"The Three Christmases of William Spencer"

Last month I received the opportunity to read and write a review for "The Three Christmases of William Spencer" written by Derek Blount.  It's not a big book trimmed at 7 x 6 inches. It's not a thick book at a mere 56 pages.

But the three Christmases shared within and the lesson each Christmas reinforces is large and heart warming.

William Spencer was born on Christmas Day. He shares his birthday with Jesus. In the first short story we meet William on his seventh birthday back in rural America in the 1930s. He's anxious, as are all children, to open his Christmas gifts. While he doesn't get the exact gift he'd so determinedly written Santa Clause for he comes to realize that his present is even better.

In the second story we meet up with William again in 1963, now a WWII veteran, a husband and father dealing with life's daily challenges.

In the third story, set on Christmas Day 2010, we meet William as an old man. The story retells the simple lesson that 'happiness is not a condition but an attitude'.

This little book warmed my heart. I read the first story to my children and we discussed young William and the lesson he took to heart from his Christmas present. And, we talked about the theme: happiness is not a condition but an attitude.

Being an optimist, I love this message. And, I love this little book. It'll make a great addition to my table-top Christmas reading collection. It would also make a great gift.

Sorry no giveaway with this review, I'm keeping mine. ;-)

For more information on this book and about the author, Derek Blount, you can visit Three Christmases of William Spencer.
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[EDITOR'S NOTE:  My contact with publicist for this book emailed me that I CAN indeed offer a giveaway copy of this book!  So I'm going to add a box up top with the details for the giveaway!!]

"The Three Christmases of William Spencer"

It's My Drama

And, my Drama is not your Drama or your problem. And, why should it be? I'm sure you have enough Drama of your own. Don't we all?

We all have troubles and tribulations in life. Sometimes it is the little things like an unexpected (are they ever expected?) flat tire, or a school project that we half-heartedly volunteer for. Or, our personal drama can be with our spouses, our children our family -- Life/Death.

And, your Drama is none of my d@mn business. Not that I don't care in a good way but sometimes I think as people we get too caught up in other people's drama when they don't want our opinion. Mind you, our opinion might be right, we might be able to hit the nail on the head. But, it doesn't matter. It's not our life to decide/judge/question/try to lead.

Not our Drama. At least not mine. I think I retaught myself a lesson this holiday weekend. How to mind my own drama a/k/a life and try to let others deal a/k/a live out their own.

Who am I to set the standard of performance for others? Just because "I" think this should be done this way or that doesn't make a rats @$$ to someone else. The only standard of performance that I am responsible for and, I might say qualified to set, is that for my own life.

If someone wants to send their child to bed with chocolate milk each night (without a second brushing) that is NOT my life, my problem or my drama. If someone wants to spend every nickel, dime and quarter on all things shiny, possibly even tossing their loose pennies aside -- not my drama. If someone wants to cheat on their spouse (I highly dis-commend [FW word] this notion) but... Not my child, not my life, not my husband or my wife, and not my money. Not my business; not my Drama.

If someone wants tattoo their who-ha or pierce their thinga'majigger? [OW! True.] That's not my Who-ha or thinga-you-know and not my Drama. Let them endure/enjoy it.

If someone chooses to smoke cigarettes? Well, I don't like it. It's smelly. But, so long as they keep it out of my personal breathing space then it isn't for me to love or hate. I have a slight enamoration (did I just make up another new word?) for spirited beverages and there are those who have an enamored distaste for such indulging. So long as I'm not endangering them with my partaking then not their drama.

I just want the world to be happy. And, when I find myself falling into a rut about "This and That and Him and Her and Why and Why Not and the ever selfish Whoah-is-Me" I kick myself in the pie. My Drama is not anyone else's. It's mine alone. Don't bring down the fantasies of everyone else, just because my dome gets a crack in it now and then. [Making note to God to send in those winged guys to fix that, as it is slightly obstructing my heavenly view.]

I just got tired of the internal whining. So I had to tell myself to pull up my big cowgirl boots and walk through all the Sh!t. There are some things I just can't fix. There are some decisions that aren't mine to make. There are some things that being internally angry about or sad about doesn't help. I'm gonna' have to roll with the punches, roll over the humps and bumps and deal with the life and death.

And as I often do, I've found my way to appreciating each little happy and each little joy, avoiding the urge to resonate on the negative and allowing myself the occasional need to live in a little denial.

That is my Drama. I'll keep to my own and let you have yours. I pray that in each day you find your way to add some Happy to your Drama.

