I've never been funny.  I can't tell a joke and make it come out right.  However, I read something the other day that I thought was humerous, so I think it's worth a laugh--so I'll give it a try.

This man was researching methods of reaching and talking to God, so he decided  to travel the country and ask pastors at different churches and denominations about that.

First church he went to had a solid gold telephone hanging on the wall with a sign underneath: Price, $100,000.  Direct line to God.

He traveled the country, and at every church, there was a solid gold phone with the same sign.

When he reached Oklahoma, he entered a local church where the gold phone on the wall said: 25 cents for a direct line to call God.

He asked the pastor, "Why do all the other churches in the nation charge $100,000 to call God and you only charge 25 cents?

Well, son...Oklahoma is God's  country.  It's a local call.

I'm sure my fellow Oklahomans will agree with that.

I did something last night that I have never done before.  I made bread from scratch using a starter.  The starter was foaming, bubbling and just right.  I got it from a friend (Donna) who stayed here with her husband and children for a week last month when her father was ill. They came to help their mom who lives across the street.

Making bread was a momentous event, because I do not like to get my hands dirty and will avoid anything that might get under my fingernails.  Wet dough gets under your nails and is like glue.  But I persevered.

I got through the first stage of kneading fairly easily by using a dough hook on the Kitchen Aid mixer.  Dumped it in a greased wooden bowl to rise.

But this morning, I had to hand knead it and I am definitely an amateur. I had sticky dough everywhere.  I am going to have to revise this step or I will never attempt making bread again.  There has to be a knack to it.

Two loaves are rising in the oven.  Donna said that if you put the dough in the oven with the light on, the light generates just enough warmth to help the bread rise.  By noon, I will have fresh baked bread.

I am an official Oklahoma pioneer woman.  Bout time?

I have given up on my publisher.  She wanted my book.  She bought my book.  She spent a bunch of money and enormous amounts of time on my book.  But she won't publish it...because I am not able to sit in bookstores and sign books due to Covid. 

It costs a tremendous amount of money to advertise books and they don't want to spend money until the time is right...I understand.  But it has driven me nuts working with a publishing company.  I'm ready to get the vaccine!!! And get into the bookstores.

As a result, I have had time to finish another book, edit it a zillion times and print it myself.  (Not self publish--I'm not going to self publish.)  I went to UPS and had them print ten copies and bind them.  One for each of my kids (The book is a fictional-factual rendition of Ken's Korean and Marine life from the time he was seventeen until he was twenty-five.)

The other six are going to Jeanette and Carolyn--who both held my hand, listened to me read portions over and over again and tolerated my mood swings, and Joe Mike Bacon--who taught me how to fly an OE, F-9, SNJ and the Corsair over the phone. The rest to editors and publishers.  

I was euphoric to see something in print.  Now I will now finish the book about my grandmother coming in a wagon from Tennessee to Arkansas, and the one about my brother's 37 years in China. 

Did everyone go outside and watch the "Star of Bethlehem" on Monday night.  I took a photo with my phone, but it didn't come out well.  Oh, well, I'll take another one in a thousand years.

Jeanette's sister Shirley said, "Maybe the star means that Jesus is coming back.  I don't think I'm going to clean house!"  She thought she might be leaving the house on her way to glory.  Why clean when you are vacating.

I'm ready for Him to come.  The world is a mess.  You wouldn't know how big a mess it is unless you have lived during the perfect time of the world.  

That would be the 1950's in America.  Nobody used curse words--at least in a group--I didn't even know what the curse words were.  You could walk home from school by yourself, and if you were late, nobody worried about where you were.

If you talked on the phone, you sometimes had to talk to an operator first to verify that it was you who actually was speaking.  We had party lines, so if it rang once, twice, or three times you would know who it was for.

Everyone listened in.  You weren't supposed to, but who could resist hearing the latest gossip. 

 Isaiah 9:6-7

6 For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end...

Thank you Lord God for your unspeakable gift.

Merry Christmas to all my friends....I'll be back on Monday

 Becky and six friends get together every Christmas week and make cookies.  

Actually, everyone makes two or three kinds of cookies and they go to Becky's and arrange twenty or a zillion plates of assorted cookies to take to friends and family and tie a bow around the see-through wrappers.

I got a plate.  Which I can never possibly eat all of them.  It allows me to assort them on three or four smaller plates and take them to my neighbors.  My neighbors think I am a wonderful cookie cook.

I take the praise for a minute or two and then confess.  I'm too honest to let it go on for long.

Becky also has a Valentine Party every year (except this year she didn't because of the virus.)  She bakes six or seven cheese cakes, six or seven fabulous cakes, pies, candied bacon, brisket, etc. etc.  and on and on.  It is over the top.  I hope she does it again this year and we are all done with covid and have our vaccine.

Pat always has a Christmas brunch.  But not this year.  Everything is not exactly right this year.  I'm ready for 2021.  God bless next year please.

Luke wrote his gospel, and although he is the only writer that got events in exact order of when they happened, he left out the entire story of the wise men.  But told of the baby in the manger and the shepherds seeing the angels who told them about the birth of Christ.

Matthew, on the other hand, left out the entire story of the shepherds and the angels appearing to them and the message they brought, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.  

But he told about the angel appearing to Joseph and telling him that Mary was pregnant with the Messiah.  And he wrote the story of the wise men, and about Herod hearing of the birth of a King and killing all of the babies that might be that king.

Luke told Mary's story.  Matthew told Joseph's story.  Mark and John told neither one of those stories.  They started almost immediately with the story of John the Baptist.

In a few days, we will celebrate the birth of that child, who grew in wisdom and died for us.  My friend Carolyn said, "He started up being swaddled in a manger, and ended up wrapped in cloth and placed in a borrowed tomb.

Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good will toward men.