Akiane Kramarik Revisited

Akiane Kramarik Revisited

It is a pleasure to get back to more pleasing and beautiful subjects than politics. Last night, after posting the two posts for April 8, I received an e-mail from Lori Henshey, the author whose articles on Colton Burpo and mentions of Akiane Kramarik really piqued my interest. While she has still not had an opportunity to interview Akiane, she did go ahead and write her own story, basing its information off of four different sources.

There is a link at the bottom of this posting to her actual online article. At the bottom of her online story are the sources for her story, and each of those source’s names are active links which you can use to get to those source stories. Sadly, one source requires signing up for a “free trial,” which I opted to not do. But, each of those stories gives just a little different perspective.

I have chosen to not post images of any of Akiane’s paintings in my posts, but you can see her paintings at this link. Just go into “Gallery” and enjoy.

http://www.artakiane.com/

Now, Lori Henshey’s story from Examiner.com:

Akiane Kramarik: Visits to Heaven and Visions of Jesus

By Lori Henshey, Religious & Spiritual Mysteries Examiner

April 7th, 2011

Children are so fresh from God it’s no wonder some of them are given visions and signs from heaven. Their innocent and trusting natures allow them to believe what we adults would never accept. This must be part of what Jesus meant when he said: I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven - Matthew 18:3.

So perhaps it would do us well as spiritual beings to listen to a little girl who – she claims – has had visions and visits with Jesus. And whether you believe she has truly walked and talked with Jesus, one cannot deny her artistic and poetic talent.

Her name is Akiane Kramarik and she was born at home underwater, on July 9, 1994, in Mount Morris, Illinois, to a stay-at-home Lithuanian homemaker mother and an American father, chef and dietary manager.

Akiane – whose name means ocean in Lithuanian – and her siblings were homeschooled for the most part and they had no television and few books, so when she began telling her family about seeing visions at age four, they were fairly certain what she was experiencing was not a result of outside influences. Her parents chose to support their daughter, which probably played a part in her prolific works.

Akiane began to sketch and write poetry at age four, advanced to painting at six and writing poetry at seven. Her first completed self-portrait sold for $10,000. A large portion of the money generated from art sales is donated by Kramarik to charities. According to Akiane, her art is inspired by her visions of heaven and her personal connection with God. “I am a self-taught painter,” she told Children’s Digest. "God is my teacher."

Akiane explained to her family that God gave her the visions and abilities to create her artwork and poetry, which must have come as quite a shock since both her parents were atheists at the time. They later converted to Christianity on account of Kramarik's paintings and visions. More than art was happening in their home. “Simultaneous with art was a spiritual awakening," Akiane's mother, Forelli Kramarik, told Christianity Today. "It all began to happen when she started to share her dreams and visions.”

Once, according to an article in New Connexion magazine, Akiane was staring off into space, with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes. Asked what she was doing, she simply answered, "I was with God again, and He told me to pray continually. He showed me where He lived. I was climbing transparent stairs; underneath I saw gushing waterfalls, and as I was approaching Him, His body was pure and intense light.

“What impressed me the most was His hands – they were gigantic! I saw no bones, or veins, no skin or blood, but maps and events. Then He told me to memorize thousands upon thousands of wisdom words on a scroll that did not look like paper, but more like intense light. And, in a few seconds, I got somehow filled up. From now on I will get up early to paint. I hope one day I'd be able to paint what I was shown."

Although she was three at the time, she'll always remember God's first message to her. "He said, 'You have to do this, and I'll help you.' He said, 'Now you can help people.' I said, 'Yes, I will.' But I said it in different words in my mind. I speak through my mind to Him," she told Christianity Today.

When asked how she knows that it's God who is speaking to her she said, "Because I can hear His voice....quiet and beautiful."

Akiane was always consumed with the faces of subjects she painted, and she found that when she prayed the right vision always appeared. When she wanted to paint Jesus, however, she spent a year mulling over her model. Finally, she asked her entire family to pray with her. The next day, a giant of a man came to her door looking for work. He was a carpenter.