It's My Drama

Thank You.

Thank you.

I haven't said it in quite awhile. Though, I think it quite often. So, this is me officially thanking all of you 'out loud' so that you do know how much I appreciate that you share your time here and there with me and my blog and my family and my life.

That is a big thing. For someone to take time out of their day to read about someone else. Someone not media, not a super-star, not 'in print', just someone. It is funny because I often daydream about suggesting to Ellen or Oprah or Jay Lenno or those other guys to have a guest on from time to time from a drawing who is just a 'regular guy or gal'. What we do is the same as so many of those celebs and all -- on a typical day in and day out -- we just don't get paid so much and aren't so notorious.

Today, I feel notorious. Because of all of you. I clicked over to my blog (which has been neglected due to life, school, family, yada-yada and yada) to see if I could squeeze in a few catch ups of my peeps in my blogroll. [I have a feed to a reader but I like to read and scroll through my blog roll to see everyones' captions... like skimming books on a shelf :-D]

And, then "[GASP! Happy intake of air!] I have a new follower. I have been quite neglective and yet someone found reason to follow me! How... How... How totally cool and uplifting!"

Sure I know that there are people who take the time to visit me though they never comment. I find their little trails in my stat counter and it warms my heart. "Someone visited me today. From some place I've never been." That is cool. Truly.

So, after all the humdrum y'all already know about the turkeys baked, the dressing for 80 - 100, the social studies test this week [chicken biskets! Grrr-diddle], the science test, the PFE (pelvic floor exercises and therapy for Lil'Gal each night), the short school week and the watch from Singapore that is supposed to be on it's way BACK to me once again... I just wanted to say, "Hey! Thanks! Y'all Rock! Y'all make a Farmer*sWife feel special!"

Thank you. And, to all of those dear truly to you too.

Oh, and to my new follower? I haven't found exactly who you are yet. Please and kindly, introduce yourself in a comment? And, thank you for the smile that I wear. A click and a follow might be a little thing but a click and a follow can be so heartwarming too.

Happy Hump-Day Y'all! Put some Diggity in it! I know I will! Oh, and don't forget to throw out a few, "Thank You"s...

Thank You.

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,

I apologize for having been so scarce these past eleven or so days. I've been so busy with company and the holiday pre-prep, school projects and a writing assignment that was due. Then a pesky cold invaded my body.

I've been working diligently and I finished the assignment (it's even been graded already). I'm tackling the projects and holiday prep and I'm fighting the cold. Ever so soon I hope to be back with you.

Let me woo you with an offer you something of substance. A Christmas book review and a guest author post coming soon.

Life is ringing and I must take the call.

Please wait for me; I'll make it up to you.


Happy Monday! *smiley-wink*

Dear Blog

Everythings Gonna' Be Alright :-)

The laundry will get folded; Farmer, Jr. seems fine; we'll get through his Social Studies test; my eye ball has returned to normal for the most part; and, the house will be ready for company this weekend. And, I will bake up a yummy dinner side dish somewhere in between, so that I can publish my recipe with pics for another content submission. I don't know the when and the where but I know it will happen.

Tomorrow is Friday. My favorite day of the week. Though, Saturday comes early with a birthday party for Baby SIL's boyfriend's 40th. And, then our company comes in (and I still have a CCD lesson to plan). But, everything is gonna' be alright. ;-)

ROCK-A-BYE



I don't fully get this video but I do love this song!!

Happy Thursday! Almost, well you know! ;-)

Everythings Gonna' Be Alright :-)

Fluster-CLUCK! Even for an Optimist like me.

Yes, so apparently, I can have a Fluster-Cluck day too. Which is blech.

The good thing about it is, I know how to swallow it cry about it drink myself over it and laugh about it in the end.

The day started out all sweet smellin' while me and my awesome MIL were literally smelling all the sweet, sour, fruity, fresh, clean, manly and other scents available from my friend who sells Scentsy products. [AWESOME COOL; like a plug in candle.]

I return home to a wonderful [two hour] call from my Daddy and all is well, except for the fact that I got absolutely nothing else done. [Well, I did publish a recipe so I got some content in today.]

While preparing to pick up the kids hours early from school (Lil'Gal had an appointment with the PA regarding all her urinary issues) I rubbed my itchy eye. It began to feel like there was something very large in it. I run to the mirror only to see that my eye is bulging and growing out and over my eyelid. Like a bubble. Like a blister. "OMG! I ruptured my eye!!! It's oozing out of my skull!!!"

