Month: June 2015

TODAY THE WORD is TRANQUILITY. After a combination of excitement, stressful, and emotional events in the world, we need a break from the sensitive energy. Let’s reflect on a little tranquility to erase the emotional and stressful divisiveness of our country. When you look at this picture, it has to project a feeling of tranquil surroundings and peace. We need to find a place that is tranquil and let the difficult feelings disappear. 

Once tranquility is reached, peace takes over the mind and we relax. What can a period of tranquility do to enhance our lives? Take a few seconds and stare at the picture and think how if you were sitting on a deck or chair in this environment, what sounds would you hear? What layers of nature would you observe while resting and taking in the view? See, even that few seconds has already affected your breathing by slowing it down. Peaceful, tranquil surroundings are a necessity and not a luxury in our lives. We need to take the time to “smell the roses” and allow our attitudes, demeanor, and character to be as enticing as the roses. 

Now for the deeper thought……Tranquility should accompany our moments of meditation and/or devotional time. We have to separate ourselves from the crowd and allow our minds and souls to become as one with God. I am not talking about our church time, but our private time to talk to God, pray for His Grace, ask forgiveness for any wrongs, and thank Him for our blessings. Reading during this time brings issues and concerns to the forefront and we can ask for help in these things if we need help. Reading can be inspirational and can prepare us for the excitement of life. All in all, the best tranquility can be a simple room, a chair, or a spot in the grass to reflect on the goodness of life. Today, try to make a little time for tranquility and your life will look more peaceful.  (Photo courtesy of Missy Smith Haas)

TODAY THE WORDS are MUD PIES. This post is a re print from a few years ago but I love to revisit my blog posts which take me back to a more peaceful time.With everything going on in the world, I feel like retreating into childhood memories and take a breather from all of the media hype. I am not referring to the only good news of the birth of a new prince (now currently a new princess) for Britain as it was wonderfully refreshing when a married couple planned and had a beautiful addition to their family. Of course, the baby will never want for anything, but I wish it love and a stable home life, and maybe a somewhat normal life. Now, let’s take a break from all of the fireworks of life and go back to when a big event was making mud pies. For any of you who are not going to own up to making them, oh come on! Most of us did!

I had a “kitchen” made up from abandoned bricks which I formed into rooms and built up some of them to make a stove. I see why I love to bake and cook; I started my chef experience at an early age. No, we didn’t have the store bought kitchen with the bright appliances the children who were more financially advantaged. I never gave it a thought and off to mud pies, I went. I would turn on the water hose, make a little puddle and go to work. I made excellent mud pies, or at least I thought so. I took pride in them making sure the edges were smooth and rounded. They had to have the right consistency and in my make shift oven they went. My Sister would help, but now that I think about it, she was not into the mud pies like me and I have always known she never liked cooking. Maybe, now I am on to something scientific, ha, ha. If we have more mud pie cooking contests, we might find our future cooks and chefs. Maybe it is in the genes after all or is it the experience of trying to get them just right which develops our skills? It is something to think about for a few seconds. What did you do with your “baked” mud pies? I don’t think I ever tried to eat them but somehow, that leaves my memory. I proudly displayed them until one of my brothers or friends decided to throw them at each other or me. I see a trend coming out of this too; boys have to have a goal of what to do with the finished food; if not edible, throw it! Oh yes, I am learning from the mud pies memory. 

Now for the deeper thought……On mud pies, you ask?…….There are lessons in life in everything we

do. However trivial, God is teaching us in every event or trial in life as to how we can learn and thrive. Simple things are usually the best lessons and we need to listen to life as we are experiencing it. Life is an elevator and we have to punch the right buttons to get to the right floor; but how many times have you started to get off on another floor because others started to move toward the door? I have! It is the same at a traffic light; the lane on the left turn lane starts to move and you have to resist the urge to move too. With mud pies in life, it is important to get the right consistency and sometimes you produce something you just need to throw away since it doesn’t have a good taste. Live life, love life and live life to the fullest (stop once in a while and make some mud pies and get ready to pitch them for a little fun).

DAILY FEATURED BIBLE VERSE:

TODAY THE WORD is CORNY. At least I am going to have some fun with this post. I come from this time and I think it is ironic the word “corny” has become corny in today’s vocabulary. 

According to the Free Dictionary, corny is defined as: corn·y  (kôrn) adj. corn·i·er, corn·i·est

TODAY THE WORDS are LOVE ME, LOVE ME NOT.  Not too long ago, on my quirky quotes, I wrote, “We can give love; we can accept love; we cannot force someone to love us!” It seemed to get a large response and the childhood game of pulling daisy petals and each one counted, Love Me and the next one counted as Love Me Not and whichever petal you pulled off in the last pull was the answer. If life would only be that simple and we could tell who was going to love us or who were not. Love is such a miraculous event. We experience different kinds of love throughout our lifetime so let’s see how the love machine works. 

