Sock Conspiracy

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There is a sock conspiracy in my home I just know it! They conspire with PhatCatladie, our Scottish Fold 2 year old cat. Not only that the third offending party is the dryer. I have been watching this activity for a while now and I’m completely convinced that they are an organized crew.

PhatcatLadie  is a clever feline. She waits ’til late, late at night when we’re all asleep. She hides herself in the shadows awaiting her time. Once the house settles in for the night, she’s OFF!! She comes out of her hiding place and quietly goes to my girl’s bedroom. Why start her thieving for socks there? Because the girl’s room is an easy cache; they leave their sock drawer slightly ajar, easy enough for suspected cat to pounce on the prey and make out like a bandit! After robbing those drawers, she makes her way through the dark living room and into my son’s room.

She knows that there are occasions when my son will forget to close his sock drawer. PhatCatLadie has made it in the boy’s room; tonight she isn’t as lucky, his drawers are completely shut up and they aint talkin’. Someone threw away the key to the pad lock for the time being. The suspect turns around,looks over her shoulder and thinks  those sour grape thoughts:” It’s ok, I didn’t need ’em anyway.” She slowly meanders her way back to her starting place. For a minute there she wonders, hmmmm maybe I could try the Lady’s  bedroom; she always leaves her door slightly open….

Phatcatladie slowly, inch by inch, creeps through the shadows and finds herself standing in front of her Lady’s bedroom door. ‘Careful,’ she coaches herself, ‘this one is a light sleeper, don’t want to mess this up’. The suspect pokes her inquisitive head through the slightly opened door and squeezes her long body through the 4-5 inch space, ” I’m in!” She congratulates herself. Then with heart pounding a zillion beats per second, she looks at the sock drawer in dismay: This one is sealed tight! ” I did all this for nothing!” Phatcatladie scolds herself as she makes her way back out of the room ever so stealthily.

My other offending culprit is the dryer. Why is it that when I put all of the socks in the washing machine, they are together. When I throw them in the dryer, the pairs are still cozy, in two by two form. But it all changes when they come out of the dryer; something is always lost in translation and I smell a rat! Something’s missing in the state of the stocking world! What can possibly take place in there? A possible theory is that the dryer and Phatcatladie are in thick as thieves, you can’t tell me otherwise. I am going to continue until I solve this riddle. Somethings in life are a mystery and are never meant to be solved. This puzzle though has to have a solution. What do you think? Is there a sock conspiracy going on in your home? Perhaps you can share. I’d like to hear from other fellow conspiracy theorists  on this matter. 🙂

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 12

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 12 Question 12: As far as you know, who in your family’s history has lived the longest?

Answer: My paternal grandmother, Isabel Sanchez was born in 1895 and she passed away in 1992. In her 97 years on earth these events took place:

1895        Feb 8, Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” premiered in Petersburg.
(MC, 2/8/02) 

1896        Dr. Herman Hollerith, inventor of a tabulating machine (1889), founded the Tabulating Machine Company. In 1911 it became part of CTR. In 1924 CTR was renamed IBM.
(www.answers.com/topic/herman-hollerith)

1897        Gilbert Loomis was the first car-owner to purchase auto insurance for his vehicle. The premium was $7.50 for $1,000 worth of liability insurance.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1898        Mar 24, The 1st automobile was sold.

(MC, 3/24/02)

1899        Mar 27, The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
(HN, 3/27/99)

1900        Feb 22, Hawaii became a US territory. [see Apr 30]
(MC, 2/22/02)

1901        Aug 30, Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner. [see 1869]
(MC, 8/30/01)

1902        Apr 18, Denmark became the 1st country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals.
(MC, 4/18/02)

1903        Jan 2, President Theodore Roosevelt closed a post office in Indianola, Mississippi for refusing to hire a black postmistress.
(HN, 1/2/99)

1904        Feb 3, Colombian troops clashed with U.S. Marines in Panama.
(HN, 2/3/99)

1905        Mar 11, The Parisian subway was officially inaugurated.
(HN, 3/11/98)

1906        Jan 13, The Golden Gate Hotel opened on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nev..
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.F4)