I would immediately jump in the Chariot and race to my loveable eye doc but I'm due to leave to take Lil'Gal to her oh-so-more-important-than-me urinary specialist appointment. I google 'eye bubble' and what do I find? Allergy related; take 'prescription allergy drops' (done), get a steroid drop, may need antibiotic drop; it will not fall out....

So, I drive miserably to get the kids, and an hour all the way back to the appointment (with part of my eyeball bubbled over the side). Appointment ends with Lil'Gal needs her watch (lost, must buy new one), Lil'Gal must/needs/medically required to attend pelvic floor training once a week. Lil'Gal's bladder does not expel all the urine each time = bad, and culprit for UTI infections. If Lil'Gal can't retrain her bladder muscles and we can't get the spasms and crap under control, she could one day have to be cathetered every time it is time to empty her bladder = MAMA CRIES. [It'll be okay, we'll jump through every hoop....]

Try to call hubby = iPhone key pad locks up.  !!??Explicative!!??

Head back to drop off children with Fab MIL and on my way to have my eye put back in and Farmer, Jr. is not feeling well which turns out = He's sick; fever. No bueno.

Go see wonderful, awesome, great eye doc and he puts me on: new allergy drop, steroid drop, benadryl, with suggestion that I see a specialist regarding severe eye allergy issue = possibly I will require shots. He puts eyeball back in...

(See the red place on my eye?  A few hours ago that was all full of fluid down under my bottom eye lid and growing outside of my bottom eye lid.
Ew. Ow.)


Visit pharmacy for 45 minutes = $60 for steroid drop (with insurance).  Call MIL but iPhone key pad still locked up!!  I could surf the web, FB, play Angry Birds and text but no 'dial'. !!explicative!!

[Brain storm] text Sweet D and she calls MIL for me.

Get home to a mess, laundry piled in living room, past dinner time, two test this week for Farmer, Jr. Science tomorrow and [mother !#%$%$#] Social Studies Friday... Wait, Farmer, Jr. won't be in school tomorrow due to said fever = Crap all over again.

Enter house and smell dead rat = FW must find dead smell and possibly rat carcass.

Kids prepare to shower but NO hot water. FW now thinking SFD! and WTF! Send sick child to my bathroom to shower; the other to follow but NO HOT WATER in MY bathroom either (we have two water heaters). GRRRR = FW walks out in cold 40 mph winds to figure out water heater issue.  While out there FW feeds dogs; Farmer, Jr's job but he is sick with fever and should not be out in cold fricken' wild-@$$ wind.

Dead Rat + No Hot Water + Sick Child = FW panic attack as we have company coming to stay with us in a few days and Hubby is FAR, FAR away in SD pheasant hunting... With no phone signal...

Fix hot water heater, insert steroid drops, boil and reheat dinner while kids bathe in now hot water (TTL our's are on-demand so water is heated immediately), every once in awhile I push my eyeball back in though it is getting somewhat better and then -- FW pours herself a drink.

Hubby calls and worships how awesome I am.  And, that my dear friends is how FW fixes a F[C]luster-C[F]uck!  Happy Hump-Day (what a bunch of humps it had), almost the day before FWFD of the _____________ [insert squeeeeeee!]

Fluster-CLUCK! Even for an Optimist like me.

We're All Sneetches

Politics. It ages me. It stresses me. I have friends the whole year long and then suddenly they divide on Facebook on Chat on Emails and this and that. What is it with this one day?

We are ALL allowed to think our OWN way... Where does the great divide begin?
What makes one of us good and the other friend sin?

Voting is a right, to make it all right.
We all see what is best in our own way.

I am never more glad to see my diversity of friends,
than after an awful, wretched election day.

For in the end we are all the same friends,
with the wonderful freedom to choose our own way.

We are all Sneetches:



Be sure to recognize the 'purple politician' who eggs us all on in plight of our money:



to add my personal commentary rhyme to Dr. Seuss if I may,

There really aren't parties to toss about our votes.
It is the Me and the You and the Others we know.

AND, the fact we are lucky to vote our opinion in hopes
that the coagulation of all our thoughts and beliefs combined,
will make our years ahead better this time.


If you took the time to watch that the Sneetches the entire way through,

one would realize it mirrors the ME and the YOU.



HAPPY HUMP-DIGGITY DAY! Politics are over and we all just get along again!

[EDITORS NOTE: I am so going to republish this in some fashion via Triond to earn me some pennies... But, I wrote it HERE because y'all are my peeps and we are all stronger united.]

We're All Sneetches