Months in Review

I just noticed how I was on a roll with my postings in October and it seems that I might have fallen of the face of the earth. So here's to catch up...

October 24 & 25 I went to Oklahoma City, OK with a friend of mine for a women's ministry training event, "Relevant and Recharged". It was one of the best events that I had been to in a while. The conferences were just what I needed and was looking for. I came home with fresh ideas and ready to get to work. The approaching holidays put a small damper on my enthusiasm, but it was definitely God's timing. Our WM Team had dwindle down to 5 ladies, and we had put the word out that we were looking for more ladies. This time of "waiting for the holidays" gave about 7 or 8 ladies time to respond to our plea for help! Hopefully when we meet again in January we will have 12 ladies present instead of just 3 that was at our last meeting! ;)

This is my friend and me with a couple of ladies that lead and organized the conference.

I can't leave out the fun my friend and I had together that weekend. We don't get to see each other very often, but a road trip to OK gave us a chance to catch up. I also saw a couple at the hotel in OKC that were from the town we lived in before. That was kind of odd. I thought I recognized this man as we pulled into the hotel driveway, but that couldn't be...really, what were the chances! But as I was walking to the door, I looked at him, he looked at me, and about the same time we said, "Don't I know you??" It was quite funny at that point! His wife was on her way back down from their room. They were there visiting one of their kids and their family. One of their grandkids was being christened that weekend. After the conference was over, we traveled back to my friend's home and I stayed overnight with her & her family before traveling home the next day. It was a great weekend.

Wendy & Me!!

For Thanksgiving this year, we went to my parents' as we always do for lunch. We opted months earlier to have Pop smoke our dinner this year instead of the traditional dinner that we normally have. We had smoked boston butt, pork ribs, brisket and all the BBQ trimmings. We had about 25 present for lunch. My cousin and his family drove up from southern AR this year to join us. The best I can remember, it's probably been over 20 years since we've had Thanksgiving together. My other cousin and her twin girls were able to join us this year also. She got a new job recently that allows her to have holidays off now. Here are some pictures from our annual "photo op".

This is my husband, two girls and me.

This is my parents, brother, sister, and me with our families.

This is our whole gang (minus my aunt who was taking the picture.

These are some of my favorite candid shots.

And that was my November!

Brrrrrr! It's Cold!!

The local weatherman says the low tonight will be 16 degrees. I'm not fond of cold weather. I'd much rather have the other extreme of 116 degree temp! It seems once I get cold, particularly my feet, I cannot warm back up! However in the summer, as long as I have some source of air blowing around me, I'm fine!

I guess this weather should be expected since this is the week of Christmas. Since we live in Arkansas though, we never know what to expect. I can remember Christmases with snow and ice, and others when we wore shorts and t-shirts. The old saying goes, "If you don't like the weather in Arkansas today, just wait until tomorrow." Yes, just yesterday the high was somewhere around 70 degrees.

Speaking of Christmas, I have finished shopping and have wrapped all our gifts! WooHoo!! That's pretty good for me. We usually don't even start shopping until a couple of weeks before Christmas, buying most it in one day, and still hunting for a few stray gifts on Christmas Eve. We'll spend Christmas day at home with my parents coming up to visit. Then later on the weekend we'll go visit my in-laws. Not many gifts under the tree, but I think the girls will like what's there.

Mom needed a picture of our family for a frame she bought so we snapped this one the other night while we were visiting some friends of ours. Thought it might be appropriate to post this week.

Merry Christmas!

Shhh! Don't Tell!

You ever do something stupid and hope nobody finds out, but it's so stupidly funny you have to tell everybody! Well, here goes...

We built a house and moved in about 2 1/2 years ago. We picked out the light fixtures and all that jazz for every room in the house. Well, the fixtures we picked out the girls' bedrooms are ceiling fans with a single bulb globe. Their rooms are 12' x 14' and we put in a 60 watt bulb because that's what most fixtures allow as a maxium wattage. (Sidebar: Are "stupidly" and "wattage" real words?? Ok, back to the story.) This 60 watt bulb was more like a night light in these big rooms. The dark color of wall paint didn't help things either. So we bought all kinds of lamps for both rooms so they would have enough light to even dress in there!! Reading and doing homework in there was almost impossible! Well, Ky's light bulb on the fan blew out about a month or so ago and the only bulbs we had in the house were 100 watt bulbs. So Matt climbed up on the step ladder and removed the burned out bulb and started reading on the side where it tells you what kind of bulbs are acceptable. Lo and behold, a 100 watt bulb is perfectly safe in this fixture!! Oh my goodness, their rooms are so bright now that you practically need sunglasses when you go in! I just wanted to tell myself, "Well DUHHHH!!" But how bad is it that we made them sit in the dark for over two years!!! Live and learn!! There's you a laugh for today!!

