Central Heating

A central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building (or portion of a building) from one point to multiple rooms. When combined with other systems in order to control the building climate, the whole system may be a HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system.

Central heating differs from local heating in that the heat generation occurs in one place, such as a furnace room in a house or a mechanical room in a large building (though not necessarily at the "central" geometric point). The most common method of heat generation involves the combustion of fossil fuel in a furnace or boiler. The resultant heat then gets distributed: typically by forced-air through ductwork, by water circulating through pipes, or by steam fed through pipes. Increasingly, buildings utilize solar-powered heat sources, in which case the distribution system normally uses water circulation.

In much of northern Europe and in urban portions of Russia, where people seldom require air conditioning in homes due to the temperate climate, most new housing comes with central heating installed. Such areas normally use gas heaters, district heating, or oil-fired systems. In the western and southern United States natural-gas-fired central forced-air systems occur most commonly; these systems and central-boiler systems both occur in the far northern regions of the USA. Steam-heating systems, fired by coal, oil or gas, feature in the USA, Russia and Europe: primarily for larger buildings. Electrical heating systems occur less commonly and are practical only with low-cost electricity or when geothermal heat pumps are used. Considering the combined system of central generating plant and electric resistance heating, the overall efficiency will be less than for direct use of fossil fuel for space heating.

History
The Summer Palace of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, one of the first buildings to incorporate the modern-type hydrologic central heatingSome buildings in the Roman Empire used central heating systems, conducting air heated by furnaces through empty spaces under the floors and out of pipes in the walls — a system known as a hypocaust.[1] A similar system of central heating was used in ancient Korea, where it is known as ondol. It is thought that the ondol system dates back to the Koguryo or Three Kingdoms (37 BC-AD 668) period when excess heat from stoves were used to warm homes.

In the early medieval Alpine upland, a simpler central heating system where heat travelled through underfloor channels from the furnace room replaced the Roman hypocaust at some places. In Reichenau Abbey a network of interconnected underfloor channels heated the 300 m² large assembly room of the monks during the winter months. The degree of efficiency of the system has been calculated at 90%.

In the 13th century, the Cistercian monks revived central heating in Christian Europe using river diversions combined with indoor wood-fired furnaces. The well-preserved Royal Monastery of Our Lady of the Wheel (founded 1202) on the Ebro River in the Aragon region of Spain provides an excellent example of such an application.

The Roman hypocaust continued to be used on a smaller scale during late Antiquity and by the Umayyad caliphate, while later Muslim builder employed a simpler system of underfloor pipes.

By about 1700 Russian engineers had started designing hydrologically based systems for central heating. The Summer Palace (1710–1714) of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg provides the best extant example. Slightly later, in 1716, came the first use of water in Sweden to distribute heat in buildings. Martin Triewald, a Swedish engineer, used this method for a greenhouse at Newcastle upon Tyne. Jean Simon Bonnemain (1743–1830), a French architect, introduced the technique to industry on a cooperative, at Château du Pêcq, near Paris.

Angier March Perkins developed and installed some of the earliest steam-heating systems in the 1830s. The first was installed in the home of Governor of the Bank of England John Horley Palmer so that he could grow grapes in England's cold climate.[5]

Franz San Galli, a Polish-born Russian businessman living in St. Petersburg, invented the radiator between 1855-1857, which was a major step in the final shaping of modern central heating.Wiki

I'm especially grateful for it on a day like this -but also for the Oil Man , and the Oil distributer, and the tanker driver, tanker mechanic, sales person, heating engineer etc ,etc,etc.Thanks to them and the God who made them

Heaven

Youtube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos.[3]

The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5[4] technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, VEVO, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.[5]

Unregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 years old and older.

In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for US$1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.

YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.[6] Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[7]

According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, while Hurley commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible".[8]

YouTube began as a venture-funded technology startup, primarily from a $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006.[9] YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.[10] The domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months.[11]

The first YouTube video was entitled Me at the zoo, and shows founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo.[12] The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.[13]

YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005, six months before the official launch in November 2005. The site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day.[14] According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43 percent and more than 14 billion videos viewed in May 2010.[15] YouTube says that over 48 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the US.[16][17] It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000.[18] Alexa ranks YouTube as the third most visited website on the Internet, behind Google and Facebook.[19]

The choice of the name www.youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, www.utube.com. The owner of the site, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being overloaded on a regular basis by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www.utubeonline.com.[20][21] In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.[22] Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing.[23] In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales.[24]

In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called "Shows". The move was intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney.[25][26] In November 2009, YouTube launched a version of "Shows" available to UK viewers, offering around 4,000 full-length shows from more than 60 partners.[27] In January 2010, YouTube introduced an online film rentals service,[28] which is currently available only to users in the US, Canada and the UK.[29][30] The service offers over 6,000 films.[31]


YouTube's current headquarters in San Bruno, CaliforniaIn March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, including 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League. According to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event.[32]

On March 31, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: "We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter."[33] In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as "nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined".[34] In May 2011, YouTube reported in its company blog that the site was receiving more than three billion views per day.[16]

In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company.[35]

In April 2011, James Zern, a YouTube software engineer, revealed that 30 percent of videos accounted for 99 percent of views on the site.[36]

In November 2011, the Google+ social networking site was integrated directly with YouTube and the Chrome web browser, allowing YouTube videos to be viewed from within the Google+ interface.[37] In December 2011, YouTube launched a new version of the site interface, with the video channels displayed in a central column on the home page, similar to the news feeds of social networking sites.[38] At the same time, a new version of the YouTube logo was introduced with a darker shade of red, the first change in design since October 2006.[39]



Naming your song on Youtube and then listening to and watching your favourite artist perform is truly a great feat of modern technology.
It has given me hours of pleasure.

Too many things

Though I have many things to be thankful for, I haven't been thankful for them.Shame on me!What things are they then? Just off the top of my head-my computer, screen, mouse, electricity, plugs, Facebook, google, email,bedroom, rug, polished floor, Bob Dylan,jeans, socks, wool pullover, shirt, watch, tablets, table, photographs,good friends,a beautiful wife ( of course she is number one on my main list of God's gifts!) book cases, CD's.DVD's. Well that's 25 things and I have not even tried. Forgive me for taking them for granted!

Warm Clothes

I made a trip to the pillar box to post a letter and my head and body froze. The next time i put opn a hat and a warm coat-thank God foe warm cloths especially in Winter weather.

My Feet

The foot is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws or nails.

Human foot Anatomy
The human foot and ankle is a strong and complex mechanical structure containing more than 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are actively articulated), and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments.[1]

An anthropometric study of 1197 North American adult Caucasian males (mean age 35.5 years) found that a man's foot length was 26.3 cm with a standard deviation of 1.2 cm.

