep my grades up.  I had to make sure the pets were watered and fed. I had to do numerous chores around the house. I remember washing dishes was a trade off chore with my brother. I remember always having to vacuum and sweep. I remember having to dust everything too. I disliked dusting, because it made me really sneeze. I remember I had to keep my room tidy and make my bed every morning as soon as I got up out of it.  I remember my Dad had a strict policy about making the bed. He taught my brother and I the military way of making a bed that was all folded and tucked in at each corner, it included folding the top sheet over the bedspread before putting pillows neatly at the top of the bed. He used to tell us that his Sergeant used to drop a dime on his to make sure it ...

  Most of my blogs are on reflection of my past as part of my testimony. However today, I wanted to write about two things I did today that brought this feeling uneasy topic to light for me. First is my uneasiness with getting a Covid Vaccine and second, playing with Artificial Intelligence. In 2019, when we first heard about Covid. I was in the hospital keeping my ex-husband company as he had a near death experience with sepsis. When the news first came on that people were needing to isolate themselves and that they were thinking of shutting businesses and having people isolate in order to get a grip on this pandemic, I thought I was watching an episode or movie of some kind on TV. But no, it was on channel 7 news. Then I started to see how people were buying up food, water, paper towels and toilet paper. They hoarded toilet paper!! That was unreal to me. Why? So after a few days of this news, an RN came in to notify me that I could no longer be near my dying husband and I would h...

  Wow, where do I begin? As I start writing my blogs, you are actually getting a glimpse of my brain cells popping. Let's start off with how I put the "ible" in gullible. My testimony alone will give you the areas of my life where I have been most gullible. The fact that I've been married to four different men and divorced five times is a huge red flag to my being such a gullible person. With my marriages, I believed in the promises that each of these men vowed or directly stated to me -- how they would love me forever and that no other person on this earth could love me as much as they do. Also, my kids know that they can always pull one over on me by telling me something is true and providing me with their made up facts to support it and then when they have buy in, they will say -- Mom, you believe anything. Well now. It's not something I'm proud of -- for the most part I have fantastic discernment. However, when I let my guard down, I can be very vulnerable...

  As I was growing up, my wardrobe was much less to be desired. I never had the trendy stuff until about 13 years old. My Dad at that time had gotten a lucrative position and was able to purchase new clothing for all four of us (Dad, Mom, Brother & Myself). And the trendy stuff I received was far and few between. I remember receiving hip hugger bell bottoms and body suits -- body suits are the teen version of onesies. Remember the snaps to close the bottom of the tops, so the tops wouldn't come above and over the waist or hip of the pants. I remember owning Wallaby's (shoes) and Ditto Saddle Back Pants. I wore Puka shells. Now that I think of it, I don't know how that worked, since I wasn't allowed to wear jewelry -- maybe it was acceptable because it was a string of God made shells. I know I wasn't allowed to wear turquoise jewelry, but was mesmerized by all the tanned girls who did wear it. All I remember is that I barely had enough clothing to get through my ...

Today, because I was watching a memorial service on streaming, I was reminded about the value of love for humanity. Sometimes, it is important to set aside positions or opinions that set us apart from each other. As a Christian, that person's relationship with Christ is first and foremost to what is important in a person to me rather than anything outside of that which might seem different in my values and belief system. I'm quite often invited to events that have all different types of personalities with political differences, social differences, socio-economic differences, etc. However, it seems God will bring a person to you that clues you into the fact that they are a Christian. Automatically, there is that commonality -- I have the ability to set everything outside of that in order to make that my primary focus. Yes, we should be unified with like minded people -- but first of all being like minded in Christian faith takes precedence over anything else. For instance, my po...

  As I was growing up, my family was into board games. When we were very little we would play Fish, Chutes and Ladders. and Mouse Trap. We used to like playing Scrabble, Life, Clue, Monopoly, Yahtzee just to name a few. As my brother got older, my parents and him used to play Risk. That game just didn't interest me, so I would do my own thing while they played for hours together. I remember we were also into playing card games. It was very common as I was growing up to have church game nights as well. Various board games would be set out, we would make pizza bread and make a night out of it -- usually on a Saturday evening. We would play Charades too. When with church friends, I used to love when we would play Bible Trivia. It was a great way to learn about the Bible and the stories it contained. I can't remember what the game was called, but in the 60's there was a board game that used pool sticks and disks. I bring this up, because I remember the wood board games were ver...