Greg's General Store

When I was young, one of my mother’s favorite things to do was to lock herself in her bedroom and threaten to kill herself. She did this when she was depressed and wanted to “get back” at my father for one thing or another. She suffered from depression a lot. I can still hear her saying “I have a gun and I am going to shoot myself.” (My father kept a loaded handgun in his bedroom because he was a special policeman and we knew it) She would continue despite our crying and pleading until one of us called my father at work and got him to come home. A fight always followed. Many times I found myself praying to God to take me away from that place and relieve my pain but He never did. So eventually I gave up on praying and I gave up on God. I reasoned; why pray if He never answers and if He doesn’t answer my prayers then He must not exist. I have always had an analytical mind so that made since. When I was 18, I joined the Navy to “See the world” but I really just wanted to get away. So I l...

Do you ever feel like life is getting you down? Like you have so much to do that there is never enough time to get everything done? Like no matter how hard you try, your "to do list" keeps getting longer and longer? Do you feel like this pear tree, with so much to bear that you find yourself breaking? I used to feel like that a lot but now things are getting better. I shed some unwanted and unneeded baggage and things are looking great. I used to be like that pear tree. I would try to do more and more and get myself in a fix and before I knew it, I was bogged down with no way out. No matter how I tried, things kept looking bad and I would end up depressed and when all other options were exhausted, I would break down and ask God for help. I would tell God my plan and tell him how I wanted him to make my plan work. Usually it ended up with my plan still failing and me losing faith and giving up on God. I could rationalize that I asked God for help with my plan and I didn’t get ...

WARNING..THIS POST MAY BE OFFENISVE TO SOME PEOPLE. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!! I have always been a Math and Science person. The reason is simple. In math and science everything is black and white. There is no grey areas like there are in English. Ok I did that on purpose. I know it should have been there aint no grey areas. (just kidding) I believe that everything is either: right or wrong, correct or incorrect. Not that I am a judge or anything like that but I believe in following the rules. In the areas of math and science there are rules for anything and everything in the world must follow these rules to exist. One rule builds on another and that one supports the first one and everyone is happy. If A=B and B=C, then A=C; So simple and yet so true. E=MC² Now who can argue with that. If you have ever tried to give a cat a bath, you know that “all cats hate water.” Well except for those Turkish Van cats. Now wait just a minute. What happened to black and white? Ok so m...

As I mentioned before, my favorite channel on TV is The Weather Channel. My second favorite however is Discovery. Some of the shows on there are so interesting and they explain a lot of things that I have always had questions about. Last week they had a show about mummies and it was fascinating. They uncovered Christian mummies in Egypt. This contradicts Christian belief so they believe that this was a transition time for Christians in this area. A few days ago, there was a show on Discovery about wooly mammoths. They say scientists recently discovered an entire baby mammoth frozen in ice. The episode told about a cave way up north where they keep all these frozen artifacts and examine them. It literally is an ice cave where all the frozen specimens are kept. They have found many pieces of mammoths but this one was whole.After analyzing the baby mammoth, they went on to tell how they think it died and how old it was and all kinds of interesting facts. Next the topic shifted to genetics...

“We’re Caught in a Trap” My Sunday morning started out with a meeting at work to discuss the day’s schedule. Everyone was either in a good mood or kind of average (due to lack of sleep), engaging in light chit chat. Then one person came in late with a frown on his face and began complaining about this and that and before I knew it the whole room was in an uproar. Isn’t amazing how no one wants to jump on the happy bandwagon but everyone quickly gets on the downer train. Hatred, evil and violence really do breed the same. I truly believe that humanity is caught in a trap. There IS however a way out. Whenever someone around us gets down we need to try to pick them up instead of letting them bring us down to their level. When someone around us is violent, it is up to us to break that chain and stop the violence. It is up to us to push evil aside and stomp out hatred whenever we can. “Devil in Disguise” I have come to the realization that although these “sour” people are not the devil they...

Do you have bars? I am not talking about the drinking establishments or those little things on your cell phone. I am talking about those bars that we all have that represent our goals or Ideals that we set for ourselves. They are those things that we strive for as compared to where we are right now. Some would say “I am exactly where I want to be” but I am sure if these people were honest with themselves, they would see that there is always room for improvement. Recently a certain President (I am not saying names here because I want to keep this non political) said that we are making headway in the war. In the perspective he used he was right. A few days later one of the candidates referred to that statement and said: That’s only compared to where we were last year. We have lowered the bar so low that any little progress is acceptable. I had to agree with that and it made me think about bars, and our little lines between right and wrong. Each of us has bars or goals that we strive f...

I love my coffee. There is nothing like starting the day with a nice hot cup of coffee. Sunday coffee is especially nice though. On Sunday mornings I can sit quietly and enjoy my coffee without all the distractions of the world around me. I can slowly sip it and savor every precious moment. It's just me and my coffee. I have loved coffee for as long as I can remember. My Grandmother Lottie first let me taste it. Her real name was Carlotta but everyone called her Lottie. I called her Grandma Lottie. She would sit in her tiny kitchen, reading the paper every morning and sip her coffee. She drank it strong and black. She would only make one cup though because she believed in moderation. On weekends, I would drop by and visit her. She would offer me breakfast but I usually declined because I knew she didn't have much and I didn't want to take what little she had. On mornings that I said yes though, she would make a small batch of pancakes for me. She would make them from scratc...

I know this is long but I assure you, you will learn a lot if you stay with me. People are usually divided into two groups, Cat people or Dog people. We are Cat people. We have had a few dogs through the years but have always come back to cats. Even when we did own dogs we had cats and the dogs knew who was boss. There are big differences between these two animals so it stands to reason that most people like one or the other. Dog people like to say that dogs are faithful because they usually are attracted to one person the most. It is said that they are “man’s” best friend but most of the time they are “one man’s” best friend. They will be friendly and faithful to one or maybe two people but everyone else beware. A dog may be faithful to his or her master but will often turn on other people without warning. To me this isn’t being “friendly”, its taking sides . I think Cats are neat and in my opinion, man’s best friend. There I said it, “Cats are man’s best friend”. Cats are straight fo...

TGIF, That's Thank GOD it is Friday. He brought us through another week. Faith is a difficult thing for me. It is hard to have faith sometimes with all that happens in our lives. Faith also means different things to different people. To me it means not having to worry. It’s letting things run their course and trusting that in the end they will work out for the better. It means that even thought I don’t see what’s ahead, I know in my heart that there is a plan and that I trust that there is a good plan for me. You need to have a lot of faith when driving in the fog or rain. You need to trust that the person in front of you will have their lights on and keep moving so that you don’t run into them. That is hard to do sometimes and I struggle with it. That is why when I am driving in the rain or fog I am a nervous wreck. It doesn’t help that one or my aunts was killed in an accident in the pouring rain. I always think about that when I am driving in the rain. I guess this would be f...

“My” Pahthers won !!! Well they aren’t actually my Panthers, they are the Carolina Panthers but I am going to take credit for the win. Since they won, I am going to bathe in the glory of the win and associate their name with mine. Last week though, “they” lost. Those darn Panthers lost. They weren’t My Panthers then. When they win, I am willing to take credit for the win but when they lose it is all their fault. That seems to be the norm these days. Whenever something good happens, we want all the credit but when things go sour, it is someone else’s fault. I have a little joke that I say at work from time to time. People are always afraid of getting fired and I tell them that I am not afraid of it. Seriously I know I could always find another job but this is what I tell them. If I quit, I have to go home and tell my wife and family that I gave up a perfectly good job and lets just say I won’t be on Their “good” list this Christmas. There might even be some negative words spoken abou...