Lillie Ammann's Blog, page 169

Wishing You a Blessed Thanksgiving

"'Give thanks to the Lord of hosts,

for the Lord is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever!' ~ Jeremiah 33:11 (NIV)

"Give thanks to the Lord,

call upon his name,

make known his deeds among the peoples,

proclaim that his name is exalted. ~ Isaiah 12:4 (NIV)

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations. ~ Psalm 100:4-5 (NIV)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ~ Philippians 4:6 (NIV)

TO our prayers, O Lord, we join our unfeigned thanks for all thy mercies; for our being, our reason, and all other endowments and faculties of soul and body; for our health, friends, food, and raiment, and all the other comforts and conveniences of life. Above all, we adore thy mercy in sending thy only Son into the world, to redeem us from sin and eternal death, and in giving us the knowledge and sense of our duty towards thee. We bless thee for thy patience with us, notwithstanding our many and great provocations; for all the directions, assistances, and comforts of thy Holy Spirit; for thy continual care and watchful providence over us through the whole course of our lives; and particularly for the mercies and benefits of the past day; beseeching thee to continue these thy blessings to us, and to give us grace to show our thankfulness in a sincere obedience to his laws, through whose merits and intercession we received them all, thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. ~ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Family Prayer

May the Lord shower you with blessings, and may you give thanks for every blessing, large and small.

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Published on November 24, 2010 23:45

National Bible Week 2010

National Bible Week has been observed during Thanksgiving week since 1941.

One of the things I'm most thankful for is the freedom to read and study God's Word. National Bible Week is a reminder to use that freedom regularly.

I read the Bible daily, and I've written about National Bible Week in previous years—2007, 2008, and 2009—as well as a two-part series on reading the Bible.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. ~ Romans 15:4, ESV

BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. ~ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent

photo credit: Steve Snodgrass

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Published on November 20, 2010 21:49

The Future of Alzheimer's: Hope in the Long-Term

This week, I participated in an Alzheimer's roundtable conference call sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). The call was moderated by Ed Belkin, Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs, PhRMA, and speakers included David Wheadon, M.D., Senior Vice President for Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, PhRMA; David Michelson, M.D., Vice President, Clinical Neuroscience Research, Merck Research Laboratories; Phil Iredale, Head of Neurodegeneration Biology, Pfizer; Richard Mohs, Global Product Development, Eli Lilly and Company; and Trish Vandenberg, USAgainstAlzheimers.

Participating bloggers included Joanne Reynolds of Blueprint for Caregiving and Nora Nagatani of aboutalz.com.

The panelists agreed that Alzheimer's Disease is already a major crisis and getting worse as the baby boomers age. However, the good news is that nearly 100 clinical trials are underway, and even the trials that have already failed have provided valuable information. Pharmaceutical companies are partnering with academia, and Alzheimer's is one of the top research priorities. The researchers were all optimistic that the research will eventually lead to effective treatments for this devastating disease.

A transcript of the roundtable will be posted on the PhRMA website soon.

Some of the researchers on the call appear in the video below.

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Published on November 19, 2010 17:20

National Alzheimer's Month and National Caregivers Month

More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's Disease, and the disease impacts their loved ones in a huge way.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has recently published "2010 Report: Medicines in Development for Alzheimer's Disease." Among the statistics included the report are these:

• Some 70 percent of people with Alzheimer's and other dementias live at home, where they are cared for by family and friends.

• In 2009, nearly 11 million family members and friends provided an average of 21.9 hours of unpaid care per week for a person with Alzheimer's disease or another dementia, for a total of about 12.5 billion hours of care. That year, the estimated economic value of the unpaid care was $144 billion.

I can tell you from personal experience that caregiving offers many challenges as well as blessings. My associate, Beverly Ellison, wrote in a recent post about becoming the caregiver for her mother and also shared do's and don'ts for Alzheimer's.

November is National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness and National Caregivers Month. Caregivers give unselfishly of their time and energy and emotions to care for those they love who are being devastated by the progressive, fatal disease. Caregivers deserved to be honored all the time—especially during National Caregivers Month.

Call a caregiver to chat, drop by for a short visit, or take her to lunch. Volunteer to sit with the patient for a couple of hours so the caregiver can go shopping. If one of your family members is caring for a mutual relative with Alzheimer's, offer to help and let the caregiver know how much you appreciate what she is doing. A little appreciation goes a long way.

And before the end of the month, you can give a caregiver a special gift—Help! What Do I Do Now? Caring for Your Loved One with Alzheimer's. Short, easy-to-read, and, above all, useful, this guide filled with practical tips caregivers can use every day was written by my sister Nancy Nicholson, a social worker with both personal and professional experience with Alzheimer's. The Watch for more information next week.

photo credit: Vince Alongi.

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Published on November 16, 2010 22:25

The World's Biggest Party for Writers: I Love to Write Day

Today is the 9th annual "I Love to Write Day," aka the World's Biggest Party for Writers.

I written before about my love affair with writing, and I believe writing is good for our health and well-being.

If you haven't yet experienced the joys of writing for yourself, today is the perfect day to write something—an essay about a cause important to you, an article about something you know, a resume for a new job, a blog post, a character sketch of the main character of the novel you want to write, the opening of your memoir, or even a short journal entry.

If you, like me, are already passionate about writing, today is the perfect day to indulge your passion and write something—an essay about something you believe strongly, an article about something you'd like to learn about, a news release about an upcoming event, a blog post, an action scene in your novel masterpiece, the middle of your memoir, or even a short journal entry about how much you love to write.

Or you could write a short story or a poem or a how-to guide or a letter to a loved one. If you love to write, then do it today.

