Lincons Logs 6

Please click on the link to see a power point presentation of the project “Lincoln’s Logs” at Carter Caves State Park.

Or to the right click on the black and white photo slide presentation which hopefully will give you some feel for the era.

The official dedication will be at 2 PM, Saturday, November 28th. Jack Wilkinson from Huntington, WV, will be giving an interpretation of Mr. Lincoln. You will believe you were in the presence of the real man.

Cous Cous with Beans

Baked Sweet Potato Chips

We just returned from a great five days in North Carolina. My daughter got married to a wonderful guy and married into a wonderful family. The wedding went great – no America’s Funniest Home Video moments or Chevy Chase movie scenes. The wedding was outdoors along the waterfront. The weather was perfect reaching almost 70 I believe.

I was still working on my outfit on the trip down and ended up getting a wrap type sweater at Chico’s and some boots (no heels due to foot problems) in New Bern, which were approved by Megen since the wedding was in the afternoon outside. I ended up wearing the boots on the trip back as well. My worst fear was embarrassing her by crying out in pain trying to wear heels. It turned out that her boss and I were wearing the same dress, only in different colors.

Megen was a lovely bride, and Ben a handsome groom. The reception also went very well. I got over my shyness and even danced a little – that was without even drinking. The reception was at the Chelsea in New Bern. Chris and I had the vegetarian entry – a potato pizza, which I have to learn to make. Megen said she would ask for the recipe.

We took an extra day after the wedding, visiting Megen and Ben in their new home in Raleigh. They’ve scheduled a honeymoon for later. I hope they make their whole lives a honeymoon.

The trip back was fun. We ate at a place called The Remedy (recommended by Megen). They had great vegetarian food. I’m inspired to make some new stuff now. I had their Reuben sandwich. You wouldn’t know it was vegetarian. And, we got to go to Whole Foods.

It feels a little weird being a mother-in-law, but also very good.

As Einstein said you can’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created the problem.

Our institutions began with good intentions. Eventually they outgrew the goodness of their mission statements. Then problems began. You can look at most large institutions or businesses – banks, the health care industry, our energy systems, educational institutions, political systems, or religious organizations and see that this is so.

Most begin with the good intention to help mankind. The reason the entity was created served an ideal needed by the masses; or at least it was marketed in such a fashion that the public largely accepted the premise of foundation pouring their money and interweaving their very core of life into these entities, adding to their strength.

All goes well for a time. A balance is reached. But like the teeter-totter, what goes up must come down. On the rise upward, power and greed make them lose sight of their original purpose.

Absolute power corrupts, and corruption equals eventual destruction. The entities have to maintain their selves at the cost of those they originally were formed to serve. The institutions that once solved the problems become the problems. They took on a life of their own, like the computer on “2001 Space Odyssey.” The original mission statement became secondary. It was feed the entity at all costs.

The tentacles are now in deep sucking dry the life force that once sustained. Fear in the entity rises, as the tentacles are no longer being fed. Removal is a painful process. A new way must emerge from a new way of thinking. But what way? Perhaps the original plan – back to the garden?

I’ve lived most of my life without vampires, ghouls or witches coming to my door. We’ve always lived to far out to make the trek for candy worthwhile. Still my husband is always in a festive holiday mood. He carved a pumpkin on Halloween night.

That is what scientist Bryan Sykes, professor of genetics at Oxford University and author of “Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men,” predicts will happen. We have about 125,000 years to prepare ourselves for an entirely feminine population.

The reason for the male demise, according to Sykes, is that the “Y” chromosome is flawed and since it can’t repair itself it will eventually disappear.

So without men will the entire race die out? Sykes says technology will eventually allow female-only biological procreation, which is already the case with some plants and animals.

So what kind of world absent of men can we envision? Would there be fewer wars or possibly no wars? Our currently expanding prison system would shrink considerably, maybe altogether, since 97% of the prison populace is men. So many businesses would fall by the wayside, sporting events, Hooters, bars, violent television shows, etc. Would shoe stores replace them?

Do we need men? I for one am thinking who will venture into those crawl spaces under the house? Or when you hear a creepy sound at night who will get out of bed to check it out?

Building a facsimile of Lincon’s birthplace cabin is in celebration of the Lincoln Bi-centennial and is sponsored by the Olive Hill Historical Society.

It’s a totally volunteer project taking place at the primitive camp grounds at Carter Caves State Park. We work on weekends. Volunteers are welcome!

From my good mood blog: The Good Mood Blog

About a year ago while standing at the stove fixing breakfast, a pleasant natural whiff of something, not the eggs, lingered in the air momentarily. Suddenly I thought of my friend, Jewell. I looked up to see a bird sitting in the window right beside me. I thought this odd considering this is our cat’s window, and he habitually sits there every morning waiting for his own breakfast. I was immediately thinking of Jewell and feeling that she was visiting.

Jewell had departed the earth realm approximately a year prior. She was a neighbor, on one of the farms next to ours, in her early eighties, my dad’s age, and had always been my dad’s friend. We had always invited her to family gatherings; however, I didn’t really get to know her until about two years before her passing. I had been doing some genealogy work and started asking her things she remembered.