The Youth

To my surprise, I have enjoyed working with and being with our youth group at church. Jr. High and Sr. High kids have never been on my ministry radar. As a matter of fact, they've never been on any radar screen-ministry or otherwise. I've never understood the purpose of teenage drama, even when I was a teenager, and therefore veered away from any form of the likes. Maybe because I am now the mother of a Middle-schooler, I have a heart to reach out to these kids! I know...I'm just as shocked as you are! Just a reminder that my ways are not God's ways!

Our church sponsored a bonfire and hayride last night that I attended. There were probably about 20 kids that came out for it. Our youth minister planned for us to roast hot dogs for dinner and marmallows for s'mores. The guy who built the huge bonfire decided not to start the fire until after the kids arrived. I think he secretly wanted to show off his bonfire skills. :) The problem with that is that we were suppose to eat first and then go on the hayride. The fire was so big and HOT that we couldn't get close enough to the fire to roast anything but our hands and faces! I think most people just had the chill taken off their dogs because that was as long as they could stand to be that close to the fire! So afterwards we went on a hayride, and I thought it was a pretty good trip. The kids all seemed to enjoy it. They did take them through a cemetery and tried to scare them with guys in costumes carrying chainsaws. Unfortunately, the scare tactic was a little lame! The biggest scare the kids got was when some redneck let his dog loose from his house to chase the trailer full of kids! Some people are just idiots! We made to it back to the house safe and sound though! The irony though was that the fire was just right for roasting when we returned, but there wasn't anything left to roast! Ky had invited a friend to go with her, and needless to say, on the way home we stopped by Sonic!!! ;)

I really had a good time. I have to find that balance though of chaperoning and letting Ky have her space. She doesn't seem to want me around as much any more. The joys of living with a pre-teen! I would post some pictures from this event, but I forgot to take my camera with me. So I'll post a picture from See You At The Pole that was in September. This was our first time to participate. It was an amazing time to see these kids gather in front of their school to pray together.

Isn't this one of the coolest things you've ever seen? These kids were there at 7:15 a.m. Most of them probably don't even crawl out of bed until then! It makes me proud to say that most of these kids are friends of Ky's. It's nice to know the kind of people she is hanging out with.

New Presidential Candidate... It's someone we know!

There's an effort to elect an unknown random person as President... and it's someone we know! Watch this online video about the surprising new nominee:

http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=370743&altf=Mpsj&altl=NdDbjo


Jot a note to let me know what you think!

Uncle Olen

Mom just called said my Uncle Olen just passed away. He is one of my dad's older brothers. This picture was just taken a couple of weeks ago at my parents' house. (Uncle Olen is the one sitting in the chair.) It looks like they were doing what they do best--singing!

I last saw him about the middle of August. He was in the hospital at Hot Springs. Matt's dad had been in a motorcyle accident, and when I called my mom & told her where we were, she told me that Uncle Olen was there too. I got to visit with him several days while they were both there. He told me then that he was feeling well enough to sing! I think Uncle Olen had been serenading the others at the hospital!

We'll miss him dearly.

Winnie-the-Pooh's new "Rabbit"

This is mom's new turnip patch. My parents planted these were the old house was that they tore down next door. She sent me this picture yesterday and I just had to laugh! The sign she has posted says "HELP YOURSELF" What's so funny about this picture is that my parents moved to this smaller house in town about a year ago. They came from a house that was about 1800 sq. ft. on 20 acres to a house that is about 1200 sq. ft. on one city lot. The whole purpose was suppose to be so that they would have less to take care of. Earlier this year they purchased the lot and old vacant house that was next to theirs. And they have done more work, and created more projects for themselves than they EVER had at our old home place!! Now they have planted enough turnips to provide greens for the entire county!!

