where ever shall we begin….

“If you are suffering from a bad man’s injustice,
forgive him—lest there be two bad men.”

St. Augustine


(lovely treasures found along a morning walk /Julie Cook / 2021)

Each and every passing day I want to spout off my take on the
latest madness besieging our lives…
The idiocy of man…and woman…all playing out here in the US.

And each and every idiocy deserves its own epistle.

But there simply is no time in which to keep up with the
turning of the surreal wheels.

As soon as I could write about one thing, something else pops up
and the popping just keeps popping.

Critical Race Theory
Woke School Boards
Woke schools
Wokeness in general
US Education
US Representatives and their big ignorant mouths
Race
Political egos
Egos in general
A US president who, for our own saving grace, needs simply to
sail off to the sunset…taking that wife and son with him.
A vice president who is a silly little girl who simply needs
to be taken away…
Borders
Migrants
Immigrants
MS13
A culture hellbent on canceling most of the life we thought
we knew and loved….
The Media which really is no example of what true journalism is all about.
Vaccines and masks—nuff said
Propaganda
Faucism
Posers
Imposters
Lies
falsehoods
Madame Speaker
The Squad of imbeciles
American Flags
Disrespect
alternative history
triggers
emotions
tender feelings
adults being babies
immaturity
whimps
safe zones
feelings…nothing more than feelings…
Crime
More crime
violent crime
riots
protests
laws
what laws?
Help wanted
checks
Welfare state

on and on it goes…
there is no time to start on one topic before another topic
steals the spolight.

and wouldn’t you know it…
The Mayor and Sheriff are coming to spend the majority of the week
with Mom and Da while Mommy and Dada go on a much needed bit of R & R
Which in turn means you must pray for Mom and Da!!!!

Heck…let’s just all pray now–cause prayer is about all any of us
still really have left…

I think I’ll just take my chances with the ensuing heat, humidity
and cicadas—at least those three things are brutally honest

“To love God’s will in consolations is a good love when it is truly
God’s will we love and not the consolation wherein it lies.
Still, it is a love without opposition, repugnance, or effort.
Who would not love so worthy a will in so agreeable a form?
To love God’s will in His commandments, counsels,
and inspirations is the second degree of love and it is much more perfect.
It carries us forward to renounce and give up our own will,
and enables us to abstain from and forbear many pleasures, but not all of them.
To love suffering and affliction out of love for God
is the summit of most holy charity.
In it nothing is pleasant but the divine will alone;
there is great opposition on the part of our nature;
and not only do we forsake all pleasures,
but we embrace torments and labors.”

St. Francis de Sales, p. 76

the best valentine’s day ever!

After nearly 37 years, I must admit that this has to have been our best Valentine’s day…
ever!!!

Here’s how it went…

Firstly— “mom” and “da” drove down to Atlanta to babysit so a young couple with little
children could actually go out to eat like real civilized adults…alone as a couple…
all without the typical pure chaos that usually occurs at their dinner table.

Next there was ball toss and catch…

Followed by some good napping…and eventually Sunday night bath time…

First for “Je” (aka James the Sheriff)

Then it was the Mayor’s turn to beautify…

Finally…once everyone had played, bathed, eaten and gotten their parents back…
“mom” and “da” journeyed homeward on the highways and the byways, all through the misty dark
only to have their own late but extra special romantic dinner…
who knew prosecco and hotdogs could totally compliment one another —-

Ode to the love of family and grandkids….

“…as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15

Love is a strong force

“I see clearly with the interior eye, that the sweet God loves with a pure love
the creature that He has created, and has a hatred for nothing but sin,
which is more opposed to Him than can be thought or imagined.”

St. Catherine of Genoa


(Da with a tired Mayor and Sheriff / Julie Cook / 20201)

“Love is a strong force — a great good in every way;
it alone can make our burdens light, and alone it bears in equal balance
what is pleasing and displeasing.
It carries a burden and does not feel it; it makes all that is bitter taste sweet.
Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing higher, nothing stronger, nothing larger,
nothing more joyful, nothing fuller, nothing better in heaven or on earth; f
or love is born of God and can find its rest only in God above all He has created.
Such lovers fly high, run swiftly and rejoice.
Their souls are free; they give all for all and have all in all.
For they rest in One supreme Goodness above all things,
from Whom all other good flows and proceeds.
They look not only at the gifts, but at the Giver, Who is above all gifts.”

