multi level marketing schemes

What has Amway, Vita whatever, email chain letters with recipes or prayers, emails that end with "you must pass this on to ten of your friends or you'll contract a venereal disease", jewelry parties, and the new face book phenomenon "25 things about me", have in common? I will answer that for you, what they all have in common is that if you wait long enough all your friends will have contacted you about them. Which can be bad or good. I like some of the Amway products so if I wait long enough someone will approach me and I can buy what I need. I don't care for forwards just on principle so they go into the auto delete file most of the time. I have sold about every party plan out there for extra money and its usually a good product as well, but I dont go to them simply because. I got a real nice invite to write down 25 things about me. I am thinking about what I should write. It will take some mulling over and just about the time I think I will actually complete that lil survey, which is cute by the way, someone else tags me and Im it again. Now Im feeling very popular. so decisions, decisions, do I do this one or that one or both. More thinking when BAM! I get another one. Then I read the instructions, I would have to send the survey to 25 people. Ok now I get it. I am figuring that if I wait a few more days even weeks I might get a whole bunch of those invites and then I can just do them all in one shot. My real question is how long it might take to reach everybody on the planet with this thing. I think I asked the same question to an Amway person. Man if we were marketing something wed be in business.

The passport

The Passport story
When our daughter Mari was born in March she was only 3 weeks premature but because of my blood pressure problems she was very little and had to stay in the hospital for a few more days. She was only 4”11” oz when we brought her home. Weirdly enough Joe was in Australia the day I went into labor and arrived home right after her birth, cutting short his trip and cancelling his “walk about” that he had planned for the weekend. I told him he should have just stayed, after all I had 5 already I could’ve done it on my own.
Later that year in August He got to go to Israel for work and this time I really wanted to go, but being that she was still little, and that he didn’t know where the team might be staying , I chose to stay home. My mother lived in Jerusalem at the time and although I really wanted to see her too, Joe would be in Haifa so I would have to be on my own down there anyway. It didn’t make tons of sense to go together. Well he left on a Friday and when he arrived he called and said you should have come, I’m looking at the sunset on the Mediterranean Sea and it’s beautiful! They were scheduled to be there about 10 days and so I thought well if I could find a cheap ticket I could leave and stay with my mom after they leave. I looked for good fares and finally found one leaving in two days so Sunday night I booked a flight out for me and Mari. I was scheduled to leave on Wednesday.
I called Swiss Air to check to see if Mari needed her passport and they informed me that all she needed was a notarized birth certificate, I was glad to have Monday and Tuesday to arrange for the children and get the proper papers. Chicago O’Hare is 1 ½ hrs from our house and so I parked our van at a friend’s house and they drove me to connect with the Shuttle, bags and all. It works well, they just drop you off at International gate 5, and you get in line. I got there in plenty of time and when I got up to the counter, gave my ticket to the lady (Sharon) she asked for the passports, as I gave her mine I explained what Swiss Air had told me over the phone, She looked puzzled and said just a minute, when she came back, she informed me that I had been given faulty information and that I would not be able to get on the plane without a passport for her. Even if they did let me on the plane, the customs people in Israel would not let me off. This was not good news.
Now what!?! So I reacted like any rational women my age with a baby , I just stood there and cried.