The foot can be subdivided into the hindfoot, the midfoot, and the forefoot:

The hindfoot is composed of the talus or ankle bone and the calcaneus or heel bone. The two long bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula, are connected to the top of the talus to form the ankle. Connected to the talus at the subtalar joint, the calcaneus, the largest bone of the foot, is cushioned inferiorly by a layer of fat.

The five irregular bones of the midfoot, the cuboid, navicular, and three cuneiform bones, form the arches of the foot which serves as a shock absorber. The midfoot is connected to the hind- and fore-foot by muscles and the plantar fascia.

The forefoot is composed of five toes and the corresponding five proximal long bones forming the metatarsus. Similar to the fingers of the hand, the bones of the toes are called phalanges and the big toe has two phalanges while the other four toes have three phalanges. The joints between the phalanges are called interphalangeal and those between the metatarsus and phalanges are called metatarsophalangeal

The instep is the arched part of the top of the foot between the toes and the ankle.Wiki

My Hands

A hand (med./lat.: manus, pl. manūs) is a prehensile, multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each "hand" and fingerprints remarkably similar to human fingerprints) are often described as having either "hands" or "paws" on their front limbs.

Hands are the chief organs for physically manipulating the environment, used for both gross motor skills (such as grasping a large object) and fine motor skills (such as picking up a small pebble). The fingertips contain some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body, are the richest source of tactile feedback, and have the greatest positioning capability of the body; thus the sense of touch is intimately associated with hands. Like other paired organs (eyes, feet, legs), each hand is dominantly controlled by the opposing brain hemisphere, so that handedness, or the preferred hand choice for single-handed activities such as writing with a pen, reflects individual brain functioning.

Some evolutionary anatomists use the term hand to refer to the appendage of digits on the forelimb more generally — for example, in the context of whether the three digits of the bird hand involved the same homologous loss of two digits as in the dinosaur hand.

The hand has 27 bones, 14 of which are the phalanges (proximal, medial, and distal) of the fingers. The metacarpal is the bone that connects the fingers and the wrist. Each human hand has 5 metacarpals.Wiki.

Wow what a gift my hands and fingers are! I wouldn't be able to type this post for starters if I didn't have the use of them, or drive a car, or put petrol in it, or ride my Honda CX500, or lift a cup of tea to drink it, or put my clothes on, or wash my face, or hammer a nail into a wall or a piece of wood, or lift a book to read it,or lock the door at night, or turn the computer or TV on, or lift my kids when they were young, or catch a ball, or lift a dumbell, or use a knife and fork, or post a letter into the letter box-is there more-much, much more!

Thank you Lord for the use of my hands.

Disciple's Prayer- What Can I Do For You ?

What Can I Do For You?
You have given everything to me
What can I do for You?
You have given me eyes to see
What can I do for You?

Pulled me out of bondage and You made me renewed inside
Filled up a hunger that had always been denied
Opened up a door no man can shut and You opened it up so wide
And You’ve chosen me to be among the few
What can I do for You?

You have laid down Your life for me
What can I do for You?
You have explained every mystery
What can I do for You?

Soon as a man is born, you know the sparks begin to fly
He gets wise in his own eyes and he’s made to believe a lie
Who would deliver him from the death he’s bound to die?
Well, You’ve done it all and there’s no more anyone can pretend to do
What can I do for You?

You have given all there is to give
What can I do for You?
You have given me life to live
How can I live for You?

I know all about poison, I know all about fiery darts
I don’t care how rough the road is, show me where it starts
Whatever pleases You, tell it to my heart
Well, I don’t deserve it but I sure did make it through
What can I do for You?

Copyright © 1980 by Special Rider Music

A New Morning with You.

God as Our Father

What a privilege and joy it is to be able to call God 'our Father who is in heaven'.To come to him each day as a thankful child, to trust in the goodness of his Fatherhood, to sit at his feet and worship and adore him. To trust each step of our earthly pilgrimage.

My task, possessing nought, to give;
No life to have, yet ever live--
And ever losing, gain;
To follow, knowing not the way;
If He shall call, to answer, "Yea--
All hail all shame and pain!"

Where silent in His Holy Place
I look enraptured on His Face
In glory undefiled;
And know the heaven of His kiss,
The doing nought, the simple bliss
Of being but a child.
Tersteegen

The Surpassing Greatness of Knowing Christ Jesus my Lord

'What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ'

In this exercise of writing things that I am thankful for it should be noted that these posts are not written in order of priority, hence today's post is not the first one!The words above are taken from St Paul's letter to the Philippians and echo in the hearts of all those who have tasted of knowledge of Christ.

My own experience of God would have started as a child when I heard the wonderful stories of Jesus at Sunday School and at the 'wee' meetings that were taken by faithful Christian workers in the green field in the middle of the housing estate where I lived. Also my mum and dad would sing hymns and in particular an old time favourite which had the chorus 'Tell me the old old story of Jesus and His love.'As a child God was very real to me as I would talk to him each night. I knew he was real, I knew he was my friend and I knew he was good. But as I got older I became more crafty and lost childlike faith. I became a practical atheist, my god became football and I 'went astray'and drifted from what I had once held to be true.

God then sent people into my life: B.B. officers, Crusader leaders,certain school teachers and finally two young evangelists who arrived at my door one Saturday afternoon in 1973. I responded to the message but did not at that time experience the joy of that relationship.After about a year and being influenced by books such as God's Smuggler and against the tide the biographies of Brother Andrew and Watchman Nee the famous Chinese Christian along with the hymns and poetry of Wesley and Tersteegen God revealed himself to me in an incredible way. My life became simple yet I knew God was so close to me.I was not immune to trials and tribulations and was buffeted by Satan's attacks when I believed that I had committed the 'unforgivable sin'.But God in his grace preserved me and was able to use it to strengthen me in the same way a footballer in days gone by would use a 'medicine ball' to strengthen the kicking power of his weaker foot.

George Verwer

George Verwer is the Founder and former International Director of Operation Mobilisation, which is a ministry of evangelism, discipleship training and church planting. George led Operation Mobilisation for over 40 years before stepping down in August 2003. George has a burning concern for vital, propagating and revolutionary Christianity in his own life and in those he meets.

Saved at the age of 16 in a Jack Wyrtzen meeting, in which Billy Graham spoke in Madison Square Garden, New York, George returned to his school in northern New Jersey. Within a year about 200 of his classmates had found a relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ. Shortly after his conversion he said to God, ‘Only one thing I want in life – I want to learn to pray, to love you, I want to know you and commune with you.’ He has not moved from that principle.

George had a growing conviction to share the Word of God on foreign soil. He started with distribution of Gospels of John in Mexico along with two friends. This continued with others during summer holidays - beginning in Mexico in 1957.

