Thankfulness

Today our minister contrasted thankfulness with complaining.

He pointed out how complaining is actually a blow to God...

Discredits His sovereignty.

Disrupts Christian unity--makes His church look a mess,

Discredits His plans for us.

Oh wow!

Just because complaining is something everyone else does-  that does not make it OK.

Got my work cut out for me.

The other week I babysat "the boys" and played street hockey with Parker.

I was amazed that I could still hit that ball.

We played a mean game of Candyland...I got the Rubble puppy with a dirty face.

And if I won, I was going to get loaded in the recycle truck.

Ha Ha...he won.

Then it snowed, what a start to the winter.

This was Hope's first experience with snow driving, thankfully I called her before she 

was driving and told her to wait at a grocery store near our house because the hill close to our place becomes a skating rink that throws cars into the ditch during snow storms.

I went to retrieve the girls from school.

A run that normally takes 40 minutes round trip, ended up taking 3-1/2 hours.

We sat in a ditch for awhile, we calmed our nerves in a parking lot for awhile and figured that the cinder trucks would eventually come through that wonderful road.

Nope

Didn't happen.

Meanwhile around the county there were 200+ accidents over that period.

I was very thankful for cell phones and I knew where my teen drivers were sitting and waiting.

And I'll try not to complain about PenDot workers.

Our puppy discovered snow....crazy dog.

I need to figure out how to keep her from chewing on pins...she finds them on the floor and chews on them! Hopefully I caught her every time.

Babysat this crew one evening....I think there were 10 kids counting mine.

Met a deer on a dark road one night. It appears it got up and kept running.

The van sustained some damage.

Thankfully the parts that were damaged were the plastic pieces and the radiator is ok.

Did you know you can buy a car, one piece at a time on Amazon?

I'm hoping that repairing the van goes well for him. 

He just got finished repairing parts of his '97 pick-up truck.

We borrowed this game from Joe the other night and gave it a trial.

I think we will re-visit this game again

Well, tomorrow it is 6 weeks since I was on Facebook. I've missed it because there were some yardsale items I would have liked to list. I also need to find some Christmas gifts for the younger parties in our house...can't list them here cause she can read. I'm not sure yet what Joe will decide about going back online....he is unsure about it. One day he says he knows he's not ready and other days he is ready to just go for it. Either way, I'm proud of how well he did during this time, it wasn't easy. I wasn't prepared for how much the withdrawal affected his life- I don't think he was either. One day maybe I will be able to blog about it. I will just say that it is very possible to be as addicted to the internet. It serves the same purpose as any other addiction. It keeps you from  acknowledging feelings and thoughts. I found this definition and it fits.

 Short Definition of Addiction:

Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.

Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.