Here's the old house that was previously on this site being demolished. One of the first things they did when they bought this lot was clean out and tear down a fence row that went ALL the way around this lot! It was grown up so much that you barely even saw the house sitting on the lot. The local people stop by often and tell my parents what an improvement they have to the lot and the neighborhood. The man that lives on the other side of them has even started cleaning up his lot!! I guess they've been an inspiration to others! :)

Road Trip

We traveled to Natchitoches, Louisiana this weekend to watch my nephew play football for his college team, Southeastern Oklahoma. They got beat, unfortunately, 63-12. It was good to see Brad play with the "big boys" though! This picture is of Brad #54, his girlfriend Phylicia, my niece Allyson, Kera & Kyla. So despite the score of the game, the road trip will be a memory we'll always cherish! I had my girls and my niece in the van with me, and we followed my sister in her car with her husband (who was sleeping in the backseat) and my mom. We left Sheridan about 11:30 Saturday morning and met them in Hope about 1:15, ate a bite of lunch and hit the road again about 2:30! Paula and I had been mapping out the best route we thought we should take all week. We originally thought we would cut down from Hope and go through Lewisville and Bradley. But all the online maps were steering us toward Texarkana, so that's the route we decided on. I had borrowed a TomTom (GPS gadget) from a friend of ours, and it had also picked the Texarkana route. So we were armed with a TomTom and 2 or 3 printouts of Google directions!! We did fine until we got to Shreveport. FYI--apparently the shortest route from Texarkana to Natchitoches is through downtown Shreveport!! We were right in the middle of the 256 bridges that lead to everywhere but home when we missed our exit. We were communicating via walkie talkie between our vehicles. My sister is in front of me. I have the TomTom in my car. Did I mention that I'm afraid of heights and bridges?!! So while I am "white-knuckling" the steering wheel trying not to look anywhere but my lane, my sister is yelling, "WHICH WAY DO WE GO???" Almost immediate when we got on the first bridge, the highway split! We had to choose to go East or West. So I'm trying to grab my print out directions, watch the TomTom, use the walkie talkie and DRIVE!! You guessed it--we chose the wrong direction! Never fear though, I regained my bearings and let TomTom turn us around to the correct highway! We made it safely to the campus of Northwestern at 5:30pm for the 6:00 kickoff! One missed highway was all we had the whole trip though! We did get a little nervous on the way home when we had to come back through downtown Shreveport, but we were stayed headed in the right direction! Mom rode home with me and my girls. She helped me stay awake! We arrived back at her house about 2:30 Sunday morning. You can always count on a good time anytime my sister is around. So here's a picture of me and my sis after the game. (Ok, now that I've uploaded the picture, I realize this is an AWEFUL picture of me!!)

Brad was pretty upset with the game, but I thought he played hard. If things work out, we hope to make one of his home games in Durant later in the season.

August in review

August 9 our whole family went to SW Arkansas to visit the rest of our family. We went to McCaskill for lunch to see Matt's family. His parents, his brother and sister and their kids, and his grandmother were there. It was good to see them. Matt doesn't get to see them but a couple of times a year. His work schedule usually doesn't enough time for him to get down there.

Then that evening we went to Murfreesboro to visit my parents. It was my mom's birthday so I talked my dad into cooking for us, and we invited the rest of the family to come too. My dad purchased a gas smoker earlier in the summer and has used it nearly every weekend. When he cooks, there is a enough food to feed a family of five for a week!! So through the summer when he would could cook they would usually invite my brother and sister and their families over for dinner. Since I live an hour and half away, I missed many meals with them. My nephew, Brad, made a comment to his mom, my sister, about what a shame it was that I moved away and was missing out on good cooking. Well, this night he had already left to go back to college, 4 hours away. I took a picture of all the food and texted him a message to let him know how much he was missing out on since he was so far, far away! :) I think Daddy had smoked a brisket, 2 or 3 racks of ribs, a boston butt or 2, and leg quarters. Plus all the sides we had to go with it: boiled potatoes, baked beans, cole slaw, etc. And then to top it off we had homemade ice cream!! Yummy, yum, delicious!!

Here is Daddy watching the temperature gauge on his smoker. He nearly has his smoking technique perfected!! ;) This picture was actually taken just a few weeks ago on another trip made down there. It was an impromptu trip. We were invited just days before to a birthday party for our niece Savanah. She was celebrating her 8th birthday at Meme & Pepaw's house in McCaskill. Afterwards, the girls and I slipped over to Granny & Pop's for the night.

Ok, back to August...