1907        Feb 22, The 1st cabs with taxi meters began operating in London.
(MC, 2/22/02)

1908        May 10, The first Mother’s Day observance took place during church services in Grafton, W.Va., and Philadelphia. In 1997 Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia first proposed the idea that all mothers wear a carnation on the 2nd Sunday of May.
(AP, 5/10/97)(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E5)

1909        Apr 18, Joan of Arc was declared a saint.
(MC, 4/18/02)

1910        Apr 14, President William Howard Taft began a sports tradition by throwing out the first pitch on baseball’s Opening Day. Taft threw to Washington Senator pitcher Walter Johnson, who went on to hurl a shutout win, allowing the Philadelphia Phillies just one hit and ending the day with a 3-0 victory for Washington.
(HNQ, 8/9/02)

1911        Mar 7, The United States sent 20,000 troops to the Mexican border in the wake of the Mexican Revolution.
(AP, 3/7/98)

1912        Mar 23, Dixie Cup was invented.

(SS, 3/23/02)

1913        Apr 21, Gideon Sundback of Sweden patented the zipper. [see Apr 29]
(MC, 4/21/02)

1914        Sep 5, The First Battle of the Marne began during World War I. The German First Army was led by Gen. Alexander von Kluck.
(AP, 9/5/97)(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A10)

1915        Jan 19, The neon tube sign was patented by George Claude.
(MC, 1/19/02)

1916        May 11, Einstein’s paper “The Basis of the General Theory of Relativity” was published.
(http://tinyurl.com/2dvp8de)

1917        Apr 4, U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to enter World War I on Allied side.
(HN, 4/4/98)

1918        Mar 19, US Congress authorized time zones and approved Daylight Saving Time.
(AP, 3/19/97)(www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usstat.html)(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par p.15)

1919        Feb 14, The United Parcel Service was incorporated in Oakland, CA.
(HN, 2/14/98)

1920        Jun 13, The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post.
(HN, 6/13/98)

1921        Aug 10, Franklin D. Roosevelt (39) was stricken with polio at his summer home on the Canadian island of Campobello, New Brunswick. Mrs. Roosevelt acted as her partially paralyzed husband’s eyes and ears by traveling, observing and reporting her observations to him. As First Lady, an author and newspaper columnist and, later, a delegate to the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt labored tirelessly for the poor and disadvantaged. In the words of historian John Kenneth Galbraith, she showed “more than any other person of her time, that an American could truly be a world citizen.”
(HNPD, 10//99)(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D11)

1922        Jan 11, Insulin, then called isletin, was 1st used to treat diabetes on Leonard Thompson (14) of Canada. [see Jan 23]
(www.insulinfreetimes.org/00_spring/giants.htm)

1923        Apr 5, Firestone Co. put their inflatable tires into production.
(MC, 4/5/02)

1924        Jan 25, The 1st Winter Olympic games opened in Chamonix, France.
(SSFC, 2/17/02, p.A19)(MC, 1/25/02)

1925        Apr 10, The novel “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published by Scribner’s of New York. A film version was made in 1974.
(TMC, 1994, p.1925)(SFEC, 2/16/97, Par. p.18)(AP, 4/9/97)

1926        Mar 7, The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New York City and London. AT&T began trans-Atlantic telephone service via two-way radio this year.
(AP, 3/7/98)(WSJ, 10/26/00, p.A12)

1927        Jan 13, A woman took a seat on the NY Stock Exchange breaking the all-male tradition.
(HN, 1/13/99)

1928        Jan 31, Scotch tape was 1st marketed by 3-M Company.
(MC, 1/31/02)

1929        May 28, The first all-color talking picture, “On with the Show,” opened in New York.
(AP, 5/28/99)

1930        Mar 17, Al Capone was released from jail.
(HN, 3/17/98)

1931        Feb 21, Alka Seltzer was introduced. [see Dec 31]
(MC, 2/21/02

1932        Apr 23, The Royal Shakespeare Theatre opened at Stratford-on-Avon. It replaced one built in 1879 that burned down in 1926.
(www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1740490,00.html)(Econ, 3/31/07, p.91)

