Cal Ripken World Series - Go Team!

Have you ever wondered what a "soccer mom" does when the world series comes to town? You guessed it, I've been hauling kids back and forth to whatever event is happening next. And now there's a deck to measure and build, a door to replace, and the world is getting busier and busier.

Valley National Bank Field is running the official call for weather. It's canceled! The world will never be the same, but there it is, postponed for the night.

But that's okay - if you want to hear what the Cal Ripkin 10-year-old World Series is doing in Lamar, Colorado, just visit the site, click on the link.

The best part, I get the night off to put my feet up and pretend I'm interested in whatever the kids are watching on Television. It's okay, I've got a Ben & Jerry's double dip chocolate fudge Ice Cream and my spoon to keep me company!

Oris, Life Sucks...

Or not. I'm actually having a good day. Mom bended my ear for three hours earlier today. Then you called, THANK YOU! She called me back to repeat her earlier stories. I listened through the nasty details time one, laid the phone down and went to stir the soup during the second time, the third time I laid the phone down and went to get my bowl of soup. The forth time, I just laid the phone down and typed on my book. The fifth time she started into it, I said, "Mom, I'm going to ban you from the phone when it's meal time." She got off the line in a huff. I can't imagine why.

It's all a conspiracy, I tell you. It's the motherhood (my girls will agree - we won't ask my boys).

I don't have hives today. My cough is actually sounding a little less hacky. My throat doesn't hurt and my eyes aren't bloodshot. I may live.

Sean actually got up a little before noon and has more than one article of clothing on his body (of course, I threatened to walk around shirtless with my underwear sticking out if he didn't get dressed - such a sight - could cause a boy to go blind).

Kenton took a shower (we're still looking for it) and sounds better this morning. Of course, he hasn't lifted his face out of the book since he opened the cover, so we haven't heard much of him.

The girls haven't called me yet today, probably don't want to talk to me... Really, a good thing for them. I need to find bitch mode and turn it off. I'll be back to something simulating normal, soon.

Charger

"In GOD we trust..."

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A New Beginning - Time to Rethink Values

In my 49 years of living, I've never before doubted the ability of this nation to survive and overcome the tragedies that have befallen us. People have held together and stood strong against the turmoil of danger, against nature, and even against terrorism until now.

At laser speed, the last presidential election was taken by a man who holds no value in this great land. His efforts thus far have been to destroy the country I've grown up in and love. His stance on foreign policy has been apologetic and critical of the people he's sworn to uphold and represent. On numerous occasions, he's stooped to levels below treason, daring to apologize for the people of this nation who stood and fought on foreign soil for FREEDOM, LIBERTY and JUSTICE, the very foundation of the country in which we live.

I see a man who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, shredding it, tearing it to pieces by behavior so unbelievable by the masses that they're often left speechless by his actions. I've heard this man demoralize our troops in his words and deeds, blatantly criticizing people who fought for this country, and read page after page of his idiotic schemes to right the wrongs he perceives through the destruction of our liberty.

It's been said that those who are not for him, supporting and encouraging his actions are against him, terrorists against the nation. This is untrue. The terrorist is the man who is leading this nation and the people who trust him into sure and unfaltering failure at the hands of those who have decried their antagonism and hatred for the people of America for generations.

Freedom of Speech is our First Amendment Right under the Constitution of the United States of America, and yet, so few are standing up against the terrorism that is happening right here under our noses. So few are willing to hold onto the values our forefathers set before us when they wrote and died themselves, for the Declaration of Independence and all that it stands for. In this nation where greatness is a privilege offered to every person born under the Stars and Stripes to which we pledge our allegiance and pronounce our trust in the God, the Creator of this Land, people have forgotten the reason why their fathers, brothers, uncles and grandfathers died. Join the 9-12 Project and get involved in the RIGHTING of the Wrongs being done to this nation.

We who know what this nation stands for have allowed the few who cry louder to stop our children from praying in our schools. We've allowed them to rewrite the history our children read and remove from the pages of books the importance of holding tight to the resource of Faith as we strive to protect our Freedom, Liberty and Justice. We the people of this nation have allowed others to step into our midst and threaten to remove "In God We Trust" from our structure.

It is time, people.... It is time to stand up and be counted as soldiers for the Cross of Jesus Christ, and pursue the righteous RIGHTS bestowed upon us by God, the inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution of these United States of America. It is time to stand up and hold tight the values of the forefathers of our United States and stop the foolish cohortation of our President with Terrorists who threaten to undermine our Constitution and our Values. This is a call to action, prayer warriors, to encourage you to start right now, praying for the leaders of this nation and standing on the values you know are right.

We have time to turn this ship against the storm of socialism bearing down on us, but we must act today!

Dreams of Grandeur and Eloquence

Somewhere in the past life dealt out a different set of parameters. I don't know when it changed, but it did most definitely change. I remember when I first began to realize the changes, I was sitting on the park bench with Rick and we were talking about the future. He wanted to run the ranch, and I wanted to work with children. My dream was teaching Bible School, Youth Activities, and Youth Group - and he wanted to help me with that on the weekends. We planned to have a ministry "on the side" because ranching was his primary interest.

Back then I didn't have children. I was dedicated to pursuing life before I had a family. My primary concern was being married to the best looking Rancher I'd ever met and living happily ever after.

