Happy Birthday, USA

Hope everyone is enjoying the Fourth of July! Independence Day! Trevor is in Hesperia at the Rogers' Cottage all weekend.
Tyler, Jayden and I hung out the first part of the day-had the traditional American Fourth of July meal at Tres Lobos!

Next, went to Dunton Park to do bubbles, play in the sand, check out the ducks and the fishing and the playground.



Met up with Jayden's mom, Linda, and played playdoh before saying good-bye to Jayden until next week.

Had a little intermission at home before meeting up with friends downtown to celebrate and have fireworks at Kollen Park. Ate a fab dinner at the Carragh first. Again, traditional American food-not! Corned beef and Cabbage and good ol' English Fish & Chips washed down with Magic Hat#9 and Guiness! Maybe next year we'll get back to the hot dogs, hamburgs, and potato salad.

Beautiful scenes along the waterfront at Kollen Park. So many boats out in the channel.

Bonnie, Jamie and Nancy-part of our group of friends


More of the gang-Marlae and Dave, Tyler and Lana, Lana and Mandy(famous person I go to church with-Mandy from the morning show on JQ99-I'm such a name dropper!) Saw a lot of people from VPM, BP clients and others I've met in my travels on this path...I think at least half of Holland turned out for this!

The bands were all so great-Especially the band from VPM! The fireworks were above and beyond usual. We all speculated that the reason they were even more elaborate than normal is due to the fact that the Tulip Time fireworks were rained out this year. We're pretty sure they put the two displays together. Anyway, one of the best I've ever witnessed! There was a live band and singers who did patriotic tunes during the fireworks.
Getting out of the parking lot at the Civic Center was a real trick but when we finally got going, we stopped off and had a nightcap-again at the Carragh, before heading home and hitting the rack. Had fireworks that we could have done at home but such a full day we decided to save those for another evening. Tomorrow is another day of fun...Today feels like it should be Saturday but, how nice, I get an extra day off this week! Live it up!

Everything's a test!

My current class, Psych Testing and Evaluation, makes me want to put a gun to my head! Ever been in a class as horrible as that? Several decades ago, while in my first college undergrad courses, one of my instructors compared the required core courses to a series of inoculations. Once you have received a particular shot, you gained immunity, and never had to endure that one again! This is the thought that drives me on to completion! But wait...could there be more?
What is the lesson here?
I have a choice-ALWAYS-how I'm going to see this experience and how I'm going to respond. What can I learn from this? I'm not comfortable...I'm not enjoying this, but... Maybe I need to give this information more of a space to be interesting to me instead of just rejecting it. Testing is definitely a tool that can be useful and helpful in understanding people and assisting them with direction in areas of life. It's important to remember that no test is perfect and that it will not completely 100% accurately measure a person's knowledge, abilities, and tendencies. Testing does not replace the human touch or intuition. Testing should also not be a means of labeling or judging. We all seem to do enough of that without the aid of a test! If I were teaching this class, what could be done to make it more interesting? It's a very real possibility that I could be in that position some day. Maybe now is the time I should be thinking about that-while I'm wearing the student hat. What if I need to write about testing? In my doctoral thesis perhaps or even for another class or say, in a book I write sometime...Those are all very real possibilities, too. OK. Now I get it. This isn't just about what is happening in the moment. But a lot of life is like that. At first blush, some things just don't resonate with us. There are no accidents. Everything is a test-a test to see how we will react/respond, what we will allow or create, even tolerance and patience for the things that truly do not work for us! Attitude is everything. Perspective can always be tweaked to work something for our benefit in some way-there are so many angles things can be viewed from. Choose to see the good.