Akiane immediately knew this man would be her model for her painting of Jesus. Initially the carpenter agreed, but he changed his mind. "He said that he wasn't worthy to represent his Master," Akiane told Christianity Today. "He's a Christian, and he's a humble person. But I prayed that God would change his mind and that he would call back."

The carpenter – who wishes to remain anonymous – did call Akiane back, saying that God wanted him to pose for the painting, resulting in the Jesus paintings Prince of Peace and Father Forgive Them.

The painting is startling. The eyes are loving and patient, but also piercing and fierce. He is beautiful. In fact, when Colton Burpo, the little boy who says he went to heaven at age three (see articles Part One and Part Two), saw the painting, he declared it to be the only one that ever captured what Jesus looks like. There have been many paintings since that one, though Prince of Peace is probably her most famous.

People may wonder, “Why did Jesus choose to contact Akiane?"

“I have been blessed by God,” she said simply. “And if I'm blessed, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is to help others. I am donating a big portion of money to charity and to combat poverty," she said. "I want to help people. I want people to find hope in my paintings and draw people's attention to God."

Sources: New Connexion, Children's Digest, Christianity Today and Wendy Mag

http://www.examiner.com/religious-spiritual-mysteries-in-national/akiane-kramarik-visits-to-heaven-and-visions-of-jesus

 

In addition to Lori Henshey’s story, here are a few more.

The Ventura County Star has an online display of several pictures and paintings. Some can be made larger.  The last two links are also from the Ventura County Star, but give some other perspectives.

http://www.vcstar.com/photos/galleries/2009/jul/10/akiane-artistry/2478/

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2009/jul/14/painter-poet-child/

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2009/jul/12/a-prodigy-8212-or-not-depends-whom-you-ask/

Where us the Evil"?

Let’s start with what is going on today. In Washington D.C., they are haggling over methods to keep from “shutting down the government.” One of the sticking points is that the Republicans want to defund numerous entities such as NPR, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Planned Parenthood. While defunding NPR wouldn’t amount to much, and perhaps not much more for NEA, removing federal funding for Planned Parenthood would save roughly 300 million dollars.

Of course, the Democrats are adamantly trying to keep all funding for all those entities, and especially for Planned Parenthood, considering their performance of abortions. They are out there accusing the Republicans of wanting to kill women, take away women’s health benefits, and any number of ills that they can try to come up with, just to deceive the public.

To hear the advocates of Planned Parenthood, one would think that all they ever do is pre-natal care, sex education, and birth control. However, one story I read had a little known tidbit that in one office alone, of roughly 6,000 women seeking assistance with a pregnancy, only three were advised of the option of adopting out their child.

This post will only be about Planned Parenthood. I will try to demonstrate the evil that is this organization and perhaps in a way that many haven’t heard about. Not only are they in the business of aborting babies, there seems to be an advocacy of aborting the babies of minority women.

This story from Human Events newspaper:

Black Leaders Condemn Planned Parenthood’s Racism

by Ericka Andersen

04/25/2008 ET

Human Events

Last year, more than $300 million American tax dollars funded the nation’s leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Now, Planned Parenthood is under attack by pro-life African-Americans who believe there is a racist undertone in Planned Parenthood’s practices.

Last month, a pro-life student newspaper in California placed phone calls to Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation posing as donors requesting their money be designated for a “black baby” because, he said, “there are too many.” When at least four operators at different locations accepted the money, assuring the donors it would be used for an African-American woman’s abortion, the pro-life paper leaked their recorded calls to the media. Those Planned Parenthood workers who accepted the money on a racist basis remain employed and the organization has yet to apologize.

At a prayer rally and protest yesterday outside a Washington, DC clinic, Students for Life of America hosted pro-life black pastors and leaders to speak out on behalf of those racial minorities targeted by Planned Parenthood.

