Each of the last several years we’ve had the joy of heading to The Christmas Tree Farm in Central, SC to get our tree. This year our local Parenting magazine interviewed us about our family tradition, which was nice.

Typically the first Saturday after Thanksgiving we’ll head out to the farm, where there are acres and acres of perfectly sculpted Christmas trees. The kind folks at The Christmas Tree Farm provide us with hot chocolate or apple cider, a very sharp hand saw, and general directions on the various kinds of trees they offer. They come in any height from Charlie Brown to over 10 feet tall. They have cypresses, white pines, sapphires, green pines and more.

A key when picking out a tree is to pick one close to your vehicle. One year I forgot this simple key and ended up dragging a tree for half a mile. This was the same year I thought bigger was better: we had a 10 foot tree. I thought I was going to die, only to find out later that they would have hauled it up to the shop if I had just asked. Lesson learned. This was another instance when I should have listened to my wife.

When my kids were younger, they enjoyed straddling me like a horse as I was lying on the ground trying to saw the tree down. I’m glad they are older now. They also enjoy the shaking and netting machines. My engineering son likes these the best.

I hope you all have an awesome Thanksgiving and  Christmas season as you enjoy your friends and family, as well as the point of it all: Christ came to die for our sins!!

And for those of you who are camping out next Thursday for Black Friday, be sure to read my story to gain some practical tips on how to pull this off and live to tell about it.

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I received two unrelated emails today that had their own unique humor:

Email #1

Louie was shipwrecked and lived alone on a deserted island for years, until he was finally rescued. Before leaving the island he gave his rescuers a tour of the island. I built myself a house, it is over there. Here is the barn I built and this is the church I worshiped in. What is that building over there, one of the rescuers asked.  Louie sneered; that is the church I used to belong to.

Email #2

Hi there,

Sometimes Rick Thomas can step all over my toes! Here’s something I got from his website on self-control that applies to me more than I’d like …The Battle for Self Control.

Oops, it’s late – gotta go to bed.  Love and hugs!

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It looked like 200 people in one of our local Chick-fil-A Restaurants this afternoon. We decided it would be better to go after 1PM. It didn’t matter. They were lined out the door and the drive-thru was wrapping around the building.

It was the perfect opportunity to encourage someone. Nora, our cashier, was noticeably overwhelmed. From her perspective the relentless foot traffic showed no end in sight. I grabbed her hand, leaned into her and began to encourage her by thanking her for her kindness, willingness to serve and how much joy she and her team were giving to our community.

She smiled real big, said thank you and her countenance was noticeably different. Paul was right when he asked the rhetorical question, “Don’t you know it is God’s kindness that leads to repentance (change).”

God has been kind to me. I want to go out and do to others what has been done to me. For a brief season, Nora was changed by kindness. The next time you’re in a large, seemingly unmoving crowd, seize the moment to spread the love of God.

We got some free chickin too. God’s kindness is all over the place. Click HERE to find out how to get your free chickin this Labor Day, September 07, 2009

Join my Friends of Tar Heel Basketball Facebook Group.

Side Note: It was obviously God’s kindness because they were also serving Clemson and South Carolina fans. Amazing!!

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This coming Monday, September 7, our friends at Chick-fil-A are giving away a free original Chick-fil-A sandwich to all patrons who wear a UNC Tar Heel sports shirt. I say, “UNC Tar Heel sports shirt” because my readers would not own anything else.

But I’ve heard through the grapevine that Chick-fil-A will actually give a free sandwich to anyone who wears any kind of sports shirt, even though I can’t imagine anyone owning anything but UNC sportswear.

You can read more about their offer HERE.

And should you not have the Tar Heel site bookmarked, which I can’t fathom anyone not having it marked, you can get there by clicking my heel:

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Tristen said, “Hey buddy, are you going to share that?

Haydn said, “Sure, let me lick my fingers clean first.

Tristen said, “Oh great.”

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INSTALLING A HUSBAND

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slowdown in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.  What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE,
First, keep in mind that Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to 0A Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Flatulence and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstance install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all of your system resources). In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash
Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.  We recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck
Tech Support

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Okay. We’re in South Park Mall in Charlotte, NC and there was this lady smoking a cigarette at a kiosk. It was sort of odd to see her smoking a cigarette in a public place. There was a conversation that I couldn’t resist. I was intrigued. So I went over to see what she was selling.

Needless to say I was surprised to learn about electronic cigarettes. Yep, that is what she was smoking. I wondered, “What will they come up with next?”

