A Day with Jordan

(and Katie & Marcus, too!)

December Calendar

I chose a non-winter scene for December (and, actually - all year long!) on purpose, cuz when I'm stuck in snow (if there actually IS snow!) I don't like looking at my calendar and being reminded that there is snow. I'd be more likely to put a snow picture in June or July when it's hot to make me feel cold. This picture should warm me up, not make me cold!!

Unfortuantely, as I am writing this post, I do not know what I am up to...Since this post will not be shown for almost a year, who knows! Maybe I will have a new blog, maybe I will not be around...but, at any rate, let me know if you have liked getting calendars every month, and perhaps I will be able to do this again for next year!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Old Fisherman

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs, and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the Clinic.

 

One summer evening, as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door.  I opened it to see a truly awful looking man.  "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped and shriveled body.

The appalling thing was his face, lopsided from swelling, red, and raw.  Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening.  I've come to see if you've a room for just one night.  I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning."

He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon, but with no success; no one seemed to have a room, and added, "I guess it's my face.  I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..."

For a moment, I hesitated, but his next words convinced me, "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch.  My bus leaves early in the morning."

 

I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch.

 

I went inside, and finished getting supper.  When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us.

 

"No thank you. I have plenty," he said, and he held up a brown paper bag.

When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.

He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him.

 

When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded, and the little man was out on the porch.

He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he asked, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment?  I won't put you out a bit.  I can sleep fine in a chair."

 

He paused a moment, and then added, "Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind."

 

I told him he was welcome to come again.

On his next trip, he arrived a little after seven in the morning.  As a gift, he brought a big fish, and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen.  He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4 a.m., and I wondered what time he had gotten up in order to do this for us.

 

In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden.  Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed.  Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had, made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning.   "Did you keep that awful looking man last night?  I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!"

Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice.  But, oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness would have be en easier to bear.  I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint, and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently, I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse.  As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms.  But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old, dented, rusty bucket.  I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!"

 

My friend changed my mind when she said, "I ran short of pots, and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail.  It's just for a little while, 'til I can put it out in the garden."

She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven.  "There's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. "He won't mind starting in this small body."

All this happened long ago, and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.

You Just Can't Fix Stupid

Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets. "We don't have half dozen nuggets," said the teenager at the counter. "You don't?" I replied. "We only have six, nine, or twelve," was the reply. "So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?" "That's right." So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets.

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I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those "dividers" that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the "divider", looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me, "Do you know how much this is?" I said to her "I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today." She said "OK," and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.

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A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM "thingy."

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I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. " Do you need some help?" I asked. She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?" "Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?" I asked. "No, just this remote thingy," she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries. It's a long walk."

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Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five "blank" copies.

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I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister." I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the "cruise control" and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

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My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"

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Police in Radnor, Pa. interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.

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A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid was eating ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and it should be fine.  The mother says, I just gave him some ant killer.....Dispatcher: Rush him in to emergency room!

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Life is tough? It's tougher if you're stupid.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Kristina Movies!!!!

GodSpell!

God's way of saying 'Have a nice day!'

Pranks and Heart Attacks

Oh, the mess-ups that turn into the best practical jokes ever!!!

 

So....shipping closes in 10 minutes and there was an order they were looking for to that HAD to ship today. I was looking for it in our system but couldn’t find it...for multiple reasons. Come to find out, the order isn’t even entered yet!

 

I enter the order in a rush and get it printed for shipping, but they tell me I ordered the wrong product! To correct the problem, I backorder the wrong product, enter the right product, print that and get it out to shipping. A little stressful, as the printer doesn’t like me, but it all gets fixed!

 

Come to find out, the product is out of stock so the lab had to make it and the shipping guy decided to pull our QC chemist’s leg (he is the one who made the product for this order). The QC chemist was told that he made the wrong product and that he had 10 minutes to make and package the correct product to ship!!

 

He about dropped from a heart attack on the spot. After he recovered he went hunting for the production manager to yell at him for telling him to make the wrong product. I told the QC chemist that what he had made was right and the order was right and all that, but he didn’t believe me because the shipping guy had showed him the pick slip with the wrong product listed!!!

 

Oh, it was the highlight of my day! J It is not often that something like that gets pulled without anyone really trying!

