On my next trip to my parents' house, I gave the $200 to my mother and said, "Take good care of these. They might be worth something someday."

Several months later I asked Mom if she was keeping the two dollar bills safe.

"Oh, yes!" she replied. "I deposited them in the bank the day after you left."

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RANDOM TIDBITS

Archibutyrophobia (pronounced A'-ra-kid-bu-ti-ro-pho-bi-a) is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.

The south has the best climate for growing peanuts in the United States. Sixty percent of them are grown in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, and half of that 60 percent is used to make peanut butter.

The world's largest peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made in Grand Saline, TX, weighed 1,342 pounds.

It takes one acre of peanuts to make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.

We spend almost $800 million a year on peanut butter in the United States.

Peanuts aren't nuts. They're legumes. So it's technically inaccurate to call it a nut butter, but it's usually referred to one anyway.

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Food for thought, in picture form. *I had to click on it for it to display.

http://www.mountainwings.com/pics/0125_better_to_be_alone-mw.jpg

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Gratitude Quotes From Daily Inspiration

"Our opportunity is to Soar our Spirit.
To see Light and Joy in everything.
To spread our wings and fly boldly.
To give thanks for rainbows and butterflies - our symbols of renewal and rebirth.
To offer daily Thanksgiving - for ourselves, our family, our friends, our community, for the whole world."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

"Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse."
- Henry Van Dyke

"Today I offer a prayer of forgiveness: forgive the pettiness of my ingratitude... the absence of profound thankfulness."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

"A thankful heart is the greatest virtue."
- Cicero

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From Bizarre News

* Boy says electric shock turned him into magnet *

OMSK, Russia (UPI) - A Russian 12-year-old may become the first real-life X-Men hero after an electric shock apparently magnetized his body. Nikolai Kryaglyachenko, 12, said he leaned on a lamppost with faulty wiring on his way home from school one day and the resulting electric shock turned him into a living magnet that attracts metal objects. "When I woke up the next day and got out of bed, I found some coins that had been lying on the mattress had stuck to my body. Then when I was having breakfast and dropped my spoon, it stuck to my chest," the boy told Omsk TV and Radio Company. Kryaglyachenko, who has been compared to X-Men villain Magneto, said he doesn't have much control over the magnetism. "I can do things I couldn't do before, but I don't have a lot of control over it. Even when I do not want to do it, I still attract things. Once I even attracted a glass -- it just moved towards me," he said.

Stories of human magnets stretch back to the 19th century, with one woman being recorded in 1990 supporting 15 pounds of weight with her palm held vertically. However, some scientists have said stories of human magnetism can be attributed to nothing more than unusually sticky skin.

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Courage On A Shirt

Thank You MountainWings for sending a fresh, refreshing, at times challenging and uplifting message to my mailbox every morning. I subscribed a year ago and have always enjoyed reading the inspirations, which I often send to my colleagues now and then.

In 1999 I was a teller in a local bank in our city, Kampala in Uganda. I had an experience one Saturday that makes me shiver with fright even up to now.

I shared a house with a friend who also worked in a separate bank as a teller too. Two weeks earlier a young orphan girl my housemate was supporting by providing school tuition fees sent him a beautiful black T-shirt with an inscription at the front with the words "El Shaddai." On the back was a scripture passage, the words on the back said, "Do not be afraid, take courage and you will see what your God will do for you today". We used to share clothing, as most single men who live together are wont to do.

On this particular Saturday morning while I was preparing to go to work, (we used to work half day on Saturdays) I felt a very strong urge to put on this T-shirt. However I realized my housie had used it the previous day and it smelled of sweat.

I picked something else, but there was this overriding urge to put on the dirty shirt instead. I complied, picked the shirt, sprayed it with a deodorant to make it smell better, and promptly dressed in it and was off to work.

It was approaching midday, and thus it was time to balance up the day's transactions and end the day. As I prepared my payments and cash receipt vouchers, and counted the cash balance to hand over to my supervisor I realized I was short by 5,000,000 Uganda shillings. (Equivalent to US$ 3,500 then)

I was obviously perplexed, for it had not been a very busy day, and I had simply not had any major transaction that could have led to an overpayment of such a magnitude.

I checked the cash and the vouchers once again and still could not trace the source of the difference. Panic began to set in, and I began to see myself possibly being arrested and detained for the loss. My monthly salary then was only Uganda Shillings 235,000. (Approximately US$ 164).

I reported the imbalance to my supervisor who promptly notified the branch manager, a tough no nonsense Asian gentleman. He simply told me one sentence; "John, return the money", and with that sentence I knew my fate never needed a prophet to predict and foresee, it was certain I was in big trouble.

I began weeping inside me, crying to God to rescue me. That was a sum I could never pay back even if I went the whole year working without pay.

But meanwhile another battle was going on in my spirit. The strong fear developing was being fuelled by a silent but pushy voice saying it is doom for me, forever. A voice began telling me I could never pay that money to my employer even if I worked for a lifetime, since I still also needed to pay rent, feed myself and pay fare to and from work. "Why not just kill yourself tonight!" And with the mention of that sentence so much fear and anxiety developed, I soon began to believe it, as desperation began to set in.

I for lack of explanation, again went back to scrutinize the vouches and cheques one by one, being careful not to miss out on any clue that could provide an explanation. Does anyone still remember what I had at the back of my T-shirt? Neither did I remember at this point in time.

I then came upon this cash deposit voucher which indicated that I had received 7,200,000 in the 5,000 shillings denomination. I immediately saw the source of the discrepancy, since I didn't have a full bundle of 5,000,000 shillings in 5,000 notes denomination. Actually a 2 had been written in a manner to show that it was a 7. In receiving the cash I received 2,200,000, but in the totals it had been added as a 7.

I immediately called the person who had made that deposit and told him there was a problem with the money they had deposited. They denied and claimed the entries on their vouchers were correct, and besides I had already endorsed and appended a stamp as "received".

In desperation I called the MD of the company (It was a big business company that dealt in import and export business) and explained to him what had happened. He told me he would be in the bank after a short while.

After a two hour wait, during the course of which all my colleagues had wound up their work and left for home the Boss (MD) arrived. He went to my manager's office and asked, "Where is this cashier?" I was called in, he promptly handed me 5,000,000 Shillings and said, "Young man you are a lucky man. I think you have a God". I could not believe my ears, nor my eyes; I just began weeping un-controllably.

On inquiry as to what had really happened he explained thus: "After you called me, I decided to go to the company office and made an impromptu inspection of the lockers of each of the cashiers. And in one of them I found this money for which they could give no explanation. It takes a miracle for such a thingto happen."

Meanwhile I had to write the bank's end of day books of accounts closing the transactions of the day. Standing right behind me was the bank manager, the Chief Accountant and the Head Auditor.

They were all reading the message on my T-shirt. Amused the Chief Accountant asked me, "John, do you know what is written behind your shirt?"

That was when I remembered. I wept for Joy at the Lord's deliverance.

Were these a chain of well arranged and coordinated coincidences happening to a helpless employee?

Well?

You choose what to make of it.

But friends, this is Our God at work; He is our Present Help in Times of Trouble. Praise be to His Name.

~A MountainWings Original by John Kisaka, Kampala, Uganda

   Thank you, Shari! As you brought up the subject, try some delicious, smooth Peanut Butter Fudge! Forget that dumb "margarine" reference, though. You MUST use butter for optimum flavor! Margarine is only one molecule away from plastic. Who wants plastic fudge??