I Believe in Miracles

Dr. Miracle's Hair Treatment Before and After

Filip and Leeza

Filip spent the night in Leeza's arms last night. She came over to get snowed in, and he fell asleep during the movie.
This morning, he had her read him 3 books. I came in the room, and she was rocking him, holding him like a newborn. I haven't seen him that contented in a long time.
Leeza is all proud of herself. She said
"Guess what book he brought me to read?"
He had brought her 'Are You My Mother?' So she was really happy about that.
What really made her morning is Sheena calling. Leeza got to tell her about all the quality time she's having with Filip. So I'm sure Filip is going to have double quality time with Sheena next week.

Day Out

Filip and I dropped JR off at work and went to the mall. We went to the pet store twice to babysit puppies. The first one was a Silkie which is just like a Yorkie. He was hyper. Then we watched a baby Doxie who was so sweet.
After the mall, and a trip to Target, we picked up JR from work and went grocery shopping.
For dinner, we had Butternut Squash soup, tuna & crackers, fried cheese and kiwis.
Leeza is coming over to get snowed in, since the meeting is cancelled. It should be fun.

I might try Amber's recipe of nutella and hot cream and spread it over shortbread cookies. That sounds awfully nice, doesn't it?

Potty

Filip earned a choc-choc today! He went pee pee in his potty.

I was making dinner, and he dragged his little potty out to the kitchen and sat down. I thought 'What the hay' and pulled his pants down so he could go potty properly. Then it happened!

We showed his puddle of pee to his Daddy who was very proud, and dumped it in the toilet. Then I gave him a chocolate peanut butter cup as a reward.

Now, I have to do is get him to do it again.

Complaining About Complaining

I am an avid supporter of complaining. I hate when people try to have me 'see the bright side' while I'm complaining about something. In it's proper place, complaining can be a useful tool to improve things for the better, or at least get some sympathy. Sometimes, sympathy is all you really need.

Many times, motive to improve my lot, comes from complaining about it. If there's nothing to complain about, then there's nothing that needs to change for the better. I just don't believe that absolutely everything in my life is at the standard I want to reasonably achieve. On the other side, if there's something lousy in my life I can't change, I should not complain about it. There is no point to that.

What I do hate, is a complaining spirit. There is nothing more foolish than complaining about things, for the sole purpose of being dissatisfied. There is no improvement here.
I think people with a complaining spirit, never complain to anyone that has the power to change it, or the desire to feel sorry for them. They just complain to people that can't change it, or don't care about them, so there can be more complainers, saying:
"Hey, you're right, they really should do blah blah blah, instead of blah blah blah"
Whine whine whine.

I would say the majority of my complaining is simply a request for sympathy. A little bit of it is me trying to become more dissatisfied with things so I get motivated to actually change it.

I'm glad I thought about this, because there are some things I need to change about myself. I should not assume that someone who complains to me is just a complainer. I'm going to make an effort to give them sympathy.
Usually, my first reaction is to do the exact thing I hate people doing to me: making them look on the 'bright side'.
Plus, if they are not just requesting sympathy, it will make them stop complaining, because that's not the response they want. I think sympathizing with a complainer has a potential personal entertainment value as well.

So complaining can be a useful tool, if you view it as such. Just be consistent in your view of it, when dealing with others.

Vaccine Info

This website has some articles that are pretty deep, because Doctors wrote them:

http://www.whale.to/vaccines/autoimmune1.htm

It gives some very interesting info on the effectiveness of vaccines.

There was one study where they tested adults T-cell levels before and after receiving a standard Tetanus shot.
T-Cells are the little pac-man cells that eat up the sick ones. I think it's our bodies first defense. The way they diagnose whether a person has AIDS or not is by how many T-cells they have.
Anyway, when they tested the T-cell level of adults after receiving a shot, it showed that their T-cell level temporarily went down to a level comparable to AIDS patients.
If that happens to the immune system of a healthy adult, just imagine what happens to infants with undeveloped immunity who routinely get 21 shots before they're 6 months old!

In general, doctors have very little knowledge on immunology. This is one of the basic sciences they are require to learn the first year. Generally med students dislike these basic courses because they don't have much use in the practice of medicine.

All I am doing here is parroting what I read in the articles on the above website. So see for yourself if you would like to know the source. Let me know what you learn!

