Toy Surprise Inside!

Some people think church is boring.

Maybe they should look harder, or maybe they should participate more.

Do those people sing the hymns?

 If not, maybe they should try it! I've read some entertaining things in the margins of some hymn books, and had some "number chases," where there's a suggestion to turn to page (fill in the blank) then when you turn to that number, there's a note to turn to a different page, and so on, and so on...

This one Sunday, I took out the hymn book and opened it to find a toy surprise inside!

A red and white bracelet!

Why was it there? Was someone marking the next hymn and got called away? Did a brother tease his sister, hide her jewelry, and forget to tell her where it was? Was it intentionally left for some dedicated little hymn singer?

When you go to church or a group sing-a-long event, do you sing too?

A Surprise in my Yard

REGULAR LIFE:

As a mindful mother, I sent my son Scott a 30th birthday card. (Actually, when I was presented with the opportunity for a sudden visit to Salt Lake City, I was his house guest and left it on his pillow.) On his actual birthday, I did the electronic messaging thingy.

MYSTERY:

 When I got home that afternoon, there was an unfamiliar car in front of my house. I wondered who could be there. When I saw a flyer taped to my door, I figured the car belonged to a person canvassing the neighborhood with flyers. I went inside without a second thought.

SURPRISE:

I dropped my purse and put my keys away and wandered into the kitchen. When I glanced out the window in my back door, I had to look twice. There was a familiar looking person out there. To my shock, it was my birthday son! He'd come to visit as a surprise on his birthday.

(The picture above is birthday boy Scott, me, and Michael.)

I was so glad!

(Zack, Brian, and Michael scraping off "cottage cheese" ceiling)

I was also glad we had new carpet in our living room and a newly textured and painted ceiling, thanks to my hard-working boys!

(Brian sweeping on ceiling texture)

(Zack aplying texture to ceiling)

As an interesting side note, we found this when we pulled out the old carpet. The paint around the edges was to accommodate a piece of carpet covering the center. Since our house was built in 1895, I can only imagine the process of rolling up the carpet every so often and taking it outside to beat the dirt out of it!

Since our carpet was pulled up, our furniture had to wait outside for the new stuff. Michael opted to eat his lunch on part of our sectional furniture which was, of course, outside.

New carpet... picture taken at night with only a lamp on. Mysterious!

-All I can say is, it simply feels good when nice things happen. Sometimes we humans seem to hold bad times in our memories, the struggles we have, days when things don't go right. But I'd rather live like the 99-year-old man I once interviewed for a newspaper article who said, "I've never had any real troubles in my life. My first wife died, but that's to be expected. I have a good life. When we're done talking, I'm going out to work in my shed."-

Live happy!

What a Way to Get A Job!

by Shirley Bahlmann
It's a curious thing... for the last couple of years, my husband, Bob, has aspired to work as Sports Editor for the local newspaper. He's an award winning sports writer, after all, and being the editor means he would have his hand in all of the sports. (Why he'd want to juggle basketballs, baseballs, volleyballs and footballs while kicking soccer balls is beyond me, but he seems to really like it.) He's talked to the owner more than once about hiring him, and she's always lamented that, although she'd love to have him on staff, money for his salary was a problem.
Then, yesterday, she left a cryptic message on our answering machine. "Bob, I need to talk to you about a couple of things. One is a story idea, and the other thing is bigger. Call me back."
When Bob finally got hold of her, she revealed that her current sports editor was caught breaking into the newspaper office, trying to steal money. When the police tested him for drugs, he was positive for meth, and also had ecstasy in his possession. Suffice it to say, he no longer works for the newspaper, so the owner hired Bob on the spot. Bob was grinning in his sleep last night.
Life can be more surprising than novels.
Boo! (You weren't expecting that, were you?)

The Mystery of the missing Halloween globe

We have a Halloween globe in our front yard with flying styrofoam bats and light up ghosts inside. Since it's October, we have it out on the lawn with stern faced jack-o-lanterns. One morning we all left for the day, and when we came home, the Halloween globe was missing. I questioned everyone in the family, but no one admitted to knowing anything about where it was.
I was incensed! Who would steal a Halloween globe right off our lawn in broad daylight? Heart pumping with indignation, I got a long piece of paper that fit across the front of our house and wrote in big black letters: "God saw you take our Halloween globe. Is it worth your immortal soul? BRING IT BACK." When my husband, Bob, saw the sign, he took it down because he thought it was a bit extreme. Our teenage son, Zack, said that anyone who would steal a Halloween globe would just laugh at my sign.
A few days later, our youngest son, Michael, asked me to open the gate to our small side yard so he could get his bicycle. When I did, I stopped and stared in disbelief. There, mashed against our fence, was the Halloween globe. How did it get there? Someone said it must have blown over the fence, but the fence is made of solid wood boards, and it's taller than me! Weird. So I patched the tear in the plastic bubble and set it up in our front yard again. Whenever I come home, the ghosts flutter above the flickering flame inside, circled by swirling bats, stubbornly silent about the mysterious details of the dis-apparition of the Halloween globe.