For the wages of sin are death. I like The Message's take on it: Work for sin all your life and the pension is death. Work for God and receive a life, eternal life. It seems there is a lot of slavery here in the USA that no one notices. Our citizens are slaves to drugs, sex, greed, selfishness, fame, you name it. I doubt they know they are in slavery, but it is obvious that they can't break away and experience freedom. It is in the 12 step programs, when they try to free themselves from their addiction, that they see God's way is the way to freedom. It seems to many that God's way is a tight, choke-hold, but it is certainly just the opposite. -------- We went on a bear hunt a couple of times yesterday, but no bears were seen. I do hope we get to see them--from a short distance while in the protection of the van! The 5 kids all got in the front seat yesterday and stuck their heads out the window looking for the bears. I think they were just as excited to be sitting in the front seat and sticking heads out the window. There is so much that they don't get to do because the world is different today. I used to ride in the back of the truck bed with my legs dangling out, or in the front seat with my hand waving out the window in the air current. The windows don't even open where my children sit in the van. -------- It rained yesterday evening. Praise the Lord! It was a fast rain, but not too hard, so it did seem to soak in well. I think it may have rained through the night some as well since the deck is still puddled. We hadn't had the air conditioning on for a few days, but yesterday was so humid that we had to put it on. Well good luck with that, because it wasn't working. I had turned it off last week when it kept running constantly, no matter what the temperature read. So we thought it might be the thermostat. Hubby and I worked on it and sure enough a new thermostat was what it needed. I was afraid hubby's thought that the ac is one thing that could still go bad in this house may have come true. Thankfully it didn't. -------- A man stopped yesterday and asked to buy a hen. He was working across the road laying brick and saw the chickens. (How could he miss them? They run all over the place.) His little 5 year old neighbor wanted a hen, so he came to buy one. He wanted my nice black hen, Carolina, but I couldn't let her go. I like her too much. So he took a different black and brown one, I think it was Virginia, but I didn't see her next to Georgia at the time and I have to in order to tell them apart. Anyway, he paid $10 for her and left. Now if someone would just stop and buy Elvis!