Thomas à Kempis, p. 108
An Excerpt From
Imitation of Christ

Not what they appear to be…

Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many;
the intelligence of few perceives what has been carefully hidden
in the recesses of the mind.

Phaedrus


(thinkstock)

I can vividly remember, years ago one evening we were watching the evening news…
This was during a more innocent time…a time when I still believed the news was news…
It wasn’t biased, not false, not politized, nor polarized…
Peter Jennings was reporting a story about a rather odd yet obscure figure.
An ingénue sort of an individual–but in this case, the figure in question was male.

He appeared to be like some tall and lanky yet benign sort of goat herder.

There was some film footage of him walking amongst a rocky terrain complete with staff in hand.
He wore a robe-like covering with some sort of religious drape or scarf along with a
tribal hat which was covering a greying head with a long greying beard to match.

He seemed harmless enough but watching him, I had a distinct disturbing feeling.
There was something about this “goat herder” that I found very very troubling.
Little did we know then that this news story was the first blip on the radar.

Bill Clinton was the current president of the day.
This was a blip on his radar…a blip he allowed to simply pass him by.

This seemingly innocuous man was actually Osama bin Laden and he was just
making a name for himself on the Western airwaves.

Little did I know that evening, all those years ago while simply
watching the evening news, that there would be a 9/11 thanks to this “goat herder”.
Nor did I know, or any of us know, that there would an onslaught of dominos
falling one over another—
all heinous acts carried out under the banner of Allahu akbar.

And so, over the years, much like when I first saw that image of Bin Laden,
there has been another man who seems innocent enough at first glance but has
given me that same sense of foreboding…
his name is George Soros.

I’ve written about him before starting back in 2016.
Here are four links to four posts featuring Mr. Soros.

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/should-we-go-or-should-we-stay/

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2019/07/07/we-live-in-both-dark-and-light/

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2019/07/30/this-is-what-should-keep-you-up-at-night/

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2020/05/18/why-do-important-people-scare-me/

Once again I’ve caught another recent article featuring the likes of Mr. Soros.

It’s an article written by Robby Starbuck who is a Cuban-American producer and director.

The article is about how George Soros wants to remake America.

Why Aren’t We Allowed To Talk About George Soros’s Plan To Remake America?

According to Mr. Starbuck,
Since 2015, George Soros has pumped tens of millions of dollars into local races in Texas, Colorado,
California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and New York, as well as swing states.

Since 2015, George Soros has been executing a plan to reshape the country through
local district attorney elections by pumping unprecedented amounts of money into races
that typically only see candidates spend in the low five figures.

Here’s why he has an interest in these local races. Soros is exploiting the reality
that all politics are local in some way. To transform America,
you have to transform the way towns and cities operate.

Mr. Soros is Hungarian by birth and whose family were non-practicing Jews.
The family fled Hungry during Nazi occupation by obtaining false papers, changing the family
name from Schwartz to Soros and claiming they were Christians.

From everything that I’ve read, I still can’t understand Soros’ divide and conquer mentality.
But one thing I have discovered is that if you criticize Mr. Soros, you are considered
antisemitic.
An unspoken hands-off perimeter has been put up around this very enigmatic man.

Why criticizing a non-practicing Jew is considered antisemitic is beyond my soul.

Mr. Starbuck surmises that “the left’s assumption that questioning someone’s political
spending is equivalent to questioning his dignity as a person is itself a deeply
bigoted assumption, designed solely to silence dissent and shut down debate.”

Mr. Soros is a golden calf to the Left and I suspect it has everything to do with both
his money and his power.

Mr. Starbuck notes that Soros has spent an unbelievable amount of money on the campaigns of
progressive left DA’s across the country.
The assumption is that if you can alter the leaders of the law, you
can alter the cities themselves, if you can alter the cities, you
can alter the states, if you can alter the states you can alter the Nation.

Starbuck explains:
Buying Prosecutors Who Are Soft on Crime
Since 2015, Soros has pumped tens of millions of dollars into local races in Texas,
Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and New York, as well as swing states
such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Arizona.
In 2016, Soros spent $2,000,000 on a single sheriff race in Maricopa County, Arizona,
helping the leftist candidate, Paul Penzone, win.

