Gotta Feelin'

One of the worst things you can do to yourself is to wake up to the current breaking news blasting from another room in your house with caffeine hyped up journalist spinning hopelessness out of control. Now I know there are tough times of late but when has our country, our families, our lives been without tough times? We cannot cast away our confidence! I choose not to participate in worry and fear and I rest in knowing where it is my help comes from. I will always look to the hills and this morning in the midst of all that rambling on,

I just gotta feelin' that everything is gonna be alright!

Spring Clean & Go Green was a success!

"Spring Clean & Go Green" was a success raising close to $1000 for Upstate Forever.

Livestrong Challenge Philly 09

You can visit this link and help me reach my personal fundraising goal for this year's Livestrong Challenge Philly or you can join our team (Livestrong Upstate) in "The City of Brotherly Love" for the Livestrong Challenge on August 23rd.

http://philly09.livestrong.org/ajsuttles

Treat Life & People with Care

Stuck on the couch a whole week...excited to get out and what happens? You witness the behavior of the winner of "the most hateful woman on the planet" award and then you wonder, what was the hurry?

We went to Red Lobster to eat and there she was....WOW, she was much my elder but I swear it was all I could do to keep from, well, never mind. I just don't get it! She was not being hateful to us just everyone else around her and we were just the ones fortunate enough to witness her open display of selfishness & unmerited arrogance. I wanted so badly to go sit down right in front of her, look her in the eyes and ask her how life had been treating her or better yet how was she treating life. My husband did make a little "kind" jester to her but I don't think she really got it. I don't mean this in an ugly way and in no way wish cancer on anyone but there are some folks I would love to take on a little field trip to some cancer centers and let them get a new perspective on life. I know inviting her to church would be the "right" thing to do but I wouldn't want to put a church through that so I figure I would start with the chemo room and work my way up.
Treat life & people with care!

Spring Clean & Go Green Event

Thought St. Patty's Day would be a good day to remind everyone of "Spring Clean & Go Green" garage sale coming up on Saturday.

Still taking donations even up to Saturday morning..see ad.

Be sure to come out, buy something and support United Way and Upstate Forever.

See next blog entry for s short summary of the history of St. Patrick's Day....................

Saint Patty's Day

The History of St. Patrick's Day:

Saint Patrick was born around 385 AD in the United Kingdom. His real name is believed to be Maewyn Succat (he took on Patrick, or Patricus, after becoming a priest). When he was 16, he was kidnapped by a group of Irish raiders and sold into slavery in Ireland. During his six-year captivity as a shepherd, he began to have religious visions and found strength in faith in God. He finally escaped to France and became a priest and then later on became a bishop. When he was around 60 years old, Saint Patrick returned to Ireland to spread the Gospel (the Christian Word). He used the shamrock, which resembles a three-leafed clover, as a metaphor to explain the Christian concept of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).
Green is associated with St. Patty's Day because it is the color of spring, Ireland and the shamrock.
Leprechauns are also associated with St. Patty's Day, although the only reason they are is because they're Irish.

New LAF Cancer Video - Cancer, You Suck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feXOVkDp-Rw&eurl=http://www.livestrongchallenge.org/site/c.frKPI1PAIoE/b.5034191/k.48B6/Challenge_Cancer_Video.htm&feature=player_embedded

What Would You Do?

So I caught the show "What Would You Do" last night...if you have not seen this show, it puts people to the test to see what they would do in certain situations..whether they would get involved or pass by. There was a segment in which first, a well - dressed young lady (actress) walking down the street suddenly fell pretending to have passed out and it would not be a couple of minutes before someone would stop and help her. Next, they would have a man (actor) dressed as a homeless man with a beer can in his hand suddenly go down and folks were stepping over him and were unmistakeably ignoring him. Except for this one little precious lady named Linda Hamilton, who herself had been homeless at times.. had no phone but tenaciously planted herself by this man while asking every person who passed by to call 911 for this gentleman. She was very calm and not anxious or excited but just stood by him repeating to ever person who walked by to please call for help for this man. She went so far as to give him a name "Billy" she would say "get up Billy" and "Billy, are you alright?" She, having to use a cane to walk herself, then reached down and removed the beer can discarding it in the nearby trash can and was finally able to stop a lady who then called for help. Once this nicely dressed business type lady made the decision that she would intervene, several others began to get involved, as well. When the experiment had ended and everyone was told that this was indeed an experiment to study the reaction of those passing by and those who would stop and help, this very warm compassionate little lady, Linda Hamilton, on her cane just walked away wanting and expecting nothing - no thank you, no glory, nothing.

Watching this made me think about myself...am I an arm outstretched or a passer by?
Do we get our hands dirty? Is our fellow man worth it to us? It was almost scary watching this as all of those people just passed this man by..have we become so conditioned to seeing hurting people that we are willing just to step over or around them?

I am so thankful that I have had many Linda Hamiltons in my life who have not passed me by....
and I pray that I never miss a moment myself to be that hand or that voice that will cry out on the behalf of another.

Atlanta

My husband is a pretty aggressive driver but even he has to kick it up a notch when driving in Atlanta. It had been a while since we had visited Atlanta and I guess we had forgotten about the traffic not to mention trying to navigate with the use of a GPS, which my husband does not trust and refuses to listen to. Like the heavy Atlanta traffic, moving hard and fast on every side and trying to navigate the best way we know how, lately that has been life for us. But like a GPS that recalculates when you take a wrong turn, spending time together this weekend and growing closer to God and each other was just what we needed to keep us on the road headed in the right direction.

The Gospel Truth Seminar was a blessing to our family as Andrew Womack taught on the Believer's Authority, we ate ourselves almost to the death at Fogo De Chao (the most I have eaten in weeks) and we visited the Coca Cola Museum and tasted 69 flavors of coke from all over the world - very cool! We ended our weekend attending Jentzen Franklin's church in Gainesville, Ga and his message was "You Are The One" and it really went to the heart. At the service, I ran into a friend and fellow cancer survivor who also reminded me that I will be victorious.