• It looked like a cigarette. (from a distance)
• It smelled like a cigarette.
• It felt like a cigarette. (kinda)
• It tasted like a cigarette. (kinda)
• And smoke came out of your mouth (though it was only air, not real cigarette smoke).

The end of the cigarette glowed which gave the impression that it was real. The texture of the electronic cig was rough plastic.

You have to replace the filters every few days, but it comes with a charger. One cigarette, a charger and replacement cartridges is all you need.

The idea is that you would get a small nicotene fix, but not like a real cigarette and eventually you’ll be able to kick the habit.

And, yes, they had fake cigars and pipes as well.

I couldn’t resist. I smoked the cigarette and the cigar. They had fake Cuban cigars! It was sort of humorous, but I think there might be something to it if folks who are addicted to such things would like to kick the habit.

Here is the link to the Smoking Everywhere website.

Another oddity to this is that you can smoke anywhere, so they say, because it is not a real cigarette. That, in itself, made it a temptation to buy.

I love America!

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I’m not sure what is more odd about this story:

1. That it is really news-worthy
2. Someone wants to pay $1K for this tater
3. They think someone on eBay would buy it, which is probably true
4. This is something you’d want to bronze and put on display in any town

From WYFF News, Greenville, SC

A woman with a good heart found just that in a potato.

Alfreda Ruffin bought the potato in a bag from the Piggly Wiggly in Weldon, North Carolina.  You can see in the picture it is shaped like a heart!

One person offered her $150.  That was from a man who wanted to have it bronzed to put in the town somewhere.  Alfreda received several offers.  She says one woman said she would pay $1,000 because she wanted to sell it on ebay.  Alfred tells us she thinks it should stay in Halifax County.

See the actual article HERE

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Someone sent me this many years ago. I’m not sure who to give credit to, but if you own up to it, I’ll be more than happy to give you the pub. It reminded me so much about … well … me and my upbringing, that I thought it might bless you to get a snapshot into my life.

Two Rednecks are walking down different ends of a street toward each other, and one is carrying a sack. When they meet, one says

“Hey Tommy Ray, what’cha got in th’ bag?”

“Jus’ some chickens.”

“If I guess how many they are, can I have one?”

“Shoot, ya guesses right and I’ll give you both of them.”

“OK. Ummmmmmmm . . . five?”

A Redneck came home and found his house on fire, He rushed next door, telephoned the fire department and shouted, “Hurry over here. My house is on fire!”

“OK,” replied the fireman, “How do we get there?”

“Shucks, don’t you still have them big red trucks?”

Did you hear about the Redneck who passed away and left his entire estate in trust for his beloved widow? - She can’t touch it until she’s fourteen.

What’s the most popular pick-up line for a Redneck? – “Nice tooth.”

How do you know when your staying in a Redneck hotel? – When you call the front desk and say, “I’ve gotta leak in my sink” and the person at the front desk says, “go ahead.”

How can you tell if a Redneck is married? – There is dried chewing tobacco on both sides of his pickup truck.

Did you hear that they have raised the minimum drinking age in Redneckville to 32? – It seems they want to keep alcohol out of the high schools.

What do they call re-runs of “Hee Haw” in Redneckville? – A documentary.

How many Rednecks does it take to eat a ‘possum? – Two. One to eat and one to watch for traffic.

Where was the toothbrush invented? – Redneckville. If it was invented anywhere else it would have been called a teethbrush.

State Trooper pulls over a pickup truck on I-40. He says to the Redneck, “Got any ID?” – The driver says “Bout what?”

Did you hear about the $3,000,000 Redneck State Lottery? – The winner gets $3 a year for a million years.

Why did O. J. Simpson want to move to Redneckville? – Nearly everyone has the same DNA.

Did you hear that the richest dude in Redneckville? His mansion burned Down? -Yep. Pert’ near took out the whole trailer park.

A new law recently passed in Redneckville: When a couple gets divorced, they’re still brother and sister.

What do a divorce in Alabama, a tornado in South Carolina and a hurricane in Florida have in common? – Somebody’s fixin’ to lose a trailer.

Why do folks in Redneckville go to the movies theater in groups of 18 or more? – ‘Cuz 17 and under not admitted.

What do you have when you have 32 Rednecks in the same room? – A full set of teeth.

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A friend sent me this. I know I’m gonna get in trouble, but it was funny.

A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation in Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, “You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in the Holy Land, for $150.”

The man thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home. The undertaker asked, “Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend only $150?”

The man replied, “Long ago a man died here, was buried here and three days later he rose from the dead. I just can’t take the chance.”

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