Amid a crowd of signs with messages such as “Our taxes should not help kill” and about a dozen orange-vested “pro-choice escorts” from within the PP clinic, protestors stood peacefully singing hymns and praying with local pastors.

Quotes from Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger, a noted anti-Semite and racist, were written on signs and repeated throughout the event. Sanger said on more than one occasion that we must “exterminate the Negro population.”

Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America, said after hearing the phone calls recorded by the pro-life student group, she knew they had to make African Americans aware of the situation.

“Those [recordings] would have made Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger pleased,” she said, noting how the organization now plays out Sanger’s “eugenic legacy.”

The speakers focused heavily on Congressional action as Rep. Trent Franks took the podium to express his “honor” to stand with the leaders to criticize this “incredible tragedy.”

“That Planned Parenthood is willing to take the first civil right away -- life -- it’s easy to step over and take over any other civil right,” Franks said. “I believe America will be the country that will turn the tide of killing the unborn across the world.”

Franks confirmed that Congress should address the federal funding issues and said he would do his best to stop this “dark tragedy.”

All of the speakers mentioned the prevalence of Planned Parenthood’s in low-income, African-American neighborhoods and Rev. Clinard Childress call for a boycott of the clinics by black leaders -- specifically Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the Urban League and the NAACP -- until the racist allegations are resolved, at least by the firing of those employees who willingly accepted the racist donations.

“Black America must wake up and stand up to this racist organization that purposefully plants abortion facilities firmly in black and minority neighborhoods and urban communities -- sometimes, right next door to schools,” said Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union (NBPLU), pointing out a charter school directly connected to that particular clinic.

The NBPLU sent a letter to Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, asking that he condemn PP’s “racist business practices.” The letter also documents numerous ongoing criminal investigations around the country in PP clinics who failed to report child sexual abuse or falsified records. It was signed by 31 black leaders and pastors, all who call on black America in general to address the issue with more weight.

Statistics show that African-American babies make up 20% of live births, but 36% of abortions. Rev. Jesse Peterson told the crowd, “before you go to bed tonight, more than 1500 babies will be killed in a black woman’s womb.” He encouraged bringing black men back into the picture and said they are “hurting every day because their babies are being murdered.”

Dr. Lily Epps stood boldly in from the 16th St. Planned Parenthood where, she told the crowd, she had two abortions “in this very clinic” where, when she entered there years ago, was told by a counselor they were going to “’take care of that problem.’” Epps said Planned Parenthood consistently lies to women and must be stopped.

Yesterday’s event was put on partly in effort gain support for the Title X Family Planning Act and the Title X Abortion Provider Act, which would prohibit the distribution of Title X family planning funding to abortion providers -- namely, Planned Parenthood.

Ms. Andersen is a news producer and reporter for HUMAN EVENTS. She previously interned for The Washington Examiner newspaper. She has appeared on MSNBC and Fox News. She has also been a guest on the Lars Larson radio show and the Jim Bohannon radio show.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26220

Fuel….for Whom….or What?

There is no way that I will post the text of the full article, but here is the link to a story from the New York Times regarding the creation of fuel from food stocks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/science/earth/07cassava.html?_r=1

Should it be that you don’t want to read the entire thing, I’ll break it down in a kind of condensed version. The story begins with the information of using a root called Cassava in everything from tapioca pudding and ice cream to paper and animal feed. But, as the story goes on to point out, 98 percent of Cassava chips exported from Thailand, the world’s largest Cassava exporter, went to just one place and almost all for one reason. To China for biofuel

This sort of practice leads to the depletion of food stocks, thus making it much more expensive in just about any kind of market. To me, it has always been a waste to take a product that is a food product with so many other uses as well and convert it to a fuel. (For now, I won’t go into the overwhelming need for the U.S. to begin to tap into its own fuel sources. The price of gasoline and diesel ought to point that out.)

