GLORY TO GOD! It is 4:30 AM on THE DAY! All my parts seem to be working. Computer has scanned and rebooted and tells me it is 65 wonderful degrees outside. After that tropical heat wave this is indeed a blessing. I actually slightly covered myself last night and had a good night’s sleep.

I’m one of those people who wake up hungry. Having leftover lobster ravioli for breakfast. Rejoicing in the presence of teeth. When I saw my dentist last week for a gum inflammation all I wanted was to keep my front teeth long enough to go to my birthday party yesterday. Nick’s is a wonderful Italian restaurant where we gather regularly to celebrate the birthdays of our pro-life group. What a blessing to be able to enjoy each other at a good meal! With teeth!

Coffee is now ready. Dawn is breaking, birds are chirping, God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world. Let’s see what’s happening in cyberia.

E-mail: Several birthday greetings, including an animated card from Sister Betty Igo saying, among other things, WOW. YOU’RE OLD! And granddaughter Nikki, who shares my birthday, says, “Together we’re 111!” It’s hardly light outdoors and already it has been a wonderful day!

Facebook: Prayed the Divine Mercy marathon prayer. More birthday wishes and two people are waiting for me to take my turn at Scrabble. My profound thought for the morning is this: Consider the marvelous creation called a computer. I cannot begin to comprehend how mine works. It works wonders – I can play Scrabble with my grandson in Chicago on it. It brings information from outer space, diagnoses itself, heals itself, yet I know it was made by human beings and every once in a while human needs to fix it. No one imagines that a computer accidentally made itself! Now, consider the marvelous creation called a human being. What a biochemical accomplishment! It grows, reproduces, mends itself, thinks, even makes computers! How can anyone believe that a human being was the accidental result of chemicals bumping into each other? How can anyone not realize that a superior mind is behind it all? He says: Call on me. I made you and I love you.

On to Scrabble. I will lose one of the games, may win the other.

Time to consider getting dressed and ready for Mass. They like you to be clothed when you arrive. More about this great birthday later.

Our Indian priest gave a surprising homily about the devil who is alive and working in our society but no match for God and His people. Fits in nicely with the book by Father Euteneuer on Exorcism which I just started to read. (Be watchful and alert for your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8)

More phone calls and more online wishes. Brother-in-law, Chuck, who is only 85, wants a picture of me which good friend Jon has promised to take. Leisurely afternoon reading and watching the end of the soccer game on TV (not that I really care). A little yard work, but too hot outside. We’ve had our first ripe tomato. The tomato harvest looks promising — it couldn’t possibly be worse than last year’s debacle. Potatoes are dying down. Will dig soon. Parsley and basil happy. Some critter is dining on my broccoli and leaving none for me. Rose of Sharon in full bloom and lovely. Hostas and petunias blooming.

Roses and lilies from Katy

Katy in Indiana sent me gorgeous flowers and I wanted to share their beauty. Alas, I am so inept at using my digital camera and transferring the photos to the computer that I don’t do it often. And, of course, because I don’t do it often, I am so inept! Anybody, absolutely anybody, could do better. But here is my offering — and thank you, Katy. Had a nice long talk with her yesterday; she is a joy.

Finished the day off with a little birthday party with Dan, Martha, and Nikki (who shares my birthday). We sang  “Happy Birthday to Us” and enjoyed brownies and ice cream with lots of whipped cream. Dan and Martha are not quite over their illness – hope it’s not catching! They gave me some great white sneakers which fit perfectly, called New Balance. I sure hope that New Balance thing works – I could use it.

How could I have forgotten?  The best birthday present ever!  As everyone  knows we have been praying at the Medical Options abortion “clinic” twice a week since 1988.   (See my posts here and here.)  This past week we learned they weren’t answering their own phone and their website was down!!!!  Oh happy day!  We did pray there on Saturday and the manager did come into the office but the abortionist never arrived.  Are they really gone?  Unfortunately there is yet another OB/GYN office in that building that does abortions so our job is not done.  But I have prayed to live to see the day that Medical Options closed.

It is 5 AM on the 12th, and a lovely 67 degrees outside. I think I fell asleep listening to David Wilkerson preach on the computer – not really sure, but had a good night’s sleep and woke up with all the parts still working. It was a good birthday and I am ever so grateful. Thank you everyone!  Thank you, God.

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To thine own self be true. And it must follow as the night the day Thous canst not then be false to any man. — Polonius, in Hamlet

“Don’t be proud.  You are allowed.”   This little bit of doggerel came to mind this morning at mass.   From me?  From God?  Who knows?   But it’s right on.

What does it mean?  Here I am, half-way to 87, and I got up this morning, hopped into my Jeep, and attended 7:30 mass. (I’m short, and getting up into the Jeep does require a literal leap.)  It was 14 degrees out there and the windows were covered with frost.    Before mass a few of us  pray morning prayers, alternating, the left side, then the right, but this morning I was the only one responding on the right.  I did OK even though reading out loud has always been one of my bugaboos.  I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

People are always commenting on how well I’m doing at my age.  No cane, no walker (. . .yet.  They don’t see me staggering around the house.)    How I still have my hair (like I actually will it to grow!  And it puzzles me that I have any left, considering all I find on the floor.)  How I do my own blogging (spend 60 years at a typewriter/computer  and some skills are bound to stick.)  How my mind is still sharp (if you really knew how much less sharp it is, you’d be as amazed as I am dismayed.)  How I pray at the abortion mill twice a week (they don’t know that there are leg warmers over my long johns under my slacks and I can hop into a warm vehicle when I get too cold.)  And so on.

We all have talents and aptitudes that we take for granted and don’t appreciate.  Yet we are painfully aware that others have talents and aptitudes which we lack.   Others are prettier, shapelier, smarter, more articulate, better informed.   They sing better, dance better, are more outgoing.      We can develop our native talents and hone our aptitudes but the fact that we have talents and aptitudes to start with is not of our doing.

What the message I received this morning was saying is, “Yes, you are able to do all this stuff, but don’t  get all puffed up about it.  You were allowed to go to mass this morning. Today you can do it.  You don’t know if you will be able to do it  tomorrow.”   All is grace; all is gift.

Yesterday I had a follow-up thyroid ultrasound.   We will see what next week will bring, won’t we?

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From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.  — John 1:16

(This arrived in my e-mail today.  Some things you just have to pass on . . . . . . .)

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She is pregnant.

He had just saved her from a fire in her house, rescuing her by carrying her out of the house into her front yard, while he continued to fight the fire.

When he finally got done putting the fire out, he sat down to catch his breath and rest.

A photographer from the Charlotte , North Carolina newspaper, noticed her in the distance looking at the fireman.

He saw her walking straight toward the fireman and wondered what she was going to do.

As he raised his camera, she came up to the tired man who had saved her life and the lives of her babies and kissed him just as the photographer snapped this photograph.

Scroll down for photograph.

THE KISS

And people say animals are dumb.