Small One. 

It was a record and the album cover was also a big read-along book with beautiful pictures that I'd play on my Barbie record player about a boy and his old donkey that couldn't work enough anymore so his father told him to take him into town and sell him. 

When they got to town, one person looked at Small One and laughed and told him to go see the tanner.  When they got there and realized what the tanner did they ran out and tried the auction.  The auctioneer only made fun of Small One on the auction block and had all of the buyers laughing at him as he pulled his tail and ears making fun of him because he was so old.

After other attempts to find a good home for Small One, it was getting late and the boy didn't know what to do.  He loved his donkey and had promised him that he would only sell him to a good home.

Broken-spirited at the end of the day, the donkey starts leading the boy back to the tanners when they hear a kind voice call to them.  They turned to see a man with a very kind face and he asked if his donkey might be for sale.  He assured them that he would be well taken care of and wouldn't be loaded down, but that his wife was expecting a baby and couldn't walk any further on their journey.  It turns out that the man was Joseph and his wife was Mary as they were on their way to Bethlehem.

I loved that story so much because it made me love the donkey like the boy did.  I was so happy when he found good people to love him and also to know that he had such an important job to do yet, even though everyone else had laughed at him saying he was too old to be good for anything anymore.

Wow, I need to go check ebay now and see if I can find that, I hadn't thought about it in YEARS!  :)

The most productive way I can think of for people to reinvest their "TV time" would be to make it their "spend time with my kids" time.

And if they don't have kids, volunteering is always an excellent option.  I've never regretted the time I've spent volunteering, even if I missed my favorite show.

On October 24th I found out that I have what looks like the beginning of cervical cancer.  When the abnormal areas were biopsied my doctors both agreed the best thing to do is to surgically remove all abnormal cells and one kept referring to it as a "chunk" of my cervix.  Hmm.

Well, thank goodness for excellent healthcare, for a good sense of humor, for preventative care, and anesthesiologists, because just thinking about surgery there makes me queasy and every time she said "chunk" I thought I was going to fall over cold.  I'm scared as heck but grateful to know and be able to get it taken care of early.

The sunrise.

The faces of my son, husband, and loved ones.

I'd read over letters from my grandmother that passed away six years ago.

The sweet little face of my doggy when she cocks her head to the side as I talk to her.

Birds flying in the sky, I've always loved watching them.

My wedding pictures and other old family photo albums.

The sunset.

My wonderful husband.

My beautiful son.