In my Mirrors series I have had a little help. I might have mentioned this before but early on in the process I explained the basic outline of the story to my granddaughter and after she heard it I was advised that the story had a fatal flaw: no dragons.
Well, I wasn’t about to just leave it at that so I asked her to tell me about the dragons the story should have. These eventually became the magic Icecrystal dragons – not fire-breathing, but ice-breathing. But, also, of themselves, fairly harmless. They are about the size of a large cat, they can fly and the male, especially, likes to dig into things and see how they work. I inserted the discovery of the Icecrystal dragon eggs into the story without much explanation of what they would be. But over subsequent books the dragons, themselves, started to appear in a small way and in the final book of the series, they will play a larger role…keeping in mind that they are magical and that Celeste’s daughter, Aleste, is a wizard (though still a teenager at the conclusion). Aleste started to be modeled on my granddaughter early on and after she had invented the Icecrystals she also felt that magic dragons would provide something for Aleste…and so the Icewand was created. In all of this, I took the story that the granddaughter created and helped her to write a children’s book based on the Mirrors story line and we’re working on a sequel to it.
So, why tell you all this?
Because my granddaughter got me these bookends for Christmas:
I did not cry! It just got a little dusty in here and maybe someone was slicing onions!
Anyways, thank God for our Savior, Jesus Christ and may your day and year be filled with blessings!
Blogs For Victory 
I did not cry!
Well, I almost did. What can I say; I’m a sentimental old fart as Amazona can attest to. I bought the original Aleste and the Ice Crystal Dragons for my great-granddaughter (who reminds me a lot of YOUR granddaughter), and she enjoyed the story very much.
Happy Birthday Jesus!
Of the single most significant figure in all history, how astounding we know almost nothing of His life before He began preaching and assembling the apostles. There are movies trying to guide us into the possibilities. At least one even suggesting His ignorance of His divine nature in his early years, even while at the same time performing innocent miracles such as bring a dead bird back to life. Whatever may have happened during His formative years, His birth, death and resurrection form the basis of our Christian faith.
Merry Christmas to all.
I would prefer to have these letters and notices be sent by our government, and maybe after January 20 they will be, but this is an excellent beginning:
(emphasis mine)
This is actually related to my oft-repeated theory that a major appeal of the Left is its promise of providing a shortcut to the Higher Moral Ground. People indifferent to morality don’t care if their politics convey a sense of moral uprightness, but those who do care either gravitate toward behaviors that actually CONTRIBUTE to goodness and generosity and so on, requiring effort and participation and commitment, or they just choose a political system that gives them a shortcut to the illusion of moral superiority without having to really do anything. And this is what the author is talking about—the idea that merely adopting an attitude that one believes is a signal of virtue is the same thing as being virtuous, and that the Left identifies rage and resentment and even hate of an Invented Other as elements of that necessary belief system.
Of all the Leftist definitions, below, this might be the most significant:
Equity: Equal outcome of life’s experiences, no matter how much effort or ambition is applied. A chain is as strong as its weakest link; thus a society is as strong as the most incompetent, lazy, psychopathic weirdo among us.
To this list I would add:
Insurrection: Any effort by any group other than the Left to influence government actions or decisions by large groups of people expressing their beliefs
Democracy: The power of the people to make political decisions by voting, except when votes are inconvenient and the decisions can simply be imposed by the ruling elites
Gender Affirming: The practice of denying gender through various means such as surgery or chemical castration, and the imposition of requirements for the public to participate in delusional pretense that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man.
This along with your previous post folds neatly together. It’s a sad testament of the intellectual lazy coupled together with a need for relevance that can only be done through lies and deceit, while at the same time labeling all opposition as problematic and in need of elimination. The divergence is becoming so stark it will take a miracle for the blind to see again – or perhaps forcing the befuddled to live within the harsh realities of their own construct, such as dealing with the real problems created by sanctuary cities / states. The problem with the second option is it still pulls down those smart enough to avoid idiotic positions in the first place.
The thing is, their “relevance” is a sham. It’s an illusion, or a delusion, because it is not based on any actual accomplishment. There is no accomplishment in following propaganda and then sorting through it to find what is most personally appealing, then rushing to a blog like this to post it, hoping to generate a negative reaction. There is no accomplishment in joining a herd of equally gullible pretenders to virtue to wear bizarre costumes and howl like banshees to “protest” an invented offense.
We can even look at the contrasts between the two most well-known billionaire figures associated with the two primary political models. One made his billions by manipulating currencies, upon which millions of people and entire nations depend, in some cases nearly bringing nations to the brink of collapse and injuring civilians by damaging their economic security. The other has made his by inventing and developing innovative technologies, improving productivity and adding to the quality of life for many millions of people around the globe. In other words, the financial backer of the Left is a parasite, while the billionaire dedicating so much of his time, energy and money to supporting our Constitutional form of government is a producer.