Good News Friday

It's New Year's Eve!

As you can see, the tree is gone. I usually keep the tree up until Epiphany or sometimes just after the New Year, depending on the condition of the tree.

Last night however, around 11:00 pm, we were chatting with Sarah after having watched a movie. They weren't working today so it was no big rush to get to bed. I happen to look at the dove tree topper and there are bugs on it! 

Can you guess? Baby preying mantis. Oh NO! 

Well, we quickly took the decorations, lights and ribbon off the tree and took it outside. We worked fast!

This year was one in which many things were revealed about our government, our judiciary, our congress. We found out for sure, as many of us had suspected, that many in both parties were corrupt. That it didn't matter if you had a D or an R after your name. Many are of the very same mindset.

We learned that though you can prove corruption, unless you can get a judge to hear the case and all the evidence, it won't go anywhere.

We learned that our media is the mouthpiece for the deep state. We learned that those who run social media are also complicit, as they sensor anything or anyone who goes against the narrative that they want you to believe.

All of these things we've learned have woken people up. Much of the forced cov*d mandates, the inflation, the mess with leaving Afghanistan have woken people up.

This is not just an issue for the US. This is worldwide. People are awake.

This is good news.

JB has been a failure as a president and even mainstream news magazines are reporting on it. You can read one{here}. You can also read a statement about his presidency {here}. It's laid out well and easy to read.

This week a jury found Ghislane Maxwell guilty of five of the six counts she was charged with. 

This is good news.

The victims of her heinous behavior, along with Jeffrey Epstein, have been vindicated. However, JE was not the only one who abused many of these victims. There are many others, some very well known, who have not been charged. This was not simply a high end prostitution ring. These were underage young women. By definition children. Those other abusers need to be made known.

It is interested that while the judge has sealed much of the information regarding some of these issues, I've read that there has been grand jury work since JE was arrested, that perhaps is using this information and therefore it needs to remain secret for now. We'll see if this is true.

I do know that there are reports that Prince Andrew's lawyers called an emergency meeting after GM's guilty verdict came out.

I don't know if you have seen the information yet, but the CDC has been changing all of their guidelines for isolating, etc. Many of the 'rules' the promoted for the last year, are now changed. In fact it seems like guidelines for cold and flu season. Hmmm. {here}   

It is interesting with the new variant that many people are becoming sick, but not very ill. Flu like symptoms or the common cold.

A friend sent me this video yesterday from a funeral home director in the UK. He speaks about what he is seeing these days.

I want to clarify a few things.

I use the term 'jab' instead of vaccine because of censorship. In person I say vaccine. 

I have deep concerns over the 'jab' but I will defend your right as an American citizen to take it if you so choose. I have a daughter and son in law who have taken it. I know others who have as well. None of the people I know personally have had major side effects, and I pray they don't ever have any.

What should concern us is the desire to force everyone to take it. In the beginning they said it would keep you from getting cov*d. Now they say it mitigates your symptoms. This is hard to know because for many people cov*d has been very mild - that has been our experience, even with my parents who are elderly and have several of the 'comorbidities.'

If you can still get the virus and still pass it, why force the 'jab?' We who have had it and recovered have good, robust immunity!

I think the year ahead will show that much of what was done to fight the virus were basically unnecessary.

The New Year is ahead, and I am still full of hope and even excited by possibilities for the future. So much of what the Dems have tried to pass, or mandate have ended up not happening. Don't be afraid.

Happy New Year Friends!

Gifts Received And An Anniversary

 I wanted to share a few gifts I received for Christmas.

We used a name generator to determine who was going to give gifts to whom this year. Wes and I tend to get each other, not usually in the same year, but he got me again this year.

I gave him a list of things I was interested in. Several books, and this paint by numbers kit. You can find it {here}.

They have some very nice choices but I chose the peonies. Is anyone surprised by that? (grin)

My friend Kim, from Exquisitely Unremarkable blog has done several of these kinds of paintings, and it was her paintings that made me want to give it a try! This {link} will take you to several of her posts about the paintings. I can't wait to start, but I know that I need to have an uninterrupted period of time to start it for my own enjoyment. It will not be done in a day, so that will make for a nice winter project!

