Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Touched by Angels


Last night as I was driving down the street coming home from the grocery store, I heard a little voice in my head, “Buy a lottery ticket.”

Listen to those voices, I told myself, and pulled into the drive-by window lane at a Dari Mart where I know my daughter has bought lottery tickets.

I didn’t know what to ask for or what to order, and the kid at the window didn’t know how to advise me. I said, “I know, it has a Power Ball on it. I’ll take two.” (The second one was for my daughter; hey, we could both win.) 

He left, and when he came back, I offered him my credit card.

“They only take cash,” he said.

"Oh, I only have a dollar. Well later.” I prepared to leave. 

“Wait a minute,” he said and left. When he returned, he handed me  two $2.00 tickets.

“You’re giving them to me?!” I exclaimed.

“I paid for them,” he said.

Well, I raved and thanked him. I told him he was an amazing young man and said, it’s strange; I was just thinking of something I had read today about a man standing in line at the bank ahead of a girl with a mason jar half filled with coins.

He said to her, “I thought that needed to be filled.”

She explained that she was short of cash and needed to turn them in now. 

He told the teller to add $50.00 to her account when she arrived at the window.

Within one week, he got a $50.00 tip, exactly what he had paid the girl, and presented a screenshot to prove it.

 “I got a $50.00 tip,” said the young man at the window.

“You did?!” 

 “I bought a new phone with it, as I had broken the other.” 

“Good for you. That’s amazing. Thanks for telling me.” I drove away with a smile and lightness in my heart.

That light heart erased the troubled one I had left home with.
It wasn’t about winning the lottery. I didn’t win, and I did verify it online last night. It was about an exchange with that sweet young man. You can bet I will tip that clerk the next time I see him. Today, I made sure I had a five-dollar bill in my wallet so when I stopped by I wold have change.

A few days ago, on a gray overcast Saturday, Husband Dear and I had breakfast at the Viking Inn in Junction City. The lady waitress said, “It’s going to brighten up today, but it doesn’t matter what the weather is, it’s going to be a good day.” 

Yes, I agreed with her, the weather will do whatever it needs to do. 

"Hey," she said, we live in Oregon, we expect it to rain."

I commented on how good the food looked today, and she said that now, on Saturdays the restaurant will have all women cooks and waitresses. Wow, breakfast at the Inn should be a regular occurrence. And the bright and cheerful lady was right; the sun came out before we left.

Touched by angels.

This afternoon, on the road to the park, I saw a man in an electric wheelchair going about 20 miles an hour down the road. It turned out we were going to the same place, a park. Before he disappeared from my sight, I saw that little dog was sitting at his feet on the chair. 

Soon, he came bounding around the cement walkway surrounding the park with the dog running beside him. And I thought about how elderly people should have pets as they will do for their animals what they won’t do for themselves. I don’t know about that man, but he was giving his dog a fun run.

If you read Jo’s Newsletter, you will see that I am still working on my continued Real Estate continued education course and writing Money Shout Outs. 

As I work through the money info and clear myself, I will Shout Out what I have found. If you taste something exquisite, don’t you want to share it? And I figure that money is a hot spot for most people. Attitudes explode around it. So, I guess it’s our attitudes that we need to work on.

And if you’re afraid that an abundance of money will make you a selfish blowhard like some of the people who stay at the Plaza in New York and behave like spoiled brats. Some jerk the butlers around, cry over spilled blueberries, want condoms delivered to their room, and live lobsters in their bath. These people give rich people a bad name. You won’t become like them unless you are a selfish blowhard already. And I know you aren’t—those people don’t read my blog.

Be of service, share what you know, up your attitude, and you will have a happy life. 

Challenges, previously called problems, will come. They are thrown in your path to help you grow. And think of it this way: don’t you feel great when you have taken on a challenge and handled it with aplomb?

 (The tears? Oh, they were part of the process—you didn’t think it was all sweetness and light, did you?)



Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Why in the World am I Talking about Money with all the other Crap that’s Going on in the World?

 Because I don’t want to write about crap that’s why.

And you know we need money to live.

Money is one of life’s largest concerns, whether you think it’s spiritual or not. But, think about it, we’re being held hostage by one of the richest men in the country. He spends big bucks on lawyers to bail him out on every turn, and poor people are giving him more money.

It boggles my mind.

We have called ourselves, “The Land of The Free,” yet, I see that one by one, our freedoms are being threatened.

Americans, why are you allowing this?

Aren’t you sometimes in a dilemma to check into the ramblings on the internet just so you won’t have your head in the sand? Yet when you peek out of the sand, your blood pressure goes ozone layer high.

End of rant.

 

I’m going back to my original subject.

 

Issues regarding money are some of life’s greatest challenges.

So, what is the fastest way I can turn around my money issue and have fun doing it?

If you have all the money you want, substitute any other desire, dream or goal for the word money.  

And it would honor me greatly if you would take the Money Challenge with me. Possibly we could have a dialogue. I intend to follow the sage advice I discover and shout it out. 

Yes, I’m relying on other people to help me for we all stand on the shoulders of others who have gone before.

You can argue with me, follow me, read me, ignore me, love me, or hate me, but I’m doing it anyway.

(I prefer love.)

Because I think it is pertinent, I am quoting Jen Senero again.  (You are a Bada** How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life).

“Greedy people do greedy things for money, don’t go getting all up in money’s face and blame it for their lousy behavior.”