John Waller

For some reason John Waller showed up in our lives because he doesn't have a car. Well, he does have a car, but it's complicated...
So Jr had been picking him up for the meetings and service. Plus, Jr's hobby is to connect people with each other, esp. in business. John has a bunch of skills and a lot of time, so he can like make money wherever.
Jr introduced him to my family around Thanksgiving. He's been staying in their basement since. In that time, he has updated 4 bathrooms, painted, patched up holes in walls, set up Mom's wireless network, cooked dinner, and a variety of other things there. When he's not working or sleeping, he's sitting in the basement looking at YouTube on his laptop, and occasionally comes upstairs for food.
I really can't think of anything else that's interesting about John Waller, except that he taught himself piano from YouTube, and he knows alot about computers.
It just seemed like I should make a blog post about him, since he's around.

CTR and others I love

My folks are so into Mario Cart for their DS. I can't get into it, and it's the only thing my Dad plays. I got this old game from Amazon. It's for a PS1, but I play it on my PS2. After you play Crash Team Racing, Mario Cart is soooo boring. So I never play DS with my folks.

My favorite DS game is 'Brain Age'. It gives you mental exercises, and evaluates how active your brain is, based on how quickly and accurately you complete the exercises. The optimal brain age is 20. Right now, my brain age is 23. Yessssss. I think it's because I don't watch alot of TV.

Obama's Ride

Not to be stereotypical, but does anyone else think it's funny that America's first black president is going to ride in a Cadillac?

Potty Free

I forgot about this tip. Take a spoonful of honey before you go to bed, and you won't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I did it last night, after drinking a whole glass of water, and it worked! It should also be helpful if you're potty training a kid, or you have a bed-wetter.

Good Calls

I had two good calls today. The first one invited me in and told me she wanted a bible study, but it has to be 'really quick'. We ended up talking about the YPA book, because she and her son want to have a family study every morning. So she is going to use that book as a basis for their discussion. Next week, she's going to have her personal bible study with me.

The other lady I talked to works at a gas station. Jr has been leaving magazines with her, and left her with the question ''Who was the first human to die and go to heaven?" So I came back to answer that.
1 Corinthians 15:20 states that Jesus was the firstfruits, of those fallen asleep in death.
Since God expects the firstfruits for himself (such as the sacrifices the Israelites made) it would make sense that Jesus would be the first human to ascend to heaven, according to that scripture.

The lady found that very interesting. I mentioned Abraham, Noah, and Job, and how each of these people were recorded as examples of great faith in God. She of course agreed that these people were 'righteous' ones. So I asked her,
''Where did they go when they died?''. She immediately replied:
''to Heaven''
"but Jesus was the first person to die and go to heaven. These people lived thousands of years before Jesus was on earth. So they could not have gone to heaven.'' I said. She's like
''That's right!''
I offered to show her what happens to these other 'righteous people' upon their death, the next time I come back.

So I'm going to come back and share Ps 37:29 where it talks of the righteous inheriting the earth. Then I'll turn to the blue pages in the BT book that highlight the other promises the bible holds out for the earth.

Teased

Filip pointed to a pimple on my neck.
"What's that?" he asked. I said
"It's a pimple, now stop pointing at it" He keeps pointing and starts singing the theme to star trek.
"Da dada daaaahhh dada dahhh" he said.
"It's not that big, Filip. Now quit it" I replied
"Dadada dada daaahhh" He said again, because he knew I was self-conscious about it. Then he goes up to it with his mouth. He pretends it's something he could nurse on.
"It's NOT that BIG!!!" I said.

I think of my Mom's words.
"People get paid back..."

Rent-A-Friend

I wonder how empty this feels afterward:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7818140.stm

Sorry, I don't know how to make links with Firefox. You'll have to cut and paste the link I have above.

Joke

Jon Waller gave me this one:

What's brown and sticky?

A stick!

Bird Cage

Fil found good use for our empty bird cage. Jr told him not to give Mommy and Daddy any babysitting ideas.

A New World

So Jr and I get in this argument about how much the government interferes with our lives.

My opinion (which I admit, I read somewhere) is that the government is slowly taking away our rights and regulating what we do bit by bit. Since each right or aspect of life that the government takes away, or regulates seems insignificant, the people don't protest. One day, America is going to wake up, completely immersed and controlled, and won't have a clue how they got in this mess.

Take car seats for example. A little bit at a time, parental responsibility for the safety of their own children has been regulated more and more by the government. The law gets to choose who is allowed to sit in the front seat of our own car. The law tells you at what age a kid does not have to use a car seat any more. Also, there are also these other 'requirements', that pose as a law. This would be like the requirement that an infant carrier cannot wiggle more than an inch when it is strapped to the seat, and it must be in the center seat in the back.

Now of course, these requirements are a protection for children. A society cannot guarantee all parents are going to protect their own children adequately, so rules like this can have a noble purpose.