I also received a special gift from Nate and Kay.

It is think and smooth and beautiful! I don't know if I'll be able to chop things on it! But I did use it as a charcuterie board already! I put two layers of parchment on it!
 

I want to close today with a short video of the snow falling Monday morning.

It was lovely.

Now to the anniversary!

Today marks 6 years of marriage for our daughter Emma and our sil Vinnie! Such wonderful memories of your beautiful wedding, and lots of happy times with you and your sweet kids now! Love you!

I also want to thank you all for your thoughtful comments on yesterday's post. These past nearly two years have been very painful and heartbreaking for our nation and the world. That is fact, regardless of what we think about the virus. 

Also if you purchase a paint by numbers through the link, I get a little bit of compensation.

A Comment And Some Questions

I received a comment, on a post from last week, from a reader who has commented in the past. Her comments have always been kind and this one is as well. She's just had quite the experience with Cov*d and knows others who have as well.

Jo said this:

"Please don’t take Covid or its effects lightly, my daughter had it twice, the first time she was really sick and lost her sense of smell for six months, more disabling that you would realise. The second time at the end of pregnancy and my granddaughter was born very sick and needed iv antibiotics. I had it early on and developed sepsis and total organ failure, I was a fit and well fifty six year old and I now have severe heart failure and needed a device fitted plus lots of drugs to keep me alive. My friend’s sister also had it twice and died the second time. It’s upsetting when people talk about it being just a virus or like a bad cold when my life has been completely ruined by it. Also if you study up on ivermectin, long term use can cause liver failure so it’s not some wonderful solution. No bad feelings but it’s not something to just be brushed aside. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your nearest and dearest."

Jo is a no-reply commenter and I cannot respond personally to her, but Jo if you read this know that I am very sorry for what you have experienced with this virus, and I will pray for you. It is not that I take it lightly, but I believe that this virus is not being treated in a way that truly helps those who have bad cases of it.

Your comment, along with research I have done, has lead me to some questions. I'd appreciate it so much if you all would comment and answer these questions.

1. Did you have cov*d and if so, what was your illness like?

2. Did you take any of the supplements that are recommended such as zinc, quercetin, vitamin c, vitamin d? Did you take hcq or ivermectin?

3. Do you know anyone who has been hospitalized with cov*d?

4. Do you know anyone who has died as a result of cov*d only?

5. Were they jabbed?

6. Have you been jabbed? 

7. Have you had both shots and the booster?

8. Do you wear a mask? 

Friends, I appreciate you all. I, personally, have grave concerns regarding the jab, but I believe strongly in your right to take it if you chose to do so. I do not believe in forcing the jab or in punishing those who chose to not take it.

Dr. Peter McCullough estimates that VAERS (vaccine adverse events reporting system) is underreported by a factor of '4 to 5.' However here is the latest numbers that VAERS has published.

983,756 Adverse Events

108,572 Hospitalizations

107,869 Urgent Care

12,317 Bell's Palsy

10,429 Heart Attacks

20,560 Myocarditis

34,615 Permanently Disabled

20,622 Deaths

Yesterday I read about a lot of people who have died recently. They were not all elderly, they were not all in bad health. Many were in good health. Several of the write ups mentioned that they had recently had their booster, but not all did. You can read {here}about a reporter for the New York Times died Friday at age 49.

In Europe, in four different countries, they lost four footballers to heart attacks this past week! There is over a hundred that have died in this last year, many collapsing on the field. The leagues are concerned but no one will mention the one thing they all have in common. The jab. You can read about one of the players deaths {here}.

Here in the US, basketball teams are starting to use their unjabbed players because their jabbed ones have come down with cov*d. One player said that the league has stopped testing their jabbed players, so they are only out of the game if they are sick, not asymptomatic. The healthy unjabbed players were benched, and have to be tested multiple times a week. Does this make sense?

All of these issues have me questioning many things.