As babies, we are in awe of our parents who furnish our needs and they are usually quite entertaining; they sing, they talk some kind of language (thinking they are speaking our language); they make faces (some don’t need to do that as they are already funny looking). We fall in love with our parents because we can tell they love us and they’re willing to do almost anything for us. That is natural parent-child love and will normally bond them for life. As children, we discover puppy love and I am not talking about animal love (which comes about this same time and probably why it is called puppy love). We have crushes and innocent love for a friend and we use the word love without knowing what love entails. Puppy love lasts temporarily and goes from friend to friend. As teenagers, we start “falling in love” and as adults, we understand why it is called “falling” due to most teenagers falling for someone only to find out they “love” someone else. Sometimes, it is the other one have to experience the “fall”. If we are fortunate, after the teen years, we find our mate with love of a more mature lasting fiber. We make the decision that our love is forever and usually marry. 

What I am wanting to go deeper in thought is……..Along the way, we have normally experienced no matter what we do, there will be someone that no matter how good we were to them, no matter how hard we tried, no matter how deep our feelings were, and no matter how we gave it our all; they did not love us. This is probably the hardest thing to accept; it is true that not everyone will love you. It is okay if they don’t; move on to your full life. The exception to this philosophy is “God loves everyone of us”.

TODAY THE WORDS are WHEN DREAMS REALLY COME TRUE. This post is not to brag as I feel humbled if anything by one of my dreams coming true. More than my dream of seeing a book I wrote being published, I want to speak to everyone who has had a dream and felt they could not go for that dream for a lot of reasons. I have received several friends contacting me by private message sharing the dreams they have and curious as to what it would take to make their dreams a reality. “To dream is wonderful, but to wake up and make it happen is what life wants us to do.”

I would like to share a couple of stories with you. The first one being my own snippet. When I was a young adult, I loved to write poetry. Some of them seemed to be very promising; some not so much.

I wrote occasionally but found myself with some other loves and interest and life surrounded me with tasks of having the blessing of being a Mother and Wife. I became wrapped up in being Suzy Homemaker. I would write a poem once in a while, but I made the statement to several people, “One day I will write a book.” Note: I didn’t put myself out on a long limb by avoiding “best seller”. Years went on; the thought lingered.

One day, I started to think about a story line and long story short; I started writing. It wasn’t a poem but a book. I am not going to go through the lengthy process of my time mostly spent working for a living but I will tell you this. It was years before I seriously said, “This story is a good story and I need to finish the book. I changed my work schedule to accommodate a longer weekend and I got serious about finishing it. You now see in the pictures, “A Mistress, A Wife” by Arline Miller. Someone asked me was I going to use a pen name. My answer was “No, I wanted to write a book and I want my name on there.”  I had a dream. It took a long time, but once I started to make it happen; it did!

I have an uncle who has invented many great inventions, Cecil Holt. I remember him showing me the prototype for Holt’s Nut wizard and telling me he had dreamed it. Several other things have come to him in dreams. It is his mind working even when he is sleeping figuring it out. He amazes me.

Now for the deeper thought…. Before you start thinking, wow they are something; I want to share another idea. We are only using gifts we have been given by God; not ourselves. God was telling me by my poems he had blessed me with the ability to write. Oh, God saved the blessing of singing talent to others but definitely not me. God grants us hidden gifts and there is only difference between the ones who dream and wake up and make it happen and those who only dream but are scared to try to live their dreams is some of us find those hidden gifts and use them. God is the writer; God is the singer; God is the artist; and God is the inspiration behind everything. Find your gift; thank Him for your gift; and use it is my hope and dreams for all of you.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. 

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . …… . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof… Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive… So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

(NOTE: There was no reference to give credit for the original list when it was shared)

Now for the deeper thought…..I thought when I read this list of how we sometimes take our lifestyle and all of the modern day conveniences and technology for granted. I want to be aware of each blessing I receive whether it be big or small. I want to remember any blessing which may seem small is still quite large when some people are “piss poor”. Have a wonderful day and enjoy a laugh or two.

TODAY THE WORDS are A GOOD NITECAP. I am sure some of my friends are scratching their heads since most people who know me understand I don’t drink anymore. I never was much of a drinker as the taste never appealed to me. I don’t advocate drinking but that is a personal choice so I leave that decision to everyone. This message is directed to a different “nitecap” so if I may elaborate, I will relay what I mean by A Good Nitecap. 

I purposely misspelled nightcap for this post. The reason I did is my intention is a different kind of nightcap I want to call Nitecap.  When we prepare to go to bed and sleep, we could use a good “nitecap” but maybe I need to explain what the ingredients would be in this “good nitecap”. 

1) First ingredient is to cleanse our body from all worldly grime and filth. (Washing in the blood of Jesus)

2) Rinse all bad words from our mouth. (Use the River of Life to gargle and spit out any words unpleasing to God)

3) Get into a pose better than Down Dog yoga pose by lowering the body to a kneeling position (Pray with humbleness of submissiveness)

4) Stir your soul with the spoon of God’s mercy. (Stirring the soul requires action to make sure the ingredients of life are well blended)

5) Pour into your life’s glass. (Talking about mixing God into your life is good; Inserting Him into all parts of your life is tasty.

