Happy Birthday Stefani!

Tomorrow is our Stefani's 21st birthday. She is the youngest daughter of our eldest son Chris and his wife Sherrie. Because of our Santa commitments we will not be able to be with her until next week when we all gather around the Thanksgiving table. We do hope that she will have a most wonderful celebration of this milestone occasion. Stefani has always been close to her MiMi and Poppy and used to spend a lot of time with us. However, she is all grown up now and busy making her way forward in life. I suppose it will be official that she will be an adult after tomorrow. Official or not, she will always be our Steffie and we thank God for her and pray that He will continue to lead, guide, and direct her life. Happy Birthday Sweetie and may God bless. Love, MiMi and Poppy

Well, what do you think about this? It's Friday! I see that smile. It's the 21st day of November 2014 and we are beginning to get ready to get ready for our Thanksgiving Day celebration next week. When you go to the doctor for a check up they occasionally give you one of those heart test thingies, the electrocardiogram. I don't know if my situation is a benefit or a liability but traveling over the hills and through the woods each day to my workplace I get the heart test quite frequently. Just the other day about 3:45 a.m., I was driving down this crooked country lane of a road when I came around a curve and a big old fluffy deer came right across the nose on my car. I was almost a casualty of a close encounter of the worst kind. Fortunately, I was only driving 40 miles per hour which is the speed limit. I don't know if it rubbed my headlights and bumper but it did get my attention, filling up my windshield completely. All systems went into overload. I typically am on the lookout but because of coming out of a blind curve this one was a complete surprise. Had I been hooked up to one of those heart test machines I may have melted the motherboard. Once I caught my breath I was immediately thankful that we didn't have an actual collision and if it's okay with everyone else I'll clean my own headlights. Please inform all the deer that I too was sad when that gun was heard in the Bambi movie. I think it's important that they know that.

Incidents like that one is why you have to be up on the wheel all the time out in this neck of the woods. That 'up on the wheel' euphemism is borrowed from NASCAR where the drivers have to be alert at all times to be ready for whatever happens on the track. Speaking of NASCAR, this years long season and championship is now in the books. My driver did not win. I was not happy. Sorry, but I felt terrible for him and for his team. I am not in the classical sense a fair weather fan but I do have some of those traits as a part of my profile. After my driver was eliminated I considered not even watching the final race to determine the champion. I even thought about throwing in the towel on the whole shooting match, so to speak. But, in the end, I suppose I am enough of a auto racing fan to have changed my mind. I did watch much of the final race and I will most likely stay with the sport for another year. I congratulate the winner. It wasn't easy. They persevered. They worked hard. They won. We didn't. I was not happy. I am still not happy. But, there's always next year. How many times have we heard that one?

We've had a pretty intense week. It actually was one where we hit the ground running last Saturday for that turnaround trip to attend my 50th high school reunion in Louisiana, and we really haven't slowed down enough to catch our breath. But, we are thankful that we are able to keep on keeping on. There's really no end in sight for the short term as the Santa enterprise begins to kick in. We are hoping to be able to go across town this morning to attend Grandparents Day over at our Brady Darrell's school. We had a ball last year. Except for the travel there and back. If it is like it usually is we will not see any deer out on the freeways but we will see plenty of jacked up drivers in jacked up vehicles practicing for the next demolition derby. But, that's more or less the norm around these parts. I do hope that all is well with you and yours. Have yourself a wonderful rest of the day, a great Saturday, and a fulfilling Lord's Day Sunday, hopefully celebrating it with others at the local meeting place where God is worshipped. Take care and I will do my best to be on my best behavior as I carry the Christmas spirit to boys and girls of all ages beginning tomorrow. See you next Monday, Lord willing. Amen.  ....More later.