1933        Oct 10, The 1st synthetic detergent, “Dreft” by Procter & Gamble, went on sale.
(MC, 10/10/01)

1934        Mar 26, Driving tests were introduced in Britain.
(SS, 3/26/02)

1935        Feb 28, Nylon was discovered by Dr. Wallace H. Carothers.
(MC, 2/28/02)

1936        Feb 6, Adolf Hitler opened the Fourth Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. 1061 athletes stood at attention half-hidden by a furious blizzard. Austrian and French athletes gave the Nazi salute in passing the revue stand.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Winter_Olympics)(SSFC, 2/6/11, p.42)

1937        Jan 1, The US Social Security system began levying taxes on workers’ wages.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.23)(www.ssa.gov/history/1930.html)

1938        Apr 25, First use of seeing eye dog.
(HN, 4/25/98)

1939        Jan 24, Some 28-30,000 were killed by magnitude 8.3 earthquake in Chillan, Chile.
(MC, 1/24/02)(AP, 6/22/02)

1940        Feb 29, “Gone with the Wind” won eight Academy Awards, including best picture of 1939. Victor Fleming was named best director, Vivien Leigh best actress, and Hattie McDaniel best supporting actress, the first black performer to receive an Oscar. Best actor went to Robert Donat for “Goodbye, Mr. Chips.”
(HN, 2/29/00)(AP, 2/29/04)

1941        Jan 22, The 1st mass killing of Jews took place in Romania. [see Jan 9]
(MC, 1/22/02)

1942        Feb 11, “Archie” comic book debuted.
(MC, 2/11/02)

1943        Feb 13, The Marine Corps began allowing women to enlist as reserves.
(www.mcleague.com/mdp/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=63)

1944        Jun 6, Cherokee tribal members communicated via radios in their native language on the Normandy beaches. Some 6,603 Americans were killed along the coast of France during the D-day invasion. A total of 9,758 Allied soldiers died during the invasion. “D-Day” by Stephen Ambrose was published in 1994.

1945        Jan 20, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for his fourth term.
(HN, 1/20/99)

1946        Jan 1, Kathleen Casey became the first official US baby boomer following her birth just after midnight. On Oct 15, 2007, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling became the first baby boomer to make an early filing for Social Security benefits.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A8)

1947        Apr 10, Ronald Reagan and his wife Jane Wyman provided names to the FBI of Screen Actors Guild members believed to be communist sympathizers.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)

1948        Jan 27, The 1st tape recorder sold.
(MC, 1/27/02)

1949        Jan 10, RCA introduced the 45 RPM record.
(MC, 1/10/02)

1950        Jun 24, In Brazil the Maracana stadium in Rio was officially inaugurated for the opening of soccer’s World Cup, the first in 12 years due to WW II.
(www.soccerhall.org/history/WorldCup_1950.htm)

1951         Jun 1, The first self-contained titanium plant opened in Henderson Nevada.
(DT, 6/1/97)

1952        Feb 29, The first pedestrian “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs were installed at 44th Street and Broadway at Times Square.
(HN, 2/29/00)

1953        Jan 6, Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie threw a party for his wife Lorraine at Snookie’s in Manhattan. His trumpet’s bell was bent upward in an accident, but he liked the sound and had a special trumpet made with a raised bell.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, DB p.34)

1954        Mar 22, The 1st shopping mall opened in Southfield, Mich.
(MC, 3/22/02)

1955        Mar 4, 1st radio facsimile transmission (fax) was sent across the continent.
(SC, 3/4/02)

1956        Mar, The Federal Hourly Minimum Wage was set at $1.00 an hour.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)

1957        Jul 22, Walter “Fred” Morrison applied for a patent for a “flying toy” which became known as the Frisbee.
(AP, 7/22/07)

1958        Aug 4, Billboard, founded in 1894, premiered its all-genre singles Hot 100 chart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100)

1959        Aug 21, Hawaii became the 50th state as President Eisenhower signed an executive order, five months after he’d signed the Hawaiian statehood bill.

1960        May 9, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the pill Enovid as safe for birth control use. The pill was made by G.D. Searle and Company of Chicago.