Attending Maryville College after high school, he transferred to Moody Bible Institute where he met a girl, Drena, who was a fellow student and later became his wife. They went to Spain where in 1961 the work of OM was born. The goal, always the same, is to get to know God together in discipling young Christians while concurrently carrying out a rigorous programme of world evangelism.

Today OM reaches across the world through the ministry of their ship Logos Hope and over 6,100 people working in over 110 nations to make Christ known in the lives of all they meet. For many years George served as International Director of OM and helped raise up dedicated leadership to pursue this task across the world, freeing him to travel and speak, helping many find their role in extending the Kingdom of God.

George shares the Christian revolution of love and balance right around the world. He starts at home emphasizing the need to worship God, live in fellowship with one another by walking in the light, and live a disciplined life of victory as forgiven, repentant, Cross-centered Christians.

George and his wife are now involved in Special Projects Ministries (still part of OM) full-time. They have three adult children;five grandchildren and make their home in England.


I met George the other night at the Belfast Bible College. He is in his seventies but still as passionate as ever about mission as he was when he started out.He has been a friend to me for the last twenty years or so, sending me books and inspiring and encouraging me through his many letters-as he has also been a friend to countless other Christians throughout the world.I'm thankful to God for him and whenever I think of him I want to go out and talk to others about Christ- may some of his inspiration and passion rub off on me!

The Mountains Of Mourne

The Mourne Mountains (also called the Mournes or Mountains of Mourne – pronounced morn ) are a granite mountain range in County Down in the south-east of Northern Ireland. It includes the highest mountains in Northern Ireland and the province of Ulster. The highest of these is Slieve Donard at 852 metres (2,795 ft). The Mournes is an area of outstanding natural beauty and has been proposed as the first national park in Northern Ireland. The area is partly owned by the National Trust and see a large number of visitors every year. The name Mourne (historically spelt Morne) is derived from the name of a Gaelic clann or sept called the Múghdhorna.

The mountainsThe Mournes are visited by many tourists, hill walkers, cyclists and rock climbers. Following a fundraising drive in 1993, the National Trust purchased nearly 1,300 acres (5.3 km2) of land in the Mournes. This included a part of Slieve Donard and nearby Slieve Commedagh, at 767 metres (2,516 ft) the second-highest mountain in the area.


The Mourne Wall, looking towards Hare's GapThe Mourne Wall is among the more famous features in the Mournes. It is a 35 kilometres (22 mi) dry-stone wall that crosses fifteen summits, constructed to define the boundaries of the 36 square kilometres (8,900 acres) area of land purchased by the Belfast Water Commissioners in the late 1800s. This followed a number of Acts of Parliament allowing the sale, and the establishment of a water supply from the Mournes to the growing industrial city of Belfast. Construction of the Mourne Wall was started in 1904 and was completed in 1922.

Some of the mountains have names beginning Slieve, from the Irish word sliabh, meaning mountain. Examples are Slieve Donard, Slieve Lamagan and Slieve Muck. There are also a number of curious names: Pigeon Rock; Buzzard's Roost; Brandy Pad; the Cock and Hen; Percy Bysshe; the Devil's Coach Road; and Pollaphuca, which means "hole of the fairies or sprites".

How I love the Mourne Mountains! Driving to Newcastle and coming into Dundrum fills me delight in any season as I look upon this little mountain range.I remember being up in them every Easter when I went to the Crusader House parties in Newcastle which were often led by Mr Joe Campbell now a missionary in Nepal. In the mountains all your problems would dissipate amidst the beautiful scenery. God's glory. My wife lived in the beautiful town of Newcastle before she met me and it brought me great pleasure to to visit her parents each Sunday- the place where the mountain of Mournes sweep down to the sea.

That 'It is well with my soul' when things are hard.

"It Is Well with My Soul" is a very influential hymn penned by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss.

This hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871 at the age of four, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer). Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the SS Ville du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with a sailing ship, the Loch Earn, and all four of Spafford's daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, "Saved alone . . .". Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.

Bliss called his tune Ville du Havre, from the name of the stricken vessel.[1]

The Spaffords later had three more children, one of whom (a son) died in infancy. In 1881 the Spaffords, including baby Bertha and newborn Grace, set sail for Israel. The Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony; its mission was to serve the poor. The colony later became the subject of the Nobel prize winning Jerusalem, by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf.

Although the original manuscript reads "know" at the end of the third line, almost all recordings and written reproductions read "say".

The Georgia Southern University marching band Southern Pride plays the song at the end of each win. Christian metalcore band, Haste the Day, named their band after a verse in the hymn.

"It Is Well with My Soul" was recorded and released by Christian rock bands Audio Adrenaline and Kutless in 1999 and 2009 respectively. The Kutless version, which is the title track of their 2009 album, is played and sung in a Hard rock style.

In 2008, Kristyn Getty sang it at a confrence in the US, becoming a hit on YouTube.[2]

In January 2011, Hillsong Music recorded a version of the hymn after singing a "version of the old hymn" in church on January 16th. The song was recorded in Sydney in three days, mixed in England overnight and finally mastered in LA. All proceeds from the recording go to help the Queensland Flood Relief Effort. [3] This version of the song features Darlene Zschech singing solo and an added Bridge written by Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding.

Footwear

Footwear consists of garments worn on the feet, for fashion, protection against the environment, and adornment. Being barefoot is commonly associated with poverty, but some cultures chose not to wear footwear at least in some situations.

Socks and other hosiery are usually worn between the feet and other footwear, less often with sandals and flip flops (thongs). Footwear is sometimes associated with fetishism, particularly in some fashions in shoes, including boots.

Durable shoes are a relatively recent invention, though many ancient civilizations wore ornamental footwear. Many ancient civilizations saw no need for footwear. The Romans saw clothing and footwear as signs of power and status in society, and most Romans wore footwear, while slaves and peasants remained barefoot. The Middle Ages saw the rise of high-heeled shoes, also associated with power, and the desire to look larger than life, and artwork often depicted someone barefoot as a symbol of poverty. Bare feet are also seen as a sign of humility and respect, and adherents of many religions worship or mourn barefoot, or remove their shoes as a sign of respect towards someone of higher standing.

In some cultures, it is customary for people to remove their shoes before entering a home, and some religious communities require shoes to be removed before entering a building which they regard as holy, such as a temple.

I think of the old saying: I thought I was poor when I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet!Yet today in the UK and many places throughout the world we have as our own possessions numerous pairs of footwear whether they are shoes (black,brown,white), slippers,training shoes, cowboy boats,sandals,clogs,Chelsea boots,Wellington boots, walking boots,football boots,safety boots and Motorcycle boots -have I missed any?.Certainly I appreciate being able to go outside my home and put on a pair of warm waterproof shoes. The thought of walking out in my bare feet, or an old leaky pair would fill me with dread!

