Category: community

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Well I checked him out

I found a web site that tells you if there is a child molester in what ever radius you choose. There was no Charlie Benson listed which was a relief to me. I even looked up the number he gave me and it is registered to a Charles Benson so I think he’s okay so far.

Then I found a web site that lets you check criminal records. Again, no Charlie Benson. This seems so far to be just a nice older man who is lonely and wants a family to love. I’m going to take it slow and easy and see if I can learn more so I can really make sure my kids are safe with him. You just can’t be too careful these days with yourself and especially your children.

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Time to find a pumpkin

jack-o-lantern (free clip art)
jack-o-lantern (free clip art)
Today the kids and I went to a local pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkin to make a Jack-o- lantern from.  We found it and the darn thing cost $25 dollars. Needless to say, I couldn’t afford it. As we were walking away with one screaming and crying “I want THAT pumpkin” and the other two with long faces, a kind older man heard what was going on.

As I was getting everyone in the car, someone tapped me on my shoulder. It was the gentleman that had been near enough us to hear the children cry and me say “I just can’t afford $25 for a pumpkin.”  There he stood with that pumpkin in his hands saying “Here, this pumpkin really needed to go home with your kids. It was crying when you left it so I had to get it for the kids so they all could be happy.” My children started hooting and hollering and each one gave the kind man a big hug and said thank you.

There I stood with tears in my eyes. This kind soul was my guardian angel at that moment and I could plainly see it in his eyes. I gave him a hug and told him that he had no idea how much I appreciated his selfless kindness. He told me his name was Charlie Benson, gave me his phone number and told me that if I needed anything to help with the children for Christmas, to please let him know. He didn’t have any family to spoil and would love to adopt my children as his grandchildren if that was okay. He then asked if he could call from time to time to just speak with them and hear how their day or week had been.

I’m a bit nervous about giving him my number and I hate to say it but I will check him out before I allow him to be much of a part of my children’s lives. You can’t be too careful in this day in time but my heart tells me he is what he appears to be, just a kind old man with no one who wants to help. I sure hope so because my children would love to have a ‘Grandpa’ to spoil them all.

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I just had to share a laugh with you!!

Granny is eighty-eight years old and still drives her own car. She writes:

Dear Grand-daughter,

The other day I went up to our local Christian book store and saw a ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ bumper sticker. I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting. So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper.

Boy, am I glad I did; what an uplifting experience that followed. I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn’t notice that the light had changed.  It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn’t honked, I’d never have noticed. I found that lots of people love Jesus! While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy, and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, ‘For the love of God! Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO!’ What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus!

Everyone started honking! I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love! There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach.

I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air. I asked my young teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant. He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something. Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii, so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back. My grandson burst out laughing. Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!! A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed. So, grinning, I waved at all my brothers and sisters, and drove on through the intersection.

I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that. I had to leave them after all the love we had shared. So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!!
Will write again soon,
Love,
Granny

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Help your local animal shelter

This time of year there are always a lot of kittens and puppies at the shelter, but there are also a lot of adult cats and dogs being surrendered by owners and many are abandoned or dropped off because of the economy. People are being evicted and having their homes foreclosed and have no way to take care of the pets any more.

This really bothers me – I just don’t see how anyone in good conscience can abandon a pet. What kind of person leaves an animal locked in an empty house and drives off? What kind of person can drive down a road and just toss kittens out of the window into a stranger’s driveway? People who do that and people who beat their dogs or otherwise abuse their animals should be arrested and put into jail.

If you have a shelter in your community, next time you have the urge to take on a pet, I hope you will go to the shelter and adopt an animal from the shelter. And if you have anything you can donate to the shelter, here’s a list of desired items that can be dropped off and will be put into good use:

  • Clean, old newspapers to be used for litter and lining cages
  • Toilet seat covers (cats love to lie on them in their cages)
  • Any type of cat or dog toy (plastic or washable)
  • Old bath towels and blankets
  • Canned cat food, any brand
  • Bagged, dry dog food (particularly desired is Science Diet but other brands accepted)
  • Laundry soap
  • Bleach
  • Heavy ceramic food and water bowls
  • Antibacterial hand soap
  • Candles – citrus or spice
  • Paper towels

Shelters also need volunteers to come and walk dogs and play with the animals for short periods to give them exercise and socialization skills. If you have a good heart, please help the animals in your local shelter.

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Tax Free Shopping

Once a year, Tennessee and a couple other states give the families a break and declare the first weekend in August is Tax Free Shopping. That means all the clothes, shoes, computers and school supplies are able to be bought without having to pay the sales tax. That is a huge savings when you can put off buying those things until this particular weekend and then buy things you need. A lot of stores have extra sale prices, too. Even people who aren’t going back to school save money when they buy clothes and shoes during this weekend! Smart time to shop!

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Happy 4th of July

Independence Day (free clip art)
Independence Day (free clip art)
There is a local semi-pro baseball team that has the best fireworks every year. It doesn’t cost much to go watch the game either. I love taking the kids every year to see the ball game and the fireworks. It’s almost become a tradition with us. Before the game, we go to the park for a cook out with my family. We have hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad and make home-made ice cream too.  By the time it’s time to go to the ball game, we’re all stuffed and so that helps save money at the game. Hot dogs are EXPENSIVE at ball games.

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Social Security verification

Social Security (free clip art)
Social Security (free clip art)
With there being so many illegal aliens in our country now, a lot of business owners are beginning to do a Social Security Number Trace to make sure that the number they are supplied with is actually the persons that gave it to them. I think it’s a great tool and can not only help employers but can protect you too from having someone else use your Social Security number.

You know, it might even help employers keep from getting in trouble by hiring illegal aliens. Something needs to be done and this is just one more tool to help.

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Community Service Clubs VA

My good friend has become involved in a community service club va recently, and she has been on an emotional roller-coaster ride ever since. It would seem that even though the club she joined told her that they needed certain types of help, and said that they knew that they needed to change, and asked her for help, when she provided that help, and produced what they needed, they quickly realized how inept they must look and became quite jealous over the success of my friend’s efforts!

So they started to treat her very badly, and she went and complained to one of the “higher muckity-mucks” of the club, who quickly made arrangements to try to get her promoted to a position out of that club, so she could help MORE clubs with her efforts than just that one club.

She has been promoted to a better position, and although she still has to deal with the original club, and their disagreeable antics, the other clubs in the Community Service VA organization have been quite complimentary about all of the hard work and efforts that she has been doing to help the clubs with their goals.

She even recently learned how to convert a power-point presentation and turn it into a video and upload it to YouTube, all to promote the Community Service Club VA!

Everyone in the organization that saw the video commented on how much they liked it, although the actual club it is promoting didn’t do so much as to grunt an acknowledgement!

So much for Goodwill!

But most of the rest of the 24 clubs in her District seem to like her, so most of the time she is feeling appreciated, and that is a good thing.

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Motorcycle run for a good cause

Motorcycle run for an elementary school is such a great cause. People used to look down on bikers for so long, but the one thing that they could never say, is that bikers don’t care about their community. Every year all over the country, these wonderful people have motorcycle runs that benefit children in many different areas. Most times it is a toy run for Christmas toys for underprivileged children, but sometimes they do them for other things like raising funds for schools. I think it is awesome that they put forth not only their time organizing such events, but their money as well.

Of course they get to do the one thing they love the most and that is ride their motorcycles on a nice long drive. Usually there is a concert of local talent at the park or area where the ride ends. You can usually buy various items fro local vendors as well. The vendors even donate a large portion of their sales to the charity to help raise as much as possible. I have been to a few of these.