1961        Mar 18, The “Poppin’ Fresh” Pillsbury Dough Boy was introduced.
(MC, 3/18/02)

1962        Jan 30, Two members of the “Flying Wallendas” high-wire act were killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit.
(AP, 1/30/98

1963        Mar 21, The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

1964        Jan, The Beatles made their North America TV debut on the Jack Paar Show. [see Feb 9, 1964]
(SFC, 1/28/04, p.A1)

1965        Mar 21, Martin Luther King Jr. led more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators on the 50-mile march to Montgomery from Selma.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, p.T1)(AP, 3/21/97)

1966        Jan 1, By law all US cigarette packs began carrying the warning: “Caution! Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.”
(www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1992/8/1992_8_72.shtml)

1967        Mar 3, The US performed a nuclear test at its Nevada Test Site. The Mushroom test was part of Operation Latchkey.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Latchkey)

1968        Feb 10, Peggy Fleming of the United States won the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.
(AP, 2/10/97)

1969        Mar 3, Sirhan Sirhan testified in a court in Los Angeles that he killed Robert Kennedy.
(HN, 3/3/99)

1970        Jan 7, Woodstock, NY, farmers sued Max Yasgur (1919-1973) for $35,000 for damages caused by the “Woodstock” rock festival.
(www.woodstockpreservation.org/pastpresent/maxtribute.html)

1971        Jan 31, Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
(AP, 1/31/98)

1972        Apr 17, A handful of women were first accepted as entrants to the Boston marathon.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D8)(www.boston.com/marathon/history/1972.shtml)

1973        May 14, US Supreme court approved equal rights to females in military.
(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=411&invol=677)

1974        Mar 1, A grand jury in Washington, DC, concluded that President Nixon was indeed involved in the Watergate cover-up.  7 people, including former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, former Attorney General John Mitchell and former assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian, were indicted on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the Watergate break-in. They were convicted the following January, although Mardian’s conviction was later reversed. In 2005 Vanity Fair Magazine revealed that W. Mark Felt (91), former FBI official, was the Watergate whistleblower Deep Throat, who helped bring down Pres. Nixon.
(HN, 3/1/98)(AP, 3/1/99)(AP, 6/1/05)

1975        Jan 1, The Federal Hourly Minimum Wage rose to $2.10 an hour.
(www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/coverage.htm)

1976        Jul 4, The nation held a 200th anniversary party across the land in celebration of America’s 200 years of independence. President Ford made stops in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and New York, where more than 200 ships paraded up the Hudson River in Operation Sail.
(TMC, 1994, p.1976)(IB, 12/7/98)(AP, 7/4/01)

1977        Jan 3, Apple Computers incorporated under Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak. In March  Apple produced the Apple II, the first pre-assembled, mass-produced PC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)

1978        Apr 7, A Gutenberg bible sold for a record $2.2 million in NYC. It was bought by Martin Breslauer for the state museum of Baden Wurttemberg.
(www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=35363264&aid=frg)

1979        Jan 3, The top of the record charts included: Le Freak by Chic; Too Much Heaven by the Bee Gees; My Life by Billy Joel; The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.
(440 Int’l. 1/3/99)

1980        Feb 22, In a stunning upset, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y., 4-3. The US team went on to win the gold medal.
(AP, 2/22/01)

1981        Mar 6, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”
(AP, 3/6/00)

1982        Apr 1, The U.S. transferred the Canal Zone to Panama.
(HN, 4/1/98)

1983        Sep 17, Vanessa Williams of New York became the first black contestant to be crowned “Miss America.” The following July, she also became the first Miss America to resign in the wake of her Penthouse magazine scandal.
(AP, 9/17/98)

1984        Feb 14, 6-year-old Stormie Jones became the world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She lived until November 1990.
(AP, 2/14/04)

1985        Jan 1, The 1st US mandatory seat belt law went into effect in NY.
(www.nysgtsc.state.ny.us/seat-ndx.htm)

1986        Mar 6, Georgia O’Keefe (98), US painter (Flowers), died in Santa Fe, NM.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_O’Keeffe)

1987        Jun 22, Fred Astaire (b.1899), Hollywood dancer, died at a Los Angeles hospital. His elegance and fancy footwork graced more than 30 films.