Our Favorite Trip Moments!!

Seeing Kristina!

REVIEW! (you'll need a visual on this one)

Do the Deer Dog Dance...(another visual memory!)

Being Sneaky!

Seeing Kristina!!

Cows with Lollipops (don't ask)

'Gourmet' dinner at the hotel

Exit 16 - Where the Penguins Reign

Seeing Kristina!!!

Driving thru 'Penguin Falls' (I think it's really Pigeon Falls)

Stopping at 95% of the Flying J's along the way.

Flying J's steak buffet. (We seem to be able to find THE BEST steak buffets while on trips...)

Seeing Kristina!!!!

The play at Calvin was quite awesome.

Meeting Kristina's friends.

The wonderful, nice, helpful, wonderful, smart ladies at Whole Foods who get us back on track to get home!

Fog Bog Log Nog Sog....basically, any 'og' word!! (The Fog in the Bog driving over the Log while drinking Egg Nog.......)

Seeing Kristina!!!!!

Demon's - New Kid Menu (um...that was read wrong, it was really Damon's - New Kids Menu)

Finding a new super power - Driving while Sleeping.

Becoming 'Asleep At The Wheel'!!

Being pretty much Asleep At The Wheel and looking up to see a Deer in the middle of the road...but really it was dead and stuck on the back of someone's car...splat.

Seeing the LIVE deer by the side of the road - it kept me awake for about 30 seconds!

Shopping at Salvo's (just wait until you see the neat things we found!!)

 

Oh - and our FAVORITE part of the trip???

 

Seeing Kristina!!!!!!

(how'd you guess?)

 

Our Least Favorite Trip Moments

Janesville Visitors Center is Closed Until May

Missing the first toll on the Chicago Skyway...and now waiting for the ticket to come in the mail.

Sour milk for breakfast at the hotel (and sick all day)

Getting lost in Gary, IN. four times...

Seemingly being stuck forever in Gary, IN

Almost getting killed by that crazy driver in Chicago with the government plate at 12:33pm on the Chicago Skyway...he was driving on the shoulder and whizzed into our lane, almost totaling the car and us. That guy needs some driving lessons!

Finding a new super power - Driving while Sleeping

Driving Asleep At The Wheel in the Fog.......

 

Grand Rapids Trip Commercial

PRICELESS

Trip Tips

Tips For When You Find it Necessary to Drive Thru Indiana...

Ø      Never, I repeat NEVER! trust a toll booth person's directions to getting off the toll way and finding a gas station without having to pay tolls again.

Ø      Never stop in Gary, IN.

Ø      Make sure your gas tank is full before entering.

Ø      Don't drink anything, bathrooms are hard to find!

Ø      If you should need to stop, plan on losing at least an hour trying to find a gas station and bathroom. Then another hour to find your way back to the toll way.

Ø      Have plenty of loose change on hand for paying all the tolls getting on and off the toll way.

Ø      If you get lost, go to Cline and 169th St and stop at the Live Gospel McDonalds (but don't be hankering for McDonaldLand cookies, they don't have them). If you want to hear the 'Live Gospel' go to the bathroom! That's where the gospel music is.

Ø      Per our favorite Indiana boy, do not judge all of Indiana by troubles in Gary.

 

10 Ways to Ruin Your Trip to Grand Rapids to See Kristina

1.      Stop in Gary, IN

2.      Try to buy gas in Gary, IN

3.      Tollbooth directions for Gary, IN

4.      Drivers from Gary, IN

5.      Drivers in Gary, IN

6.      All the tollbooths in Gary, IN

7.      Unmarked roads in Gary, IN

8.      Badly marked roads everywhere we had to go.

9.      Take the wrong highway in Chicago

10. Almost get killed in Chicago by a government vehicle (with no flashing light or anything)

***(Thankfully, these all happened on our way back home! And they did not really ruin our trip to see Kristina, just the trip home to our beds...)***

 

Happy Day

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Happy moments, praise God.
Difficult moments, seek God.
Quiet moments, worship God.
Painful moments, trust God.
Every moment, thank God.

A Visit to Kristina!!!

Haha, I took your picture too!

I sense a theme in Kristina's space....
Jordan, family, Jordan, friends, Jordan...and then there's...Jordan...


ACK! Kristina's Head!