6) Drink the entire nitecap. (This requires swallowing the entire concept of allowing God to infiltrate you, your heart and soul).

Wow, what a nitecap! I had one last night when the toils of life had been laid on my heart for someone who may have lost their life still gripped by sin. I want to live in a way, no one will be heavily hearted when I die. They will drink a “good nitecap” and toast my life. 

Now for the deeper thought…..Life is serious and even though we can have moments of sweet joy and fun; we need to be conscious of the end of day and each night, have a “good nitecap” of God’s love and grace. A toast of Godly Love to you is my wish for each of you reading this blog.

TODAY THE WORD is PLEASE! I am known to be straight forward in my mannerisms, but I was brought up with manners. I have said in many posts that our family was certainly not in the upper middle class and were average in a lot of things. What we had that I see absent in so many homes now, are manners, southern hospitality, kindness and generosity. Our parents might have had their differences and they divorced, but I felt more unison between them to teach us to be respectful not only to them, but to others. We were taught the words “thank you”; you’re welcome”; and very importantly “please”. How many times do you hear these words in today’s society? Not very many if you have been going to the same places I have been lately. What happened to “please”? Was it an ugly word to ask someone nicely to do something? Did it take anything away from us when we asked someone in a pleasant tone?  I looked up please to see if I could find it as it must have gotten lost. 

Here is what I found:

please /plēz/

Verb Cause to feel happy and satisfied: “he arranged a fishing trip to please his son”.

Adverb Used in polite requests or questions.

There it is, and now we can use this “pretty” word again and teach our young people to say it too. There is so much violence and anger in this world and we need pretty words again. In other words, we need kind words and we need kindness. We need polite words and we need politeness. We need happy words and we need happiness. We need pleasing words and we need to please others. Children learn from their parents and their friends; therefore, we have a big responsibility. As my parents, and I am sure a lot of my friends are going to agree, we were taught to use these words but we were taught to be respectful. How many of you remember, “Pretty please” when we really asked in earnest? Today, may we please be nicer to each other, pretty please! Now for the deeper thought…. In an attempt to be flexible, I understand some people will differ and say this is old fashioned. They might express the desire for their children to make up their minds whether to say something or whether to say anything that comes to their mind. One thing to think about the next time your child screams at you, shouts profanities, or insults someone else. What does that say about your skills to bring up a child in love but worthy of teaching some discipline in communication skills. Live Life; Love Life; and Live Life to the fullest by filling your children with a reason to shine. DAILY FEATURED BIBLE VERSE: Proverbs 31:26           She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. (c) copyright 2012 Arline Lott Miller. The material here copyrighted, use only by permission.

TODAY THE WORDS are NEW IS NEWS! I woke up this morning feeling pretty doggone good. It is Saturday, the graphic designer is finalizing the draft for my upcoming novel, we are cleaning out the office drawers for our weekend project, the graphics for the children’s book I have written are almost complete, and again, did I say it was Saturday? So, what does any of this have to do with the topic of NEW is NEWS? I feel a lot of times we fall into the old as in old routine, old habits, old same old same old if you get my drift?

Let me see if I can bring this topic to light? Being humans as we are, we find ourselves waking up in the morning and following the same pattern as we do every day. Maybe we go to the bathroom; jump on the scales only to wish we hadn’t done that; we have routine personal hygiene tasks; we get coffee or other drinks to get going; we either eat or think we shouldn’t; some like me spend time in devotionals; some like me spend time on Social Media; and the list goes on and on. I think you see what I am focusing on…..we tend to do the same things day in and day out with a few exceptions.

Is this a good idea to stay on the same routine every day or should we break out and do something new occasionally to break the mold? I wonder if an exercise of change would help our spirits and create a new attitude. Let us contemplate what could we do differently. I will give the ladies an example of how a change can affect our attitudes. I am not one to change hairstyles very often or more exactly, hardly ever; I have friends however, who change not only the style but the color every other month. I have decided this may be more therapeutic than cosmetic but it seems to have a great effect on the attitude. We see the numerous posts with every angle of the head and read all of the posts for confirmation this was a good decision. 

Now for the deeper thought…..I wonder if we should consider changing the attitude first to a NEW one. Even though getting our nails done, trying a new hair style, getting a change in wardrobe is such a great feeling; changing our attitude to a higher altitude may be the best NEWS ever. Smiling, laughing, caring, being compassionate, opening our minds both to concept and learning, and finding a way to breeze through the day is the best accessory we can put on our bodies. LIVE LIFE, LOVE LIFE, AND LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST by finding a NEW WAY to START YOUR DAY!

TODAY THE WORD is TRAPS.  This morning, I had the thought of how trappers set traps to catch the animals. These traps are usually cruel entrapment and a lot of suffering occurs before death. I am not speaking this morning for animal rights (protective advocates are actively seeking protection for this practice). I want to talk about a different kind of trap…..the human trap we set for ourselves. Bear with me, as you know I am a positive person and my thoughts will lead us there in a few minutes.