Friday, September 24, 2010

PINK BLOGGERS UNITE! Read how you can HELP Support US TROOPS!

Happy PINK SATURDAY bloggers UNITE with me in my CHARITY effort to raise 50 bloggers who will volunteer to bake 2 dozen cookies and send them to US TROOPS abroad in time for Veteran's DAY! Visit Cans For Cookies US Troops to learn more about this admirable effort. Local girl scout  troops, high schools, and college campuses have joined to help support the troops. Will you?

Cans for Cookies US Troops was started this JULY by me to honor my son, Lance Corporal Hranek, US Marine stationed in North Marja Afghanistan, my two nephews serving in the Army overseas, one having earned a Purple Heart, and all the other brave men and women defending our homeland and our freedom.

Please email me here with your name, address, how many cookies you will bake and I will send you the name of a soldier or other US TROOPS person to whom your package may be addressed. If you have a troop member you would like to add to the mailing roster, please email me here with the details. I need full name, rank, stationed APO address and which armed force he/she is serving with. You may also email pictures or links to their units.

HOPING your hearts open with PINK sugar cookies to fill our cans with cookies, filling their hearts with homemade love!



Two Marines serving our country!

My son, Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Hranek serving in North Marja, Afghanistan.

Many thanks to BEV at How Sweet The Sound for supporting this today for me. Everyone who volunteers will be entered in the giveaway for a special edition Vanilla Satin Hands Set from my Mary Kay Independent Skin Care Consultant website . Anyone who leaves a comment will also receive a sampler bag of limited edition products. Be sure to leave your email address and your name, address, and phone number in your email to me so I can mail your sampler bag to you! All orders will receive a 10% discount and all purchases over $40 will receive a surprise special gift from me. Place comments and orders by midnight 09/26/10 for the 10% discount!




May this be a beautiful PINK DAY for you. Enjoy the fall foilage, and take time to smell life! You never know when the unexpected will happen, but be ready for it!

                      Have a beautiful day! And big PINK HUGS! from me to YOU!!!   

                 Now it is time for me to surf the blogs and make new friends and visit old ones.


I am standing by waiting you to read my call for pink cookies.


BEAR HUGS



Have a blessed and PINK DAY!

LINKS TO PINK SATURDAY POSTS SPONSORED BY BEV HOW SWEET THE SOUND!!!

Friday, September 17, 2010

PinkS From AFAR & Remember our Troops!

Happy Pink Saturday PS BLOGGERS! Thanks to Bev at How Sweet The Sound for sponsoring this weekly event. Be sure to stop by her blog after visiting here for links to many more Pink Saturday posts, giveaways, artisans the world over.

I have had one of those weeks where you just need it tto end. With internet viruses, Murphy's LAW 6 days straight, I decided tonight to travel to far away places and seek the PINKS of the world!

To go to the PINK beaches of Bermuda






You too can visit them here




Or the beautiful PINK sunsets of Hawaii...








Gorgeous Pink Jamaican flower...





Notice his heart!


Beautiful, all over warm climates North America



And these eexotic pink lemonade blueberries! Too pretty to eat!


These are so ugly they're cute! Prickly tropical fruit!



I am thrifting and festival hopping today in Cooperstown, NY.






Time for the coffee refill and then off to the festivals!



Later today I am going to visit you and PLEASE leave a comment to enter my giveaway!



Please do not forget our charity CANS FOR COOKIES US TROOPS.

This is my on Lamce Corporal Joey H.
Visit  the blog  CANS for Cookies US Troops
to help send cans of cooies, peanut brittle
books to read, and other much needed items!
email me here to join!

God Bless and have a wonderful DAY!



Friday, September 10, 2010

9/11 A Day of Tears Throughout the Years!

Good Day,

Today's post is in honor of all our fallen unsung heroes of 9/11. Also to honor the men and women who are serving now to combat terrorism on our OWN soil across the seas and so that we and others may LIVE free.

Ground zero is sacred holy burial grounds. In my opinion NOTHING should be built there! How would you feel if your loved one was never recovefred and the remains lay somewhere buried in the dust or worse were removed during the clean up?

It was a very traumatic day for me. I taught in the MD Gaihtersburg/Rockville area. Students panicked, some staff did too, as we had loved ones in the NYC towers area or the Pittsburg and Pentagon areas. We immedialtely enacted a total lock down as was protocol. BUT that didn't stop parents from picking up their kids and demanding access. CHAOS might have broken out if not for the level heads of our Instrucyional Development Team, our Leadership, and ability to adapt. Any unassigned faculty to a classroom (as was I being the Reading Speciliast and on the ILT) became monitors and police officers. Verifying driver's licenses of parents, verifying and retrieving the students from their classrooms and delivering them in tears to over anxious parents. My own heart ached. My 5 kids were all over the county. Their father lived in LI NY and worked near the Towers. I had yet to hear he was okay. It was hours before I could leave, and retrieve my own children. This was one time when I wish I was not teaching faculty! I could not abandon my job, but I felt I had abandoned my kids.