In Philadelphia, Soros spent an insane $1,700,000 to elect Larry Krasner DA.
Soros has also given millions of dollars in grants to candidates in other states.
These enormous contributions have a correspondingly enormous impact.

Although his efforts haven’t been universally successful,
the vast majority of Soros-backed candidates have won with Soros donations
pushing them across the finish line.
Here are just a few examples:

$2,000,000 to fund Kim Foxx in her Cook County (Chicago, Ill.) re-election bid.
$1,400,000 to fund Aramis Ayala’s campaign to become state’s attorney of Orlando, Fla.
$1,150,000 to fund Jake Lilly’s run to become DA of Jefferson and Gilpin County (Denver) in Colorado.
$958,000 to fund Joe Gonzales’s run to become DA of Bexar County (San Antonio, Texas).
$650,000 to fund Jose Garza in his Travis County (Austin, Texas) re-election bid.
$750,000 to fund Joe Kimok in his Broward County, Fla. state’s attorney race.
$583,000 to fund Kim Ogg’s run to become Harris County (Houston, Texas) DA.
$583,000 to fund Parisa Dehghani-Tafti in her race to be Arlington County (Va.) commonwealth’s attorney.
$500,000 to fund Jody Owen’s run to become Hinds County, Miss. (Jackson) DA.
$406,000 to fund James E. Stewart’s run to become Caddo Parish, La. (Shreveport) DA.
$392,000 to fund Steve T. Descano’s bid to become Fairfax County (Va.) commonwealth’s attorney.
$275,000 to fund Diana Becton’s bid to remain as Contra Costa County, Calif. DA.
$147,000 to fund Darius Pattillo in his run to become Harris County, Ga. DA.
$116,000 to fund Kim Gardner’s re-election bid as St. Louis circuit attorney.
$107,000 to fund Raul Torrez bid to become Benalillo County (Albuquerque, N.M.) DA.
$89,000 to fund Scott Colom’s bid to become DA of Lowndes County, Miss.
That’s just a partial list, but it surely corroborates Gingrich’s point that Soros
“paid for” the outcomes of those elections, notwithstanding Harf’s unsubstantiated denial.
In 2018 The Los Angeles Times reported that Soros spent $2,700,000 on California DA races alone,
and another $16 million on 17 DA races in other states.

So my question is why would a billionaire businessman and supposed philanthropist spend billions
of dollars to alter campaigns all across the country?

Could all that money not be better spent on say feeding hungry children worldwide?

Starbuck also wonders as to why the big-spending and seems to have an idea.

“That leap from remaking our justice system to remaking America may seem like a long jump to some,
but law and order is the core of America’s existence.
Without law and order, you don’t have a country.”

And thus I wonder, are we not witnessing a nationwide cry from our liberal progressive left
to defund the police…a cry to throw out the law, throw out the order,
throw out the rules…all for a seismic shift in what might soon to be considered a
“former” America?

And so for a nation to have no order, no law, no rule…one is left with only one thing–
anarchy.

I will piggyback off of this thought of a downward spiral tomorrow with
more of a prophetical Spiritual take…but just remember that if you remain silent,
if you know what is taking place is wrong, but opt to say nothing, choosing to ignore
what is happening by looking the other way…the life you think you know and love will not
always be there.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/19/why-arent-we-allowed-to-talk-about-george-soross-plan-to-remake-america/

let’s do this…going forward

“Don’t follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.”
Margaret Thatcher


(the Mayor on a mayorial visit, enjoying a BLT with homegrown tomatoes/ Julie Cook/ 2020)

Both the Mayor and the Sheriff started a new daycare this past week.

Due to the Pandemic and life shuttering back in early March,
they’ve basically been footloose and fancy-free for a near 5 months.

With their mom’s school preparing to reopen, while she’s having to gear up for what will
be both an open school coupled with optional virtual learning—in other words, teaching
to those seated in desks alongside those opting to stay home—a new daycare was in order
and the only option was to begin now.

As a retired educator, whose child served bided his time in daycare,
I can vividly remember those trying days–
a time that our pediatrician dubbed ‘the necessary evil’.

But since both their mom and dad must each work, and we live over an hour away,
daycare becomes a difficult, yet necessary, thing to utilize.

I can remember crying each and every morning, after having dropped off our son
at his daycare, as I drove on to work.

