Monday, May 27, 2013

Come Cruze with Me

Thanks to the man of the house, I am finally in a new car!  Well, new to me.  Like new.  It was a one owner lease with low mileage.  A 2011 Chevrolet Cruze.   I've been in it a little over three weeks now, and I'm loving it! 

The first thing that struck me about it when I got in it to test drive it, was the ample leg, head and shoulder room in the vehicle.  I've never seen so much in a car this size before.  The leather interior was an upgrade I've never had before.  The instrumentation, radio and environment controls are smartly laid out for user friendliness and appearance.  That with the leather seats, gives you the impression you are in an automobile twice it's value.

I was also immediately impressed with the smoothness of the ride and the low level of road noise in the car, again mimicking a much pricier ride.

So how has it been driving it on my 67 mile round trip each day?  Amazing!  I was the owner of a 1979 Mustang with the 302 and a 4-speed that was only offered in a relative few of them.  (Jay Leno has one in his collection, but my was way sharper looking.) That Mustang won rave reviews for how responsive it was and in fact it's responsiveness probably saved my life on a couple of occasions.  This Cruze compares well with it in that area.  Another feature of the '79 Mustang that won raves and that I had loved so well, was that you could run it in 3rd gear at highway speeds and the torque would have you feeling glued to the road in conditions like rain where you were likely to loose the "feel" of the road.  This Cruze has a feature that compares well to that, the driver can turn off or on at the push of the button.

The the heated front seats and the fact that the passenger seat can fully recline will mean a lot if and when I have to take hubby on long trips to see a doctor or have a test.  And may make it easier for him to be able to join us all in family outings.  The overall comfort of the car is more than I've had since the Olds Ninety-eight I drove 15 years ago.

The Premium Pioneer sound system in the car sounds as good to my ears as anything aftermarket that my son has put in any of his numerous vehicles or ours.  And it comes ready to take a USB device, so I have all my favs at my fingertips. 

The little 4-cylinder, turbocharged engine delivers more than enough  umph for passing and merging into traffic.  And I'm impressed and happy with it's gas mileage.  I'm getting 32.5 to 33mpg on average.  Which I feel is exceptional since I have to go through three to six school zones, two small towns and then often encounter heavy traffic moving at a snails pace when I get in close to work.   In the truck I drove for a long time it took almost 4 gallons to get me there and back.  In my DIL's little car it took almost 3 gallons.  In this car it take me just a tad over 2.  You don't know how good it feels to be able to fill up and not worry about gas for over a week!  Yippee!!

You have the option to shift the automatic transmission like a 4-speed if you so desire, for hilly terrain or just for fun.  It has other little touches for comfort, like remote start, light sensitive rear view mirror, the sun visor slides along the rod for optimum sun blockage, and it is blue tooth ready for hands free phone usage.

To surmise, I am loving my "new" car.



Saturday, May 11, 2013

Exploring Caneyhead...

...with a new gadget.  I've been blogging for over eight years now.  That means a lot of entries on this little blog of mine.  I've tried to make it easy for anyone to follow and keep up with Caneyhead.  In the sidebar, you can follow through:

                               Twitter
                               Facebook
                               Google
                               Email subscription
            

I myself, knowing well that I've done a certain entry in the past, have had a hard time finding it.  I've certainly done everything I know to do to try to make exploring Caneyhead easier. On my sidebar I  have:

    Personal Favorite Posts
    Remembering Family Posts
    A Google Search box for Caneyhead
    My Blog Archive List

In my posts I've often added labels and links.  All of this is useful in it's own way, but inadequate in others. 

During the A-Z Challenge, I noticed a number of blogs that had thumbnails of other posts similar to the one you just read at the bottom of the post.  I thought it was a neat idea, but did not follow up on it.

Then, Holly with Business 2 Blogger sent out an email in which she shared a post by Jessica, about related post plugins. Here I learned about the wonderful, free plugin that allowed these little thumbnails to appear on your blog!

