Good Morning grandchildren! I know you are anxious to get the next few days done and overwith because next Wednesday is your last day of school and Christmas will be here on Sunday! But that's a few days off and you have some shopping to do. You are all secret Santa's this year and I think you will have a lot of fun surprising your brother or sister.
I want to go back a little bit to when I first met your Grandpa. We both were working in the same office and we started dating and I've covered all that earlier. But there is one thing I didn't talk about and I want to try to convey to you what it has done for me over the years. Your Grandpa is not a Christian, he is a Taoist. That is an ancient Chinese Way, or as you would call it, a religion. They don't beleve in a Supreme Being, the way Christians believe in God. But the Tao is the life force of the Universe and for me, after reading his books for 35 years, the Tao and my God are one in the same. I am a Christian, and always have been. But the Tao books have helped me tremendously to understand the deeper aspects of how God's spirit is manifested in the Universe, and I studied his books until the pages have all come loose from the binding. I plan to get a small binder and use a hole punch and put the loose pages in the binder so they don't get lost. Because there is so much to learn about the Tao, I will start with a lesson that helped me to overcome personal problems that have been a detriment to me as a person. This lesson will really benefit you if you learn it young and don't wait for problems to start piling up in your head and your heart. Listen well, and try to put these truths into practice and you will have a fruitful life. Being in touch with the life force of the Universe is a great power that you can use all your life, and the younger you learn about it, the more your life will flow smoothly. You will of course run into obstacles in your path, and you will have to deal with them. But this will give you knowledge that few people have. You will rise above the difficulties in life and it is important to know that you will have to deal with these problems instead of just saying God will handle it for me. You are given a life to live, and even though God created you and has knowledge of you that no one else has, still you must live your life and it is inevitable that you will face obstacles. We all do. This lesson is a combination of 2 of the Taoist parables. The first aspect is about expressing yourself. It has helped me over the years to maintain a journal. In this journal, I have expressed my innermost thoughts about things. It is important that you have a personal self and keep track of your dreams and thoughts as you go through life. There will be things you don't want to express outloud about others who may have offended you, or problems you are having in school or at home. Expressing yourself in a journal helps you keep track of what's important to you at any given time. You must express what is within you because if you don't, you will be stunted emotionally and all the anger, or frustration, or even joy you have about any given situation will grow stagnant like a dirty body of water where your reflection is cloudy. You can't function adequately in life with all the built up resentment you may feel. You may feel you can't tell a person how you feel because it would hurt them. You still have to express that anger or the pain someone may have caused you. I have had many journals and I used to think that they were too repetitous and of little value. But, the very lesson I read this morning in the Tao Book was about water. The weakest element in the Universe. But water can render mountains sand over time. The ocean can destroy things after an earthquake by developing tidal waves. But all water starts as drops. Water is relentless. Even so, repetitious prayers can reduce your problems over time until they are rendered helpless to stop the titanic force that is your spirit.
Your spirit is your life force. What you call it doesn't matter. You can call it God, or the Tao, or whatever name you choose to apply to it. But you must respect it. You need to respect yourself and take good care of your body, as your body is the house for your spirit and that unites you. You don't want to always put in bad food. If you constantly eat bad food, and are slovenly in your habits, your spirit will grow cloudy and contaminated and anything you try to do will be tainted with bad habits. You must keep your body clean, you must feed it the proper food, and you must exercise to keep all your joints and muscles and tendons and bones in top condition so your body will serve you and your life will be all you want it to be. I haven't always known this, and that is evident because Grandma is overweight. I was never taught to eat the right foods, was fed the wrong things while I was too young to understand that good nutrition will prevent many chronic diseases that can end your life. My family on my mother's side all had coronary artery disease and they all died young with problems with their hearts. I too have coronary artery disease, I had a heart attack at 43 years of age. My Grandfather died at 43 with a heart attack, my mother's brother died at 46, and my own mother died at 55. My father died at 65 of pneumonia, after having open heart surgery which gave him massive strokes because the heart and lung machine they hooked his body up to failed and the results left him unable to move on his own. He was bedfast for the rest of his life and had to be fed by a tube in his throat. They would pour liquid food into a container that had a tube attached to it and the other end of the tube was inserted into his throat and down into his stomach. All of these things could have been prevented if they had taken the proper care of their bodies. I have been heavy all my life except for one year when I had lost a lot of weight. I didn't lose it the right way, and when you don't change your basic eating habits, you will be facing