Guilt is always the working mom’s middle name.

The Mayor and Sheriff’s mom has also experienced this same sense heaviness,
each morning this past week.

So “mom” (aka moi, the grandmother) drove over Friday for a bit of a needed diversion.

The Sheriff was nonplused…


(the week’s new schedule has been exhausting)

And the Mayor insisted she immediately leave the Atlanta Woobooville office in order to return
ASAP to “Da” (aka my husband the grandfather) who was busy at the satellite Woobooville office.

There were no if’s, and’s or but’s…she grabbed her “pursh (aka purse),
put on her rain boots (no rain in sight), blew kisses to her parents, hugged the dog,
waved good-bye to “Je” (the Sheriff), took hold of my hand while announcing for one an all…
“SEE DA!”

And so we left to come to see Da—a weekend visit of sorts.

But with visits and kids aside,
I am painfully reminded that we are living in some mighty precarious days.

They are challenging for all of us.
Frightening.

We don’t know what’s the right thing to do.
Daycares are opening as workplaces begin to re-open…
as schools prepare to re-open…
as cases continue to increase.

And yet we trudge through it all…
we do so because that is what we do….it is who we are.
We roll up our sleeves and head forward.

Standing still or going backward are simply not options.

And so we live each day, one day at a time.

We enjoy the precious moments a bit more strongly,
while feeling the day’s heaviness a bit more keenly.

As we prepare for the coming weeks ahead of life…of school…of work…of sports…
of living…
We say, “let’s do this”—
but let’s do this with God’s grace.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,
that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

the sound of silence…can break the heart

“In the silence of the heart God speaks.
If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you.
Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness,
your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”

Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers


(courtesy the web)

The school year has finally ended and thus our little extended family clan headed home
yesterday for good.

And I cried like nobody’s business.

There is now such a deafening silence that neither my husband nor I find comfortable.

No shrieks, no cries, no shouts, no laughter, no bumps nor bangs…

March 15th until May 22nd.
Holidays, birthdays, milestones, and seasons have all came and gone.

And now they are gone…

And there is still a Pandemic, a lockdown, a ‘new’ normal…
The silence isn’t helping…


(the attack of Da / Julie Cook / 2020)


(a warm spring day /Julie Cook/ 2020)


(snuggle bug siblings / Abby Cook/ 2020)


(a first hair cut / Julie Cook / 2020)


(the last morning with “mom” / Julie Cook / 2020)

ALMIGHTY God, heavenly Father, who hast blessed us with the joy and care of children;
Give us light and strength so to train them,
that they may love whatsoever things are true and pure and lovely and of good report,
following the example of their Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.

1928 Book of Common Prayer

Please pardon the interruption…

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things
as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life.
The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life —
the life God is sending one day by day.

C. S. Lewis


(the Mayor accessing the containers that house her satellite Woobooville office supplies…aka toys)

Please pardon the interruption in service, but The Mayor is currently in residence…

Her royal ruler (aka self-appointed official) has proclaimed that any and all technology
will be used sparingly during her audit of the satellite office of Woobooville.

She is emphatic that there are to be absolutely no leaks to the media as to what this audit may entail

Some staff members are very worried…


(Percy making himself comfortable in the Mayor’s teepee along with Polly Possum)

So while the Mayor settles in for a few days conducting her reign of terror,
I may be a bit scarce here in blogville as I tend to her every beck and call…


(the Mayor has taken over the offical chair of the stellite office’s boss, aka Da or Papa)

Our life will be a success if, at the moment of death,
we have in our soul the life above our nature, the Supernatural Life.
It will be a failure if, at death, we have not the Supernatural Life.
For if we have it, then we have in our soul the powers that would enable us to live the life of heaven;
if we have it not, we lack these powers and therefore will be totally unable to live the life of heaven.

Frank Sheed
from A Map of Life

when did Moppie became Biya?

Our grandchildren accept us for ourselves, without rebuke or effort to change us,
as no one in our entire lives has ever done, not our parents, siblings,
spouses, friends–and hardly ever our own grown children.

Ruth Goode


(the Mayor clownig around / Julie Cook / 2019)

The best-laid plans, right?

Somewhere between having kids and by the time those kids become “grown”…
the notion of having grandchildren, and becoming a grandparent, trickles
ever so sweetly into one’s thoughts.