 

As Bette Davis said in the movie All About Eve, “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!” 

 

Shout outs will be posted on Substack.

https://joycedavis.substack.com

 

 give a little click

 P.S.

Jo'sSubstack 

@jewelld

·

Don’t let the “Faith and Spirituality” category frighten you, I couldn’t find the right category for my posts. I post about LIFE,. Some individuals are soaring, some are lonely, and some are making do. However, we are all in this soup of life together. Let's cook a good one.

Monday, January 1, 2024

Why White Horses? Sculpting, Oregon Country Fair and such

 This White Horse was a Christmas gift from my Grandson Casey. He digitally sculpted it in the computer program Blender and then physically carved it in a 3D printer. (It took about 9 hours, he said.)


 

You probably know why I call this blog Wish on White Horses, although the site isn’t about horses. 

 

For those who don’t know, the title came from a day so hot that fair vendors squirted us with cool water to keep us vertical. 

 

Our friends Rita and Bob sat with Neil and me as we traveled by bus to avoid the drive and the parking trip into the left field for the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta, Oregon. 

 

Suddenly, Rita, beside me, said, “Quick, make a wish.”

 

“Why?” 

 

“A white horse. I always wish on white horses.”

 

I looked to the pasture alongside the road where a white horse, head bent to the ground, grazing on the green grass, and quickly thought up a wish. I don’t remember for what, but it must have come true. 

 

It tickled me to learn about wishing on white horses, for, as a child, I wished on every birthday candle, every shooting star that managed to cross my vision, and every first star of the night from when I was nine years old until I was twelve when my wish came true. My folks bought my gorgeous horse, Boots, for me.

 

You can see why I am so cuckoo over horses, for Boots was my partner and best bud for the following nine years. 

 

If you have never heard of or attended the Oregon CountryFair, it’s a phenomenon to experience. 

 

Even if you thought all the Hippies had gotten sucked up into the ether's, they get spit out for the three days of the Fair. It’s rather like a Renaissance Fair without the horse jousting. People dress (or undress) in whatever fun costume they can find. 

 

The booths displaying exquisite artworks are set among the trees and made from sticks and earthy materials, looking like a Hobbit village. The food is so good you want to sample everything. There is music and dancing and booths about sustainable living and new technologies. There is hot water from pipes coiled through a compost pile. 

 

People who have put together the fair party for three days. It is as though someone opened the doors to Shangri La. 

 

After three days, all human habitation or remains disappear except for the artistic fence bordering the entrance. The land reclaims its own. A big open field appears that was once a parking lot, and the trees return to their quiet whispering alongside the Long Tom River. 

 

The river generally floods in the spring, then evaporates in summer, leaving silt that makes the ground fertile come July when it is hot and the people return.

 

One summer, when Casey’s mother was pregnant with him, she went to the Fair and had her exposed belly painted with a coiled infant, such as existed inside.

 

Now Casey is 18, will graduate from high school this school year, made a white horse for me, and the wish on white horses lives on.

 

                 

https://joycedavis.substack.com/

 

 

 

 

Monday, December 25, 2023

'Tis Christmas


 

Last night ‘Twas the night before Christmas and there was much scurrying, for we were celebrating with one daughter and grandson, and tonight we will celebrate with another daughter, grandson, and son-in-law.

This morning I took a break from the house, grabbed a coffee, and am now in my Wayback office for a friendly visit with my computer and hopefully you. (Maybe with you after Christmas.)

Yesterday, I had the poem’ Twas the Night Before Christmas, same as A Visit from St Nicolas, cycling through my brain. My ten-year-old nephew from the night before sparked my thinking of it, for he didn’t know the poem.

That poem is a moment of history from the man who named the reindeer and described St Nicolas is a right jolly old elf who was “dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.”

Ad writers from the Coco Cola Company came along and cleaned up St Nicolas. They changed his name to Santa Claus, made him into a regular-sized person, and dressed him in fur clothing, red and white. They kept Moore’s jolly person with a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly. 

I like the story I heard as a child: Moore was a village doctor. Wanting a special gift for his children, for he was, after all, called away on Christmas Eve, he trusted his horse to take him home, and as he jostled along in his buggy, he wrote a poem for them titled, A Visit from St Nicolas.

Well, he wrote the poem for his children, true, but according to my checking, he wasn’t a physician but a professor with a buggy driver after whom he patterned the elf. The two reindeer named “Donner and Blitzen” meant “Thunder and Lightning.”

Moore wrote the poem in 1837. One of his children had it published anonymously, for initially, Moore wouldn’t take credit for it because it wasn’t “scholarly.”

Finally, in 1844, when it was published with a group of other poems, he, at the insistence of his children, publicly admitted writing it.

I still remember the racket on the lawn, and the writer who had just settled down for a long winter’s night when out of the lawn he heard such a clatter, he sprang from his bed to see what was the matter.

From his window, he saw the snow’s luster like midday, a miniature sled, and eight tiny reindeer.

He described St Nicolas his cheeks like roses, his nose like a cherry—a right jolly old elf, and he watched as St Nicolas filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk, and laying a finger beside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

 ‘Er, he drove out of sight he called, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night.”

It’s fascinating how stories evolve, and images change. Yet, they sprang from a moment when someone displayed their genius and lived on long after they, the writer, was gone.

“Moore received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College as valedictorian of the class of 1798 and earned his Master’s Degree there in 1801.”