A bed

A bed is a large piece of furniture (or a location) used as a place to sleep, relax, or engage in sexual relations.

Most modern beds consist of a mattress on a bed frame, with the mattress resting either on a solid base, often wooden slats, or a sprung base. In North America many beds include a box spring inner-sprung base, a large mattress-sized box containing wood and springs that provide additional support and suspension for the mattress.

Most beds have a headboard for resting against, with others also having side rails and footboards.
Headboard only beds often incorporate a dust ruffle, bed skirt, or valance sheet to hide the bed frame.

For greater head support, most people use a pillow, placed at the top of a mattress. Also used is some form of covering blanket to insulate the sleeper, often bed sheets, a quilt, or a duvet, collectively referred to as bedding. Bedding is the removable non-furniture portion of a sleeping environment. A bed can be thought of as a body, and the bedding its clothing.

Also, some people prefer to dispense with the box spring and bed frame, and replace it with a platform bed style. This is more common in Europe, Australia and Japan.Wiki

How great is a bed to lie on when exhausted after a long day. I wouldn't be too keen to lie each night on a hard floor or an uneaven piece of ground though I have done my fair share of camping. Perhaps camping has evn given me an appreciation for a soft bed especially with my beloved beside me- I think it's time for bed now!

The Toilet

Stone toilet found in 8th century BCE house in the City of David, Jerusalem

A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory. Flush toilets, which are common in many parts of the world, may be connected to a nearby septic tank or more commonly in urban areas via a sewerage system to a more distant sewage treatment plant; chemical toilets are used in mobile and many temporary situations where there is no access to sewerage, dry toilets, including pit toilets and composting toilet require no or little water with excreta being removed manually or composted in situ. The word toilet may also be used, especially in British English to describe the room containing the fixture for which euphemisms such as restroom or bathroom are used in American English. Prior to the introduction of modern flush toilets, most human waste disposal took place outdoors in outhouses or latrines. Pail closets were introduced in England and France in an attempt to reduce disease in rapidly expanding cities.

Ancient civilisations used toilets attached to simple flowing water sewage systems included those of the Indus Valley Civilization, e.g., Harappa and Mohenjo-daro which are located in present day India and Pakistan and also the Romans and Egyptians.Although a precursor to the modern flush toilet system was designed in 1596 by John Harington, such systems did not come into widespread use until the late nineteenth century.Thomas Crapper was one of the early maker of toilets in England.

Diseases, including cholera which affects some 3 million people each year, can be largely prevented when effective sanitation prevents fecal matter contaminating waterways, groundwater and drinking water supplies. There have been five main cholera outbreaks and pandemics since 1825, during one of which 10,000 people died in London alone. The physician John Snow proved that deaths were being caused by people drinking water from a source that had been contaminated by a nearby cesspit; the London sewer system of the time had not reached crowded Soho and many houses had cellars (basements) with overflowing cesspools underneath their floorboards.

According to The Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 by the World Health Organization, 40% of the global population does not have access to 'excreta disposal facilities', mostly in Asia and Africa. There are efforts being made to design simple effective squat toilets for these people. Usually, they are made by digging a hole, then installing a premade plastic squat toilet seat atop this hole, covering the walls with canvas.

For health, safety and comfort reasons how pleasant and good it is to go to the toilet in the modern Western world compared to say a hundred years ago.Even 50 years ago in the UK spme people still used an outside loo which could have been cold and wet-yet today this comfort is very much taken for granted.How thankful I am for this modern convenience today!

Footpaths

A Footpath (also pedestrian way, walking trail, nature trail) is a thoroughfare intended for by pedestrians but not by motorized vehicles. The term is often for paths within an urban area that offer shorter quieter routes for pedestrians, they may also provide access to the surrounding countryside or parks. In some parts of the world the term 'footpath' is also used for longer Trails in more remote places.

How grateful I am for footpaths, especially on such a wet day like today.Before council's decided to create such concrete paving slabs as we have today, in the UK anyway, there were just muddy trails in which we would have got mucked up. Now we can walk virtually anywhere in the country on a great stone, tarmac or concrete pathway.

Books

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of ink, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book (e-book).

Books may also refer to works of literature, or a main division of such a work. In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals or newspapers. The body of all written works including books is literature. In novels and sometimes other types of books (for example, biographies), a book may be divided into several large sections, also called books (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and so on). A lover of books is usually referred to as a bibliophile, a philologist, or, more informally, a bookworm.

The first books I read were White Fang/Call of the Wild and The Colditz story/ Latter days of Colditz. The first christian book I read was God's Smuggler by brother Andrew. I now have about 3000 books now - not all read. The greatest book is of course the Bible and it is interesting that I had just read God's Smuggler (a very exciting book about a man who risked his life to bring the Bible into countries in which it was forbidded) before starting read it seriously. My favourite Christian authors include Spurgeon, Tozer, Stott, Still,Packer, Lloyd Jones and Verwer to name a few, along with Gresham, Jack London and other general reference and historical writers. Check my profile for more favourites.

Television

Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome (black-and-white) or colored, with accompanying sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming, television transmission.

The etymology of the word has a mixed Latin and Greek origin, meaning "far sight": Greek tele (τῆλε), far, and Latin visio, sight (from video, vis- to see, or to view in the first person).

Commercially available since the late 1920s, the television set has become commonplace in homes, businesses and institutions, particularly as a vehicle for advertising, a source of entertainment, and news. Since the 1970s the availability of video cassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and now Blu-ray Discs, have resulted in the television set frequently being used for viewing recorded as well as broadcast material. In recent years Internet television has seen the rise of television available via the Internet, e.g. iPlayer and Hulu.

Although other forms such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) are in use, the most common usage of the medium is for broadcast television, which was modeled on the existing radio broadcasting systems developed in the 1920s, and uses high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the television signal to individual TV receivers.

The broadcast television system is typically disseminated via radio transmissions on designated channels in the 54–890 MHz frequency band.[1] Signals are now often transmitted with stereo and/or surround sound in many countries. Until the 2000s broadcast TV programs were generally transmitted as an analog television signal, but in 2008 the USA went almost exclusively digital.

A standard television set comprises multiple internal electronic circuits, including those for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is properly called a video monitor, rather than a television. A television system may use different technical standards such as digital television (DTV) and high-definition television (HDTV). Television systems are also used for surveillance, industrial process control, and guiding of weapons, in places where direct observation is difficult or dangerous.

