From the What-will-they-think-of-next Department:

Notice the feet under the Coca-Cola machine closest to you? Apparently some Japanese designer is making these dresses with a hidden panel in them that women can just pull out and hide under if they ever need to elude someone pursuing them. They also have manhole handbags that you can throw onto the street to keep a mugger from getting your wallet. It looks just like a manhole cover so your wallet, along with your money, ID and credit cards, will be perfectly hidden.

Whatever! Would you actually buy something like this?

Today's featured question is: "Would you become an organ donor?" I am an organ donor. While my husband, and I think my mother, have known my wishes for that for years, it was only a couple of years ago I actually filled out the organ donor paperwork to file with the state organ donor group to make it official.

For years, I was always leary of having "organ donor" listed on my driver's license because I didn't want them to let me die to harvest my organs. I think that ridiculous idea came from some B-movie I watched when I was younger where an ambulance driver was letting patients he picked up that had a chance of living were they treated die for their organs. Then, when I heard that it doesn't do you any good to just have it on your driver's license if you next of kin don't know your wishes, I let it slide for years without registering. Officials in Iowa have said that even if it is on your license, if your next of kin don't says "OK", they won't take your organs anyway.

My body may not be perfect. My eyesight is pretty bad, my liver is fatty, and I'm sure my heart has some strain on it due to my weight (though I have EXCELLENT blood pressure), if my organs can help another person live a longer, more productive life, they are welcome to them. I won't need them where I'm going because God will make me whole again there.

Don't forget, Daylight Saving Time ends tonight (technically tomorrow morning at 2 a.m.). Set your clocks back.

I could use the extra hour sleep myself. I went to bed last night at 8:45 and woke up this morning at 7, minus a couple middle-of-the-night bathroom breaks that tend to come with getting older.

It's been a pretty good day. Hubby and I drove to Knoxville today. He and our assistant manager interviewed a couple of applicants there while I ran the store for a bit. Then hubby and I went to lunch together - something we don't normally get to do. Sure, we eat together in the break room most days, but we rarely get to go out to lunch together on a work day. It was pretty nice.

Now I'm just extremely tired. Don't know why. It's not like it's been a real strunuous day, but my body is telling me to go to bed at 8:30 on a Friday night. I think I'll listen to it for a change.

It's going to be a busy weekend. I work tomorrow and our Sunday school social is tomorrow evening. We are having a taco night. I'm making homemade enchiladas as soon as I get off work. I'm hoping hubby will go with me, but not holding my breath on that. So far, he has agreed, but we'll see.

He has he day off work tomorrow but plans to spend it raking leaves into the street. The city has a vacuum-like thingy they bring around once a year. Next week they'll be doing our quadrant of the city. We have a large maple in the front and an elm on the side. The maple is nearly finished dropping it's leaves already (and as soon as I find my data cable, I'll post a pic of it when it was ablaze with colors). The elm seems to drop all of it's leaves overnight (at least it did last year) and that's AFTER the leaf vacuum goes by.

You have got to go to Mark and Kerri's site and view this video. Watch it all the way through. It is incredible! Have a tissue handy.

I like Halloween. I think it's fun dressing up in costume and I love seeing excited little kids coming to my door. It's fun to watch the children, too, particularly the smaller ones in the 3-6 age group. They seem to be the most excited about it.

I know that many Christians say this is a holiday rooted in evil traditions, but quite honestly, if you look at most holidays, they all have pagan traditions blended in with them, including Christmas and Easter.

Trick-or-treating in our town was last night so it wouldn't interfere with church night. This is our 2nd Halloween in this house, and I was totally excited that I actually have trick-or-treaters. For the past 9 years, we've lived in apartments in the business district where no trick-or-treaters ever came. This year, I ran out of candy. I bought way too much candy last year, so I only went with 4 bags of candy bars this year. John was hoping he could eat the leftovers, but there was only one, and that was because they were coming to the door in groups and I didn't want to stand there with only one piece of candy left. We still had half an hour to go before it was over, but I figured by the time I ran to the store and got back, it would be over, so we just turned off the porch light and finished watching NCIS uninterrupted.