Now there's two of her!!

Now, to find a space large enough to hang it up!

Awww...ain't we cute?

Tired Girl

Um...that's creepy. Thread was being pulled out of the puppy's ear.

Salt and Pepper packets in the Salt and Pepper shakers.

I can't believe this!

It smells...funny.

Awesome play! Videos going up...sometime.


Eating Fred on the way home.
Poor, poor left-over Fred who was rejected and thrown
about and almost forgotten in the freezer. brrrrrrrr.

Goodbye for now, Kristina! See ya soon!


More pictures here. :-)

Caught in the Act

These two were caught...

Shocking!!!

They were together in the house.

Just the two of them.

It was a cold, dark, stormy night. The storm had come quickly and each time the thunder boomed he watched her jump.

She looked across the room and admired his strong appearance...and wished that he would take her in his arms, comfort her and protect her from the storm.

Suddenly, with a pop, the power went out.

She screamed.

He raced to the sofa where she was cowering.

He didn't hesitate to pull her into his arms.

He knew this was a forbidden union and expected her to pull back.

He was surprised when she didn't resist but instead clung to him.

The storm raged on.

They knew it was wrong.

Their families would never understand.

So consumed were they in their FEAR that they heard no opening of doors.

Just the faint click of a camera...

Jeff Foxworthy is now picking on Michigan

1. If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 18 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Michigan.

2. If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because Pellston is the coldest spot in the nation, you might live in Michigan.

3. If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March, you might live in Michigan.

4. If you instinctively walk like a penguin for five months out of the year, you might live in Michigan.

5. If someone in a store offers you assistance, and they don't work there, you might live in Michigan.

6. If your dad's suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, (or at the top of his ankles) you might live in Michigan.

7. If you have worn shorts and a coat at the same time, you might live in Michigan.

8. If your town has an equal number of bars and churches, you might live in Michigan.

9. If you have had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Michigan.

 

Part 2 - You know you're a true MICHIGANDER when...

1. "Vacation" means going up north on I-75

2. You measure distance in hours.

3. You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.

4. You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.

5. You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.

6. You see people wearing camouflage at social events (including weddings).

7. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

8. You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them.

9. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

10. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

11.  You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.

12. You can identify a southern or eastern accent.

13. Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.

14. You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.

15. Down South to you means Ohio.

16. A brat is something you eat.

17. Your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new pole barn.

18. You go out to fish fry every Friday.

19. Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

20. You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

21. You find 0 degrees "a little chilly."

22.  You drink pop and bake with soda.

23. Your doctor tells you to drink Vernors and you know it's not medicine.

24. You can actually drink Vernors without coughing.

25. You know what a Yooper is.

26. You think owning a Honda is Un-American.

27. You know that UP is a place, not a direction.

28. You know it's possible to live in a thumb.

29. You understand that when visiting Detroit, the best thing to wear is a Kevlar vest.

30. You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them t o all your Michigan friends.

 

Have a Nice Day, and a Better tomorrow.....

Jordan

Such a cutie!!

Naughty or Nice?

Take the Naughty or Nice Quiz - Are You Naughty or Nice? at QuizRocket.com!

Home Again

Well, for those of you who care, Janet and I are home again. We drove a total of 1286.7 miles this weekend. (There would've been fewer miles, but we got lost trying to get out of Gary, IN and Chicago on the way home...) WOWSERS! Can we please sleep now?

Rivers, call Janet. She's holding something of yours hostage...please contact her ASAP for details.

Good night, and good luck.

Psychiatry

Tho I feel no real reason to laugh today, here is a good joke...

(I cannot even think of a fake reason to laugh.)

Jerry went to a psychiatrist.  "Doc," he said, "I've got trouble.  Every time I get into bed, I think there's somebody under it.  I'm going crazy!"
"Just put yourself in my hands for one year," said the shrink.  "Come to  me three times a week, and I'll cure your fears."
"How much do you charge?"
"A hundred dollars per visit."
"I'll sleep on it," said Jerry.
Six months later the doctor met Jerry on the street."  Why didn't you ever come to see me again?" asked the psychiatrist.
"For a hundred bucks a visit?  A bartender cured me for $10."
"Is that so!   How?"
"He told me to cut the legs off the bed!  Ain't nobody under there now!"