Amateur television (ham TV or ATV) is also used for non-commercial experimentation, pleasure and public service events by amateur radio operators. Ham TV stations were on the air in many cities before commercial TV stations came on the air.wiki

Some might be surprised that we should be thankful for the TV but like the Internet, money ,knives, guns, eyes, hands etc,etc, it is how we use it. Even things like food can be used for good or evil and television is no different.It can be a great time waster which is bad, it can inspire some to do evil but it can also inspire some to do great good, educate or even bring to faith.

Central Heating

A central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building (or portion of a building) from one point to multiple rooms. When combined with other systems in order to control the building climate, the whole system may be a HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system.

Central heating differs from local heating in that the heat generation occurs in one place, such as a furnace room in a house or a mechanical room in a large building (though not necessarily at the "central" geometric point). The most common method of heat generation involves the combustion of fossil fuel in a furnace or boiler. The resultant heat then gets distributed: typically by forced-air through ductwork, by water circulating through pipes, or by steam fed through pipes. Increasingly, buildings utilize solar-powered heat sources, in which case the distribution system normally uses water circulation.wiki

In much of northern Europe and in urban portions of Russia, where people seldom require air conditioning in homes due to the temperate climate, most new housing comes with central heating installed. Such areas normally use gas heaters, district heating, or oil-fired systems. In the western and southern United States natural-gas-fired central forced-air systems occur most commonly; these systems and central-boiler systems both occur in the far northern regions of the USA. Steam-heating systems, fired by coal, oil or gas, feature in the USA, Russia and Europe: primarily for larger buildings. Electrical heating systems occur less commonly and are only practical with low cost electricity or when geothermal heat pumps are used. Considering the combined system of central generating plant and electric resistance heating, the overall efficiency will be less than for direct use of fossil fuel for space heating.

Yes, central heating for the home is a great blessing nowadays and one which I didn't have or experience as a child.Hot water for baths or showers, heat in each room is tremendous for most of us living in the West compared with life for those who lived a hundred years ago. It is expensive to run now and still rising in price. Many people will suffer fuel poverty this winter so we must seek to help our neighbour where we can.I'm thankful for any heat.It really is a blessing.

Clothing

Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies. The amount and type of clothing worn depends on functional considerations (such as a need for warmth or protection from the elements) and social considerations. In some situations the minimum amount of clothing (such as covering of a person's genitals) may be socially acceptable, while in others much more clothing is expected.

Clothing can serve as protection from the elements. Clothes can also enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking, by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment. Further, clothes can provide a hygienic barrier, keeping toxins away from the body and limiting the transmission of germs.

Clothing performs a range of social and cultural functions, such as individual, occupational and sexual differentiation, and social status.[1] A uniform, for example, may identify civil authority figures, such as police and military personnel, or it may identify team, group or political affiliations.

In many societies, norms about clothing reflect standards of modesty, religion, gender, and social status. Clothing may also function as a form of adornment and an expression of personal taste or style.

Clothing can and has in history been made from a very wide variety of materials. Materials have ranged from leather and furs, to woven materials, to elaborate and exotic natural and synthetic fabrics.

Not all body coverings are regarded as clothing. Articles carried rather than worn (such as purses), worn on a single part of the body and easily removed (scarves), worn purely for adornment (jewelry), or those that serve a function other than protection (eyeglasses), are normally considered accessories rather than clothing,[citation needed] as are footwear and hats. However, if functional due to local and weather condition and benefits your well being, footwear can be considered clothing
It can be said that there are four primary factors in clothing comfort, identifiable as the '4 Fs of Comfort' (1) fashion; (2) feel; (3) fit; and (4) function.[2] In hot climates, clothing provides protection from sunburn or wind damage, while in cold climates its thermal insulation properties are generally more important. Shelter usually reduces the functional need for clothing. For example, coats, hats, gloves, shoes, socks, and other superficial layers are normally removed when entering a warm home, particularly if one is residing or sleeping there. Similarly, clothing has seasonal and regional aspects, so that thinner materials and fewer layers of clothing are generally worn in warmer seasons and regions than in colder ones.

Clothing protects people against many things that might injure the uncovered human body. Clothes act as protection from the elements, including rain, snow and wind and other weather conditions, as well as from the sun. However, if clothing is too sheer, thin, small, tight, etc., the protection effect is minimized. Clothes also reduce the level of risk during activity, such as work or sport. Clothing at times is worn as protection from specific environmental hazards, such as insects, noxious chemicals, weapons, and contact with abrasive substances. Conversely, clothing may protect the environment from the clothing wearer, as with doctors wearing medical scrubs.

Humans have shown extreme inventiveness in devising clothing solutions to environmental hazards. Some examples include: space suits, air conditioned clothing, armor, diving suits, swimsuits, bee-keeper gear, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and other pieces of protective clothing. Meanwhile, the distinction between clothing and protective equipment is not always clear-cut, since clothes designed to be fashionable often have protective value and clothes designed for function often consider fashion in their design.

How grateful I am for clothing especially on such a cold day as today.I love my jeans, tracksuit top, pullover, socks, slippers, vest,under garments. For outside, boots, jacket, scarf,hat. Each one I could spent a time and a half being thankful for. Foods ,shelter and clothing I have- why should I not be happy? Thank God for them. Count your blessings one by one.




When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
Refrain:
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
*Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.
[*And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.]

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings—wealth can never buy
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

A Cup of Tea

Tea is the agricultural product of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of various cultivars and sub-varieties of the Camellia sinensis plant, processed and cured using various methods. "Tea" also refers to the aromatic beverage prepared from the cured leaves by combination with hot or boiling water, and is the common name for the Camellia sinensis plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world.It has a cooling, slightly bitter, astringent flavour which many enjoy.

I was brought up on tea then changed to coffee when I got married. Then I got addicted to coffee and now have gone back to tea again. On a cold day what is nicer than a nice cup of hot tea!

I like a nice cup of tea in the morning
For to start the day you see
And at half-past eleven
Well my idea of Heaven
Is a nice cup of tea
I like a nice cup of tea with my dinner
And a nice cup of tea with my tea
And when it's time for bed
There's a lot to be said
For a nice cup of tea

Food

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells in an effort to produce energy, maintain life, and/or stimulate growth.

Historically, people secured food through two methods: hunting and gathering, and agriculture. Today, most of the food energy consumed by the world population is supplied by the food industry, which is operated by multinational corporations that use intensive farming and industrial agriculture to maximize system output.

How I love food. I'm grateful that my wife is also a great cook.In the West we are so fortunate that we have an over abundance of food! What great meals I have eaten -beef,lamb, different types of fish, different vegetables, deserts,cream-there just so many! I'm sure that I will eventually put as a post one of these meals or foods one to be thankful for.Today its for food generally. What have eaten today lamb, carrots, turnips,potatoes,cherry pie,a homemade biscuit,crisps to name a few.I'm thankful that I am well fed.I'm thankful that I do not go to bed hungry each tonight.

