Zoe & Emi

Generosity...

It’s easy to give your time, energy, or money when you have a lot to spare. But the true test of generosity comes when you don’t have a surplus.

Pastor Rick Warren

AMEN!!!

Math...

Corrie Ten Boom

Effort...

Don't decrease your goal, or minimize your dream because it seems out of reach. Work harder, get up earlier, research longer, pick mentors' brains, and make it happen.

because i know dating will enter your lives sooner rather than later...

FIVE SIGNS YOU MAY BE DATING THE WRONG PERSON 

It’s All About Them

If you’re dating someone who’s only interested in going where they want to go and doing what they want to do without asking your opinion, you might be dating the wrong person. A great sign is when the person you’re dating asks you what you want to do, even if it’s not their thing. But, you may be dating the wrong person if that person makes themselves the center of the universe and only does what they want to do. 

No Passion for the Things of God

If you’re dating someone and notice there is never any conversation about God or Jesus or they’re not interested in church, reading and studying the Bible, or prayer, that should bring up some red flags. Whoever says they have a hunger for God will have a hunger for His Word and they’ll desire to talk with Him in prayer. If all these things are absent, you might be dating the wrong person. 

Never Shares His or Her Faith

Have you ever been with other Christians who have publicly shared their faith? Let me tell you, it’s not an easy thing to do. But, if you’re dating someone who is embarrassed to pray in public before a meal or never even speaks the name of Jesus for fear of being overheard, there may be concerns about the person you’re dating. For most Christians, they cannot help but speak about Jesus and God’s amazing grace. 

Doesn’t Like Children or Pets

Children have a very good sense about people. It seems they can see through hypocrisy easier than adults can. Maybe that’s because their minds haven’t yet been infiltrated with years of sin. Some would also say that about pets. I have sometimes noticed that people who are generally kind and loving have a better response from children and pets. One immediate concern about anyone you date is if they don’t like to be around children or they don’t like to be around pets. Whoever is harsh to children and/or animals is a person I’d think twice about before dating. If you notice they lose their temper easily when they’re around children or pets, I would be careful about dating such a person. 

Substance Abuse

I know it’s legal to drink alcohol, but if you notice an ongoing pattern of drinking during the day (especially before lunch or supper), you might have someone who’s abusing alcohol. There are others who might be taking prescription drugs, but these also can be abused. Anyone who’s taking legal or illegal substances for the express purpose of impairing one’s judgment or being in an altered state of mind is a person you shouldn’t date. Anyone you’re dating with substance abuse problems may fool you into thinking, “Once we’re married, I’ll stop this.” Don’t believe it. You’re taking a gigantic risk. 

CONCLUSION

If you’re considering dating someone or dating someone new, please think about these signs which should tell you that you might be dating the wrong person, especially if it’s someone who’s obsessed with themselves, someone who has no hunger or thirst for the things of God, someone who’s silent about their faith, someone who doesn’t like children or pets, and someone who’s abusing drugs or alcohol.

May God richly bless you,

Pastor Jack Wellman

https://faithinthenews.com/5-signs-you-are-dating-the-wrong-person/

because i know all of you will become jet-setters...

The 21 Unwritten Rules of Flying You're Probably Breaking

You want to really know a person? Pay attention to how they treat wait staff, how they talk to their parents, and how they act when they fly. Nowhere on the planet, with the exception of Raiders games, packs so many people in so small a space with the potential to act like total jackasses. Yet somehow, we manage! In 2016, in fact, airlines that serve the US carried almost 1 billion passengers, a record high.
             

The secret to sloshing a billion people through terminals, security lines, and airplanes without utter chaos breaking out? A complex, unspoken social code nearly everyone observes. Most people simply get it. Then, there are the nail-clipping, baby-cussing, pajama-wearing, 9/11-joke making, full-bottle-of-water-in-the-TSA-line-carrying dumbasses. Look around on your next flight and you’re sure to spot one, blithely clobbering people with his backpack, unwrapping a hot fish sandwich, and cranking his seat back to full recline the second you hit 10,000 feet.

             

Some transgressions are obvious. Others, ambiguous moral gray zones you yourself have struggled with. Here, we wrote ‘em down. Now you know what all those glares have been trying to tell you.

1. Never ask if you can skip someone in the security line. It’s amazing how much better the airport experience is if you’re not in a going-into-labor-in-the-back-of-the-cab-sized hurry. Sure, you can cut it close and run up to the security check sweating, near tears, begging to cut the line. But then you unwittingly force someone into a spiraling moral dilemma: Should they say yes and avoid looking like a total dick, or should they take a stand against you, the inconsiderate screwup? And do they have the authority to make the call either way, thereby speaking for all the other people in line you’ll also be skipping? If you’re at the point of panic, get an agent involved. Better yet, be on time.