In a sense, mankind is getting to the point of burning our own food and creating shortages that will then increase prices. Just here in the United States we have done the same thing with Ethanol, which is a fuel product that is inefficient to create and also hard on the internal combustion engines. More and more products, especially those with small engines, are warning against using Ethanol in the fuel for those products.

If I remember correctly, the current push to convert corn to Ethanol is not the first time for this country. It didn’t have good results before, and we are seeing a repeat of the same now. Within the last couple of years there have been complaints of the cost of food because of our actions. There were complaints coming up from Mexico about the cost of their corn tortillas. All so we can create a diluted fuel.

If one were to look around, I’d bet that one could find numerous examples of American prices going up as well. Plus, using the corn for fuel is reducing the corn that is available for cattle feeding, thus also increasing the cost both for cereals and beef. The other day, an acquaintance told me that if I was worried about using up corn, the answer was to raise switchgrass for a biofuel or ethanol fuel.

So, I asked him where he would suggest we raise that switchgrass. His response was that we could raise it just about anywhere, that it was not impossible to raise it even in the northern parts of the United States. (He shouldn’t have brought that up, since I am VERY familiar with agriculture.)

I then went on to explain that while we might not be using corn to make the fuel, we would be taking away tillable land for the production of an inefficient fuel. Thus we would again be reducing the amount of food stocks that we would be able to create for man and animal. In addition, we would have to be using trucks and railroads to move the crop (whether corn or wheatgrass) from field to market, thus consuming more fuel. On the other hand, if we were going for more fossil fuels, a lot of that can be transported around the country via pipelines. It wouldn’t be tearing up the roads either.

While I’m not too quick to point out who it is that needs to be blamed for conceiving the idea of Ethanol as a fuel additive, I will say that we are creating a ripple effect that will eventually bite us. I think that with all the other nonsensical things that we are doing, if our grandkids had any clue as to what the adults are doing to their futures, they would probably seek retribution.

Just within the last year President Obama has put a moratorium on drilling in certain areas of the gulf. For the American market and the American companies, that is. He has given American tax dollars to Brazil to help them with their oil drilling so that we can “become their best customer.” How about we become our own best customer? And, WHY should we help another country with funding? If they can’t find investors to fund their ambitions, then it may be because there are limited benefits for an investor or limited resources. At any rate, Americans don’t need to fund Brazil’s oil production.

Besides, doing that is just making the U.S. MORE dependent on foreign oil and is not doing anything to really benefit our citizens. It is time for us as parents and grandparents to be sure that our children and grandchildren get an opportunity to learn the fallacy of Ethanol, funding foreign companies, and refusing to exploit our own resources.

Could we use alternatives? We certainly can, but I caution us against making ourselves dependent upon sources that are limited in natural ways, such as wind energy when the wind isn’t blowing and solar energy when the sun isn’t shining. It should also be time to begin to develop more nuclear energy for electrical generation

Even then, wind, solar, and nuclear won’t do much to drive our vehicles, and we will be dependent upon vehicles for a long time to come. And, most of those vehicles will need to be run on fossil fuels.  Oh, and while I’m at it, we don’t need to subsidize any fuels either.  If they don’t show enough promise for investors to fund or the fuel to create its own profitability, then don’t even try to develop them.

So, as Sarah Palin would say, “Drill, Baby, Drill.”

Hopefully, this won’t be in our future….

Washington Dithering and the Democrats

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 established a timetable for the annual budget process, which is kicked off each year by the Presidential budget submission. The Budget Act specifies that the President's budget should be presented to the Congress on or before the first Monday in February.

The Budget Act specifies that Congress should complete action on its budget resolution by April 15 of each year.

Once the budget resolution conference agreement is adopted by both the House and the Senate, its terms govern the remainder of the budget process for that year. The budget resolution does not require Presidential signature, although its terms are binding internally on the actions of the Congress throughout the budget process.