Where are you, Keith??? Please come home.

Farewell, Angela

Jordan Movies

Also see pictures here.

November Calendar

OH STINK

so, it was decided that we should re-paint the bathroom. a nice green color. (hmmmm...sound like a pattern?) and after a few weeks of bugging dad to get one thing done, suddenly he's gone gung-ho on the whole project and now it is necessary to paint it this weekend, as we are getting less and less of a working bathroom.

first, it was the border coming down. well, then the cabinets got pulled out and the new light fixture appeared one day when i came home form work. and the next day gone were the hooks for towels and now the mirror has gone missing. oh - and the newly installed light fixture is hanging over the middle of the room...by a string. it's s'posed to be on the wall!!

sigh...i was looking forward to an actual weekend of doing nothing. too bad, so sad! none of that for me!!!!

hopefully the sink, toilet and shower will stay intact until we actually do paint, as it would be annoying to have to go upstairs every morning to silently get ready for work. (in the master bathroom. attached to mom and dad's bedroom. where they sleep soundly until janet and i are at work!)

now i must go to bed and dream of the greens to put in the bathroom!

in other news, i'm getting 5 new christmas cds!! yay! if only i could find the rest of my collection....my ipod is waiting impatiently for them!

and i have found a christmas cd that i actually do not like.

let me now change the above statement...i have actually found a relient k cd that i like...their new christmas cd. the last half anyway! i find it quite hard to dislike any christmas cd...

sun ~ stars ~ moon

Do you believe it's true
It all depends on you?
If you were to fall down
We wouldn't know what to do?

I'm a lonely soul
I'm a lonely soul
When I think I'm alone

I want to be the moon 'cause it reflects the sun
Don't want to be the star that shines on everyone
I want to be with you 'cause you're the only one
Who heals my lonely soul

Have you ever got
Everything you want?
Did you fake a grin
And feel you lose when you win?

~ Paul Colman ~

Oh The Huge Manatee

Oh Barbra Manatee (Manatee!), You are the one for me (one for me!)

Mmmmm, Good

My, how I love Voortman Windmill cookies! They changed the shape, tho, which is a little sad, but they still taste just as good!!

 

Body Facts

The human body is a machine that is full of wonder.

- Scientists say the higher your I.Q. the more you dream.

- The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm.

- You use 200 muscles to take one step.

- The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man.

- Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.

- A pair of human feet contains 250,000 sweat glands.

- A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball.

- The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.

- The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica.

- It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

- The average human dream lasts 2-3 seconds.

- At the moment of conception, you spent about half an hour as a single cell.

- There is about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.

- Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil.

- The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.

- Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.

- When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, and they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate.

- Your thumb is the same length of your nose.

At this very moment I know full well you are putting this last fact to the test...now remove your thumb from your nose and pass this on to the friends you think might be interested in comparing their thumbs to their noses as well!

How Do You Get To Heaven?

I was testing the children in my Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting to heaven.

 

I asked them, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?"

 

"NO!" the children answered.

 

"If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?"

 

Again, the answer was, "NO!"

 

By now I was starting to smile.

 

Hey, this was fun!

 

"Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into Heaven?" I asked them again.

 

Again, they all answered, "NO!"

 

I was just bursting with pride for them.

 

"Well," I continued, "then how can I get into Heaven?"

 

A five-year-old boy shouted out,

 

"YOU GOTTA BE DEAD."

Christmas Music

I love Christmas. The giving of gifts, the good food, the music....

I listen to Christmas songs year-round. They are good!! I have 446 Christmas songs on my iPod. That is about half my collection. I was going to add the rest of my songs, but I came upon one tiny little problem.

Alright, so it's actually quite a BIG problem...

All my Christmas music CDs are missing.

It is a sad sad day in my life.

I will have to look for them sometime when I actually have more than 5 minutes to search and I will be buying more CDs this season! Smitty just came out with another AWESOME Christmas CD, and Josh Groban finally released one!! There are also several others on my wish list. :-) Now just to fit them into my budget.............

Pity my co-workers. It is now the season to start playing Christmas music quite regularly at work. :-D And soon, it will be playing 24/7!!!!!

Every Fan's Nightmare

Christmas Time Already!

Our Family Christmas party.
Jordan and Kristina ruled the party. And the food rocked. :-)