We know someone who died of  pneumonia related to cov*d. He had a predisposition to lung issues, and was only offered the standard treatment. He was the father of 11 children, some still quite young. We are grieved over his loss!

This story is amazing! This man visiting family in the US contracted cov*d and was given the standard treatment as he got worse. His family fought in the courts, against the hospital, to allow him to receive ivermectin since he was dying. He recovered! {here}

Ivermectin is not needed long term for cov*d. The treatment is only about 5 days. Usually the patient is better before the week is up.  

{Here}is an article on our bodies making antibodies for decades after recovering from the virus.

When the Great Barrington Declaration came out last year, I thought it was a sensible way to handle the virus. You can read about it {here}. The names of the doctors and scientists who've signed it show they are top in their fields. Many have had their reputations destroyed and careers ruined over it.

I have so many concerns. Friends, I don't mean for this post to divide us. I'm praying for everyone about this whole situation. I want the truth to be known, but I am also afraid that many won't be able to handle the truth.

If you'll answer my posted questions, I'd appreciate it!

Christmas Weekend!

 What a lovely weekend we had!

Friday started with Tim, my dad, and I headed to the store to get a new phone for me and my dad.

We both were using our iPhone 6s' and while mine was working well, Tim was concerned that it was very out of date and not supported any longer. So Merry Christmas to me!

source

Of course, I chose red! The camera on this phone is incredible and I did use it some on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but I confess I didn't take many photos.

My Dad got a iPhone 12 mini. He loves technology and has always had a computer and cell phone from the time these things became available! He said he needed to upgrade his phone because my mom upgraded hers months ago and she always needs help doing things and his phone was older than hers! Now that he's learning his, he'll be able to help her more! This is very funny and true!

After getting our phones, we had to make a stop at the grocery store, and while Tim ran in quickly, Dad and I played with our phones.

I love learning about my camera on the phone its very nice as you'll see in the following photos.

Me in the car trying out filters and the portrait setting!

Then we were off to meet the family and some friends at Fuddruckers! The birthday boy was being celebrated! I love how much he enjoys this time every year. I didn't take any photos but I enjoyed talking with friends, and my kids, and seeing all of them have fun together!

Then we came home, and relaxed for a while. We put together a Charcuterie board with crackers, cheeses, meats, pretzels, nuts, and grapes. This took the place of dinner, and when people arrived toward evening, it was all ready. We opened stockings and then later those who would not be together on Christmas day exchanged gifts. We draw names among the adults.

A lovely time was had by all. 

Christmas Day we slept in (we have no small children to wake us up early!). When I got up, I put together a breakfast casserole and we made some cinnamon rolls from the can!

The breakfast casserole is simple - 

I put frozen tater tots in a greased 9x13 pan then I whisked 6 eggs into 2 cups of milk, added salt and pepper to taste and poured it over the tots. I topped it with grated cheddar cheese and baked it for 45 minutes covered with foil, and then about 15 minutes uncovered! We all enjoyed it! You can add meat to it, just precook the meat. I made a second one Saturday night, and Tim popped it into the oven Sunday morning for breakfast! Yum!

We ate brunch on Christmas Day, opened gifts, played Quirkle, opened a few more gifts when Nate, Kayleigh, and the girls arrived.

I put a ham in the oven and when it was done, people could eat when they felt hungry. Kayleigh works in a deli so she brought potato salad and macaroni salad, and we had lots of left over crackers and cheeses and meats, and lots of sweet treats. It was an easy food day, which is what I like on Christmas.

Look at all those Quirkles!

I will show you the incredible cutting board Nate and Kayleigh gave me when I get a chance to photograph it, but here are two books I received as gifts. I also got new charging cords for my phone and Ipad, and a grown up paint by numbers kit!

I enjoy the Tea Shop Mystery books by Laura Childs and was so happy to receive her latest book!

I've been enjoying looking through this wonderful book by Miss Mustard Seed! I've long enjoyed her blog and Instagram account. This book focuses on how you can make your home unique to you! I love this, as I am not a fan of cookie cutter houses!

Can you tell by this photo that my grand girlies have been in my home?