1988        Jan 3, Margaret Thatcher (b.1925) became the longest serving British PM this century.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_3)

1989        Mar 24, Good Friday. The nation’s worst oil spill occurred as the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking 11 million gallons of crude. The Exxon Valdez struck ground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and spilled 10.6 million gallons of oil. It was later renamed the Mediterranean and operated between Europe and the Middle East. Exxon then spent some $2.5 billion to clean up the spill and filed suit against Lloyd’s of London for reimbursement under a $210 million insurance policy. In 1996 a jury in Houston voted that Lloyd’s and some 250 other underwriters should compensate Exxon $250 million. The Exxon Valdez oil spill fouled approximately 1,000 miles of Alaska shoreline. The oil tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, spilling some 11 million gallons of crude oil. An estimated 250,000 seabirds were killed. The Exxon Valdez spilled 240,000 barrels of oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
(AP, 3/23/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1989)(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-11)(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A10)(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.T5)(HNQ, 8/14/99)

1990        Jan 31, McDonald’s Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.
(AP, 1/31/98)

1991        May 23, In a five-to-four vote, the US Supreme Court upheld regulations barring federally subsidized family planning clinics from discussing abortion with pregnant women, or from telling women where they could get abortions.
(AP, 5/23/01)

1992        Aug 24, Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm. It swept across Coral Gables, Florida, and destroyed two-thirds of the Fairchild Tropical Garden. It cost $15.5 bil in insured losses and was the most expensive natural disaster in US history. Insurance losses in the US and Bahamas totaled $21.5 billion.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)(AP, 8/24/97)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.62)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.73)

Melting Pot

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We are a nation of immigrants. I’m proud to say that I’m an immigrant as well. I came to The USA in 1976 and I thank God everyday for bringing me here. My aunt Blanca came here in the 1960’s and established herself with a job as a secretary in Chicago; once she was settled in she began to work on helping  many of her brothers and sisters come here with their families. My aunt Blanca is one of my one personal heroes because if it wasn’t for her starting the whole process, I don’t know if I would be here today.

Another personal hero of mine is my uncle in whose house I grew up. He came to the USA in 1968 with his new wife. He was a young doctor in Colombia and he gave it all up to come live here. He followed his sister Blanca to Chicago; his first winter here was rough; coming from a tropical climate like Colombia, he had to endure the great Chicago blizzard of ’68. Not only that, he had to really start over career wise; he would go to night school to learn English and in the day time he had to work hard to pass his tests in order to get his MD licence so he could practice medicine here in the US.

My uncle had made a very comfortable life for himself by the time I came to live with him and his family. 2 years after I arrived, he joined the Air Force. THAT was so amazing to me. He chose to give back to this great country of ours by serving in the armed forces and I have always been very proud of him for that. I don’t know of too many people who would give up their comfortable life style, an established medical private practice and all if its accoutrements  to serve in the military like this special man did. He gave back to a country that gave him almost everything.

So today I salute my family members who have served and are  still serving in the military: Uncle Frank, Mireya (sister), Diego (brother), Kelli, Tracy (brother-in-law), Frank (cousin), Joe (father- in- law, deceased), Kristina (Niece), Larry (brother-in-law), David, Don Sr. ( deceased ).

I also salute and thank all of my friends who are currently serving and who have served this great land of ours in the past. I can’t name them all because they are too numerous to name..you know who you are! Thank you for being the brave men and women that you are who keep this country free from the claws of oppression. God bless you and your families always!

I DARE YOU !!

· 1 Comment ·
Hippocrates: a conventionalized image in a Rom...
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I have to share this short video on my blog today. I grew up in the home of my uncle who was a doctor. I remember every time anyone was sick in the house, out came the meds. I had bad acne as a kid and he would give me a couple of meds that made the problem worse. I would stop taking the meds because one of them, this big pink pill would give me bad stomach pains and nausea. The other med was a liquid that I was to apply to my acne. When I did it would burn my skin and I’d look like a lobster; then the peeling and the itching that accompanied it was hell. I’d ask myself, ” Why do these pills I’m taking make my face look worse and give me pains in my stomach? I tell you even back then I would question stuff, but I never had the nerve to ask my uncle for fear of insulting him and his calling. The best thing about that is that I learned to listen to my body and I’ve never stopped listening to it since then.

