Hello, friends. Just a few hours ago my husband, Charles, and I returned from North Carolina. Our daughter, Marie and her husband, Tom, went with us. We attended our granddaughter's wedding. She married a very handsome man, James Etringer, on October 26, 2013 at 12 o'clock noon. The wedding went on without a glich and after many pictures, we all went to the country club for the reception. The landscapes around the club are so beautiful. Marie, who loves to photograph beautiful things, took many pictures of the bridal party inside the club and outside on the balcony. They turned out to be gorgeous pictures, fit for a wedding album. Although they had a professional photographer, Marie's pictures will be the first to be seen. She has already posted many of them on Facebook for everyone to see. We enjoyed our trip down to Mount Airy, N.C., looking at all the beautiful changing leaves and the majestic mountain ranges all down through Virginia. I have an affinity for mountains since I was born on one 73 years ago. Seeing all those lovely mountains was like giving candy to a starving child. I just ate up the scenery. It may be a long time before we see such beauty again so I have to make the memories last. Well, dear friends, I must stop for now. My hands are as cold as ice so typing is difficult. I have to go turn on the heat! I do believe winter is on its way. Brrrrr! My teeth are already beginning to chatter. It's been a lovely but tiring day so I will write more another time. God bless you all. Evelyn

Hello, my blogger friends:

I just finished posting my devotional, "Fancy", on the Portions of Grace blog site. I hope it will be well and widely read. I love writing the devotionals and will continue to do so. That is my 70th one in four years. Woopie!

Today is a cold, rainy day. All during the summer we had meager rain now and then. Here it is in the bloom of autumn with leaves changing and dropping profusely and it is now raining, making the day dark and bleak. Makes me want to sleep and go into that blessed dreamland for a couple hours. But...there is no time for that. I must get to cleaning the apartment for our company that will be here on Monday. They are my Aunt Jeannette and Uncle Delain, from Georgia. They are up here for their grandson's wedding in Pennsylvania. Wish I could be there but my cousins do not know me and I don't know them. That's the way it is in a large family like ours. I probably have at least 1,000 relatives spread all over the east coast. There are also a few in California and Texas. If we all got together, we'd need the whole building of Mountain Christian Church just for us alone. Wow! Wouldn't Pastor Ben be impressed?!

On the 25th of this month (October 2013) my husband, daughter, son-in-law and I will be traveling to North Carolina for our one and only granddaughter's wedding. Alena is a beautiful, ambitious, thirty year old woman who has worked very hard in her job as a television news producer. She went to college to learn about media and she has succeeded! Her boss remarked that she is the best producer the station has ever had. Wonderful! Good job, Alena. I know her mother and dad are proud of her. As her grandparents, Charlie and I certainly are proud. I am anxious to see her again. I only wish we had known more about her as she grew up. We missed out on so much of her life when she was small. She lived in Florida and Charlie never seemed to have enough time off from his job just to go to Florida to visit with her and her family. We saw her and her parents only when they found the time to come to Maryland to visit her mother and fathers side of family at Christmas time. Speaking of her father, he was a true father to her even though he was really her step-father. Our second son, Alen, was her biological father, but Clipper was her read dad. And she loves him with all her heart. Too bad our Alen missed out on all of the things that make a real home, family and fatherhood. But, that is another story, another time. The most important thing is that Alena is a well-rounded, beautiful, happy young woman who is about to embark on the most important aspect of her young life, that of being a wife and eventually, a mother. We wish her all the happiness her young heart can hold. True happiness is there if one chooses to reach out and grab it, hold on to it and work at it daily the rest of her life. It is "do-able". I know. My husband and I have been married for 56 years. Life is not a rose garden. As I have told many young brides-to-be when I was baking and decorating wedding cakes, "keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half closed afterwards." It is a true and honest statement, one to be reckoned with. But, it CAN BE DONE!

Well, dear friends and bloggers, today is a new day. As the Bible says, "Today is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Amen.