Sharon was very understanding. She gave me her card with her information and the number to the passport agency in Chicago. By this time it was almost 4 and the flight was leaving so she said that she would book me on the same flight out the next day. I went to the phone booth to try and contact the passport agency to see if it was even possible to get a passport in one day. It’s one of those large bureaucracy’s and all you get is an automated line to make an appointment. The first scheduled appt. was at 3:30 the next day. The flight left at 4 and the train from Chicago was almost an hour long. So I took it and hoped they would understand my situation. It was then that I was tempted to just take the bus home and forget it. But the ticket was non-refundable and I was this far already so… I took the airport shuttle to a nearby hotel. Did I mention that it was one on the hottest days on record in Chicago? We stayed in our room, with the air conditioning on. I continued to call the passport agency for any openings and ate some of the yogurt and rice I had packed for my mom. The next day was going to be long I just had a feeling. It turned out that I was more right than I realized
I got up the next morning, checked out and they graciously allowed me to keep my bags behind the counter till I got back. So weighed down with nothing but the baby, stroller, and my huge baby bag, I was on my adventure. On the shuttle back to the airport I asked the passengers the burning question of the hour, was it even possible to get a passport in one day. One of the ladies said she was a stewardess and thought that if I could prove it was an emergency that I might be able to. I would need a ticket with today’s date, and a passport photo of the baby. OH ! Glad she told me. I stopped at the Swiss Air ticketing desk to ask them to update my ticket. At that time of the morning there was nobody in site. Frantically I searched for someone to help me. A kind lady at the next airline told me they wouldn’t be in till noon and that she thought there was an office in Chicago. It was 9:30 am and this was just one more thing I had to add to my list, Swiss air office, passport photo place, and passport agency. I got a map and directions to where I was going and got on the train. It took an hour. All I remember about that trip is that the air con was not working and we were dripping wet with sweat. Mari looked ghostly and I was afraid she would dehydrate so I tried to keep her drinking all day. When we arrived I had to run about 6 blocks to the Swiss Air office and up to the 8th floor. I basically carried the baby in the stroller while running up and down stairs to the underground. I was thankful for the cooler air in the tunnels.
When I finally reached the lady at the desk in the Swiss Air office I was on a mission and pumped with adrenaline. Panting I explained my situation (at about 100 words per minute) after insisting I calm down, she hurried the best she could and printed a ticket with the right date. As I left I got instructions for the nearest place that did passport photos. It turned out to be a walgreens 1 block from the passport office. I needed to cash a travelers check, to get the photo, but at that moment I didn’t care. As it turned out it was a good thing. With the photo in hand I headed up to the passport office, to explain the problem to the lady behind the glass. I told her that yeah, I did have an appointment… but it was at 3:30 pm and that would be too late to catch my flight. She had me fill out paper work and when I handed it in. It was about 11 am. I felt I was doing good, she said they would call me soon. By 11:30 they called me and I was starting to have hope that I’d make it back to the airport by 2:00 pm, time for check in. Plus I would have time to swing over and get my bags at the hotel. I calculated that it would take another 15 minutes or so to run from the train to the terminal, so if I got out of there by 12:30 ish I’d be in good shape. Well when I got up to the counter to pay for the passport she said that it had been approved. (GREAT !) and, that I needed 75.00 in cash (whew! I had it!) and, that the pick up time would be 1:30........... WHAT !!!! Very patiently I explained that 1:30 would be too late for me to make it back to the airport in time, and that I needed to get the passport now. She patronizingly said, if it’s meant to be then it will work out. OH COME ON!!!! So when did passport agents become philosophers. My adrenaline had run smack dab into a brick wall and there was nothing to do but WAIT… for an hour and a half. We went to Mcdonalds, but it seemed that no matter where we went that day the aircon was not working. So after a quick burger we headed back to the agency to wait some more. I got there a little after 1:00 and went to sit in the room where they were going to hand them out. I signed in and figured if I got it at 1:30 I might just be able to make it… if I really hustled. The room slowly started to fill up, and at 1:30 there were probably 40 people in there waiting, and they didn’t start calling out the names till 1:40. name after name, nope they weren’t going by first sign in. and no they weren’t in alphabetical order, a poll of the people around me agreed that it was quicker on the train to get back to the airport than a cab. 1:55 . I was chewing my nails. 