In early 2010, the Democratic Party representatives CONTROLLED a majority of BOTH the House and the Senate, as well as the office of the President. Thus, they should have been able to complete the budget process, which by April 15 would have concluded with a budget for the 2011 federal fiscal year.

However, that process was not done. In fact, in June of 2010, Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader stated that they were “not even going to propose” a budget. Since 2006, with the Democrats regaining control of Congress, they had been on a spending spree which massively accelerated with the election of a radical Democrat as President of the United States.

Late 2009 and early 2010 saw the rise of the “Tea Party” movement, which is not an actual party, but the evolution of the disgust that many Americans had with their government. Even the Democrats, while deriding the Tea Party movement, recognized the strength and thus the likely losing of power if things stayed like they had been doing things.

Thus, in 2010, they decided to not propose and pass a budget because they knew that the citizens of America would plainly see the continued extravagant spending they had embarked upon. Instead, they simply enacted a series of “Continuing Resolutions” designed to fund the government, thus hiding their actual expenditures.

Now early April of 2011, the Republicans controlling the House of Representatives are trying to get a budget approved for the fiscal year of 2012. Instead of having any help, the Democrats in the Senate refuse to pass any budget proposals. In just two days, the latest continuing resolution will expire, thus everyone in the government and the media are clamoring about a “government shutdown.”

But, even though the Democrats in the Senate plus the President are saying that the soldiers won’t be paid, all active duty military personnel will be paid. As well as the Social Security recipients, welfare recipients, food stamp recipients, the Post Office, and a large number of others will be working and being paid. Both the Democrats and the news media want desperately to blame the Republicans for any government shutdown, just as they did back in the ‘90’s.

However, the obvious actions of the Democrats in not even proposing a budget for 2011 has led to the current “crisis.” If anyone is to blame for a shutdown, it should rest squarely on the shoulders of the Democratic controlled Senate and President Barack Obama. It is also to their discredit that they are lying to the public in saying such things as the military personnel not being paid, parks and monuments closing, plus so many other lies.

It pains me greatly to know that the party in which my parents and grandparents were registered has become such a devious political party. To this day, I know a great many Democrats who can’t believe what has happened to their party. They are disheartened and disillusioned that the National leadership of their party is dominated by Socialist leaning individuals instead of those who really love this country.

Here in Oklahoma, a state which I like to say is the “reddest of the red states,” the Democratic Party no longer holds more than 50 percent of the registered voters. They still outnumber the Republicans, but in the last two Presidential elections, EVERY COUNTY in Oklahoma voted for the Republican candidates. In 2004 only Oklahoma and Utah had done that and in 2008, only Oklahoma and Alaska voted completely for Republicans.

In addition to the elections results, the last two years has seen a majority of new voters registering as Republican or Independent, even though there is no Independent party in Oklahoma and those who register that way cannot vote in any of the primaries.

Since Obama’s election, we’ve seen bailouts of the banks, AIG, GM, Chrysler, and who knows what else has been hidden. While the Democrats always speak of working for the working man, have any of those individuals benefited other than perhaps the “Cash for Clunkers” program? In fact, I would propose that the Democrats are pandering to the rich “fat cats” in the aforementioned businesses, and are certainly not helping the individuals.

Even the ongoing labor union issues in Wisconsin are related not to the Democrats wanting good to come to the membership of those unions. In Wisconsin, the public service union member’s dues are automatically deducted from their paychecks and sent to the unions. Then, those unions make overwhelming contributions to the Democratic Party.

So, that brings up another question for you. Don’t you think that the unions ought to spend those member dues on things that truly benefit the members and not the Democrats in Congress? In most of the union’s campaign contributions, over 90 percent of them go to the Democrats. So, again, the Democrats aren’t working for the little guy. They are working for themselves and what power they can achieve.

So, when you read the news in the next few days, weeks and months, keep in mind that the Democratic Party is NOT working for the people.  Nor are they honest about what they have done, are doing, and plan to do to the country in the future.

Looking for honest Democrats…..

Testing, Testing, Testing…..