Early Fireworks

Last night's thunder and lightning storm was one of the most severe I've seen since living in the Midwest! Lightning is beautiful but I'd prefer to see it in pictures like these! I was very unnerved by the eerie cast of it. Reminded me of some of the storms that have spawned tornadoes and straight-line windstorms in this area.
 I thought the storms in Kentucky and Georgia were bad but this one was right in there!Last month we got more rain but not as intense-it rained harder but for a shorter time frame this storm.The first round came about 3pm or so. I was at the library in Holland working on a paper  before leaving for Kalamazoo. The second storm hit about 4:30 or 5pm. I was already on my way to class. Tyler called and said that it was raining worse at the house than he'd ever seen! Once I got to school, it began to get dark. By 6:30 we had lightning and by 7pm we had torrential rain, thunder and lightning. Several times the lights flickered off and on. There were intense periods and then it would taper off only to get bad again. This went on for several hours. The drive home was unsettling. Periods of clearing, more thunder, more lightning, then rain like no other! By the time I hit 72nd Ave. it had really calmed down-but there were tree limbs down the entire length of our road. There are some really huge old trees that lean across the road. I hurried to get past those remembering that last month at least two people in Michigan were killed by falling trees! One neighbor had a pop-up camper for sale in their yard-it was completely flipped upside down! All my flowers were practically floating in their planters. I hope they live! I noticed that our power must have been out for awhile. The lights on the appliances and the digital clocks were blinking off and on. I just got a freezer FULL of beef! I was worried about the meat defrosting-thought we were going to have to host a community BBQ. It turned out to be fine though. As far as I'm concerned, that's enough fireworks until tomorrow night!

If YOU won the lottery...

In spite of dismal odds, my coworkers and myself have had a lottery pool going for the past 6 years.We play, usually, Mega Millions, once a week, twice if the jackpot gets over $100 million. That all started years ago when the 13 school cafeteria workers in Minnesota won the Power Ball Jackpot after playing weekly, each contributing a quarter, for many years. I said, "somebody's going to win it, why not us?!" Yes, I AM promoting gambling at my workplace!

Yeah, I remember the TV series last summer, I think it was, where a group of friends won the lottery. Week after week we saw episodes detailing how all the money ruined their lives, their marriages, their friendships, their families, and their businesses. I wonder how typical that is among lottery winners? I remember hearing a statistic once about a high percentage of lottery winners declaring bankruptcy within five years of winning! Still, in theory, I think I could handle myself reasonably well with that big wad of cash! Hey, remember that a million doesn't go as far as it used to-weak dollar, inflation, gas prices, etc. I like to think that I wouldn't let money change me too much and that I would be generous and share with others. Of course, I'll never know for sure how I would react unless I get lucky and actually win it! Remind me of all this stuff if it happens...hold me accountable!
So, what would you do if you won the lotto? Here's my plan:
Pay greedy ol' Uncle his more-than-fair-share. That's about 50% ish, right?

Give 10% to Victory Point-God sent it even if the devil brought it!

Give 10% more to all my favorite charities.

Pay off all debt including/especially student loans!

Fix everything that's wrong with my house-make some improvements.

New car-I have a 2003 Hyundai. I'd go green-like a hybrid-maybe a Prius.

Give a "love offering" to each of my family members-not enough to spoil, just enough to help! Fine line there.

Schedule a really nice vacation-take some people along who normally wouldn't get to travel.

Get the rest of it saved, invested, legal documents in order, all my ducks in a row! Call Dave Ramsey for advice!

Provide some excellent opportunities-daycare or education for my kids/grandkids.

Send Gunther and Patches to doggie daycare.

Finance a few "adventures" like hiking the Appalachian Trail, deep sea diving on the Coral Reef, such things like that-maybe coaching academy +/or Landmark courses, Covey Institute, John Maxwell Leadership training-Oh, Yeah! Be all you can be-that's me!

Quit my job and do missions work or community service projects, have time for devotions, exercise, and self-care, including SLEEP!! Plus, I'd do one massage per day for FREE for someone who needs it. I would never forget my dear, dear clients!

Spend more time writing and BLOGGING-of course! Time for hobbies and interests. For friends and family. For sitting on my booty now and then and just doing nothing-and not feeling the least bit guilty about it either!
If I really hit the Mother Load-a cabin up North and a cottage in South Haven(but I would let a lot of other people use it, too).

That's about it...What would you do with all that money???