When I was a child, the standards were lower than today. A baby stayed in some kind of car seat until age 3 or so. Children were allowed to sit up front. Taking your car to the fire department, to see if the car seat meets the 'standard' was unheard of. Before my time, there were not even seatbelt laws. Doubtless, these rules saved lives.

The standard now, has interfered more and more with the lives of parents and kids. No one is going to object, because who would want to object to protecting their child's lives?
At this point, a kid cannot sit up front until they're almost a teenager. Parents must purchase car seats for their kids until they're 8 years old! Plus, the regulations that look like laws, require you to purchase new car seats, for each kid. No hand-me-downs. That could put your child in danger!
Now, tell me, is the motive behind this really for the well-being of children? Or could it possibly be for the benefit of car seat makers to sell their wares? Just think, an industry that has the government making laws requiring parents to purchase their products for 8 years at least.
Can they make a law that requires children to take piano lessons? Then, maybe I won't complain so much, since I'm a piano teacher.

Jr is thinking from a practical perspective. The way our society is set up now, the government has to interfere with more and more of our lives. When you live in a world that produces mothers who dump their babies in the trash can, or sucks them into sinks before they're born (to quote doctor Laura) a larger entity has to take control, at the expense of people who actually do good things.
My perspective is more grass-roots. Any solution I can think of, would require nothing short of a revolution and new government. But, there's no human society that would set one up really good. We need like, God's government. I think that would work really well.

So I guess both of us knew the solution all along, Matthew 6:9,10 and 33. We totally didn't have to have an argument. But what's the fun in that?

Sad Day

My poor cockatiel Lily, just died. She was the best bird I ever had. She survived 2 cage-mates in her time, Placey, and [i forget].

We got her in 1995 when she was a year old.
She never bit anyone hard enough to hurt them. She also loved having the back of her head rubbed. The people she was especially fond of was my brother, Bobby Currence. Also, Katerina and Kim Price. Although, there were many people she recognized, and would tweet when she saw them.

She was a part of 3 households in her long life. The first one was the Gerrish home for a year, then she went to the Jarvis' home, and finally, The Andrews home, where she died.

Likely, her biggest adventure was when I let her out of her cage outside. Lacking the flying experience to navigate in unlimited space, she continued flying vertically, until she entered a larger bird's territory. Facing attack, she attempted to direct herself to safety. After a long loop around our yard, she landed on the very top of a maple tree. We had to shake the tree while repeating the phrase "Pretty bird" over and over until we could retrieve her.

She was in fact, a very 'pretty bird'.

The burial will follow this posting within an hour, and will be attended by Filip, and Joellyn Andrews. It will take place next to Placey's gravesite in the front yard of the Andrew's home on Jefferson Pike.

New Job

Next week I start teaching at the new piano store downtown Frederick.

This piano 'school' is much higher caliber than the music store I taught at previously. There is a set lesson plan that she wants me to follow. The program she created is excellent. It makes the method I use right now look like a 5th grader made it up. I'm so excited to learn it. She has children reading music on the 2nd lesson and having fun. She even has school-age kids analyzing classical music, breaking it down into chord structures. It is amazing. This program will make people understand music at a level I did not think was possible.

So next Friday, I have 3 students lined up. I have a week to learn how to teach a beginner how to sound good on the piano, while learning scales and rhythm in one lesson. What fun!

Anniversary

We had our anniversary last friday. I made a special dinner of shrimp, scallops and grits, with a really good salad, and apricot tea cake for dessert. We also had Lystra come over, and I think we wound up at her house to watch a movie.

Mom was without electricity all day yesterday because of a wind storm. They all decided to stay the night in the hotel Jae works at. We decided to hang out at the hotel for the evening. Then JR ran home real quick and packed some clothes and booked us a room at Jae's employee rate. Sweet!
This morning, we woke up, had a nice big breakfast, and did some reading while Filip played. Then, Jae took Filip while Jr and I worked out in their gym. Then we went swimming, and sat in the hot tub. It was so nice.

This is such an example of why I'm glad I married Jr. I knew he had nothing planned for our anniversary when it came around. I was happy just to make a nice dinner and we spend it with a good friend. Then a week later, this opportunity comes up and he takes it. It's perfect, because the gift was not a 'requirement'. We both got to do something our own style, out of our hearts. Plus, it was a nice surprise for both of us.

That's my Jr. He never looks like he has any kind of plan, but he's dependable. He might be late, but it's always more than I ask for. Every 'guy' trait that I think I have (like logic or assertiveness) he always proves to be a little more than me. That's because he's my man.