August 14 Matt's dad had a bad motorcycle accident. He was enroute to the hospital in Hot Springs to check on a church member of his that had a heartattack. He came upon a road crew that had traffic stopped, and when he topped the hill he had no where to go but to lay it down! He made it to hospital alright--via ambulance! He had a pretty bad gash on his head, and lost a lot of blood. His whole left side was beat and bruised up! He was very lucky though. He had no broken bones and no internal injuries. After a 4 or 5 day hospital stay and 6 units of blood later, he went home with 32 staples in his head, a hematoma on his left side and lots of road rash! He was very sore, but I think he will probably heal with only a couple of scars to show for it! Here's a picture-3 weeks later-that shows much improvement!

School started the 18th. Both girls seem to be off to a good start. They are both enjoying their new teachers and classes. I have already subbed all but 6 days that they have been in session. Subbing is working out to be a pretty good gig for me!

The 30th we went up to Fayetteville for Hogs first game. They won, but just barely. It was really not a good game. I told Kyla that I thought her and me could have played better than they did. Matt didn't appreciate the comment at all! LOL! We got to visit with our friends Dale & Lisa that in Rogers. We tailgated with them for a while before the game started. It's always good to see them. After the game we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to our hotel in Rogers. Matt & Kera got to swim the next morning before we left. Other than Kyla just getting over a cold, and Kera and I starting to get a cold, we had a pretty good weekend. We got back Sunday afternoon in time to spend the evening at DJ & Liz's. They had a cookout for Labor Day weekend. DJ is a master smoker too and it's always a privilege to get to eat with them!

Here's the game in pictures:

This is Matt and the girls waiting for the football team to arrive.

The team entering the field through the smoking Hog!

Kyla didn't want to be in my picture so she stuck her cup in front of her face. And as I was uploading these picture I was thinking that a picture of the scoreboard and final score would have a been a great addition this photo collection, but...I didn't take one!! Oh well! We won.

And that's most of August's action!

It's gotta be "the funk"!

Man, I have been out of sorts lately and the only diagnosis I have for it is being in a Funk. It's mainly on a spiritual level though. I feel like Stella and can't get my groove back. What I think that has really gotten me down the most is that I know exactly how to get out of this "funk", but can't seem to get my want-to right! I know the right answers-read my Bible daily, prayer, prayer, prayer, fellowship with God, etc. etc. I know these because I've taught them to others, but I can't seem to make it make sense for me right now. I woke up at 3:30 this morning thinking about what I needed to do, what I knew to do. And I did for little while. But what I can't rationalize is why I'm in this funk. I love my Lord! I know he loves me! I know he desires joy and peace and life-abundantly-for me! And I desire that from him. I don't like the funk. They should make a pill to cure it like it was some kind of disease!

Other aspects of my life are really good though. My family and I have really had a great summer together. My dad is doing pretty well. I talk to my mom at least once a week. I've giggled and cut-up with my sister just this past weekend!

So I guess I say that just to ask for your prayers to be inspired to get out of this mudhole I feel like I'm in.

Twilight

Ok, I read it! I just had to see what all the hype was about. This is the only book I've ever seen my 12 yr. old get this excited about and can't wait to read the next in the series. So a friend of mine happened to have it and let her borrow it today.

I'll admit that I couldn't put it down myself. Starting it Sunday afternoon and finishing Monday morning. It's written for the younger generation, so there's no cuss words, no detailed love scenes. Kissing and holding hands was quite refreshing from some of the other adult fiction I've read lately! So the storyline goes...a girl falls in love with a boy from school who admits later that he is a vampire. And he is constantly battling within himself not to kill her, because she smells so delicious, but he is falling in love with her too. I was surprised at how much I really did enjoy this read.

My daughter keeps asking me if I addicted to "Twilight" yet. And honestly that has really disturbed me. And maybe it's because I am in the middle of Bible study about gods (little g) and idols. I guess why it bothers me so is because I want to say to her, "No, we get addicted to God (big G), not fictional books about vampires! Are you reading your bible too?"

I don't think I'm against her reading this book, or the Harry Potter books, or books/movies with magic and the such. It's my job to teach her the Truth, and that these others are not true. I know others will argue with me about that, but hey, I'm the mom of this child and it's a free country. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!) Honestly, I was thrilled that she was actually reading a book!! She's a very good reader, but she doesn't seem to enjoy just reading for fun. So this one I think I will probably ponder more and decide how we'll deal with it.