We are so thankful for the gift of Jesus, God in the flesh, coming to live among us, and to die for our sins. What a dark place the world is, and Oh, how we need Him! 

We have borne some hard things this last month, but as I said to Tim, "I am wounded, but I am not destroyed." God's grace has carried me through, and will continue to carry us and give us the grace we need to give to those who've done the wounding.

I'd love to hear about your Christmases! 

Tomorrow, I want to talk about a comment I received on my last post and do a bit of a poll. I am very curious about statistics and love doing research, so come back tomorrow and participate!

Christmas Traditions

 As most people do, we have our family traditions around the holiday.

Tim's birthday is Christmas Eve so we are always careful to celebrate him, before we transition to our Christmas celebration. To celebrate we always go out to lunch at Fuddrucker's. We invite friends to join us, and it is a fun time. The restaurant is rarely crowded and we take up a big portion of it. We hang out for several hours. The grands begging quarters of everyone to get stuff from the machines, and lots of talking goes on. We order brownies and cookies for dessert and the guys make a coffee run to the McDonald's next door!

Christmas Eve always used to include watching The Nativity Story, but now we often don't include a movie. In the evening I have plans for a Charcuterie board, and we will open stockings. I'm glad everyone joins in with putting items in the stockings because it was getting expensive to buy for so many.

At our kids request we draw names now for the grown up's gifts. I have Kyle this year. Tim and I always buy gifts for all of our kids, and my parents and our grands.

Most of the time its gift cards for the adults, unless they are our person we draw. 

Every time we have a new grand I also buy them their Christmas stocking. 

Here is Kennedy's stocking.

Emma is having a baby girl. She is due at the end of February but with stockings on a great sale right now, Emma and I picked out baby's stocking.

This is off the Pottery Barn Kids website and not the name of Emma's baby, but this is the stocking she chose for her wee girl!

Here are all the stockings in the family minus Emma's family stockings. This also includes our friend Denny. He has a stocking here too!

Christmas Day is relaxed. We eat some kind of breakfast casserole, or cinnamon rolls, and then open gifts. Later in the day, the married kids drop in and we open more gifts. 

Wes and Rachel usually go to his side of the family in the afternoon on Christmas Day. One of his Aunts hosts a potluck meal for all who gather. This year they are required to be either jabbed or tested before they come! 

I hope you celebrate with your loved ones this year. Life is short. We need to be together.

Here is some interesting news. 

Isn't that great! Just like with all other viruses! 

Do not fear friends!

Beautiful Things

 

Today I am sharing beautiful things I've found this Christmas season.

First up is an aerial drone video of my beautiful Lancaster County. The 717 Drone Guys have put out a gorgeous video.

After decorating sugar cookies with Rachel and our friend Faith (Rachel's sister in law) I am obsessed with all the gorgeous cookies out there!

source

source

source

source

Longwood Gardens is a beautiful place year round but especially at Christmas! Here is a video taken during the day, mostly in the Conservatory.

One year I'd love to see the angels on Regent Street in London!

Here is a lovely video visit with Kirsten and Joerg to Chatsworth at Christmas!

Here is the beautiful Good News for all!

Weekend

 This weekend was so much fun!

Saturday morning, Tim and I and my parents went to breakfast at Tim's brother's house. Dan, Sharon, and their daughter Carrie treated us to a feast. Southern style biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, bacon, and  waffles. Sharon knows how to make great biscuits and gravy as her mother was from Alabama. Delicious!

We stayed until early afternoon, celebrating being together, and the joy of this season. They will be going to Colorado for Christmas with one of their daughters. Another daughter will fly to meet them from Florida. They are looking forward to a wonderful time together.

In the afternoon, Tim drove down to BWI to pick up Sarah. She is home for a few weeks now on break from her small Bible School. It's so wonderful to have her home.

We had our Christmas service yesterday at church. Afterward we had a time of fellowship with cookies and hot cocoa or coffee. It was fun. We then came home to a yummy lunch.