See you all next time, God willing. E. Bonnie Ryan

My Writings

My life has been a whirlwind of activites for the past few months. I received an invitation to write a story(ies) of mysterious happenings, supernatural occurances, mysteries, healings, etc. I had three supernatural occurances in my life. So I wrote about two of them and when my writing group critiqued them and I corrected them, I e-mailed them to the Stewart Bell book author that was going to be published next year. I got confirmation of their receipt from Jeannette Little, the woman who was doing the collecting of the stories for the book. Since then, I have been waiting to see if my stories were going to be accepted. I feel like an expectant mother, just waiting for signs of impending birth, not of a baby, but the wait is just as painful. I say to myself, maybe tomorrow I will hear something, or next week...and then I try to put it out of my mind for a while. I also sent a story entitled My Miracle to Christie Phillips who is also putting a book of strange happenings, miracles, etc.

My Miracle is a true story of my older sisters fight with cancer and how God healed her completely without an operation. The doctors gave her Chemo therapy but they literally gave up on her. The doctor issued a prescription for Oxycodon for her to take as often as she needed for the pain the doctor knew would consume her every waking moment.

Well, God is in charge, is He not? It is He, Who makes the decision as to who lives and who dies. God made that decision very precise and slowly, but surely, God began to heal my sister, whose body was eaten up with cancer until she lost from 191 pounds down to 119 pounds. She looked like death warmed over. She even lost that spark in her eye and gave up on herself. But, her vast Family did not give up on her. She has relatives in LaFayette, Georgia, Trion, Georgia, Anderson, Indiana, Alabama, and Michigan. All of those relatives have churches and when word got out for the need of healing prayer, every one of those churches prayed for healing for Gene. God was barraged with bullets of sincere prayer for healing for her. Prayer really does change things.

After weeks in the hospital, the doctor sent Gene home with instructions to take the Oxycodon as often as she needed to aleviate the ever increasing pain that would eventually consume her every waking moment. He clearly gave up on her survival. But, he did not know the power and complete love of God, the Father. Of course, Gene had to go back to the doctor every month for tests to see how she was coping with the deadly cancer that seemed to be ravaging her body.

Surprise, doctor! He was not a believing man. He was a scientist, not a Christain. On one of Gene's visits back to the hospital for testing, the doctor took a very long time to report the results of the tests he took every month. This time the prognosis was different and unexpected, a complete surprise. Mr. Brubach (Gene's husband), I am not a believing man, but I've got to believe the results of these tests. Mr. Brubach, your wife is a walking miracle. I can't find one cancerous cell in her whole body. I took the tests several times and it's just not there any more.

Needless to say, both Gene and George were taken aback by the good news of her healing. Gene had had a few months of shear misery and terror that she was going to definitely die of cancer. Now, to be told that she had no cancer cells in her body was almost too much to take in. Gene was ecstatic with the good news. She had to tell her family who had been praying constantly for her healing. Well, the news flew like wildfire all up and down the east coast to every relative and their churches that Gene had been healed of the Big C. No operations, nothing except good personal care by her family, mother and sister...She was healed! Praises be to the Great God of us all, Jehovah, and Jesus Christ, our Savior. The telephones were kept hot from telling the good news of Gene's miraculous healing. She had everything in the world to live for now.

It took Gene about a year to "kick the habit" of taking the Oxycodon. Of course, taking it every two hours had her addicted, but she was determined to kick the habit herself. If God, no, since God saw fit to have mercy on her and cure her of the deadly cancer, then she was determined to get herself free of the Oxycodon by taking it one step, one fifteen minutes, one prayer at a time, spacing the pills out until she didn't depend on them any longer. Yes, she kicked the habit herself over a year's time. Today, I'm proud to say, my older sister, Gene is cancer free still, after ten years! Glory to God in the Highest! Thanks be to God for my sister, a walking miracle!

Until next time, good folks. There is always something new each day when you are a believer in a Mighty God such as our Father, Jehovah and His Son, Christ Jesus. God bless you all, friends.

E. Bonnie Ryan

In Times of Trouble

It will soon be time to turn up the clocks one hour for daylight savings time. What a ridiculous notion, considering that farmers get up before dawn to feed and water their stock and begin work in the fields, plowing and planting. What does the ordinary housewife need with the extra hour of sunlight to do her work? She works from the time she gets up to the time she finally goes to bed or when exhaustion takes over. As the "old saying" goes, "Man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done." How true for most of us women.

Sorry I haven't posted for four months. I need to post at least once a week. So much happens during the week that it slips my mind to post. But, I will try to do better.