2. Don’t get upset if the TSA agents are rude to you. Think about what they deal with! Despite repeating themselves on a near constant loop, there are still dipsticks who don’t put their laptop in a separate bin. Who half-assedly push their bag through the line with their foot watching Hulu on their phone and then act surprised they have to take their shoes off. The only thing more amateur? Taking umbrage against a “rude” agent who’s just doing his or her job. It should also go without saying: Don't argue with the flight attendant. 

3. Don’t leave, like, 20 bins of your personal belongings sitting on the edge of the conveyer belt for the poor schmuck behind you to push through while you la-di-da off to the body scanner.
        

4. Don’t ask a stranger to watch your stuff. Gotta pee? Run to Starbucks? Take your shit with you. You seem very nice but regretfully I cannot accept responsibility of your personal items, good Lord I barely got myself here at all. What if my name gets called? What if we start boarding? Also, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s this thing they repeatedly announce over the loudspeaker -- what was it, oh yes -- don’t watch shit for strangers.

5. You can’t get mad if someone “cuts” you during boarding. Accept the boarding process as an absurdist attempt to bring order to chaos and just go with it. Time is a flat circle and we’re all going to Louisville at the same speed.

6. No hot food of any kind on a plane. Especially if it’s from a fast-food joint that has a highly identifiable smell. There’s nothing more atrocious than the trapped odors of grease and meat on a plane. Worse than snakes, even.

7. If you can’t lift your own bag, don’t carry it on. Once I was cozying up in the aisle seat and a hardtop Samsonite someone was feebly attempting to hoist into the overhead bin landed on the flat of my head, prompting the anxious soul next to me to remark on the near-certainty of my death had I been elderly or a child. Said soul then insisted I remain awake for the duration of the flight, for fear I would die from brain bleeding while pressing a soggy Ziploc bag of ice to my head. Not great.

         

8. The only acceptable place to fart on a plane is when you are walking through first class on the way to coach.
      

9. You are morally obligated to offer to switch seats so someone can sit next to the child, elderly, or sick person in their accompaniment. Otherwise, you have the right to refuse the request. Their honeymoon be damned.

10. Don't recline in economy. No, listen to me, asshole: Don't recline in economy. The amount of extra comfort you gain is nothing compared to the chain reaction of pain you have just set off behind you, in which every other passenger in your path is consigned to a modified form of the Trolley Problem, whereby they can either subject themselves and possibly the person next to them to hours of discomfort by doing nothing, or continue the chain reaction by reclining their own seat to gain a little room. If you have the world's most specific back problem and must sit at precisely a 110-degree angle, then turn around, ask the person behind you if this is OK, and give them time to arrange their laptop, knees, and soul for what you are about to inflict, you heartless life-ruiner who should have taken the bus.

11. Middle seat gets the arm rests. Always and without question. The unlucky soul in the middle seat has one thing going for them: sole ownership of the middle armrests. At best, you can maybe sort-of lean your elbow on the tiny edge of the armrest. “What if they aren’t using it, can I use it then?” NO. You audacious, privileged monster. Go back to enjoying your window and/or breathing room.

12. You are allowed to say something to a parent if their kid is being obnoxious. You are not allowed to be a dick about a screaming baby. Because that baby is a baby, and thus cannot control its actions, and hushing it up is no cake walk. But parents, if you don’t intervene when your sugar-high five-year-old goes to town kicking my seat, don’t be aghast when I turn around and do it for you. 

13. You are still responsible for yourself when you’re asleep. Someone once woke me up to inform me the drink cart was coming by. Not OK. The only time it's acceptable to wake your neighbor, besides having to pee, is when they’ve lost control of their basic faculties. No snoring so loudly people around you are snickering, no spilling over the sacred divide of the armrest between us and nestling your head on my shoulder.

14. Don’t HALF stand up when someone needs to get out of the row, forcing them to awkwardly crawl their way past your legs, trying as hard as possible not to touch your body. Stand up like a decent person and step out into the aisle.

15. Don’t grab the back of every seat when you walk down the aisle. Your fellow passengers don’t deserve to be yanked around every time you rise. Don’t use the back of the seat for momentum on your long crawl to the bathroom. If you're wearing a backpack while boarding, take it off and carry it by your side, because as soon as you turn, both your butt and your backpack are going to smack into someone's head.