Jewell, even in her eighties, was very outdoorsy. I had been hiking and walking around our farm and the area for years. I could never find anyone to hike with me until Jewell. I’ll never forget one day, which was quite magical. She took me into old paths and showed me where people had lived and told what she knew of their lives. You could barely make out where the foundations had been with most of these places. Everyone always built his or her home as close to a spring as possible. We followed creeks, walked through their wet and dry beds, climbed steep hills, all those things you would think impossible for someone in their eighties, but Jewell was tough and gentle at the same time. When I remember her tears of blessings come to my eyes.

She had never gone to a doctor until the last few months of her life. She had sprayed insecticide to get rid of ants. It had gotten in her lungs. While nature was her friend, the unnaturalness of chemicals was her demise. She moved from Kentucky to Vancouver to spend her last days with her son. I called but she was unable to even talk at that point. But at one moment she told her son that I was her best friend.

Her son recently returned to Kentucky to check on Jewel’s farm. He took my husband into her barn, and gave us several years of stacked, seasoned wood. All year my husband has had every weekend tied up and had not been able to cut firewood. He kept saying I have got to get time to cut firewood. I knew Jewell was still showering us with her blessings.

You may think what does this have to do with being in a good mood. Just think of someone who has truly blessed your life. Surely you will find a reason to be in a good mood after thinking about such a person.

Asking For Your Vote

http://www.sam-e.com/job/profile/193

I applied for a blogging job. It’s takes lots of votes just to even get considered, so if you are so inclined, please go to the above link and vote for me. The blog is basically about being in a good mood and being inspirational.

I know it’s a long shot, and maybe some of you would want to apply yourselves. My husband has kept encouraging me to do this, just as he has encouraged me to write. And writing these last couple of years has really been good for me, and I hope for the few who have read what I’ve written. If its meant to be it will be, but I guess not with some effort from myself like shamelessly self-promoting myself, which is hard for me.

I also found out that you can

VOTE ONCE A DAY!

Thanks so much!

Jerri
http://justjera.wordpress.com/

You may think of Tolkien when you read the title, but this story isn’t fantasy. It’s true.

In August my husband and I traveled to Houston, Texas, were we were initiated in a type of yoga called Kriya Laya. It’s not as mysterious as it sounds. It’s really a more gentile or forgiving form of the popular Kriya Yoga brought to the West by Paramahansa Yogananda. Many have read “Autobiography of a Yogi.”

Our teacher, Swami Vidyadhishananda, a Himalayan Monk, is in fact in the lineage of Yogananda. His teacher was Paramahamsa Hariharananda and his teacher was Sri Yukteswar who was also Yogananda’s teacher.

The day before my birthday Chris and I took initiation. The ceremony was more special than we thought since husbands and wives got to do it together. Swami said it was like a re-marriage, and it was. Over the course of the days after our initiation we practiced our yoga/meditation and on the night we left we celebrated in the home of one of the devotees the birthday party of Lord Krishna. There were music and dance performances. Our teacher spoke. There was a vegetarian feast afterward. Some were fasting and broke their fast at midnight.

An altar of fruit and flowers was prepared for Lord Krishna. We all sat huddled together cross-legged on the floor. The altar was just inches to my left. I hadn’t brought fruit or flowers. But I started thinking of how pivotal this was in my life and wanted to put something on the altar. I thought about our re-marriage, about my birthday being in August, and about Lord Krishna’s birthday being in August. I slid off my birthstone ring, a peridot heart, which I wear as an engagement ring. Hearts have always been the symbol for Chris and I. It all seemed to fit. With a rush of love I anonymously laid it down on a tray beside some fruit. I really didn’t know if this was proper or not. I don’t profess to know much about Hinduism. For me, seeking and learning about God, in whatever form God or love is presented, is the ultimate religion and above any dogmas. I’m really just at the kindergarten level in all of this.

Now, don’t think I’m so totally unselfish. If I were a truly giving person perhaps I would have laid my wedding band down as well, but I didn’t. I’m not writing this to be glorified in any way. It’s the glory of the miracle that happened I’m writing about. I didn’t think much about the loss of the ring, except for when I would out of habit occasionally push my thumb over to absent-mindedly move it back in place, as I often would do since it was always a little loose on me. I thought the ring would merely get thrown out. Monetarily it had very little value if any at all. The only value the ring had was its significance in our relationship.

A couple of months passed. The phone rang. The call was from Geeta in West Virginia. The cleaning people had found the ring in the home in Texas and given it to the owner who was trying to trace the owner. No one who had been at the party from Texas had claimed it, so they the only place left to ask was in West Virginia. There were two women from West Virginia who went and myself from Kentucky. I was the last one they called. I felt so bad that they went through this trouble. When Geeta asked if it were my ring I stuttered and say well yes and no. It was mine, but I gave it as an offering, at the same time thinking maybe how stupid this might have been. She put me on speakerphone and told me to repeat the story. I think someone had tears at the other end.

I really didn’t feel that the ring was mine anymore, and I didn’t know what to do in this instant, but then she asked if I wanted Swami to bless the ring. Now, I was dropping a tear. I said, “Wow, yes, that would be great,” or something to that effect.

A week or so later Geeta let me know she had the “blessed ring.” I actually tried fasting a few days before getting the ring, thinking this might purify me a little. Along with it was some precious ash which I’m stingily using just a speck of at a time. When I first put the ring on I felt a vibration I can’t explain – something really light. I wear it intermittently on both my finger and on a change where it touches my heart.

Right before we left for Lord Krishna's Party.