a life of going up and down in your weight and you will never be succesful at living a healthy life. What you put into your body is important. All my family members smoked, except me. I don't have hardened arteries like my mother and father because I never smoked. This is a dangerous habit. It will kill you. My mother never changed her eating habits, and didn't do anything to try and stop smoking. She literally killed herself with food and cigarettes. The reason I am still alive is because when I had my heart attack, I learned about the changes I would have to make in order to live, and I made the changes. We don't eat bacon, sausage, greasy foods, pork, fatty red meat's, and so on. We started eating more fish, chicken, vegetables, fresh fruit, less cheese, and so on. I ate Healthy Choice dinners every night and lowered my cholesterol. The diet I am on now is to reduce the amount of fat I have in my blood. It will bring down my tryglicerides which is what the fat is called. It has been a struggle for me all my life, simply because I developed bad eating habits and led a life with little or no exercise. I am telling you this because you need to know that eating pizza and fast food will eventually put weight on your body that will be difficult to lose. The amount of candy and cake and cookies and all the rest of the sweet category will put pounds on your body that are harmful to your health. Learn now. I will teach you and try to help you eat healthy. I need to change even more of what I eat because I want to lose as much weight as I can safely. There is a right way to lose weight, and it's not by getting shots that do it for you, or having liposuction or an operation that ties off a part of your stomach so you can't eat as much. You have to develop healthy eating habits when you are young so you never have to go through what I have been through. It's important. Supremely important to take care of your body. Your spirit needs a healthy body to express itself with. The Tao is life. Your spirit is who you really are. You want to be strong and healthy and vibrant with this life force. It will guide you, and enlighten you and give you power.
There are many different religions in the world, they all think they are the best and everyone else is wrong. Not so. We are all striving for the same thing. Peace. There is a mountain you must ascend and at the top of that spiritual mountain is the power of the Universe, or God, or The Tao, or The Buddha, etc. As I said before, it doesn't matter what you call it. It is all the same force that created everything and existed before all time. If you want to know more about this, you can talk to your Grandpa about it. He knows things about it that I haven't discovered yet. But I read the Tao lessons every day and I also read about God and the way of the Buddha. I find great enjoyment in this, and great power to live my life and to be a strong person for myself, and my family. I pray every day, meditate and listen to what Venus calls my Hypnosis Music. I find great peace and serenity in this life, and I appreciate everything the Universe has seen fit to send my way. What you give out, comes back to you. You all mean the world to me and I look at your perfect young bodies and your beautiful faces and I try to feed you healthy foods. The most important thing though is to have healthy thoughts. What you think, you eventually become. If you are always angry and frustrated, that's what you become. If you are peaceful and kind and loving, that will be what you become. And you are allowed to make that choice for yourself.
Please listen and consider and think about what I am telling you. I love you more than words can say, and I don't ever want to come to see you in the hospital because you are sick with diseases that could have been prevented. I want to enlighten you, because I see you as gifts from God. You bring me great joy and great happiness and I have a duty to you just like I had with my own children. I don't want to fail you and I want you to be healthy in your body, your mind, and your spirit. There is so much to learn in life, but what I am telling you is the most important. Find your center early in life. Go within, to your heart and discover what lies there dormant, waiting for you to discover it. Life is an adventure. You can live it with gusto, and look forward to every new day as something wonderful! A challenge from the Universe to live the best day of your life, every day. The choice is up to you. Will you be pessimisic and sour about life, or will you embrace that life force and change the world for the better by who you become? This is the silent question that the Universe is asking you. Who will you be? Make a choice and follow through. The Universe is waiting to help you. A wise man once said, "Be the change you want to see in the world". This is one of the wisest things I've ever read, and I try to do it every day. This entry is my best Christmas gift to you. I hope you'll read it and take from it the love I feel for you. It's monumetal, this choice....it can change your whole life.
Merry Christmas Grandkids! I love you all!
Love, Grandma
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Our First Christmas Together
I am going to revert for a little, to the Christmases we have shared, first as husband and wife, and then as parents. The very first Christmas we had together, we had no tree. We had a plastic palm tree in our living room which I had bought for my second apartment. We were married the day before on my birthday. We went shopping that afternoon for the gifts for our families, and we really hadn't given a tree a second thought. We hung our Christmas cards on the palm tree, and exchanged our gifts, a sweater for me, which I still have, and a hat for Jack, which I think ended up in storage. We were out and about most of Christmas day, delivering gifts and drinking Tom and Jerry's at Jack's Moms house. We got home late and I think we went for a drive through "Camelot" (my name for San Diego).
