"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning."

Gloria Steinem
Author and Journalist

March of the Penguins

Peng32
Originally uploaded by BrynJ.

I highly reccommend this movie. Penguins overcome great obstacles to reproduce, and show great teamwork in caring for there little penguins.

  Last year China graduated: 500,000 Engineers, India gaduated: 200,000
USA: 70,000 according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Last year Ronda bought 19 baby chicks for Hannah to take care of, and this year we have 8. Last year we had a little problem seeing all of them reach egg laying age...one day we had a very bad chicken day and 18 died----I ask Ronda why 8 this year and she said it I would have 8 less to bury!

When Jesus introduced the world to prayer, he did it in a very simple way! A simple prayer anyone can say.

It begins with "our Father", showing the childlike trust and intimacy God desires.

Our Hannah is saying her prayers, here's some of her words:

Ronda writes:

I’ve been meaning to tell y’all that Hannah has been saying her prayers more at night now for me. I learned that at school they say “prayer leader” & by using this term she is happy to say prayers. The past 2 times she has said bed time prayers, they go something like this:

Thank you, God, for windows & doors. I love you, God! I love you!
Thank you, God, for my friends and I love you, God! I love you!
Thank you, God, for “some family members” (it varies on who).

And if you ask me to, God, & if you want me to, I’ll play My Little Ponies. Just ask me God & I will.

I love you, God! I love you!

Amen

This is worth reading and spreading:

This week's eMeditation:

"A person only begins to become the person he wants to be when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life." – As A Man Thinketh

I had to look up the meaning of the word revile because I’ve never seen it used. It means to condemn, despise, berate. I didn’t have to look up the meaning of the word whine - in fact I’m sure some of my friends have sometimes wanted to ask me if I "wanted some cheese with that whine?"

When we whine and revile we give power to that which we revile and whine about. We cease to be in charge of our life. I love the way that Wayne Dyer describes it in You’ll See It When You Believe It. He says, "I no longer view the world in terms of unfortunate accidents or misfortunes. I know in my being that I influence it all, and now find myself considering why I created a situation, rather than saying, "why me?" This heightened awareness directs me to look inside of myself for answers. I take responsibility for all of it, and the interesting puzzle becomes a fascinating challenge when I decide to influence areas of my life in which I previously believed I was not in control. I now feel that I control it all."

One of my favored quotes on this subject is from George Bernard Shaw. "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."

So how do we develop the necessary character to make our circumstances instead of allowing our circumstances to make us.  Emmet Fox tells us that "you can build any quality into your mentality by meditating upon that quality every day. If you seem to yourself to be lacking in certain necessary qualities, if your character seems to lack strength, ask God to give you what you need - and He will."

And that’s worth thinking about.

  I read today a statistic I believe, "only 30% of
college graduates read a book after they graduate from college" from John Maxwell. 
Order one of the books listed to the left and educate yourself, Trader Joes is an excellent book. 
  

This is a note from my buyer Jack Smith, Jack handles the importing of items from all over the world: sound easy, ITS NOT!
We are trying to get a button sample here from China.

Read below:

Hi customer, here's the update on the button samples.

UPS China picked the buttons up Monday but didn't leave China til today (actually they left overnight since that's Wednesday in China). Don't ask why, all I'm getting is UPS had a problem with the plane. UPS is too big to have problems with planes so I'm clueless. I'm still hoping to see these by Friday and we'll overnite to you the day they arrive. I also have the Olivine buttons here that I pulled in from our stores since I was out and didn't want to ask China to rush just 1 item. I'll be shipping the Olivine buttons with the 6 samples from China the day it arrives.

UPS is typically a reliable international shipping option so I don't know what went wrong. I told the vendor that UPS suggested they hadn't given the box to UPS when they said but that's not what the vendor says. UPS did tell me it happens "quite often" that packages arrive on time although they don't get scanned into their system... that's scarey!

I know this isn't the news you want to hear but the fact that I am able to track it on UPS now at least I have something to ask about. As soon as I received the tracking number I started tracking and have given our vendor heck to get something going with UPS so I can track it. Last night I even suggested they make a new batch of samples to ship FedEx or DHL but now that these are in the UPS computer I think we'll be good to go.

The package should've left China overnight so I'm hoping by tomorrow morning we'll be able to track and see that it's in the states waiting on Customs clearance.

Jack