The Air We Breathe.

Air is the name given to atmosphere used in breathing and photosynthesis. Dry air contains roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1%. While air content and atmospheric pressure varies at different layers, air suitable for the survival of terrestrial plants and terrestrial animals is currently only known to be found in Earth's troposphere and artificial atmospheres.wiki

Thank God for air, thank God for fresh air, thank God that we can breathe long and deep, thank God it is free-no charge and given to all rich and poor, animal and plant.Thank God we have the organs to deal with it-the lungs, the red blood cells. the muscles. What a wonderful body we have .How great is the God we live under.

A Home

A home is a place of residence or refuge.When it refers to a building, it is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either living in the wild or shared with humans in a domesticated environment. "Home" is also used to refer to the geographical area (whether it be a suburb, town, city or country) in which a person grew up or feels they belong, or it can refer to the native habitat of a wild animal. Sometimes, as an alternative to the definition of "home" as a physical locale ("Home is where you hang your hat"), home may be perceived to have no physical location—instead, home may relate instead to a mental or emotional state of refuge or comfort. Popular sayings along these lines are "Home is where the heart is" or "You can never go home again".Wiki

What a blessing a home is. A place of refuge indeed. A place of security, love,shelter food, clothing,books, mementos,memories,Cd's, most of for my beloved wife and children. Is there anywhere greater on earth?- not on earth anyway!

The Gift of Time

Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst. ~Willaim Penn

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects.[1] The temporal position of events with respect to the transitory present is continually changing; future events become present, then pass further and further into the past. Time has been a major subject of religion, philosophy, and science, but defining it in a non-controversial manner applicable to all fields of study has consistently eluded the greatest scholars. A simple definition states that "time is what clocks measure".

Time is one of the seven fundamental physical quantities in the International System of Units. Time is used to define other quantities — such as velocity — so defining time in terms of such quantities would result in circularity of definition.[2] An operational definition of time, wherein one says that observing a certain number of repetitions of one or another standard cyclical event (such as the passage of a free-swinging pendulum) constitutes one standard unit such as the second, is highly useful in the conduct of both advanced experiments and everyday affairs of life. The operational definition leaves aside the question whether there is something called time, apart from the counting activity just mentioned, that flows and that can be measured. Investigations of a single continuum called spacetime bring questions about space into questions about time, questions that have their roots in the works of early students of natural philosophy.

Two contrasting viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.[3][4] Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility as other "times" persist like frames of a film strip, spread out across the time line. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz[5] and Immanuel Kant,[6][7] holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled.

Temporal measurement has occupied scientists and technologists, and was a prime motivation in navigation and astronomy. Periodic events and periodic motion have long served as standards for units of time. Examples include the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum, and the beat of a heart. Currently, the international unit of time, the second, is defined in terms of radiation emitted by caesium atoms (see below). Time is also of significant social importance, having economic value ("time is money") as well as personal value, due to an awareness of the limited time in each day and in human life spans.

But how do we use this precious gift. We abuse it and waste it. We can not get it back once it's gone. Oh to use this gift wisely.Well He hasn't always been around
And He won't always be.
But He's on the move at this moment
Measuring life for you and me.

I fear we all submit to him
Existing anxiously,
And no one is able to turn him off
Except the Lord who holds the key.

When the Lord stops him, that'll be it,
Too late for apologies.
Too late to forgive your brother,
Too late to get on your knees.
When the Lord stops him, that'll be it,
Too late to help the needy
And worst of all it's too late to turn
You must face eternity.

His name is Time and he's coming to an end.
His name is Time where will you be my friend?
His name is Time and he's coming to an end.
His name is Time where will you be my friend?

Most people think he'll never stop
He'll go on perpetually,
But old man time is running out
And he'll cease eventually.

When the Lord stops him, that'll be it,
Too late for apologies.
Too late to forgive your brother,
Too late to get on your knees.

When the Lord stops him, that'll be it,
Too late to help the needy
And worst of all it's too late to turn
You must face eternity.

His name is Time and he's coming to an end.
His name is Time where will you be my friend?
His name is Time and he's coming to an end.
His name is Time where will you be my friend.

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. Its molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state (water vapor or steam). Water also exists in a liquid crystal state near hydrophilic surfaces.Under nomenclature used to name chemical compounds, Dihydrogen monoxide is the scientific name for water, though it is almost never used

Water covers 70.9% of the Earth's surface,and is vital for all known forms of life.On Earth, 96.5% of the planet's water is found mostly in oceans; 1.7% in groundwater; 1.7% in glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland; a small fraction in other large water bodies, and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation. Only 2.5% of the Earth's water is freshwater, and 98.8% of that water is in ice and groundwater. Less than 0.3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, and an even small amount of the Earth's freshwater (0.003%) is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products.

Water on Earth moves continually through the hydrological cycle of evaporation and transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea. Evaporation and transpiration contribute to the precipitation over land.

Safe drinking water is essential to humans and other lifeforms. Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. There is a clear correlation between access to safe water and GDP per capita. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A recent report (November 2009) suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%.Water plays an important role in the world economy, as it functions as a solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances and facilitates industrial cooling and transportation. Approximately 70% of the fresh water used by humans goes to agriculture.

Well that's the technical stuff out of the way, Water is great, it keeps us alive it is what we mostly are-a big drink of water. It is great for washing faces, hands, babies, cars,windows. Essential for making coffee and tea as well as for making all sorts of diluted fruit drinks.It also cools the earth and when I was younger cooled me down when I played sport. Without it I would be dead along with all my loved ones- we would never have even made it on this planetwithout it- not me, not anyone!

There was someone who claimed that he had living water and offered to give it to anyone who was thirsty. Two waters essential for life -the natural water for physical life and the living water for spiritual life. Go for it and keep filling up on it!

The Car.

A car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels, and to be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods.

There are approximately 600 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car per eleven people). Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; the engines of these burn over a billion cubic meters (260 billion US gallons) of petrol/gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.Wiki

What a great blessing owning a car is! I love to drive my car more than my motor cycle-when its raining-or cold.It is much safer and is an excellent machine for carrying family and friends around as well as items such as foodstuffs. It is also great for visiting friends and family who live at a distance.It is fast, at least much faster than running and provided it has enough fuel it will keep on going. Over fifty years ago it was only the very rich who had a car but now it is seen as being essential for daily living.The ordinary car is much superior than the chariots of old -what kings of bygone ages would have done to have one. The roads too are fantastic despite the many criticisms of them.
Today I am very grateful that I have a car and also for the roads I'm able drive on.