Updates on my mother: she has been coughing a lot and recently began coughing up bright, red blood. I took her back to see her pulmonologist, Dr. Puthawala, in Havre de Grace. He wants her to have another cat scan and also a breathing test. After that, he will speak with her about her means of treatment. It may mean a dreaded operation on her left lung. I pray that something can be done to resolve the lung issue for her.

My younger sister, Barbara, has her 69th birthday today. Mother and I will meet with her and two other sisters for a birthday luncheon Saturday. It always makes me very happy to be with my family again. And just to think back a bit, when we were children, we did not particularly want to be together all the time. Kids jealousies and so forth. But now we can't wait to be together for a few hours. So much to talk about. We have a good old-fashioned "hen party." Woe for her husband, Bill, this time because he's coming too, the only man amongst five gabby women. Sorry, Bill, but you asked for it.

The ultimate sadness in our family is that not only is our Mother ill, but Barbara has been diagnosed over a long year of illness and hospital visits and endless testing, to have Lou Gehrig's disease. At first they (the doctors) said she was getting Alsheimerz, then she was having Petit mal seizures. Now they have settled on Lou Gehrig's disease. We all suffer with her because she has been given such a short time to be with us, perhaps six to twelve months. She has come to terms with her diagnosis and says she is at peace in her heart. In fact, she says she can't wait to meet Jesus, face to face. I am happy for her in that instance, but it breaks my heart to know that we are losing her every day, a little at a time. If anyone is reading this, please pray that she does not suffer. Better a quicker, less painful passing than one that lingers and is in terrible pain every moment of the day. We have had our lovely sister 69 years now. In heaven we will have her for eternity.

Some really good news is that I am now a real published author. This past December I published my poetry book, "God's Potpourri of Love." I am so thrilled to see a lot of my poems in print and available to the public. I pray to God to have a boatload of sales this year. I have sold 29 copies of the ones I ordered. I'm not getting rich, but the book is paying for itself in the long run. I pray that God will bless it's sales and also those that buy and read it.

God bless you all out there. Pray for one another, especially in this day and age of no jobs, little income, illness and pain, hunger and sorrow. God has all the answers for us, if only we would go to Him in ernest prayer.

Hello, dear friends.

I hope that you've been ejoying a fun summer, although it has been very hot, near the three digit mark. We have spent a lot of time in the house again this year. We're getting up in age and the extreme heat is over powering some days. Charlie and I still manage to cut grass though. We usually come in afterwards, soaked as if someone trained a hose on us from head to foot.

My flowers really look good this year. The garden? Not so good. It got too hot too fast after the rainy early spring. I did not get the garden tilled so it grew it's best crop...crab grass and ground ivy. It grew as much as 12-14 inches high before it's first cutting. It needs cut again before it gets really high. I may do that later today, after the grass dries.

Does everyone have the wet grass in the morning, or are we the only ones favored with the "after the rain" effect in the morning? It takes until lunch time for it to dry and then it's so hot in the afternoon that we don't want to be out in the heat, but we have no choice. If we cut wet grass, it lies in clumps all over the place, if it can even be blown out of the chute of the lawn mower. Sometimes it clumps up beneath the mower deck and is thick enough to stop the engine from running. We have to get a stick or something and dislodge the wet clumps of grass beneath the mower deck, freeing up the blades again. It usually starts right away and we can get on with the job. But, I'll say it loud and clear...It ain't no fun! That's why we usually wait until afternoon and cut, and we sweat, sweat, sweat! A nice cool shower feels so good afterwards. Then we put our feet up and enjoy a large, cold drink, relaxing on the couch (me) and in the recliner (Charlie). We do nothing else the remainder of the day.

The only thing in the garden this year (besides the grass and weeds) are four cucumber plants that my dear neighbor, Jean, gave me last month. I put a wire cage around them this year because the deer and the groundhogs are night-time marauders. I've had more than my share of their pillaging ways. It's so disheartening to go to the garden for a cucumber or two and find the vines chewed off and the cucumbers gone. I was glad this past winter to help our son-in-law, Tom, drag a couple deer out of the woods after he shot them during hunting season. That was two more I didn't have to fight with over my vegetables. Now, if only I could shoot a groundhog or two while they are in the act of stealing my vegetables. But, when they see or hear me coming, they make a fast bee-line to our shed and duck under the steps and to safety. They are really fast little critters.