2:00 about 20 people left. ARGGGGHHHH !!!! Finally 2:10 they called me. Got it, checked it, poor little baby was asleep when they took her picture, but it was her, bald little head and all. So, I was out of there, I flew down the stairs with Marianna, bag and stroller, and out the door to the nearest underground to catch the train back to the airport. As I was standing on the platform asking people, which train was going to O’hare, someone pointed at the train that had just closed its doors and was moving away. AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! They said, no worries another one will be along in about 15 minutes. I got on that train at 2:30. There was a slim chance I could still do this. I borrowed one of those rare cell phones (can you believe I didn’t have a cell phone in 1999 ! ) and called the number on Sharon’s card for the Swiss Air desk, they said that if I got there at 3:30 they could maybe still get me on, but my luggage was still at the hotel! I borrowed the phone again and yes they could deliver it, but only if I was in the airport. I called Swiss Air, they could not go outside and get it for me because they were too busy booking passengers right now to look for luggage. The man holding onto the pole in front of me was dripping sweat from his elbow. Yep the aircon was still out on the train. About 10 minutes before we got there I called the hotel again and told them that they could deliver my bags to International gate 5, departure. We got off the train at 3:30 and I ran the 15 minutes to my gate in 10. I was 45 with a 5 month old so I think that was a miracle in itself. Sharon was at the back and saw me coming, running together to the front of the check in line for the flight I told her about my other problem, my bags were not here to check yet, we called the hotel again and they said they were on their way, but they had to go to the arrival level 2 floors down. Sharon said she would watch Mari, I paused and then said, ” OK I trust you” and I ran down to the first floor. I stood outside waiting, not so patiently, for about, 10 minutes, I finally thought, forget it, they can send them later and I ran back up to the top floor, as I came to the top of the escalator, Sharon and I saw the hotel shuttle van pulling up in front of the doors at the same time, so we both ran out to the shuttle to get my bags, they came to the right place after all (Mari was still in her stroller by the other attendant) As we were running to the front again I told Sharon I had one more little problem, could she call my house and tell them to call Joe in Haifa so he would know that I did get on the plane, when I talked to them the night before, I said I would try. So I wanted to be sure someone would come to Tel Aviv to pick me up. She assured me she would call. I scribbled the number while she checked my bags and told the other girl to run me to the front of security. We ran, she hustled me through security and I got on the plane and collapsed just as they were putting on the seat belt/no smoking sign. I strapped her in to the basinet on the wall and started to unwind for the first time in 24 hours. The poor guy next to me had to hear all about my stress and he very calmly said, well you're here now, so its ok, YES! TRUE!, ok, I did it !
When I got off the flight in Tel Aviv. I looked around and there seemed to be no one to pick me up, I was about ready to have a break down , racking my brain trying to figure out a way to get to Haifa, by myself, in a strange country, with a baby. Then it dawned on me that I was still inside security and that on the other side of customs and baggage was where people waited to pick you up. You can’t imagine my relief to see my husband, our good friend Dave and my mom. I felt like a little kid who gets lost at the circus and then finally finds their parents. No more adrenaline only relief and exhaustion. Thank God we had made it. It turned out that Joe was able to stay another week waiting for a part to be shipped, so we went to Jerusalem together to visit my mom anyway. It was awesome, I loved Israel, I wouldn’t recommend it in August however, but it was totally worth it. I felt a little like a football guy, dodging blocks and jumping over hurdles going around the opposition, there might have been a good moral of the story there, but I will leave you to make up one for yourself, this is exhausting enough to just write in down.

