for THURSDAY, 28 MAY 2015 :: Friday update.

I could have entered a post last night, but I let it go and decided to catch up today.  I hope it wasn't a problem for anyone.  I don't think many people are reading my work (yet...  :-), which can make it hard to keep up the effort, but I am committed to building a blog presence for the issues that matter to me, to Working Together, and to the future.  I learn more every day, and hope that my efforts will become worthy of a larger audience in time.


What was I doing?     I was up in the wee hours, left early for my senior center activities - including my first Bible study there, the noon meal, and my housing class.  It turns our the Bible study is my first and last...they break for the summer.  We'll see what life is like in September.  

Later, I decided to go to Walmart for my computer and household needs.  I wanted to save the cost of another bus pass.  It was a bit much for me, but I made it. 

After I rested, I decided to spend time trying to catch up with my recordkeeping.  I got challenged by my budget and didn't look at the clock until around 11:30 pm.

It is amazing how easily a task you expect to be easy becomes an hours-long event.  I have been reading article titles about the same issue in social media activities...checking Facebook, Twitter, etc.


My goals are evolving.

I have been working on the foods I want to eat, menu preparations, portion controls, food prep, affordability, storage, and a lot of things you don't realize affect your diet.  Eating at the senior meal is healthy, and affordable.  I have a shopping cart for the bus, now, so I can shop better than I was able to in the past.  I am trying to build up my exercise levels.  I am hoping these things will improve my body, my activities, and my goals.

I don't know how my health goals are going in the medical field.  Prescriptions haven't been a big part of my life, but they seem to be increasing.  I don't like to take medications unless absolutely necessary, and as little as possible.  I don't understand the changing medicines my changing doctors have me on, I don't like the problems that I am dealing with in my body, and I am trying to find a path to changing that.  I feel like I am ready to fall into the grave, but some medical comments are that I will live a long time.  This issue is still in progress.  :-|  Senior healthcare is becoming a reality to me...along with personal decisions about how much care I want to get involved in.

It is time for me to rest again... both because my body is requiring it and because the Sabbath rest is near.  I hope your weekend is filled with good things, that you will pray for those who are suffering, and that we will share time again next Monday.

In Christ,
Deb


27 MAY 2015 :: Just a note today.

Not much to write just now... but I am continuing my effort to enter some kind of post...

It's hard to know what to write about.  I am still finding the path to writing in the moment and writing planned researched articles.  Right now I am still writing about the things that happen in my days, the issues that affect me and the goals I have, the news I come in contact with, and things that will affect the Body of Christ... which is why I started Working Together.

I made copies of an INC Magazine article to share with people close to me... and mailed more of them out today.  It was about "...Exceptional People" -- 10 things about exceptional people, I think it was.  I was impressed, inspired myself.


I am sorry... I went to check on the web location and it was actually an ENTREPRENEUR article.  The link is below... and the title is 'The 10 Qualities of Exceptional People" by Sherrie Campbell.  It is noted that it should only take about eight (8) minutes to read.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246347


I currently subscribe to INC, and I have subscribed to FAST COMPANY  and  ENTREPRENEUR in the past... I really like magazines.  I have subscribed to many other magazines over my lifetime, but can't remember them all.

While I was on the internet this weekend, I found an advertisement about entering the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes -- so I decided to enter.  (Another hopeful effort to gather money for WT's many programs.)  To enter, I had to register...so they could try to send me more email offers... which I declined.  I just wanted to enter the sweepstakes.  Now I have ANOTHER website I am attached to and have to get unlinked from.

It turned out to be a really LONG and confusing commercial endeavor...I thought about quitting the effort several times but didn't know if I could... or what would happen if I just closed the browser window.  It kept going on and on and on and on. 

The reason I am sharing all this is to say that the final zillion pages I went through on the way to entering the actual sweepstakes were magazine offers.  It was really hard for me to go past them, but I just cannot afford them right now.  IF I WIN, however, I will be sure to go back and order all the ones I wanted.  :-)


I don't think print magazines and newspapers are dead... there are people who prefer them... I am one of those people.  I think the pricing needs are going to be the issue.   Smaller production numbers, more options for individual lives and needs. 

Recently, I was writing to Habitat for Humanity about my love of their organizational magazine, which I haven't received for a long time.  I shared my view that home printers do not create the wonderful photos  and magazines and newspapers that professionally produced products do.  I might add here that color printing is very costly on a home computer. 

A long time ago I wrote to my state pro-life organization, Oregon Right to Life (ortl.org), about the inability to share their newsletter when it is only available online.  They had stopped mailing the printed version, which I couldn't even afford at $5/year.  Email might be great, Facebook helps, Twitter gets you to a webpage, but print reaches a whole different audience and has other viewers.  I think it needs to remain an option for those who understand its importance.

Now that I have income again, I will have to budget that in.