Well, no camping this year. Our camper needs some work to be done and so far we haven't had the chance to get to it. I did get up on top and scrub the dirt and grime off the roof. I got it all ready to start caulking the seams around the air conditioner and air vents and it rained just enough, for ten whole minutes, to mess up my plans. We quickly (if that's possible) put the tarps over the camper and tied them down so the rain couldn't get through the seams again. By the time we were finished tieing it down, it had stopped raining. Wouldn't you know? By then it was too wet to get the caulking done. So, we've been stalled again. We're behind, as usual.

Well, friends, take care and enjoy the rest of your summer. School will begin in another week. The house will be quieter for a couple hours and mothers, take my advice and lay down for a nice morning nap. Your hyper little rascals will be home sooner than you think and be bending your ears the rest of the evening until they go to bed. God bless you all.

Evelyn Bonnie

Christmas 2012 is over with and the New Year, 2013 is here. Charlie and I really enjoyed being with our daughter and her husband for Christmas. Our oldest son, Chuck, and his wife, Betty were also there just before lunch. Chuck stopped by my sister, Leasa's house and brought her with them. It was good to have her for Christmas since she had never spent Christmas with us before in all of her 61 years. After she opened her gifts she said with obvious delight, "This is the first time in thirteen years that I've had a Christmas like this." It pleased me that she was so happy. Our daughter is a great cook. This Christmas meal was another winner in my book. Marie has fixed German "rouladen," which is thin cut beef, spread with mustard, layered with one strip of bacon, then chopped pickles and chopped onions layered on top of the bacon. It is then sprinkled with Mrs. Dash's garlic and herb spices and rolled up from one end to the other. You secure it with toothpicks, usually three of them to hold it together. In a hot skillet with olive oil, brown the rolled meat on all sides. Add enough water to cover the beef rolls and add Mrs. Dash's to the water. For great flavor, add one or two bay leaves. Bring the water to boiling and then turn down to a simmer. Cover and let cook for at least two hours to tenderize the meat and cook the bacon thoroughly. Once the meat is done, remove the meat from the pan, take out the bay leaf and throw away. Strain the liquid through a strainer or sieve. Put the water back into the skillet to make good gravy. Some people who use corn starch as a thickener like I do, call it "sauce." It's still "gravy" in my book. I mix up a couple tablespoons of corn starch in a small bowl with cold water to make a thin mixture. Then when the liquid in the skillet comes to a boil, I slowly drizzle the corn starch mixture into it and stir until it thickens. You can still add some seasoning if you prefer. Then, add the meat rolls back into the gravy and let it simmer for at least five minutes to allow the meat juices to mix with the gravy. I serve this gravy over mashed potatoes accompanied by the "rouladen". It's delicious! On occasion I have made potato balls and poured the gravy over them on the plate. Green bean casserole is an excellent side dish with this meal. My contribution to our Christmas meal was strawberry pretzel salad and lemon bar cookies. We also took wine to share. Of course, there was delicious rolls and butter to round out the meal. Now, doesn't that sound like the perfect Christmas meal? Yum! Well, I hope you all had as nice a Merry Christmas as we did. And now we wish you all a very blest and HAPPY NEW YEAR, my blogger friends. May God bless your homes with love, prosperity, good health and much happiness in 2013.

In seventeen days Christmas will be here. What a year it has been since last Christmas. The year began with a heavy heart since just two months before, October 21st, I lost my dear mother, Edith, to the ravages of lung cancer. She lived in a three-roomed "mother's suite" attached to my home so I could easily take care of her when her illness overtook her physcially. I had hospice care for her so she was very comfortable during the worst part of her illness. When she passed away she took part of my heart with her. It was a sad time. Christmas that year was somber to say the least, but we all did the best we could to keep the celebration of Christmas alive. My daughter and son-in-law were more than hospitable; they were marvelous. So were my son and his wife.

My younger sister, Barbara, was also very ill with Lou Gerhrig disease and was quickly fading away. I tried to visit her as often as I could. She was always so grateful when I visited and never failed to thank me for coming. The look in her sunken eyes always broke my heart. It was as if she was trying to absorb my face in her minds eye. Her terrible disease stole all the vitality from her body but it could not touch her sharp mind. When I hugged her and told her that I loved her, her emaciated body was so fragile that I could feel her slipping away even as I held her in my arms. Oh, the pain of remembering those last two days she was alive. I miss her so much. The tears still flow and probably will for a long time.