Time Away!

Matt and I have been keeping the roads pretty hot for about a week and half now! The girls spent a few days with my parents the week of the 4th of July. My niece (I like to call her the Activities Director) had made all kinds of plan for them! They were going to have streamers and fireworks and a dance and I don't what all else. And no, my mother had to inkling of these plans!! They had a good time. Mom got a new pool so I think they spent most of their time in the water. They did make it up to the lake and watched the fireworks on the 4th. Here are a few pictures of the party.

They somehow managed to decorate with balloons outside on the clothesline! :)

This was the dance!

The last night they were there they remember that they had not swam all week after dark. Granny let them swim until after 10:00 by the light of the Tiki Torches!

They had a great time!

Matt and I took advantage of the girls being gone and to a weekend trip to Branson. We didn't see any shows. We thought about it, but when it took us over 30 minutes to get only 1 mile down the road...we ate lunch and went back to the hotel!! We stayed at the Hilton at Branson Landing. What I like about this hotel is that there are shops, restaurants and entertain without having to drive anywhere! For those of you that have never been there, Lake Taneycomo runs right beside Branson Landing, and in the middle of the shopping area is a water fountain. At the top of every hour, there is a "fountain show" with music, lights and fire cannons.

This picture isn't that great, but I think there are 16 fire cannons across the back (on 2 are shown "firing" in this picture). It's really spectactular at night. One evening the group "Six" performed for free by the fountain. The are an acapella group, but use their voices to sound like instruments. Then Friday and Saturday at 10:00 each night these two guys, they call themselves Buckets 'N Boards, came out and did a short routine. They were definately entertaining! We had a pretty good weekend ourselves.

After we left Branson and picked up the girls the next day, we rested and repacked for another weekend trip with the whole family. We went to Memphis this time. We toured Graceland. Never been much of an Elvis fan, but it was interesting. We toured the Mansion, the Automobile museum, the Jumpsuit museum and the Jets.

The mansion itself wasn't as big as I thought it would be. But when we got home and were thinking back, it had so many other buildings on the grounds that it really was a big place. Also, they don't let the public tour the upstairs of the house, so we didn't even get to see that part.

Matt enjoyed the looking at the all the cars, us girls didn't really get into all of that! :) The jets were cool. On the big jet, there is a bedroom at the back of it. Kyla said that the bed kinda creeped her out! Not sure why, but we all laughed about it.

We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale St. That was where Kyla wanted to go. She is really into music and singing. I don't think it was all that she had anticipated though.

Friday we went to the Memphis Zoo. It was nice, but not all that I had anticipated. The penguins were pretty neat. The polar bear exhibit was really cool. (And I mean that in every sense of the word. It was indoors.:) And the panda bear was fun to see. However, they have this whole section of the Zoo for the panda and the actual bear was only in one part of that. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more to it.

The weather got hot in hurry that day, so we didn't tarry long. We went back to the hotel and jumped in the pool!

I really like these short weekend trips. You're not there long enough to be too overwhelmed with all the coming and going. You have just enough time to enjoy the trip! And that's what we did-Enjoyed it!!

Matt is conteplating another trip before school starts, but I think we'll probably hold off until next year.

It's good to be home!

"For Praying Out Loud!"

I love to pray out loud!

I grew up in the Church of Christ, and it is customary that women are not leaders except in children's classes. So unfortunately, I did not have the example of praying women in my life. It wasn't until after I was married that I met Cathy, my mentor. She didn't know at the time that she was my mentor, and frankly, I didn't know either at the time. I loved to hear Cathy pray. When she prayed, it was from her heart. The ladies in our Sunday School would meet about once a month, and no matter what the agenda was for the evening Cathy always ended each night by praying for each and every women there. It was probably the first time that I heard someone pray for me! I grew up listening to people that prayed using the old English that the King James was written in. It was very reverent. But when Cathy prayed, she used words just like she would if she were talking to me. She even laughed and cried while she prayed. Sometimes she even told God she was mad! Before learning from her, I swore that one of the spiritual gifts listed in the Bible had to be praying just like preaching and teaching and giving. But it just wasn't my gift! However, that's not the case. It a command given, not a gift. "Pray without ceasing." I learned from her that my God is very real, very personal, very loving. It wasn't until Cathy and her family had to moved away, that I realized how much I had learned from her, how much I depended on her. Then I had to figure it all out for myself.

