America, America God Shed His Grace On Thee

The best song ever sung for our country by the great Ray Charles...please listen and be inspired

ray charles america

Counted in the Stars

It is a great sadness that we have lost many many people around the world from 
the 2020 virus. 

We don't know the whole story yet...we are still living in quarantine. These are not really happy times, but they are making us think of bigger things than cars and vacations and future plans.

I am reading the Little Prince 
and the Bible these days.



“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night…”

Antoine Saint-Exupéry, "The Little Prince"




"Then God took Abram outside and said, 
"look up at the sky and count the stars - if indeed you can count them...So shall your offspring be."

Glorious Easter

We were invited to our friends, Jodie and Jeff, for Easter. I wanted to make her an Easter basket because it is just so much fun to gather spring flowers together in one spot...here is how it turned out.

I started with the variegated plant on the left and thought the nasturtium was the perfect contrast. Cell packs of cosmos and coleus filled in well.

See the little blue glass tulip? 

I got that at Alden Lane.

The white, cheerful basket came from Bloomies in Pleasanton. It had a liner so I just added soil and then the flowers.

I added Easter eggs, a mushroom and a glass tulip. The succulents were from our yard and the ribbon was the same we used at the Gala last September.

The best part? Jodie loved it!

Notre Dame...Our Lady is burning almost to the ground

Nearly unbespeakable news from Paris. The beautiful Lady is on fire. I have been there and seen her. Dave has walked up to the top of her and viewed Paris from on high. Somehow she is burning. I don't know if we will ever know the truth of why. Terrorism? Carelessness? Accident? The end of the age? It is simply horrendous for me, for the French. For the catholics? What does it mean? France has become secular and the church of God is just a place to visit with very little if any spiritual value to the people of secular France. The same thing happened in Christchurch NZ. We visited the famous church and it was a place of nothing related to Christ. In the church, there were postings on a wall of places to meet people for a massage, Muslim meetings, vegetarian meetings, gay meetings..no word about Jesus. So the earthquake hit and the Christ church fell to the ground. Now Notre Dame has burned. Against a backdrop of multiple church burnings in Paris in the past year, growing Muslim infiltration pushing out any Christian vestige of faith, and large disinterest in Christianity in Europe as a whole. I had an English patient once who was amazed at Americans always talking about God. She said, in England we never talk about God. So Europe has left God. doesn't care. I prayed for her child who had no normal vessels to the Kidney and was expected to die. I prayed for a healing. I prayed for a healing where the doctors would say, "we have never seen this before". The baby was healed and the doctors said. "We have never seen this before." So in England where no one talks or thinks about God, this God heals a baby. When faith leaves the heart, no miracle is done. Why did Notre Dame burn to the ground? Maybe no one cares about the God she is supposed to house. The truth though is that God lives in a human temple, a human heart. So if she is Never rebuilt, maybe that is just fine. As long as people invite him into the human temple. He will live forever. Happy Easter.

Last Spring...ahhh

It's been raining forever...yeah!...but the sun is a wonderful thing to see and so are flowers and memories of all...

A visit to Rose Garden in Portland 8 years ago...

..

A photo shoot I did with my friend Kris to display her candelabras..we found this old barn door!

A walk in Chicago back in the day

Portland again

my succulents!

Wonderful "Thank You" Letter

We have been receiving many many thank you notes for our Pleasanton Military Families Christmas pack out boxes. They arrived and were opened with joy! Yeah. Here is a real nice note and photo from a happy sergeant.

Devastating News from our PMF President

Life is so precious. So unpredictable.

Saturday we joyfully packed boxes for our troops.

Tuesday we delivered the boxes to be mailed.

Today we learn from Azi's son, (name withheld), that one of the Special Forces Green Berets that we sent boxes to was killed in the IED explosion over the weekend. Three were killed, four more wounded.

We were sending boxes to Sergeant First Class Eric Emond, 39, in the Army for 21 years. He was our contact for one of the Special Forces units in Afghanistan. He was to receive 20 boxes from us to distribute amongst his team. Afshin confirmed the boxes will go to the team Chaplain and still be distributed. 

AFC Emond was married and has three little girls under the age of 6.

If we are able to find an address to send cards or something for the children, I will share it with PMF.

Our hearts ache. I have included a link to a story on these 3 brave men from the Military Times.

Please take the time to read and remember these men. They are all heroes to us.  We graciously thank those who gave all...pray for their families.

Respectfully,

 Pat Frizzell

Capt. Andrew Ross, from left, and Sgt. 1st Class Eric Emond, both Green Berets with 3rd Special Forces Group, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Dylan Elchin, of the 26th Special Tactics Squadron, were killed Nov. 27, 2018, when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device in Andar, Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. (DoD)

The entire story is found below:

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/11/28/pentagon-identifies-three-special-operations-troops-killed-by-ied-in-afghanistan/