16. Don’t get turnt. Time-based social mores cease to exist on planes; you can drink at any point, at any hour, with impunity. Remain charming to the flight attendants and they will readily booze you up because you’re such a delight. But remember your bloody mary does double duty at high altitude than it does on the ground, so slow your roll. And don’t you dare have the balls to place your auxiliary drink or food item on your neighbor’s tray table if you run out of space on yours.

17. Don’t freak the eff out if there’s turbulence. When a plane feels bumpy, that’s not really “turbulence.” And I don't want to jinx anything, but actual turbulence -- even pretty gnarly turbulence -- isn't really dangerous. It's just dangerous to you, personally, if you don't know how to listen and put on your seatbelt when the pilot says so. (So put on your seatbelt.)

18. Don’t stick your bare feet out in the aisle. It may alarm you to know just how many people in this world have unnaturally strong feelings about the sight of feet. So if you must remove your shoes, keep them out of sight. And don’t fall asleep with your feet stretched out in the aisle. It’s your responsibility to remain aware enough to retract them when someone passes by.

19. If you have to use an airsickness bag, for the love of all the travel gods, double bag it. In fact, ask the people around you for their bags and reinforce it with as many layers as you possibly can. Because despite the fact that these things are designed for one purpose only, they will fail you in the crucial moment, leaving you with a lap full of last night’s Thai at takeoff on the first flight of a three-leg journey. (The silver lining: If your SO then hands you an airplane blanket, instructs you to wear it like a toga, and hand washes your pants in one of those tiny bathroom sinks where you have to hold the tap down to get a steady stream of water -- you know it’s true love.)

20. You may not rush to the front and cut people when you’re getting off the plane. When the seatbelt sign turns off, there’s always that scumbag in the back who attempts to charge his way up to wherever his carry-on is stowed. Or the scumbag who only has a backpack who tries to book it to the front. YOU WAIT. YOU FILE OUT. IN ORDER. Sole exception: Asking politely if you can go ahead because you have a connecting flight.

21. Don’t aggressively crowd the belt in baggage claim. You make your way down to baggage claim. You are tired. You find that perfect spot. You leave about 3 feet of space between you and the belt, so that if some other passenger sees their bag, they can swoop in and grab it. Don’t be the jerk who steps into that 3 feet of space and takes up residence. If your bag is late, grinding against the baggage carousel will not make it magically reappear. Sir, relax. Everyone’s trying to get home. You’ll get there too.

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/airplane-etiquette-unwritten-flying-rules

especially for my grandsons...

I do not help my wife

A friend came to my house for coffee, we sat and talked about life. At some point in the conversation, I said, "I'm going to wash the dishes and I'll be right back."

He looked at me as if I had told him I was going to build a space rocket. Then he said to me with admiration but a little perplexed: "I'm glad you help your wife, I do not help because when I do, my wife does not praise me. Last week I washed the floor and no thanks."

I went back to sit with him and explained that I did not "help" my wife. Actually, my wife does not need help, she needs a partner. I am a partner at home and through that society are divided functions, but it is not a "help" to do household chores.

* I do not help my wife clean the house because I live here too and I need to clean it too.

* I do not help my wife to cook because I also want to eat and I need to cook too.

* I do not help my wife wash the dishes after eating because I also use those dishes.

* I do not help my wife with her children because they are also my children and my job is to be a father.

* I do not help my wife to wash, spread or fold clothes, because the clothes are also mine and my children.

I am not a help at home, I am part of the house. And as for praising, I asked my friend when was the last time after his wife finished cleaning the house, washing clothes, changing bed sheets, bathing her children, cooking, organizing, etc., that you said, thank you... not just a simple "Thank you," but, "Wow, sweetheart!!!" "You are fantastic!!!"

Does that seem absurd to you? Are you looking strange? When you, once in a lifetime, cleaned the floor, you expected in the least, a prize of excellence with great glory ... why?

You never thought about that, my friend? Maybe because for you, the macho culture has shown that everything is her job. 
Perhaps you have been taught that all this must be done without having to move a finger?

Then praise her as you wanted to be praised, in the same way, with the same intensity.

Give her a hand, behave like a true companion, not as a guest who only comes to eat, sleep, bathe and satisfy needs ...

Feel at home. In his house.

The real change of our society begins in our homes, let us teach our sons and daughters the real sense of fellowship!

Author unknown but truly awesome...

http://ladiespassiton.com/2017/06/12/i-do-not-help-my-wife/

character development

Those Top 37 Things You’ll Regret When You’re Old

1. Not traveling when you had the chance. Traveling becomes infinitely harder the older you get, especially if you have a family and need to pay the way for three-plus people instead of just yourself.