Encourage children and teens to write something today. If they don't already love to write, they will probably learn to like it better and certainly become better at it.

And if you love to write, leave a comment to let us know.

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Published on November 15, 2010 04:31

Thanking Our Veterans 2010

Thank you to all our veterans. May God bless you.

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead; We give thee thanks for all those thy servants who have sacrificed their time, safety, comfort, dedication, and personal ambitions—and even their lives—in the service of our country. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence, that the good work which thou hast begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.

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Published on November 10, 2010 21:52

Maybe I Was Right to Be Scared

When I was in the interior landscape business, most of my clients were businesses. We contracted to maintain plants in hotels, restaurants, office buildings, and other businesses. However, we had a few individual clients who hired us to care for their plants in their homes. One of our residential clients owned a chain of retail businesses, and he became well-known in the community for appearing in the television advertisements for his company.

My staff and I always served the homeowners with the utmost professionalism, even though the man and his wife were both often rude to us. They treated us more like servants than contractors providing a service.

They had two atriums inside the house—one off the living room and one off the master bath. Shortly after I returned to work after my stroke, a leak developed in the atrium off the bathroom, and the homeowners asked us to remove all the plants from both areas so they could have the atriums sealed. We removed the plants and stored them in our greenhouse for a couple of months.

I didn't charge them any extra for removing and returning the plants, but I continued to invoice them for the regular monthly maintenance fee. They questioned the bill, saying we shouldn't charge them since we didn't have to go to their home to maintain the plants. I explained that we were still providing the service, albeit it was in our facility rather than their home. However, I incurred extra expenses in removing and returning the plants, and they were taking up space in my facility that should be used for inventory. I was being generous in not charging them extra for the added costs. Reluctantly, they paid the invoices.

After we re-planted the atriums, I visited the home on a quality control visit. I don't recall if the wife or the maid let me in, but I do recall that the husband was in the swimming pool in the back yard. No one paid any attention to me as I checked the plants in both atriums.

However, as I left through the front door, the homeowner dashed around the side of the house and accosted me on the front porch.He was a large man, and I was surprised he could move so fast. He started berating me because the atriums didn't look like they did before. I tried to explain that they wouldn't look the same because we couldn't get the plants back in the exact same position. In a little while, the plants would settle in place and grow again, and the atriums would look lush and full again.

The man started screaming and shaking his fist at me. I was still very weak from the stroke and had to sit down. There was no place to sit, so I dropped to the porch, which put me only a couple inches off the ground. This large man in a skimpy bathing suit towered over me, yelling and making threatening motions. I was absolutely terrified. He demanded that I remove all the old plants we had returned and replace them with new plants at no charge. He screamed that he would destroy my business if I didn't do what he demanded.

The only other times in my life I have been so frightened were when I was robbed and molested at gunpoint and when I was attacked by a Doberman. The screamed threats and shaking fists and towering presence would have made me shaky had I been at full health. Since I was already weak and unsteady on my feet, the perceived danger made it almost impossible for me to get up from the ground-level concrete and walk to my car when he finally backed off a few inches, still yelling about what he would do to my business and my reputation.

I don't think I said anything—just nodded and maybe mumbled something that could be taken as agreement. When I returned to the office, I looked up his account and tallied up how much money he had paid us for buying the plants in the first place and maintaining them for several years. I wrote him a check for the full amount and sent the check with a letter saying he could have the plants and the money, but no one from my company would ever go to his home again.

My staff all breathed a sigh of relief that they didn't have to deal with these rude people any more, and I said a prayer of thanks that I was physically safe, even though I'd lost several thousand dollars. I still worried for some time that he would follow through on his threats to harm my business, but we never heard anything else from him or his wife.

Recently, I heard on the news that the man was arrested for solicitation of capital murder for hiring someone to murder his wife, who was planning to divorce him. I had often wondered if I overreacted that day—after all, I couldn't really believe that a respected businessman would threaten me or physically harm me. But if he would hire someone to kill his wife, he probably wouldn't have any qualms about doing something to someone he considered a nobody.

I'm not identifying the man or linking to any of the articles or videos about the case. The man is innocent until proven guilty, after all, and while I'm not afraid—I am cautious.

photo credit: Nieve44/La Luz

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Published on November 09, 2010 00:43

Booksigning

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The booksigning at the All Saints Fall Festival last weekend was great fun. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and there were lots of things to eat, see, and do.

I enjoyed visiting with the authors who participated in the signing with me. We had the middle two tables in this photo (courtesy of All Saints parishioner Bill Wimp).

We didn't sell out of books :-) but we had a great time, met some new folks, and got to visit with friends.

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Published on November 05, 2010 14:38

If You Don't Vote, You Can't Complain

If you are eligible to vote in the US and haven't already cast a ballot in early voting, today is the day to head to the polls.

Voting is both a right and a privilege, and I believe it's an obligation. If you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain about what the government does!

Let us pray for wisdom as we make our choices for our nation's leaders.

Thank you Lord that the people of the United States will see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, return and You will heal them! In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. (Acts 28:27, from The Sword of the Spirit, The Word of God)

photo credit: seantoyer

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Published on November 01, 2010 22:46

Happy National Authors Day!

Today is National Authors Day, though I can't find any official website or sponsoring organization.

Virtual roses and chocolates to every author—whether you're a famous, multi-published author or just starting your first book during NaNoWriMo.

Indulge yourself. Enjoy your day. Thank God for your talent, the joy of doing what you love, and the blessing of being able to touch the hearts and minds of readers with your words.

photo credit: Daxis

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Published on November 01, 2010 18:43