The difference in my family is that we three girls were very close in age and in love. Losing mother was devastating to me, but losing my younger sister was like losing a spoke in a wheel of life. Mother was our hub, the center of our lives. Barbara was the first spoke now missing. How much longer can our "wheel" hold out before the other spokes break? It is only a matter of time.

On to other things. My daughter makes everything better for us all the time. She has been there for me through both my losses, giving me strength when I am feeling low. She made a wonderful dinner at Easter, inviting all our immediate family. I got a chance to visit with my son and his wife again.

It was painful to learn that our daughter-in-law, Betty, is getting dementia. We could tell she was already courting it because she often asked Chuck about names and places they had visited. She even forgot momentarily, the name of one of her sons. Chuck gently reminded her and she went on with her story. My heart seemed to tighten with the realization that each of us are at that time in our lives when "old age" maladies visit us and stay until our demise. That new revelation put a damper on the Easter celebration of Christ's victory over death. But, it was a victory which we will all have a share in some day. Thanks be to God!

Summer this year was unbearably HOT! My dear husband and I spent a lot of time in the house, going out only when it was necessary. We didn't even get our canopy up over the patio table and chairs this year. The mornings began hot and the day got hotter as time passed. We didn't use the deck much for sitting in the evening air and relaxing. Too many bugs. Ugh! So, our air conditioner ran night and day over the summer. I found many things to keep me busy in our little mansion on the mountain (road).

We did manage to go camping FIVE TIMES this summer. I was glad our camper has air conditioning too. I couldn't have stood it if we didn't have it. We really enjoyed our night time campfires. Even our dog, Krickette, enjoyed sitting with us around the fire. Oh, the skies up on that mountain were just beautiful, dotted with a million twinkling stars like diamonds in the sky. It was so much fun to camp since we hadn't done it for five years! That was our enjoyment for the summer.

It was too hot for a good garden this year. Only the crab grass and weeds prospered. What few vegetables we got we ate. Not much to share with family this year. Nothing tastes as good as a homegrown tomato and some really fresh cucumbers. I did get a nice amount of blueberries before the birds got to them. Just two quarts for the freezer, but it was better than nothing at all. When we lived at our first house, I had planted six blueberry bushes and I often think of the forty quarts of those luscious berries that I put in the freezer that are almost gone now. Of course, the bushes were thirty five years old when we moved. Too bad, I couldn't bring them with us but they were very, very large. Someday these two bushes I have may grow into large bushes too and produce with the others. This soil is not nearly as rich as the other place was, but I'm working on it.

Summer passed to sudden fall and the trees were beautiful this year, all yellows, oranges, reds and browns. The leaves were deep as they covered the ground and were harder to pick up with the mowers. I couldn't help Charlie get them up this year like I have always done. Reason? I had my left hand operated on in late September and it has been very slow in healing. I've had therapy on it three times a week since the first of October. Therapy has been no fun but I am now seeing progress in the movement of my thumb and fingers. My wrist still feels like it has a tight band around it but I'm told that it will go away gradually as I keep using my hand and fingers.

To top off this years "living," I'll just run down the activities quickly. I had two spots of skin cancer on my upper right arm and the inside calf of my left leg. They were removed and are fine now. I have to have a full body check for melonomas every six months now. I've also had to have two crowns on my back molars. I've heard it said that diabetes destroys your teeth, your heart, your kidneys and liver. Well, two of my teeth have started down the alley of no return. I just hope that's all. I do take the best of care of my teeth. Ask my dentist.

My hubby had to have vein surgery on his left leg a few months ago. His leg has healed very well. He still has back pain and right hip pain. Arthritis is a very painful "old age" disease. It will hit everyone sooner or later. Too bad it couldn't be later. Charlie has always been very active and so have I, but we can't outrun old age. We're giving it a good try though.

Bad news still this year. I found out that I have carodid artery disease with stenosis---narrowing of the arteries. In both sides of my neck the arteries are 90% narrowed. I've just had three in depth tests and when I go back this Thurday, I will learn the "bad" news and what is going to be done about them. I pray that God is with me, as He has always been. "If God is for me, who could be against me?" It's all in God's hands.

Well, I guess that is all I will write for this time. Christmas is on our doorstep and we want to wish everyone the best, healthiest, most merriest Christmas ever. God bless you all.
Evelyn