By the next Christmas, we had our twin sons. We strapped them in their Gerry Bags, strapped them to ourselves, and we went shopping for a tree. Of course people wanted to see the twins and they were so little. One elderly lady expressed her concern over having them out and about as little as they were, but we were proud parents and loved taking them with us everywhere. We bought a 3' artificial tree and some lights and took it home. Jacks Grandma gave us some ornaments that had belonged to her mother, and we had bought some of our own. We spent the day taking care of the babies and decorating for Christmas. That evening I brought the babies out to the living room in their bassinet and put them close to the tree. The lights were glowing sofly on their baby blankets and reflected in their blue eyes. My heart was so full of happines and joy. We had a friend over for dinner, and he told Jack, "You have it all." And we still do.
We kept the little tree for quite a while and we have pictures of the boys standing in front of the tree when they were about 2. They loved looking at the lights and presents and it was difficult to have them wait to open everything. We moved shortly thereafter because Alex developed Asthma and the house was damp and it was hard on him. We looked for a place and found an apartment in Casa De Oro, where it wasn't as cold and damp. We moved in and enjoyed our new surroundings. We had a dishwasher, which was a big help, and close to our place was the laundry facility, which also was a big help. We used the little tree once again, and Christmas was rather sparse that year. By the next year, we were in a different apartment, but used the same tree. We had a little more money and bought the kids everything we could. We had a pool, the laundry was right at the foot of the stairs, and we were really close to the grocery stores. We were there for a few years, and then we moved to the house we were to live in for the next 17 years.
At the new house, I was sick one year, and Jack and the kids decorated the tree, while I laid on the sofa with a tissue box, some tissues and cough drops and cold medicine. The year before, they had gone out while I was cleaning and it was right after Christmas. They found a huge tree that was marked down to half the orignal price so the kids lined up, and Jack pushed the tree over and the kids caught it, and they all carried it out of the store and brought it home. I don't really remember now what happened to the little tree. We had used it for years and it was getting sort of tattered and used up. The big tree was used for years. I have always loved Christmas. It is my favorite holiday of the year and we always tried to do well by the kids, and each other.
Now the kids are grown, and we have 7 grandchildren to shop for as well as the adults. There are now 14 members in the family, not including the in-laws and it has gotten more expensive. We all have a great time, and this year, we sort of have more of a handle on things, and started decorating sooner and buying things in advance of the Christmas rush.
This year my daughter and two of our granddaughters are busy decorating the outside of the house and the inside is already done and it's only the 5th of December. On the 9th we will get our Christmas money and the rush to shop will be on.
One year, when our first grandson was about 4, his little sister Venus got a baby bed for her doll, and having a fire place, we of course had a fire. Little Brian decided he wanted to go to sleep, and climbed into the doll bed by the fire. He was so warm and cozy he drifted off to sleep and we still haven't figured out how he managed to curl himself up small enough to fit in the doll bed, but we have pictures to show him when he's grown. He is 13 now and taller than I am. Four of our grandchildren live in San Diego, and the other 3 live in Colorado. But even with 4 children and 5 adults to shop for, the living room is usually packed with presents.
All in all, we all have a great time. This year, my husband had to get his truck fixed and that took $1,738.00. But we are still going to have a merry holiday, and the kids will be shopping for one another this year as well. We are trying to get across to them that it is more blessed to give than to receive and they are making an effort to be more mature and think of others this year. They all picked names, and will be purchasing something nice for one another.
Christmas is a fun time of year, a chance to let your loved ones know you care about them, and to enjoy the fun of opening presents, baking Christmas goodies, and sharing a good meal. We have a home, a fireplace that makes it cozy, and even a beautiful Beagle to make the picture complete. He likes to lay by the fire and sleep. It seems that's about it for him, he sleeps, barks at the mail-man and everyone else that walks up the street, and eats everything in sight! Still, he's lovable and beautiful and our home wouldn't be the same without him.
The other day the children were all here in the evening and we all watched the Polar Express and had soda and popcorn. It's the little things that make Christmas so special. This year our youngest grandson is 4 and the girls are 10 and 11, and our oldest grandson is 13. We will have a lot of fun together and I have the best Christmas present of all, a family.
Look around this year at the little things that make Christmas special. You don't have to be rich to enjoy Christmas. It's the love in your heart that makes it special. Give generously of your love, and make your home a warm and inviting place for all.