Printing is a big issue in the internet information process.  It may save money for some people, but it doesn't share well.

  • Everything should automatically go to print preview so I can decide how many pages I want it to be saved or printed as...

  • OR    be available as a PDF so it can be saved and individual pages can be printed as needed... 

  • AND     some things need to stay professionally produced to keep their impact.



I hope to create WT materials that will reach people who don't have computers.





26 MAY 2015 :: Things that can't be avoided.

I am still working to find out my health issues, and do the best I can in the midst of them. 

In my new encounters with the local senior center, I am looking at other elderly people in a different way, wondering what health issues they have and how they cope with them. 
  • Are they in hidden pain? 
  • Do they stay home because they are too ill to go out? 
  • Is there anything that can change what our body tells us we can't do? 
  • Is the future a daily wait for that final day when we meet GOD?
  • Will we all be forced to die because we cost too much to be kept alive?
Who thinks of these things when nothing is wrong?  No one, I am sure.  :-)   We are too busy with other things.

When I started using one of those weekly pill dispensers, I called it my first one. I was taking vitamins with it.  I recently received a new one when picked up my medicine refills... I call it the GIANT version... and I suppose there will be a COLOSSAL size.  I don't know if I like that idea.

I have come to realize that health problems can't be avoided at this point in my life.  I can try to make my health as good as it can be, but I can't make all my health problems disappear.  Becoming more and more sedentary, my weight increasing to a place I don't like it to be, not being able to go to doctors, not being able to work, not looking like I had these problems to cope with, and all the general issues that go with decreasing health.  It has been quite a difficult time for me.  I am sure it is similar to the changes that age brings to every life.

I have missed my healthy days... being able to walk long distances, ride a bike, carry my groceries without thinking I am going to have a heart attack.  I keep trying to revive my past, but haven't discovered the path there yet.  I'm still looking for the best foods I can afford, the best exercise I can accomplish.  I dream I will one day be thin again.  :-)

It isn't so bad getting older in years... I just hate this new challenge to be as healthy as I can be when my body isn't working as good as I want it to.

25 MAY 2015 :: Memorial Day

Memorial Day is, I understand, a holiday to remember the soldiers that have died in our military forces.  I was on my Facebook page earlier and saw quite a few posts about past and current military issues, including a trailer for a movie coming out on July 1st this year. I think it was by PURE FLIX, but can't recall exactly. I remember seeing that as part of the trailer.

Jordan Seckulow had one with video showing the attack on Pearl Harbor... it is like seeing the Twin Towers smoke.  I grew up with these things being shown in History classes.  I don't know what they teach now, but I have heard many of the details of History have been "modified" to be "politically correct."  :-(  NOT a good thing.

One post I noticed that I, too, had never heard of or seen before was about a ceiling display with all the dog tags of those who died in the Vietnam War (Conflict).  The movie I mentioned earlier is about a son trying to find out about his father, who died in the war.  I actually view a lot of post videos without the volume on, so I am basing that perspective on what I saw.

War is never a good thing, and we all want to live peacefully, but that isn't always possible.  There are bad people who live in our world, and when they run a country, it becomes a global issue.  The only reason America is a global power is because of the strength of our military... it also causes problems when everyone thinks we need to commit our resources to every battle that happens.  We can't do that, we don't have the money or the reason.  I am expecting that global battles will one day be handled by a global government with police, military, and courts that will have jurisdiction at the global level.  How else would we be able to stop terrorism and crime at that level, and which crosses national borders because of the internet?

Technology is going to be the weapon of the future.  Unmanned battle vehicles are becoming the norm.  Weapons are becoming so precise that few deaths even occur.  (Compare the deaths of any recent conflicts, including in the Mideast...countries with greater technology and weapons are also suffering less military deaths.  Terrorist rely on violence and mayhem...and look for large death tolls.)

I remember that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor by flying "under" the radar, below the point that they could be detected.  It will always be the same in wars :: one group will look for the weaknesses of their enemies and try to overcome them through that weakness.  In one of my blogs, I shared the list of priorities that the Communists (maybe it was China) had in their effort to overcome their enemies, small and large.  It was a very frightening display of how they focus on the weak and wait to overcome the strong opponents.  I guess it would be like wolves following a herd and looking for the easiest target...then focusing on that.

No one knows when the next global war will take place, but we can see the power struggles happening as we all begin to develop technologically.  Iran and North Korea, and others, are dangerous because they aren't interested in freedoms.  They want to overcome their enemies, they want to be in charge, they don't care who gets killed.  These leaders don't want to build up their citizens, they want to gather to themselves as much wealth as they can.  Morality in this kind of structure isn't based on the Bible, or goodness, or equality, it is based on selfish greed.

I hope America is able to stay a Christian country as long as possible.  Once our morality is gone, we will be just like our enemies.