My parents thought they had a roast, and so I put it in the crock pot  (Tim and I thought it was perhaps ribs) Saturday night, and by morning we knew it was ribs! It was labelled a roast however by the butcher.

The meat fell off the bones, so I simply added cut up potatoes, baby carrots, and two packets of dry onion soup mix in the crock pot with the meat. By the time we got home from church it was all ready to eat and it was very good.

Wes and Rachel joined us for the afternoon and that was fun, too. We talked, people napped, some played 'Can Jam', and we watched a movie.

I may not do a regular Good News Friday this week, as Friday is not only Christmas Eve, but Tim's birthday. I thought I may just do bits of good news during the week.

Here is your good news for today.

Over the weekend, DJT did some events with Bill O'Reilly in Texas. Sunday morning he attended First Baptist Church in Dallas, and was given the chance to give a Christmas greeting. Here is some of what he said. These are slides someone made online, and that is why there is differing size fonts and spacing.

I found this very encouraging.  

Did you have a good weekend?

Good News Friday

 Rachel and her sister in law Faith, made Christmas cookies at our house yesterday! It was the best of both worlds for me, as I got to help decorate without having to do the work of making all the cookies! They made molasses dipped in white chocolate, monster cookies, m&m cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and sugar.

Some are for gifts, and some are for our church, which is having cookies between services tomorrow and then caroling in an over 55 neighborhood near our church, and giving away cookies, this next week.

I did this cookie yesterday, amongst others. 

Faith had never decorated sugar cookies (missionary kid who grew up in Indonesia), but her cookies were all winners!

She looked up designs on her phone and tried them out! Amazingly good job!

Good and interesting news abounds so lets get to it!

Bid*n's Build Back Better plan is on hold until next year at least. Read about that {here}. 

This is good news, as I believe it shows that people are paying attention. The variant is not deadly - the UK has had one death with Omicron. This means that a person died but not from the virus. They had the virus but died of something else. The US played this game last year to stoke fears and bump up numbers.

I'm reading many places that the variant has hit mostly the jabbed. Read about that {here}.

Arizona News - 

Interesting that these two CEO's are leaving their positions soon.

This man is the Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the Department of State.

When DJT was in office they were concerned with kids being trafficked over the border. An adult and child coming over the border together were temporarily separated until the US could determine if the adult and child were family. Often the adult would not stay around for the results. That meant a lot of kids left and the government had to try to find their parents in the country of origin.

There was a big push this year to give settlements to these people in the form of $450,000 each!

Troubling news coming out of CNN. Frist we had Chris Cuomo, being fired for accusations of sexual harrassment (this on top of stuff he did trying to help his brother with his own sexual harrassment charges). Then we had the arrest of a producer, who worked with Chris Cuomo, being arrested for child sex crimes. You can read about that {here}. Another troubling story about that {here}. Apparently he'd been under investigation for quite a while, and yet allowed to be around children.

Now we have another CNN producer accused of fantasizing about his fiances daughter. The link I'm sharing has a video but you don't have to watch or listen to it. I didn't as I saw a brief clip from another source and didn't even finish the clip. Link to story {here}.

After years of pushing fake news, I think CNN should shut down. They have no credibility. We know they lie, we know their anchors are pushing agendas. This is a propaganda channel not news.

Elon Musk has been in a spat with Senator Elizabeth Warren, where she basically accused him of not paying taxes and freeloading off 'everyone.' Which if rich coming from here who has freeloaded by claiming to be Native American. Read about his response {here}. I'm not sure about Elon but lately he has been speaking truth. And I find it interesting that when the Bid*n administration held a green summit, he was not invited. The founder of Tesla, not invited. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

I liked this cartoon I saw this week.

In personal news, my girl Sarah comes home tomorrow! I can't wait to hug her tight.

I have a bit more shopping to do. Anyone else? Yikes! Mostly gift cards, but I need a few extra things for Tim whose birthday is Christmas Eve!

I hope you are enjoying these season. I'm grateful that in spite of circumstances, we can celebrate with joy, the coming of Jesus.

I love this song.

I also wanted to share this song with you

That's the real good news! 

Happy Weekend!