2. Not learning another language. You’ll kick yourself when you realize you took three years of language in high school and remember none of it.

3. Staying in a bad relationship. No one who ever gets out of a bad relationship looks back without wishing they made the move sooner.

4. Forgoing sunscreen. Wrinkles, moles, and skin cancer can largely be avoided if you protect yourself.

5. Missing the chance to see your favorite musicians. “Nah, dude, I’ll catch Nirvana next time they come through town.” Facepalm.

6. Being scared to do things. Looking back you’ll think, What was I so afraid of?

7. Failing to make physical fitness a priority. Too many of us spend the physical peak of our lives on the couch. When you hit 40, 50, 60, and beyond, you’ll dream of what you could have done.

8. Letting yourself be defined by gender roles. Few things are as sad as an old person saying, “Well, it just wasn’t done back then.”

9. Not quitting a terrible job. Look, you gotta pay the bills. But if you don’t make a plan to improve your situation, you might wake up one day having spent 40 years in hell.

10. Not trying harder in school. It’s not just that your grades play a role in determining where you end up in life. Eventually you’ll realize how neat it was to get to spend all day learning, and wish you’d paid more attention.

11. Not realizing how beautiful you were. Too many of us spend our youth unhappy with the way we look, but the reality is, that’s when we’re our most beautiful.

12. Being afraid to say “I love you.” When you’re old, you won’t care if your love wasn’t returned — only that you made it known how you felt.

13. Not listening to your parents’ advice. You don’t want to hear it when you’re young, but the infuriating truth is that most of what your parents say about life is true.

14. Spending your youth self-absorbed. You’ll be embarrassed about it, frankly.

15. Caring too much about what other people think. In 20 years you won’t give a darn about any of those people you once worried so much about.

16. Supporting others’ dreams over your own. Supporting others is a beautiful thing, but not when it means you never get to shine.

17. Not moving on fast enough. Old people look back at the long periods spent picking themselves off the ground as nothing but wasted time.

18. Holding grudges, especially with those you love. What’s the point of re-living the anger over and over?

19. Not standing up for yourself. Old people don’t take sh*t from anyone. Neither should you.

20. Not volunteering enough. OK, so you probably won’t regret not volunteering Hunger Games style, but nearing the end of one’s life without having helped to make the world a better place is a great source of sadness for many.

21. Neglecting your teeth. Brush. Floss. Get regular checkups. It will all seem so maddeningly easy when you have dentures.

22. Missing the chance to ask your grandparents questions before they die. Most of us realize too late what an awesome resource grandparents are. They can explain everything you’ll ever wonder about where you came from, but only if you ask them in time.

23. Working too much. No one looks back from their deathbed and wishes they spent more time at the office, but they do wish they spent more time with family, friends, and hobbies.

24. Not learning how to cook one awesome meal. Knowing one drool-worthy meal will make all those dinner parties and celebrations that much more special.

25. Not stopping enough to appreciate the moment. Young people are constantly on the go, but stopping to take it all in now and again is a good thing.

26. Failing to finish what you start. “I had big dreams of becoming a nurse. I even signed up for the classes, but then…”

27. Never mastering one awesome party trick. You will go to hundreds, if not thousands, of parties in your life. Wouldn’t it be cool to be the life of them all?

28. Letting yourself be defined by cultural expectations. Don’t let them tell you, “We don’t do that.”

29. Refusing to let friendships run their course. People grow apart. Clinging to what was, instead of acknowledging that things have changed, can be a source of ongoing agitation and sadness.

30. Not playing with your kids enough. When you’re old, you’ll realize your kid went from wanting to play with you to wanting you out of their room in the blink of an eye.

31. Never taking a big risk (especially in love). Knowing that you took a leap of faith at least once — even if you fell flat on your face — will be a great comfort when you’re old.

32. Not taking the time to develop contacts and network. Networking may seem like a bunch of crap when you’re young, but later on it becomes clear that it’s how so many jobs are won.

33. Worrying too much. As Tom Petty sang, “Most things I worry about never happen anyway.”

34. Getting caught up in needless drama. Who needs it?

35. Not spending enough time with loved ones. Our time with our loved ones is finite. Make it count.

36. Never performing in front of others. This isn’t a regret for everyone, but many elderly people wish they knew — just once — what it was like to stand in front of a crowd and show off their talents.

37. Not being grateful sooner. It can be hard to see in the beginning, but eventually it becomes clear that every moment on this earth — from the mundane to the amazing — is a gift that we're all so incredibly lucky to share. 

http://lessonslearnedinlife.com/those-top-37-things-youll-regret-when-youre-old/

time to smile...

about TRUST...