Merry Christmas to All,
Bonnie
By the next Christmas, we had our twin sons. We strapped them in their Gerry Bags, strapped them to ourselves, and we went shopping for a tree. Of course people wanted to see the twins and they were so little. One elderly lady expressed her concern over having them out and about as little as they were, but we were proud parents and loved taking them with us everywhere. We bought a 3' artificial tree and some lights and took it home. Jacks Grandma gave us some ornaments that had belonged to her mother, and we had bought some of our own. We spent the day taking care of the babies and decorating for Christmas. That evening I brought the babies out to the living room in their bassinet and put them close to the tree. The lights were glowing sofly on their baby blankets and reflected in their blue eyes. My heart was so full of happines and joy. We had a friend over for dinner, and he told Jack, "You have it all." And we still do.
We kept the little tree for quite a while and we have pictures of the boys standing in front of the tree when they were about 2. They loved looking at the lights and presents and it was difficult to have them wait to open everything. We moved shortly thereafter because Alex developed Asthma and the house was damp and it was hard on him. We looked for a place and found an apartment in Casa De Oro, where it wasn't as cold and damp. We moved in and enjoyed our new surroundings. We had a dishwasher, which was a big help, and close to our place was the laundry facility, which also was a big help. We used the little tree once again, and Christmas was rather sparse that year. By the next year, we were in a different apartment, but used the same tree. We had a little more money and bought the kids everything we could. We had a pool, the laundry was right at the foot of the stairs, and we were really close to the grocery stores. We were there for a few years, and then we moved to the house we were to live in for the next 17 years.
At the new house, I was sick one year, and Jack and the kids decorated the tree, while I laid on the sofa with a tissue box, some tissues and cough drops and cold medicine. The year before, they had gone out while I was cleaning and it was right after Christmas. They found a huge tree that was marked down to half the orignal price so the kids lined up, and Jack pushed the tree over and the kids caught it, and they all carried it out of the store and brought it home. I don't really remember now what happened to the little tree. We had used it for years and it was getting sort of tattered and used up. The big tree was used for years. I have always loved Christmas. It is my favorite holiday of the year and we always tried to do well by the kids, and each other.
Now the kids are grown, and we have 7 grandchildren to shop for as well as the adults. There are now 14 members in the family, not including the in-laws and it has gotten more expensive. We all have a great time, and this year, we sort of have more of a handle on things, and started decorating sooner and buying things in advance of the Christmas rush.
This year my daughter and two of our granddaughters are busy decorating the outside of the house and the inside is already done and it's only the 5th of December. On the 9th we will get our Christmas money and the rush to shop will be on.
One year, when our first grandson was about 4, his little sister Venus got a baby bed for her doll, and having a fire place, we of course had a fire. Little Brian decided he wanted to go to sleep, and climbed into the doll bed by the fire. He was so warm and cozy he drifted off to sleep and we still haven't figured out how he managed to curl himself up small enough to fit in the doll bed, but we have pictures to show him when he's grown. He is 13 now and taller than I am. Four of our grandchildren live in San Diego, and the other 3 live in Colorado. But even with 4 children and 5 adults to shop for, the living room is usually packed with presents.
All in all, we all have a great time. This year, my husband had to get his truck fixed and that took $1,738.00. But we are still going to have a merry holiday, and the kids will be shopping for one another this year as well. We are trying to get across to them that it is more blessed to give than to receive and they are making an effort to be more mature and think of others this year. They all picked names, and will be purchasing something nice for one another.
Christmas is a fun time of year, a chance to let your loved ones know you care about them, and to enjoy the fun of opening presents, baking Christmas goodies, and sharing a good meal. We have a home, a fireplace that makes it cozy, and even a beautiful Beagle to make the picture complete. He likes to lay by the fire and sleep. It seems that's about it for him, he sleeps, barks at the mail-man and everyone else that walks up the street, and eats everything in sight! Still, he's lovable and beautiful and our home wouldn't be the same without him.
The other day the children were all here in the evening and we all watched the Polar Express and had soda and popcorn. It's the little things that make Christmas so special. This year our youngest grandson is 4 and the girls are 10 and 11, and our oldest grandson is 13. We will have a lot of fun together and I have the best Christmas present of all, a family.
Look around this year at the little things that make Christmas special. You don't have to be rich to enjoy Christmas. It's the love in your heart that makes it special. Give generously of your love, and make your home a warm and inviting place for all.
Merry Christmas to All,
Bonnie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)