I went to LinkWithin, read their FAQs sheet and gave it a whirl installing it here at Life & Faith in Caneyhead.  It was super easy, and suddenly I was finding posts I had written long ago and totally forgotten about! 

I share this with you so that you can enjoy exploring more of Caneyhead with ease, and so that if you are like I was, lost in your own blog, seeing these thumbnails and wondering about them, you can add this amazing little feature to your own blog.

  
                     

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

No Stopping Us Now....Prayer

In this day of haters, those who would wipe out all things "pertaining" to God just because they themselves are anti-God and those who would strip even the military men and women who serve to protect our Constitutional rights from sharing their faith (freedom of speech people!  freedom of religion!  - Notice the Constitution says freedom OF religion....not freedom FROM religion!!!  It never intended to protect you from ever hearing the name of the Almighty or seeing a manger scene or having someone say "God bless you" when you sneeze.  It meant to protect you from the government saying "This is the only way to worship God.")

These haters want to shut us up and put us down.  Well, I can't shut up.  I have been commission to "go therefore" and share what Christ means to me and what He has done for me.  So, you attack and you get unconstitutional laws passed and you think you have shut me up.  Because I can't speak out loud anymore. 

Ah!  But I can pray.  I can pray for your depraved soul.  I can ask Christ to reveal himself to you in an way you cannot deny.  (And He so wants to do that!  It is His deepest desire.)  You can make laws saying I can't talk to you....but I can still pray for you.  You can make laws saying I can't pray out loud.  You can make laws saying I can't look like I am praying...but I can still pray for you in my head and my God hears! 

Someday down the road you may be able to monitor my thoughts and you might think you can then stop me from praying.  But you can't!  You never will!  Because the Holy Spirit knows my heart and He prays for me when my mouth is silenced, when my thoughts are censored.  And He will pray for you when the day comes you'd jam my thought processes.  Or when the day comes I am senile.  He'll still be praying!!!  He'll pray for me until I'm out of this world and with Christ and He'll pray for you as long as you draw breath!

You can't stop us.  Now or ever.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Reflections on the 2013 A-Z Challenge

Once again I survived the A-Z Challenge.  It sounds simple enough in theory, but when real life events smack right up against deadlines to post day after day, simple flies right out the window.

A large part of that is my own life and lifestyle.  Being away from home for about 10 hours each day constricts me and narrows my window of opportunity.  Refusing to pre-write posts weeks ahead of time further restricts me.  And part of it is being stuck on dial-up here in the sticks.  All in all...I say it was worth it.  But my family might not agree with me.  They had late suppers, limited talk time, etc. all because I was committed to something that required my attention every evening for at least an hour, maybe more.

Why was it worth it to me?  Because I love to write first and foremost.  I have always enjoyed sitting down and putting my thoughts and feelings into words.   It used to mean cramped fingers and lots of paper.  But, now thanks to computers, just sit down and let your fingers fly, hoping they can keep up with the thoughts that are flowing.

It was also worth it to me, because I was specifically putting down things for my children to read and remember.  Hopefully in distant years when I am gone from this earth.  Each entry was printed out and given to my sister, Edna, who read them and placed them in a book she is saving for Bug.  Bubba already received his book when he married. 

But it goes beyond these Challenge entries.  I hope my children will eventually find their way to this blog to read.  To know more of their mother's beliefs, sense of humor.  To have a place to remind them of who she was when memories grow dim and their time with her seems distant.

I was a child, and then a very selfish, self absorbed teen when my own parents were still on this earth.  A lot I do know.  I know Mama took violin lessons.  I know Daddy was union through and through.  But so many times I wished I could have known more about their viewpoints:  religiously, politically, socially.  That I could of had them around long enough to have actual grown up conversation with them.

To the A-Z hosts I have nothing but respect and koodoos for how you run the Challenge and it operates.  Thank you for spurring us all on to make more of our writing and connect more with other bloggers.

This years top five posts by page views are:

 
 
 
 
 
If you didn't follow along on the Challenge, I hope you'll at least read these five.  And I hope you'll also check out other "reflection" posts.
 
 
 
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