Jo sat down this afternoon and began to read what I had posted in the past. In reading, she commented that some of the posts have a decent font size and others are smaller. In dealing with Blogger’s editor, if I go to edit a previous posting, the editor automatically defaults to certain formatting. Breaks between paragraphs disappear, and the font size defaults to a size “description” such as “small,” “normal,” “large” or whatever.

The problem has been that “Normal” is the default and it causes the font to be smaller than what I have set the font size in LiveWriter. When working with a post, I first compose in Microsoft Word (so I have more editing tools), then I “copy and paste” that into LiveWriter. When in LiveWriter, the font defaults to “Georgia” as the font name and that is fine with me. However, I do set the font size to “12”. Then when all photos and what are inserted where I want them, I “Publish” to Blogger.

Now, I’ve said all that just to let you know what I’ve been doing, and this posting is a test post to see what happens if I choose “Large” in the Blogger editor instead of “Normal.” When I first went to edit another post, I was afraid that the “Large” would be too big, but this being a shorter post, it won’t take as much space if it is too large.

Sorry if things seem confusing.

Considering my issues with the newer technologies, perhaps I need one of these.



With the font changed to "Large" it definitely comes up larger than the original.  I think it may have also changed the font style, but I don't know.

Testing Complete.....for now.

Final test of the editing…at least for this posting.  I’ve retrieved the posting from the blog into LiveWriter.  So far, it doesn’t look like I can reset the font sizes to “12.”  I am able to type in new text in that size.

Forethought is Extremely Valuable

Today, April 2, there have been a few comments on a thread on RV Dreams which was started by a gentleman that had purchased a class A RV and began to complain that it was a money pit. In his first post, he referred to the person who sold it to him as not being very smart because he had used the wrong material to patch the roof around a skylight or vent or something. Thus, the roof leaked and the wall began to de-laminate.
 
My first thought was that perhaps he should have got an RV tech to look the unit over before he bought it. Such a mistake in fixing something should have just jumped out at the tech. But, apparently this gentleman didn’t take a tech to see the RV.
 
As the thread continued, he began to complain about the cost of fixing the brakes after he had a tech inspect them before a long trip. So, he paid $800 to the tech for the inspection and then paid something like $1200 to fix the brakes and a promise of roughly $3000 more to be done. He also complained about the cost for labor for RV repairs.
 
If you wish to see for sure what was written, the link to that thread is here:
 
http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?aBID=91511&p=3&topicID=41963941
 
All in all, he has decided that it is cheaper to fly to where he wants to go and then rent a car. Suddenly, it appears to me that this gentleman doesn’t really want the RV lifestyle as much as he thought. Or, perhaps he just thought an RV would be a cheap method to travel to the casinos.
 
The whole episode brings home the importance of really thinking ahead on what one wants to do with their life and the lifestyle. Jo and I certainly considered things a lot. While we knew that we really wanted to travel and see the country, we also knew that when we retired, we would never be able to afford the home in which we now live.
 
Thus, we decided that a fifth wheel could be stationary as well as moveable. While one could find a place to rent, we preferred the idea of traveling as much as we could. Renting would have let us fall back on the landlord or property manager to get things in an apartment or a rental home repaired, but I’ve had cases where those entities don’t necessarily respond promptly.
 
It is too bad that the gentleman in the thread on RV Dreams hadn’t thought it out in advance. If he had spent $800 to have a tech inspect the RV, he could have saved the $1200 that he spent on the brakes and wouldn’t have had the issue of the leak and wall de-lamination.
 
So, each of us needs to force ourselves to push our “desires” to the side and really think out all the possibilities of our actions, before we make those decisions that we will regret later. We have to consider costs of purchase, maintenance, fuel, and the occasional repair or replacement of items not expected to fail.
 