One stormy night he left to get home the next day in time to work roundup and didn't make it home. Within a few minutes of the time he left me sitting on the front step of my home, he had a head on collision with a truck, and our dreams were shattered. Many hours, I've looked back on that night and wondered, would life have been different had I agreed to pack my things and go with him, or would I have died in that accident too?

Either way, my dreams changed that night. My life changed that night. The future looked a bit different, because I'd known Rick, but even more... because we'd shared our dreams. Since that time, my dreams of teaching Bible School, working with Youth Groups and many other opportunities of teaching Bible to children have come to pass. I know and understand where I belong in life and I understand the concept of Faith. I know where my faith comes from, and how it applies to my life.

That understanding has brought me through the valleys to the peak of the mountain many times, as I wade through the trials and disillusions that exist in my world. That understanding has given me hope and peace.

I'm not alone. I have my family and friends. I have the neighbors and people of my community around me. And I have a vast network of associates and partners in the business world. But, more than any of that, I have God, His word, and the Holy Spirit living in my heart, who remind me every day that I have Jesus.

Witty Challenge - Coolest Woman on the Planet

A few days ago I was thinking about where my website was going and a friend challenged me to profitability on our respective sites. We've both been writing for a while, but my sites have been more profitable, while she's better published. Ahem... At least in fiction realms!

So what to do to maximize my profits and invite more readers? I considered for a few moments doing a pay per read, all of about two seconds... I really think you get more if you're reading for content than for pay. So, that didn't last long. Then I considered the options.

Determining the Coolest Woman on the Planet, and actually having a contest to win the award, might be okay - IF I wanted to give up the title. I don't. I earned it through SEO and I'm keeping it, and I don't really plan to share it --- other than a visit now and then by a GUEST Coolest Woman on the Planet at my blog by the same name. So, I'm still toying with the idea of giving away a GUEST Coolest Woman on the Planet. But, in order to do that, I'd have to invite people to nominate the Coolest Woman on the Planet somehow, and that's when I came up with this post idea...

If you have someone you'd like to nominate as the Coolest Woman on the Planet - add your nomination in a comment beneath this post, give me a NAME, contact information (via your confidential disclosure of email) and any pertinent information as to WHY she's the Coolest Woman on the Planet.

If we do this right, we might even have to do a Pageant where the runners up would be the Coolest Woman in the World, the Coolest Woman in the Universe, and perhaps the Coolest Woman under the Sun...

There is, by the way, a really awesome gift for the Coolest Woman on the Planet Contest. Right now, it's a Coffee Basket from The Coffee Clatter. But, if there's enough women nominated, the prize may get a lot better. Nominate your winner and let's see who gets the basket. I'll be putting it together soon and taking a photo to upload either here or at the Coffee Clatter. (Maybe both.)

Baseball Cards - The Collection of Purpose

Several years ago, my boys started collecting Baseball Cards. At the time, I figured it was an innocent pass-time. They'd enjoy the cards, eventually their cards would wind up in the toy box, tossed aside and probably tossed out ultimately. Big deal! I could deal with a few baseball cards scattered over the floor. At least they weren't legos I was stepping on in the middle of the night.

Then... It happened. One of my friends shared with them the value of trading baseball cards on ebay. Whoohoo! They're entrepreneurs. It's a great idea, and I actually loved the thought of them trading on ebay, it would teach business skills, advertising, and other skills for real world learning. I encouraged it.

Then along came the rules of the process and they must be 18 to trade on ebay. Okay, we can do that. I'll just sign up and do the actual trading and let them have the cash, etc. from their trades.

One step at a time, we had to actually begin making profits first. That's done. Here come the profits and we're off. The race is on. We sold remarkable numbers of cards, and I seriously thought that was the end of the collection. Out came the next box...

Five shoe boxes later, I finally take a breath and ask how many more cards we have to trade... "Oh, just another three or four boxes, Mom."

My deep breath became a sigh. "Go get them." I suggest, thinking we'd have three or four SHOE boxes. No such thing... There were three or four shoe boxes in EACH box of baseball cards, and there we had it... Boxes, and boxes, and more boxes of baseball cards they'd collected at every fair, every police holiday, every parade, and every time they'd had an opportunity to gather up Baseball cards, they'd collected the cards and began organizing them into groups of cards. Some for teams, some groups for All Star Players, and other various groups of cards. We'd been selling cards for more than six months and there were TONS more to sell. In fact, I could literally see us selling baseball cards for the next eleven years and still having more to sell. The collection was unending.

So, then the thought came to me... I wonder if we're under-selling any of these cards, so... I started searching for valuable baseball cards. Don't you love the Internet. It's so easy to search out this kind of valuable information.

We had many cards that were worth way more than we'd been selling them for, and I thought we could do better than we'd been doing with the cards. So, I proposed a different marketing strategy to the boys. They liked it.

I'm not about to disclose that strategy here, but I am going to tell you that within the next several weeks, we'll be presenting some interesting sales techniques for marketing Baseball Cards. And I'll be sorting through those cards to find out how many of them are Baseball cards, how many are Beanie Baby Cards and how many are some other kind of card that hasn't yet hit the hot market --- who knows, we may be able to create a NEW hot market....

It's all in the marketing strategy, baby!