Speaking of NCIS, did anyone else get the feeling that last night's episode ended with a "to be continued" effect to it? I don't recall seeing the words come up on the screen, but between the way last night's ended and the few snippets of next week's episode they showed, it seems to me that this one is going to be continued.

I don't know if I should love or hate how God is prodding me right now about my behavior. Seems like everywhere I turn lately, he is seriously convicting me. OUCH!!!

Case in point, this week's Sunday school lesson is about throwing off the old self and taking on a new one (Col. 3:1-17). The first set of things listed in v.5 are the easier ones for me: sexual immorality, lust, impurity, covetousness. It's the things in v.8 that kill me: anger, wrath, malice, slander, foul language. I do not like myself when these things escape my mouth, so why is it so hard for me to throw them off and take on the new me in Christ?

Our prayer time yesterday was good. It was just a little over a half hour at the start of a busy day, but it was good. My friend brought a prayer book with her that her husband had given her for Christmas a few years ago. It had lots of different prayer topics in it, and the one we chose for yesterday fit absolutely perfectly with holding to the fruits of the Spirit and purging the sins that keep us from it. We have agreed to keep a weekly meeting time for prayer and accountability. I felt a little weird taking a prayer break at work (I start my day much earlier), but it worked out ok.

The past few days my devotional time has been on being patient and waiting for God. The whole book is on "Stress-Free Living" (I actually bought this from my sister's church when I was on vacation this summer). This particular chapter is on patience. Three things it says you have to do is to:

1. Wait with expectation
2. Wait with motivation
3. Wait with donation (in other words, do something to get you toward that goal)

I need to work on all three. Patience is another virtue I do not possess much of. I guess that makes it sound like I don't possess many fruits of the Spirit, but I do, there are just a few that the sinful me seems to push out all the time.

The pastor on Sunday said when you get rid of a bad habit, you have to replace it with a good one or that bad habit will sneak back. If you purge yourself of foul language, you must consciously replace it with kind language. Eventually kind language will become the habit and you won't even have to think about it.

Now, here's a question for you, and I'd really like your honest opinion. If you replace a bad word in your vocabulary with a neutral word (like saying fudge or shoot instead of cuss words), is that still foul language because the intention is the same?

Now, I'm off to bake muffins for a staff meeting this morning.

It's cold - 35° out. Took a space heater over to my friend's house last night. She's elderly and her furnace is in need of repair. It will be two weeks before they can get the parts in. She's been huddled under several blankets for days and said she'd be fine when I offered the use of the space heater last week. Last night she called asking for it. Her living room was much warmer by the time I left.

This is the kind of weather I don't like, only because it's like winter early in the morning and spring/fall in the afternoon. I'll wear my coat to work this morning, but won't need it by afternoon. These are the kinds of days I used to get into trouble with in school because I'd forget my coat at school. Sometimes I still forget my coat at work. Now I have a husband to yell at me for that instead of the mother. Ha!

I can't actually say my spirit is bruised, it's actually more humbled. Our summer intern was back again this Sunday to preach, and he did an EXCELLENT job with his sermon. There were a few moist eyes in the house as he spoke on Galations 5, which describes how we will act if we are living in the Spirit, and how we act if we are NOT living in the Spirit. This is one of the places in the Bible where it discusses the fruits of the Spirit.

I have a terrible time with wrath and a foul tongue. The language has gotten much better since I returned to the fold, but it still gets away from me sometimes, particularly in fits of wrath. Longsuffering and slow to anger are two fruits of the Spirit that I have trouble holding to, and I walked that aisle during the alter call on Sunday and asked there in front of the entire congregation for God to purge me of the sinful natures that keep me from enjoying these fruits.

Afterwards, a couple of the ladies in church came and prayed with me, too, telling me that they felt the nudge to go forward but didn't. I am meeting with one of them this morning for prayer and accountability. Together, we will hold tight to God's promise to cleanse us through and through.

I am praying for our Xanga friends living in Southern California. Folks like Pixelpusher who may be at risk of losing their homes. They just built their beautiful home in the past couple of years. I pray that God spares it, and most of all protects them.