boys will be boys or how fast can a pregnant woman run

There was a time when no one wore seatbelts and little children stood in between the driver and passenger seat to have a better view of the road ahead. I also remember holding an infant while driving to keep them happy in the car. I am sure the practices of those days would now have us turned in for child abuse or something like that. I think one of my favorite memories was piling into the back of my dad’s pickup truck after a base ball game and heading to the dairy queen three blocks away. There were enough of us that we had to fight over the best seat, which was sitting on the tail gate, flapped down, with your legs dangling over the pavement. The memories of those balmy summer nights were so sweet. No wind, fireflies lighting up the outfield, and the tail lights reflecting off the hot road as you rode along.

The laid back days of my youth led me to be a pretty laid back mom, so 20 +years ago this story wasn’t so outrageous as if it had happened now. I was 9 months pregnant with my third child which would put my two boys, ( butch and sundance) at 3 and 5. They were doing their thing in the back seat of our little hatch back and I had to run into the garage quick to see if they could put new tires on the car. I turned the car off, removed the keys and yanked up the emergency brake. They were happy with their little matchbox cars so I went in to talk to someone. I was strategically parked so that I could see them the whole time and because it was summer I could leave the windows down for ventilation. I waddled up to the desk to ask my question and as I did the lady behind the counter was pointing outside in the direction of my car. I turned in time to see my little silver two door rolling backwards out of their parking lot and down a slight hill into a grassy field. I didn’t know I was capable of running that fast but I booked it out of there and raced alongside for a while, as much as a 9 month pregnant woman can race, the car definitely had the advantage. The baby took the lead and looking like a weeble wobble, I was thankfull I didnt go rolling down. The boys were laughing as if this was a ride at an amusement park and thought all this was quite funny, so they didnt do much about me yelling for them to pull up the brake. I finally managed to reach in and grab it to stop the descent, huffing to get my breath I looked up and noticed that on the other side of this grassy area was the one ramp to a hi-way. Cars had stopped and I had attracted an audience; the people in the garage were also running behind me trying to help this ginormous prego catch her runaway car. I got in, all the citizens went back to their lives and I drove my car back up to where it belonged and out of there. I did not go back in for tires............ I think I said I was too tired from all that running.

Left Behind or Do you know where your spouse is.

This is the story of how a cell phone saved us a lot of grief.

We were going to a wedding in Georgia for our niece Amy, and were taking 4 of our 6 children, the littlest being only two. It was to be an 18 hour drive so we calculated the arrival time and decided to leave at midnight to arrive in the afternoon instead of leaving early in the morning and arriving in the middle of the night. My husband Joe and I are able to drive long hours and we each have our special talents. He is a morning person and can drive best then, and I am able to drive through the night. On this occasion, he was still wide awake after packing for a couple of hours so he drove first and since I’m able to fall asleep fast I went immediately to the bed in the back of the conversion van and closed my eyes. The rest of the family was watching (listening ) to back to the future 1 and part of 2 when Joe pulled over to let me know he was done and could I wake up and start driving. I don’t know how long I’d been sleeping but I definitely needed a jump start to get behind the wheel. I asked him to get a diet coke to help me get more alert and he brought the 48oz special back, they all loaded into the van and we got back on the road. Joe was in the back on the bed with Mitchell who was 6 at the time 16 yr old Melodee was riding shot gun, and Mark who was 14 and the baby Mari were in the middle. Mari took the longest time to fall asleep, but eventually they all dropped off and I was able to drive in peace. I listened to the rest of the movie and then the diet coke caught up with me and I had to go use the little girls room, it was in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere but fortunately within minutes a sign came up for the next rest stop. My goal at that point was to take care of business as fast as possible and get back on the road without disturbing the peaceful environment. So, leaving the motor running and the movie on, I ran in ran out, took a quick look around to make sure everyone was still sleeping, confident that no one had moved I went down the on ramp and took off. I “listened” to the rest of that movie and put in back to the future 3 and was still wired as the sun came up. Looking around, in the van, everyone was still sleeping peacefully and I was so proud that I had done the all night thing and we would be in Nashville early, we were making very good time. Melodee was still crashed, Mari and Mark were still out in the middle, Mitchell was asleep in the back on the bed, and ….wait a minute, why would Joe let him take the whole back seat, he was little, Joe must be crunched up behind the middle seat where I couldn’t see him, and he was going to get a stiff neck, or maybe he was on the floor, no he was too tall to sleep on the floor he must be leaning on the window just out of my view. I was getting increasingly ticked that he would sleep funny and be crabby all day because he was still tired. After all, I had done the hard thing at least he could sleep comfortably, it was about that time that a tiny troublesome thought entered my brain, “what if he wasn’t back there at all!!???” Then the sickening realization hit me, and it dropped like a thud to my stomach. I wanted to believe that everything was fine and Joe was in the back, but as I cranked around to see if there was any sign of Joe behind the seat, I thought, ”Oh no….! OH NO!!! OH MY GOODNESS NO!!!! MELODEE WAKE UP AND TELL ME YOUR DAD IS IN THE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Mel and all the kids slowly came alive to their mother screaming, IS YOUR DAD BACK THERE? TELL ME IF YOUR DAD IS BACK THERE!