And maybe even more so if you yourself had had a special relationship with your own grandparents.

Of course, you most certainly need to have some time in between your children leaving the nest
and their actually growing into their own before you can even allow yourself to
entertain the thought of more wee ones in your life!
But the older you get, the more those types of thoughts invade both your mind and heart.

And so all this grandparent talk came racing to the forefront of my thinking recently,
in a rather poignant way, when I was talking with a new acquaintance.
This new friend reminded me of what it means to want to be a grandparent.

This friend was recounting the day doctors had told her she had stage 4 breast cancer,
kidney cancer as well as liver cancer….giving her only 2 weeks to live.

The short-long of this story, of which was about 6 years ago or so,
and as we now see has had a truly a miraculous ending…is not what one might imagine.

When told you only have two weeks to live…I’m not certain what your first thoughts
are suppose to be.

Do you panic?
Do you get mad?
Are you resigned?
Or, in the case of my friend, do you think of what might have been?

When my own mother was told such at the age of 53, her first response was that she
really had wanted to play tennis again.
But that was pretty much my mom…

So what this new friend of mine had told me, that which was her initial thought after hearing such news,
was actually quite telling.

This was at a time in her life when her sons were still relatively young and just entering college.
The thought of them marrying and having their own children was a very distant fantasy.
Yet my friend revealed that when the doctors told her she had but weeks to live,
her first and only thought was…
“and to think, all I’ve ever wanted was to be a grandmother…”

And so yes, there is indeed something truly magical about being a grandparent.

I was fortunate in that I knew both of my grandmothers and one grandfather,
a man who I lost way too soon…when I was but only 7.

To this day, I cherish the memories I forged with each of them…
as they left important imprints on my very being.
They helped to mould me into who I am today.
But perhaps no more so than that of my grandfather as he continues to loom large and lovingly
in the memories of
the 7-year-old little girl who remains in my psyche.

And so one thing we know about grandparents is that grandparents have grandparent names.

My grandparents were known as Mimi, Nany, and Pop.

My dad was later ‘Pops’ to our son as was his brother, my uncle, to his own grandkids.

So when the time came in our own lives, when my husband and myself were to become grandparents,
the formation of names became a hot topic.

Our son wanted us to have more traditional names—names he was familiar with—those of
“grandmother and papa” since “pops” was a bit too sacred for him.

I, on the other hand, wanted to be more unique…
Names with character and staying power.
So I thought “Moppie and Poppie” sounded really cute.

Not too dorky or silly but really grandparent-like.

Our son hated both names but I stuck with my choice…
Despite the little fact that my husband constantly kept falling back on what he had heard his
own father called forever… “papa”

Still, I was determined.
I was going to be Moppie by gosh.

That was until the day I was actually called ‘Biya’ and my husband was called ‘Da’ by the one person
who the names were to be the most pertinent.

BIYA????
What the heck??
I get ‘Da’ as that is connected to what the Mayor calls her dad, DaDa—so it makes sense the older of the
dadas would be Da.
But Biya???

How and where she came up with Biya is beyond my soul.

When they call us on the phone and when she hears my voice—
it is immediately a constant shouting of BIYA, BIYA, BIYA…

My grandmother, Nany, got her name because her young nephew, my dad’s cousin, couldn’t say
‘Aunt Annie’—-so a butchered form came out as ‘nany’—and so Nany stuck.
And thus for about 70 years of her 86 year long life, she was Nany and Nany only to all of
us who knew and loved her.

But that still didn’t answer my wonderment as to how Moppie became Biya…

So when in doubt I did what we all do…I googled.

The word Biya is actually a real word.
Who knew??

It is Arabic in origin.
And it is a current word in both Pakistan and India…Sanskrit actually…
a word that means ‘goodness’, ‘courageous’ or more importantly, ‘gift to God’…

So in her 18-month-old infinite wisdom, The Mayor has deemed that I shall be of goodness and
a gift to God…

I’ll take that name in a heartbeat and I pray that I will be able to live up to this
most precious gift she’s given me.
Because she and her brother, the New Sheriff, are the best gifts my life could have ever received.


(The Maror showing a little love to her Sheriff)


(the Sheriff enjoying his first beach trip)


(the Mayor sporting shades for a day out at the beach)