Do you think it would ruin your life? Change your life radically or not so much?

Bizarre, Wacky Advice

Not sure what started me thinking about this today, BUT, what's the craziest advice anyone has ever given you?

Many moons ago, when I was pregnant with Trevor, I had such a horrid sinus infection that my eyes and entire face hurt, I ran a low-grade fever, and I had such painful pressure headaches that I could barely function. Of course, when you're pregnant there are many prescription and non-prescription meds that you're not allowed to take and the ones my doctor gave me didn't touch this thing! After seemingly days without sleep and out of sheer desperation, I asked a friend if she had any idea of something I could try. Just so happened she had a suggestion. She told me to go home, get my turkey baster, some distilled water, and some salt. Heat the water up until it was just barely warm, add the salt until dissolved, fill the turkey baster up with the warm salt water, put the end up one nostril and gently squeeze the bulb until water runs out the other side. Do this over the sink, she said. Right in that moment, I decided never to have dinner at this girl's house, especially not anything that would require basting-like a turkey, for instance! Even though I felt some resistance to the thought of putting a cooking utensil up my nose, my acute need for relief drove me to giving this a try. I coughed and sputtered at the first shot. My nose and throat burned with salt! About the third go-round with this nasal squirt gun, I expelled something that looked like a green extraterrestrial being which had crawled up my nose, died, and was now ready to be put in a glass jar full of formaldehyde and shipped off to the Smithsonian for posterity.Disgusting-BUT it worked! From that day on, I started feeling better and better, didn't have any more trouble with my sinuses the rest of my pregnancy and I never told anyone-till now-that I stuck a turkey baster full of salt water up my nose! That's one time when weird advice paid off!

When I was in massage therapy school, we spent some time discussing possible treatments for headache sufferers. One of my fellow-students privately told me of her "never fail" headache remedy: Have the person who is suffering from the headache sit in a comfortable chair, preferably a recliner, in a dimly lit room. Find a belt and cinch it up around the person's head as tight as it will go. Put an ice pack on the back of their neck and have them put their feet in the hottest water they can stand. She swears that within 15-30 minutes the headache will be gone. Uh, needless to say, I haven't tried this one personally, definately not at my workplace,  and have only dared to mention it a few times in the most extreme cases during the course of my career as a massage therapist for fear of coming across like a nut-case! It's not a very professional sounding remedy. But it could work, I guess. Never heard back from anybody who tried it. Hey, someone give this a try next time you get a bad headache and let us know how it works out,o.k.?

The next example that comes to mind was when my family and I were living in Kentucky. There were some teenage boys living next door and whenever they went to a friend's house they cut through my backyard. No problem- except they kept stomping on my berry plants, vegetables, and flowers in the garden. I had tried asking them nicely to be careful when they walked through, but it kept happening. I tried asking the boys' parents but they were so checked out that it was apparent that they didn't care and wouldn't help solve the issue. Every day a little more damage was being done to the garden I'd worked so hard on...I was visiting with another neighbor who also bordered these boys' property. I asked her what she would do in my situation. Her response caught me a bit off-guard! She said she would go out in the woods and find a bunch of poison oak plants. She'd re-plant them,  10-15 plants deep,  along the property line so that every time the little bleepity-bleeps crossed over there they'd get covered in poison oak! Furthermore, I should spray it two of three times a week with Miracle Grow so that it would get real tall and bushy and let it grow until it was crotch-level. That way they'd get poison oak on their balls and stay out of my garden! That'd teach em'! I think my eyes bugged right out of my head! I know for a fact that my mouth was hanging open to my knees! I blinked incredulously-she just had to be kidding, right? Nope! Dead serious. Even offered to help me get the plants! That was one batch of frightening,  terrible advice that I did not follow! In fact, after that, I kept my distance from her and took great care not to piss her off! When we moved she said to be sure and leave a forwarding address so she'd know where to send the Christmas cards. Yeah, right! We're gonna see her on Dateline some night!

What's the most bizarre, wacky advice you have either given or gotten??