No… No they all agreed sleepily, they didn’t see him. OH MY GOSH, I MUST HAVE LEFT YOUR DAD AT THE REST STOP, AHHHH……WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? As if it was a sign, there was another rest stop coming up so I pulled over and ran in, looking like a crazed maniac I’m sure. Out of breath I found the custodian ( All those rest stops in the south have people working there) and asked the question. I left my husband at a rest stop and I don’t know what to do, do you have numbers for all the other rest stops on this Hiway ? I didn’t think it was that funny but they were laughing quite a while. When they finally stopped for breath, and stopped making stupid comments, like did you have a fight, and that’s one way to do it, they said they couldnt call the other rest stops. (I thought that was a good idea) and that I should probably call the state police. GOOD IDEA! Wait, what state were we in? Maaam yawl er in Kintuucky. OK, what state I leave him in? That would have been Indiana, how long ago was it? I had no idea. It was dark out and now it wasn’t. Turns out it was about 6 am at that moment. On my way to the van to call state police on the cell phone, the thought occurred to me, OH yeah I have a cell phone, maybe he tried to call. When I turned the cell phone back on which he had turned off while he was driving, (Mental note , make sure to bring that up if blame starts to be thrown around) there were 15 voice mails un-listened to from the last two weeks. After impatiently deleting them one by one I got down to the last 4. Hi this is Joe; this is like something out of a bad sitcom. You left me at the rest stop. I guess the phone is still off. Its 4 am I’ll try you back in a bit. I tried to return the call but it just rang. Shoot, well maybe he gave me his location on the next message and I can go back and find him. I listened to the last three each being a little more pathetic than the one before it and still had no clue how to get to him. Hi this is Joe, I’m still here, it’s now 4:45 not sure what to do, you still have the phone off. Well I guess I will call again. On the last message I returned the call again and he happened to be standing there ready to call me again. He had decided that by 6 or so he was just going to start hitchhiking because we would be too far ahead. When he picked the phone I was so thankful, and I said I am so sorry I left you, I can’t believe I did that, are you OK? And his comment is nomination for sainthhood. He said, that’s OK honey you didn’t know I wasn’t in the van. Granted he had been standing in a rest stop for four hours and probably was too exhausted to be angry. We discussed what the best solution was to the situation and again he was sacrificial in his response, why don’t I just hitchhike down to you, it will take less time than if you had to back track to get me. I said all right and found out my exact location, and we agreed I’d just wait. The kids ran around and we watched another movie while we waited. I don’t know why I remember this but I think it was the wedding singer, maybe I was trying to get ideas to make things better when he got there. Well he finally pulled up in a van, we were both relieved to finally be back together and able to resume our journey. It has only been 4 hours but at times like that the reunions are as good as years apart. After thank yous and hugs all around we hit the road again. Later, when we were able to talk about the ordeal, he told me what he had gone through while I was cruising through Indiana and Kentucky. When he first came out from the rest room and there were no cars in the parking lot of the rest stop ( It was the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere) he looked around chuckling a little, thinking that maybe this was a weird kind of joke, but after a few minutes in the dark silence, he decided no it was not a joke, he walked down the on ramp a bit to see if maybe I had realized he wasn’t in the car and was backing up, but no there were no tail lights coming. He also tried hitch hiking with a trucker, but after 3 or 4 went by without stopping one kind trucker did stop and let him know that most companies had a policy not to pick up hikers, so he went back in to talk to his new friend the custodian and the guy gave him the same advice as they gave me, must be a common line, call the state police. So Joe did, and they tried but they never did catch up with a woman driving a 94 conversion van. Later I thought that would have been pretty funny if they had, “maam may I see your license and do you know where your husband is”? Or even the trucker, with Joe waving at me from the other vehicle and the kids asking why daddy was over there. Well anyway, after I finally reached him and we decided on the best plan. He hung up and was talking to the attendant, they had become good friends by then, and a guy in the rest stop overheard them and told Joe that he was going that way, Joe could ride with him, but could Joe drive, he was a bit tired. So again with the sainthood, Joe said sure, even though he’d been standing there for 4 hours and had very little sleep before that. The man wasn’t going as far as the rest stop where I was at, so Joe had to wake the guy up, get out and put out his thumb again. A lady and her husband who were on their way to a Christian conference in Georgia pulled over and picked him up and so Joe had some good conversation for the rest of the trip and made it to us in good shape.

There is no moral of the story. But we are thankful for God’s protection, the way He works all things together for His purposes for those who love Him, and cell phones. What did we ever do without them?