As you watch this video, I hope you begin to wake up to the fact that the US medical establishment is beyond corrupt. I dare you to start asking your doctors hard questions and see what happens. I dare you to equip yourself with knowledge and let your doctor know that you want to take back your health. Please watch this video and pass it along to as many people  as you can. Remember: Change starts with one person at a time…change starts with WE THE PEOPLE

http://www.youtube.com/embed/K7_e_4AOsFo

30 Day Blog Challenge : Day 11

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 11 Question 11: What is the silliest most off the wall thing you’ve ever done in your life?

Answer:

I just  asked my kids to answer this question because I couldn’t think of anything on my own. They made me laugh so hard with each of their answers. For now, I will tell you about an incident which my second daughter told me stands out in her mind as the most off the wall thing I’ve ever done.

One day my husband was in a particularly foul mood. When he gets that way, he tends to complain a lot.  Usually I am able to just tune him out and ignore all of his noise. On this day though, I just didn’t want to hear him at all. I was in the kitchen making him an egg salad sandwich and he kep going on; about what, the details have long faded. I wanted him to be quite so badly. Finally when I couldn’t take his obscene mouth any longer, something got a hold of me and I took the hard boiled egg I was peeling and I smashed it in his neatly trimmed beard.

We both looked at each other and we were both equally shocked. The look of bewilderment on his face as he stood there, in our tiny kitchen made me wish I had a camera close by. Well it worked! He didn’t say a word and he went and cleaned up. My house was quiet once again and I could actually hear myself think for a change. Never underestimate the power of a tiny egg 😉

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 10

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 10 Question 10: What was the most mischievous thing you can recall doing as a child?

Answer: This memory always makes me chuckle because I really didn’t like my cousin I had to grow up with. He was always mean to me, so it felt good when this happened. We were vacationing in the south of Spain. My uncle was in the Air Force so while we were stationed in Germany, every summer we traveled around in Spain.

We had stayed the night in Rosas

 

a tiny, picturesque beach town. Tio (Uncle) had us get up around 5 am so we could get an early start. I was ready to go and when I knocked on my uncle’s hostel room door he told me to get the others up. My cousin was with me so we went to knock on the door of the friends we were traveling with. I  knocked on the door several times and nothing happened. So I walked away leaving my cousin there, who was still half asleep.

I went back into my room to get my belongings and then I heard a huge commotion. I poked my head out and there was an elderly man standing outside the door I had just knocked on. He was blasting my cousin out in French. I froze for a minute not getting the full picture. Then suddenly I understood what I’d done. I let my cousin take the fall and I was giggling like crazy. The upset French man slammed the door in my cousin’s face right when I walked up. My cousin looked at me in total bewilderment and I never explained to him what had just happened. Payback is hell baby!

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 9

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 9 Question 9: What was the first “big item” that you bought when you were first married?

Answer: I was in my last year  of Fashion Design school and my old sewing machine was on the brink. I had a huge project due and the  old clunker would ruin my fabric every time I’d try to sew on it. The noises it made were somewhat akin to a combination of an old engine and an old horse that’s been put out to pasture. One night, with an encroaching dead line breathing down my neck, I picked up the old dinosaur and I threw it against the kitchen wall. I surprised myself with my own strength. My husband came in to see what was the matter and he didn’t have to ask, once he saw the old beast laying there lifeless. He told me to relax and that we’d go out and buy a new one the next day. So that was my first “big item” I bought as a newly wed.

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 8

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

 

Day  8 Question #8: What is the oldest keepsake in your possession?

Answer: I tend to  “travel light” so I don’t hang on to a lot of stuff. A long time a go I heard someone say that if you have stuff that you haven’t looked at or used in the last 6 months, that it’s time to get rid of it. Ever since I adopted that way of thinking, it has made for less of a cluttered life.

So today it was easy for me to answer this question. I have a sterling silver pin that I was given on my last day in Colombia. I had been living with my great aunt Clarissa for a few months as I waited for the legalities of my coming to the US to be finalized. That morning, she took me to a cabinet where she kept all of her fine silver pieces.  After looking a round for a bit she found this brooch and she pinned it on my collar. I was 6 years old at the time and I never understood why she chose such a nice piece to give to a little kid. That pin represents the end of my life in Colombia and the beginning of a new life with a new family for me in The States. I love wearing it because it reminds me of my roots.