The Personal Computer

What a great gift the computer is.I'm using one now and if you are reading this it will probably be through some sort of computer connected to the Internet. It's a bit like the brain in our head but not as complex-we understand the workings of a computer because humans invented it but we still are a long way from fully understanding the brain!

Well, the computer is great for keeping contact with those in other countries, for spell checks when writing essays,storing precious pictures of family and friends,news,sport,films as well as access to great websites. I'm glad I have one and when it slows down or crashes my dependence on it is realised.I'm thankful that I have one for sure!

The Gift of Speech

Would a wonderful gift speech is! Through it we can communicate with God and man.We learn to speak at an early age with often 'mummy' or 'Daddy' being our first words before the selfish ones such 'mine' 'my' or 'I want' become more common. As a gift it can be used for good or evil: with it we can bless or curse.We can plot a murder or plan aid for a starving family.We can sing, we can shout, we can sing love songs or songs of hatred.Through speech we can ask for help and the Bible encourages us to call upon the Name of the Lord in such times.

If we lost our tongue and the power to communicate how poor we would we be. Jesus is described as the living Word because known God's will to us.To communicate with our fellow humans is a gift beyond compare but to communicate with our Maker, our Provider, our Saviour, Friend, Lover and Lord is greater by far. If we haven't spoken to God today, call upon Him now. If you feel unworthy, know that Christ came to seek and save all that were lost and that those who go to Him trusting in His mercy and grace He will never cast out.

The Gift of Life.

Life can be hard for most of us. We will certainly have problems from time to time, bereavements, illnesses, money troubles, arguments with friends and enemies and work worries to name a few.Those who suffer severe depression often think that suicide is the only, and most logical way out, while their friends will quite rightly tell them that it is not as bad as they think and they have much to live for.

Steve Jobs had much to live for and had fame, more money than a person could possibly spend in a life time as well as having a loving family. But he is no longer alive. He is no longer with us on earth, his life is over while we you are alive at this moment. We are now better off than even the wealthy Steve Jobs. We are better off all the deceased that ever lived-better off than Shakespeare, Henry the eighth, Plato, Columbus, Einstein, Churchill, Buddha, Gandhi, Dickens. We are ALIVE! Hallelujah:We can therefore be thankful that we are alive today and that God has a definite purpose for our life.

Let us not therefore waste it on mediocrity and pray that the will of the maker of all will be done in our life!

Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in my life today as it is in Heaven.

The Sense Of Sight.

From the moment you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep at night, your eyes are acting like a video camera. Everything you look at is then sent to your brain for processing and storage much like a video cassette. This is a very simplified explanation, but as you read on, you will discover why the sense of sight is actually considered the most complex of the five senses.

How Your Eyes Work
Take a moment to locate an object around you. Do you know how you are able to see it? Would you believe that what you are actually seeing are beams of light bouncing off of the object and into your eyes? It is hard to believe, but it is true. The light rays enter the eye through the cornea, which is a thick, transparent protective layer on the surface of your eye. Then the light rays pass through the pupil (the dark circle in the center of your eye) and into the lens.

When light rays pass through your pupil, the muscle called the iris (colored ring) makes the size of the pupil change depending on the amount of light that's available. You may have noticed this with your own eye if you have looked at it closely in a mirror. If there is too much light, your pupil will shrink to limit the number of light rays that enter. Likewise, if there is very little light available, the pupil will enlarge to let in as many light rays as it can. Just behind the pupil is the lens and it focuses the image through a jelly-like substance called the vitreous humor onto the back surface of the eyeball, called the retina.

The retina, which is the size of your thumbnail, is filled with approximately 150 million light-sensitive cells called rods and cones. Rods identify shapes and work best in dim light. Cones on the other hand, identify color and work best in bright light. Both of these types of cells then send the information to the brain by way of the optic nerve. The amazing thing is, when they send the image to the brain, the image is upside down! It is the brain's job to turn the image rightside up and then tell you what you are looking at. The brain does this in a specific place called the visual cortex.

Protection
Because the eye is such an important and complex part of our body, we have many features which protect the eye. The eyebrows are the strips of hair above your eyes which prevent sweat from running into them. Eyelashes help keep the eye clean by collecting small dirt and dust particles floating through the air. The eyelashes also protect the eye from the sun's and other light's glare. The eyelids sweep dirt from the surface of the eye. The eyelid also protects the eye from injury. Tears are sterile drops of clean water which constantly bathe the front of the eye,keeping it clean and moist.

Imperfect Eyesight
Not all people have perfect vision. People who can see things up close, but not far away are considered to be nearsighted. This happens when the light entering the eye focuses on a point in front of the retina. On the other hand, people who can see far away objects but not those that are up close are farsighted. Farsightedness occurs when the light that enters the eye focuses on a point behind the retina. Whether a person is nearsighted or farsighted, glasses or contacts help that person to see things much more clearly!

What a gift the sense of sight is! Added to the other senses we truly have an abundance of riches. Some believe that sight is the greatest of the senses.Certainly without it we would be the poorer. To see the faces of out family and friends,to see the sky, the mountains, trees, birds, animals, food, to be able to read books, drive a car, use the computer, walk down the street unaided, fulfill our work commitments with relative ease, see expressions on people's faces and know whether they are sad or happy. All these require the great gift of sight.O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies! O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm, the vilest here excel me:
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own—
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverábly dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!
John Milton

What a gift ,what a wonderful gift. I give thanks to the great giver of gifts. Thank you Lord.

The Sense of Touch

While your other four senses (sight, hearing, smell, and taste) are located in specific parts of the body, your sense of touch is found all over. This is because your sense of touch originates in the bottom layer of your skin called the dermis. The dermis is filled with many tiny nerve endings which give you information about the things with which your body comes in contact. They do this by carrying the information to the spinal cord, which sends messages to the brain where the feeling is registered.

The nerve endings in your skin can tell you if something is hot or cold. They can also feel if something is hurting you. Your body has about twenty different types of nerve endings that all send messages to your brain. However, the most common receptors are heat, cold, pain, and pressure or touch receptors. Pain receptors are probably the most important for your safety because they can protect you by warning your brain that your body is hurt!

Some areas of the body are more sensitive than others because they have more nerve endings. Have you ever bitten your tongue and wondered why it hurt so much? It is because the sides of your tongue have a lot of nerve endings that are very sensitive to pain. However, your tongue is not as good at sensing hot or cold. That is why it is easy to burn your mouth when you eat something really hot. Your fingertips are also very sensitive. For example, people who are blind use their fingertips to read Braille by feeling the patterns of raised dots on their paper. To learn more about Braille, click on the word "Braille" located on the left-hand side of this page!