Our middle school did a fund raiser for the victims' families and had a contest as to which grade 6-8 could raise the most money. I forget exactly how much these compassionate little students raised but it was over $5000.00 pretty substantial for only 785 students, mostly in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters!

How to commemorate such a tragic loss? Words do not seem enough! Leave Ground Zero as sacred ground. My humble attempt to honor these kiving and fallen heroes is through my poetry!

9/11 A Story Told

Were you there when they fell?
Did you feel the heat of fiery flames,
Taste the foul dusty acrid smell?
Were you outdoors or at a game?

How can such a tragedy take place,
Who would harm the innocent lives
Of women, men, and children with no face?
What personality kills and also thrives?

On harming those without one thought
Of what they do to others without cause?
Where but in America is freedom sought
And not bought, the marred with flaws...

Air traffic control took a lot of blame
National security reacted swiftly
But not soon enough, losing fame
As terrorists passed through gates adeptly.

How long in planning was this act of terror?
And still the cells live on, hidden, unkown -
All Americans reacted with a furor
So fierce, unsightly , unified and strong!

The firemen, policemen, EMT's National Guards,
The sky blackened with military force
As the world stood by, the violenece heard
Seen, watching each plane's course.

The Pentagon in horror struck, a day care
Where lives were lost, defiling National monuments.
And then the crew of flight so brave and dear -
No greater courage or sacrifice can amount

To being the noblest one of all, they gave their lives
With compassion, with goodbyes, and many tears.
As the pilot headed for the ground in a downward dive
This will be remembered throughout the years.

Rebuild the Towers? No I say! Let it rest.
Erect a mosque, why in GOD's name would we?
This is America, the land of the free, lest
You forget, we live, we breathe and we are FREE!

Deep in my heart I hold memories of friends lost,
Families of my fellow peers, the anxiety I felt
Remains throughout all these years, at what cost
Should we sacrifice freedom? NONE, we melt

Away the frozen fear, attack the terrorists twofold
Annihilate the corruption and relieve the world
Of the petrifying, awful and powerful stronghold
Terrorists think they have, and OUR Flag unfurls.

Forever emblazened in our  hearts and minds
The fields of red from blood, the color blue now
From the sky where terror reigned, reminds
How unkind humanity becomes, so foul.

Like the shot heard around the world, once more
A call to arms, but what country came to help -
As we so often help others, closed doors
In fear we met, might they be next, they whelped.

America, America, land of liberty
We live and die for you, our troops and others serve you
Unconditionally; we stand up nex to you, freely
Waving flags in support of freedom, that's what true

Blooded Americans were born to do, defend,
Protect, preserve , our rights at home and overseas
A loud, resonating message we MUST send,
That we remain the land of LIBERTY!

Poems My Way - Valrie 09/10/2010



Not a photoshop, how horrific to relive...
Aerial veiw, the fog of dust, destruction and terror!

And the Towers came tumbling down...


Rescue searchers seek and search debris in a small rural town near Pittsburg, Flight 93


Medical crews give aid...

The innocent who sacrificed their lives on Flight 93... CHILDREN!


American Troops and emergency relief teams support AMERICA and defy TERRORISTS!
Our FLAG, sacred symbol...


Why we fight, to stay free, LADY LIBERTY
Live free or die!


Me, Joey, and his lovely fiance, my own GI-JOE!


My beautiful son at his farewell BBQ party July 5th, 2010, less than 4 days before
deployment to  North Marja Afghanistan!


My MARINE son Lance Corporal Joey H.
Please bring home safe and in one piece!

AND now a bit happier note...

Please visit BEV at How Sweet The Sound for more great PS links to other bloggers honoring 9/11!

Bev thank you for encouraging us to honor our 9/11 heroes today!


Have you joined Cans for Cookies US Troops yet to support our TROOPS?
Please visit the blog and  learn how we can do our part!

NOW for the FUN! GIVEAWAYS!!!
For every 50 comments I will give away a Mary Kay FALL glamour compact makeover filled with the colors you choose from your virtual makeover! Visit my website to have your virtual makeover!
Everyone receives a 50% discount on all orders placed by midnight EST SUNDAY 9/12/10
COme back and visit me on 9/13/2010 our company's anniversary and 2 lucky winners will receive either
Vanilla Satin Hands or our new fragrance Thinking of You!



Call or email me! 607-547-2073 for your discount code!


I am off to the keyboard to visit my PS bloggers and friends!


Let's close with a moment of silent prayer!

God Bless you all!