 

 

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 7

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 7 Question 7: As a youngster, whose house did you always look forward to visiting?

Answer: My Abuelita (Grandma) Isabel’s house was the best place ever! She would always greet me with a kiss and a hug and then she’d press a $2 bill into my hand. She would tell me to spend it or save it; now that those $2 notes aren’t around, I wish I would have kept them. She was a seamstress and there were times when I’d sit by her sewing table watching her work; she’d tell me all of the stories of all the dogs she had owned when she lived in Colombia. Her two favorite canines were named Trambia, after the street cars that had just come to Bogota; and Nylon, after the popular lady’s fashion accessory of her day.

"Eje Ambiental" on Bogota Downtown, ...
Image via Wikipedia Bogota

At times Abuelita would tell me stories of my father; he was her youngest of 11 children. I learned a lot about him through these brief times of sharing.

Abuelita Isabel had a sweet tooth bar none. She would keep a tin of cookies, Lemon Coolers were her favorite. Once I entered her bedroom she’d give me a few from her cookie tin which she kept close to her night stand. At other times she would sit in her easy chair in the living room eating Tootsie Rolls and drinking glass after glass of water. To this day, when I eat candy, I wash it down with a big glass of water.

I always hated going home after spending time in Abeulita’s house; because her home and presence gave me comfort. Things were cold in the home I grew up in.At Abuelita’s house the whole atmosphere was warm and welcoming, much like the afghans she crocheted for her 32 grand children…I still have mine and on the coldest of nights I take it out and wrap myself in it, still feeling her warm embrace. 

The Evil of Fatalism

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Dear Warriors,

Reflection and foresight assure success and freedom. Therefore it is important for me to reflect on our days gone by and their lessons, but also to apply prophetic foresight in order to lead us in the right direction. I understand the importance and value of contrasts. Let the one who is excessive join with the one who is conservative, the impulsive with the restrained, and the intemperate with the rational. Contrasts make the world beautiful and if they bring such harmony in the physical world, they will accomplish greater harmony in the moral and spiritual world. As a prophet, I have availed myself to such contrasts by my choice of friends and associates because through the meeting of these extremes there may emerge a meaningful path of untold possibilities. The one thing that I face being a prophetic voice is the accusation of being a lunatic. Maybe for a period of time I am seemingly crazy because of the word that I give in season, but the true lunatics are the voices of those who cannot budge from their stand on the judgment of God…The fatalists; the determinists.

The force that is connected to this religious “luna” is the spirit of materialism, which we can observe by simply watching certain “Christian” shows. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. The materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism. The materialistic person is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation.

Of course there is some truth to this, but what about destiny and our choices to make history? I’m going to use a word that I kept thinking about during my time in Israel, as God was dealing with me about the future – that word is determinism. I looked up the definition and this is what it means. Determinism is the doctrine that all facts and events exemplify natural laws. It’s the idea that human actions and choices are fully determined by preceding events and so freedom of choice is illusory or misleading. In theology it means “lack of free will.” The word “determine” simply means to come to an end and to settle, and from the Latin word “determinare.” Let’s break it down:

DE – OFF
TERMINARE – LIMIT
OFF LIMIT, LIMITED.

We are all acquainted with the word terminate. One of the greatest enemies to the prophetic is predetermination. What is this? Predetermination is the belief that something was decided in advance, and in the case of the many prophetic words being spewed out against our nation, the belief that God ordained sorrow, death, sickness and such for an individual/nation in advance and nothing we say or do can change that. This is a lie.

Determinism leads to fatalism. Fatalism is the acceptance of all things and events as inevitable. An example, “Her fatalism helped her to face death with stoic calm.” In other words, all events are predetermined so that man is powerless to alter his destiny, which ultimately causes a lack of effort or action in the FACE OF DIFFICULTY.

SPIRITUAL WARFARE IS THEREFORE REDUNDANT, AS THIS WILL NOT CHANGE ANYTHING.