You have more pain nerve endings than any other type.
The least sensitive part of your body is the middle of your back.
The most sensitive areas of your body are your hands, lips, face, neck, tongue, fingertips and feet.
Shivering is a way your body has of trying to get warmer.
There are about 100 touch receptors in each of your fingertips.
Rattlesnakes use their skin to feel the body heat of other animals.
http://library.thinkquest.org/3750/touch/touch.html

What another amazing gift the sense of touch is. We can feel cold and heat, we can also feel pain and pleasure. This gift is known in its greatest degree by those who have to rely on it more, because they are missing another sense vgift - the gift of sight for example. To feel the touch of a loved one when we hug or kiss.To feel the food go into our mouths as we also have first of all seen it,smelt it then finally tasted it! To feel the sand beneath our bare feet, to feel the water about our bodies as we swim in a great Ocean or swimming pool. To feel the water of a shower after we having sweated from a great run or sports match is sheer joy.

Again the gift of touch is often taken for granted until it is taken away through a disease. How often we use it and enjoy its great benefits-yet how rarely do you and I thank our Maker of this exquisite gift?

The Sense of Smell

Smell is one of the chemical senses, the other being taste. They are so called because they sense chemicals, and smells are, of course, chemicals. With these senses we sample our environment for information. We are continuously testing the quality of the air we breathe (this will alert us to potential dangers, e.g. smoke) as well as using this sense to inform us of other relevant information, such as the presence of food or another individual. The chemicals detected by our sensory systems need to have certain properties. For instance, odour molecules must be small enough to be volatile (less than 300-400 relative molecular mass) so that they can vapourise, reach the nose and then dissolve in the mucus. This tells us that smell, unlike taste, can signal over long distances (an early warning device). We appear to have an innate ability to detect bad, aversive smells. One-day old babies give facial expressions that indicate rejection when given fish or rotten egg odour.

But, is our olfactory system doing more than just giving us warnings? Yes, of course. Amongst other possibilities, it serves a recognition function. We all have our own unique smell (some more pleasant than others! - but that's another story, see "mate choice" below) and can recognise and be recognised by our smell.

Dogs can distinguish between the smell of T-shirts worn by non-identical twins (they couldn't tell the difference between identical twins - presumably because they smell identical!). Children can distinguish between the smell of their siblings and other children of the same age. Babies recognise their own mothers' smell and mothers recognise their own babies' smell. Emotion can be communicated by smell. Dogs and horses are very sensitive to the smell of fear in humans. Recent research has shown that a panel of women can discriminate between armpit swabs taken from people watching "happy" and "sad" films. Men were less good at this. The emotions of others, for example fear, contentment, sexuality, may therefore be experienced and communicated by smell. Memory is often associated with smell. Smell and memory are intimately linked - although this phenomenon is not well understood (see Smell & Memory, below).

How we smell (some estimates suggest we can distinguish around 10,000 different smells - but see "Odour Code" below), why we smell and the impact of smell on our everyday life are poorly understood. We certainly underestimate the importance of smell to our well-being - ask an anosmic (someone who has lost some or all of their sense of smell). Some anosmics suffer from depression and their quality of life is severely affected - at the moment there is little that can be done to help them.

There are suggestions that smell can influence mood, memory, emotions, mate choice, the immune system and the endocrine system (hormones). We can communicate by smell - without knowing it. In fact the sense of smell could be said to be at the mind-body interface.

What a wonderful gift the sense of smell is! Think of the amazing smells of the various foods in the world- chips, fry ups, cooked chicken, puddings, fruits. Here is a list of different smells both pleasant and unpleasant taken from the website Medical Daily.

1. Fragrant

The research team lumped fragrant smells in with perfumery, floral, cologne, and rosy smells. Fragrant scents are the ones that seem light and natural, what is typically described by perfume and cologne manufacturers as “grassy” or “herbal.”

2. Woody/Resinous

Your nose easily picks up deep, earthy smells that remind you of the outdoors, the researchers claim. The smells are distinct to nature, which makes them easily recognizable. The team included with woody/resinous scents of musty, moldy, heavy, burnt, and smoky.

3. Non-Citrus Fruity

Opposite the hearty musk of the outdoors are the light, fresh scents associated with strawberries, banana, and certain perfumes that draw upon these natural aromas. Unlike the sharp, bitter freshness of lemon, non-citrus fruit smells may feel more “smooth” or “silky” to the nose.

4. Sharp/Pungent

You know it the moment you smell it. These smells include sour milk, fecal matter (e.g. manure), sweat, and the natural smell of things that have turned putrid or foul. These scents make you reel the instant you detect them. Oniony and garlicky smells also fall into this category.

5. Chemical

Your nose is particularly adroit at detecting synthetic smells. Even the most realistic perfume has its limits. It’s for this reason you’re able to quickly sniff out bleach and gasoline, or paint and felt tip markers. Researchers also included alcohol and disinfectants in the category.

6. Minty/Peppermint

Described as cool, fresh, exhilarating, the minty/peppermint smell has perhaps no rivals in the scent world. It’s become synonymous with cleanliness and is ubiquitous among oral hygiene products for this very reason. The researchers also include spicy in this category.

7. Sweet

Diverging from sweetness detected in fruit, the researchers classified as "sweet" the aromas of things like chocolate, vanilla, almond, and malty scents. They’re warm, and often light. Oftentimes they’ll be sold as “creamy” or “rich.”

8. Popcorn

Popcorn as the figurehead for the group may be jarring, as its neighboring groups are so unmistakable (not to say popcorn isn’t). But popcorn was grouped with other distinct smells, such as peanut butter, burnt, nutty, heavy, and warm. It’s that earthy smell that isn’t quite grass or wood.

9. Sickening

Sickening and decaying smells are a step beyond sharp/pungent smells. It’s sewage, burnt rubber, sulfuric acid, and household gas. Sickening smells are those that cause you to dry heave when the nose detects them in heavy enough concentrations. They aren’t merely “unpleasant;” they’re usually insufferable.

10. Lemon

Who could forget the trusty scent of lemon? Used in cleaning products for decades, the scent of lemon and citrus connotes freshness — like mint — with a hint of sweetness and sharpness that makes it unique from the others. It’s light and acidic, and the nose knows it instantly.

What things do we like the smell ? Personally I love loads of different smells,particualrly related to food. These include eggs cooked in a variety of ways, chips, sausages, mashed potatoes,a well done stake. I also love the smell of my Motorcycles especially when I've started up the engine-the smell of petrol ,oil, smoke! I lovd the smell of my children when they were babies, the smell of my wife when we are close together-the smell of her perfume. I loved the doggy smell of my wheaten terrier when he was alive. The smell of freshly cut grass, the smell of Roses, the smell freshly baked bread. I thank God today for the gift of smell. Thankyou God.