I am very passionate about pray and the power of it. I am guilty though of not doing enough of it. For me, there is not much that more uplifting and empowering than hearing a group of believers calling out to their Lord. I say I get tickled, but I think it's really my heart breaking, when I hear people come before our Father with a pray with so little faith. Because in my heart I'm just thinking, "They don't get it, Lord." One thing I have learned is that God is less concerned about my "request" and more concerned about what I believe about Him.

I want to encourage those of you that don't mind praying out loud to do it as often as you are given the opportunity. Chances are that there are other people like me that just need to be taught how to pray. If you are like me, and don't like to pray out loud, I encourage you to start in a room with no one but you and God. If your voice is only as loud as whisper, that's okay, God still hears it. Praying out loud, even at a whisper, will keep you focused on your conversation with God and you won't be as likely to let your mind wonder. I can't tell you how many times I would start praying silently, and the next thing I know I trying to remember what I need from the store tomorrow.

I can testify that practice makes it easier.

It's Twins!

I am probably the least "green thumb" person I know, so I have to share what is growing my flower pot! It's twins!! Twin gerber daisies!!

Can you see them right in the middle of the pot??

I planted 3 pots of gerber daisies last summer to add to my flower bed at the front of my house. They were so bright and beautiful! But as fall and cooler weather came on, I just left my pots outside and of course my plants died. So this spring as I was going to freshen up the pots and I was pruning my bushes, I noticed that there was something green growing in 2 of my pots. I just let it grow thinking it was probably a weed seed that had landed in my pots over the course of the year. As the leaves got bigger, I realized that it may actually be my daisies coming back. So I watched it a few more weeks, and it started blooming bright orange daisies!!!

And now it's full of blooms! Included my "twin" stem that is growing.

My other pot has several blooms that are just now about to open up. I'll post picture of them when they open, and I can tell what color they are going to be.

I am also nursing an Encore azalea back to health. I nearly killed it last year. I almost dug it up and threw it out, but the very tips of the limbs started growing green leaves. So I'm thinking to myself, "If it's growing green, it's not dead YET, right???!!" So here's a picture of my poor little bush. It is actually starting to put on little, tiny leaves all up and down the branches now. I'll try to keep you posted its progress too.

This poor thing. I should probably just have mercy on it, take it out of its misery!! But I'm not!! I'm determined to bring it back from the dead. I may have to name it Lazarus!

Family Cookbook

I have been wanting to put together a family cookbook for several years now. I have gathered my recipes and asked for family members to gather theirs as well. That's as far as it's gotten!! I'm torn as to how to actually put this together. There are several online publishers where you and your family can enter your recipes from your own computer. However, the catch is that you have to order a minimum of 150 books. I only want about 20! And then my next dilemma is what family do I include in the book...the Watsons, the Greens, the McCains,...which will lead to so many others!! UGHHH, what to do, what to do??

In the meantime, I'm experimenting with my own computer skills to see if I can create the pages, and then I'll take the completed book to a local printer. Maybe I'll make this my Christmas project. Which year though?...well, we'll make that the cliffhanger! ;)

How To Plant Your Garden

I just found this in my drafts from September and have no idea where it came from, but it was cute thought I would post it. More of a springtime topic, but maybe with the New Year it's a good way to start. I'd give credit to whomever wrote it, but I don't know where I got it.

How To Plant Your Garden

First, you come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.... FOR THE GARDEN OF YOUR DAILY LIVING, PLANT THREE ROWS OF PEAS : 1. Peace of mind 2. Peace of heart 3. Peace of soul PLANT FOUR ROWS OF SQUASH: 1. Squash gossip 2. Squash indifference 3. Squash grumbling 4. Squash selfishness PLANT FOUR ROWS OF LETTUCE: 1. Lettuce be faithful 2. Lettuce be kind 3. Lettuce be patient 4. Lettuce really love one another NO GARDEN IS WITHOUT TURNIPS: 1. Turnip for meetings 2. Turnip for service 3. Turnip to help one another TO CONCLUDE OUR GARDEN WE MUST HAVE THYME: 1. Thyme for each other 2. Thyme for family 3. Thyme for friends WATER FREELY WITH PATIENCE AND CULTIVATE WITH LOVE. THERE IS MUCH FRUIT IN YOUR GARDEN BECAUSE YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW. NOT BAD, HUH?