The determinists come to bind, not to loose. These people do not believe in appealing to the will, but they believe in “changing the environment.” They will say to the sinner, “Go and sin no more,” because the sinner cannot help it, but then they will put the sinner in boiling oil because boiling oil is an “environment.” So many of today’s prophets believe that God is creating an environment so that the sinner will sin no more. This environment comes in the form of hurricanes, earthquakes, famines, droughts, pestilence, etc. So let me state categorically that this particular method of “environment” isNOT in fact causing the sinner to sin no more. America has been troubled with hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., and yet I see no sign, not even a glimpse, of acknowledgment of sin (from the sinners and rulers) and only the church is screaming at the world demanding them to change their ways, and threatening even more judgment.

In John 8, the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in adultery. Jesus wonderfully deals with the hypocrites by challenging them with these words, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her.” Once they had all left, HE ASKED HER IF SHE HAD ANY ACCUSERS LEFT TO CONDEMN HER. THEN HE SAYS, “NEITHER DO I CONDEMN YOU…Go and sin no more.” So, she DID have the power to make a change.

Another time in John 5, Jesus heals a man who had been crippled for 38 years, waiting for his miracle at a pool. Jesus heals him on the Sabbath and the Jews condemned him for carrying his bed on the Sabbath. Forget the fact that a miracle took place on the Sabbath. When Jesus finds him later in the temple, He said to him, “See, you have been made well. SIN NO MORE, LEST A WORSE THING COME UPON YOU.” So he DID have the power to make a change in his future. His choice of will would determine whether a better or worse thing would come upon him. Surely Jesus knew that there was a power of choice to do right that could be attained from within?

Gilbert K. Chesterton wrote, “It’s amusing to notice that many modern day mystics have taken as their sign an eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of a miserable mean infinity. It is a serpent with his tail in his mouth, eating away. The eternity of these material fatalists is indeed very well presented by a serpent eating his tail – a degraded animal that destroys even himself. The image of a very unsatisfactory meal.”

So what is it that many of these prophets of judgment have left out of their message? MYSTERY. Mysticism keeps men alive. As long as you have mystery you have health. When you destroy mystery, you CREATE MORBIDITY.

Let’s compare the church to the world. The ordinary non-religious man has always been a mystic. He has permitted twilight. He always had one foot in earth and the other in wonderland. He has always left himself free to DOUBT GOD, but also free to believe in God. The world’s spiritual sight is three-dimensional. The carnal man, one who is not influenced by religious fatalism, believes that there is such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will as well. What I’m saying is that there is more openness on the part of a “sinner” than many saints. In John 4, Jesus gave the woman at the well an opportunity to see further than her fatalistic view, which caused indifference. She said, “A Jew shouldn’t be speaking to a Samaritan and especially a WOMAN.” She argued about where the correct place to worship was, whether in Jerusalem or on the mountain in Samaria. Jesus said to her, “If you knew (spiritually perceived) the gift of God and whom it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” Even then she remained determined not to shift from her materialistic thinking and to entertain the mystery of living water. Chesterton writes, “The whole secret of mysticism is this, that man can understand everything by the help of what HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND.”

As Christians we must permit free will to remain a sacred mystery. He continues to say, “Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out.” Let me explain. ISLAM IS CENTRIPETAL – MOST RELIGIONS ARE CENTRIPETAL. Centripetal means, “developing from the outside toward the inside; developing inwardly not outwardly.” CHRISTIANITY IS CENTRIFUGAL. Centrifugal means, “moving outward from the center; developing outward from the center.” Another great definition is “developing or progressing outward from a center as in the growth of plant structures.” For example, in a centrifugal inflorescence such as cyme, the flowers in the center tip open first while those on the edge open LAST. IT BREAKS OUT!!

The fact is that organized religion, including dogmatic Christianity, is like the serpent eating its own tail. The meal is atrocious. And unfortunately it is a vicious circle of the church catching its own tail for a meal. Religion is a circle. The circle is perfect and infinite in its nature, but it is fixed forever in its size. It can never be larger or smaller. But the CROSS-, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms forever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center, it can grow without changing. The circle returns to itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds and is a signpost for free travelers.

Isn’t that beautiful? I’ve been speaking about this subject on my From the Matrix teachings on Tuesday and Thursday nights on www.kimclement.tv and I hope it’s helping and freeing some of you. God has a promise for our nation and for us and it’s a promise of abundance, prosperity and breakthrough. We are His destiny. We are His future.