Then there is the issue of our family and what will happen to those relationships. If a family still has children, it is really important to know one’s responsibilities to their future. Will home schooling be a good enough method of educating them? Will they be deprived of the company of peers their own age? Does one’s desire for an RV lifestyle override the ever present responsibility to one’s family? Does one’s spouse REALLY want to live that life?
 
I would imagine that a divorce would be expensive enough that one would have to sell everything RV-related in order to pay all the expenses associated with that. That doesn’t even take into account the destruction of the relationship.
 
For a long time, I had the dream of traveling the country and taking pictures. At times I even imagined myself writing and photographing experiences for magazines. However, I never felt that it would be possible because of the cost involved, so I never even mentioned it to Jo in all the time we have been married.
 
Imagine my surprise and delight when she came up with the idea herself. Imagine my further surprise after an outing with the Mobile Suites to Carthage, Missouri for a mini-rally that she popped up and said that if she could find a way to make a living on the road, we would be there.
 
It may take us more time, since the house isn’t sold yet, but we feel that the RV lifestyle of seeing the country will be great. In one of my comments in that thread, I mentioned that one could fly somewhere and rent a car of an RV, but then one would miss seeing all the beautiful (and some not quite so beautiful) country on the way. There is also the pleasure of seeing the charm of communities and people along the way.
 
So, if one is a believer in God, and with all the beauty in this world to see, how could one not believe in Him, then do your research and planning, closely look at the costs both in money and relationships, and then follow your dream. But, keep checking with those that will be with you and make sure that their feelings haven’t changed.
 
I recall a gentleman who has become a friend via the RV Dreams forums that saw a change in his RV dreams. He had owned campers before, but his wife never seemed to enjoy them as much as he did. He finally sold his and just lived the dream through the internet forums.
Then one day, his wife asked if they could rent an RV to go on their church
mission trip to south Texas. It seemed that she didn’t relish the thought of staying in hotel beds where their sanitation methods were unknown. Now, not only do they have another camper, but she is even suggesting some of the places that she would like to go and they have been camping with her enjoying it.
 
While the gentleman in the RV Dreams thread linked above seemed to prefer casinos to nature, he obviously doesn’t necessarily believe that life is the journey and not just the destination.
 
May it be that whatever it is that we love in life, that we get to enjoy that to its fullest measure and thank God for every for the life we have, the family we have, and the opportunities before us.
 
Silver Falls near Pagosa Springs, Colorado in August 2009.  I suspect that the water flow would be a lot greater earlier in the year, but veils of water is just as beautiful as torrents.
 
 
 
Edit: Since the above was written, the forum thread that has been linked to has been “scrubbed” of some of the comments that were posted on it by forum participants, including myself.  So now, if you try to put this posting in context with what I linked to, it may seem disjointed.

We Are Officially Disappointed Now

We suspected that the lady wanting to buy our house was going to back out of the contingency contract due to a couple of reasons, one of which is a poor market where she is trying to sell her house. At one time, there were possible issues as to whether she was going to have a serious health issue, but that we haven’t confirmed.

Anyway, the realtor helping us with our “Home for Sale by Owner” called and said that she had officially released the contract on our house. So, although we have still been somewhat active in selling even without her contract, we will have to get a little more aggressive now.

Hopefully, her health isn’t as bad as she thought. She was a nice young lady with a teen-age daughter. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be for her to be a single mom and still afford this house.

We still have a couple of options. Devon Energy is building a new 50 story headquarters building in downtown Oklahoma City and an energy company out of Enid, Oklahoma is buying their old headquarters building. That would be roughly 250 people moving from Enid into the Oklahoma City area. Maybe one of those folks would be interested. We are seriously considering putting a classified ad into the Enid paper.

Who knows? I might even get bold enough to send some kind of message with information right to the Enid energy company. But, for now, we get a little more active in trying to sell the house. While the housing market isn’t that bad in the Oklahoma City area, homes in the price range of our house aren’t really moving that fast.

Wish us luck.

Here is a sort of aerial view or out neighborhood.  Our house is the one with the “X” on the roof.