I posted about this chapel the other day. Here are a couple of pictures of it. View the entire photo gallery at  www.thorncrown.com   …..It is a very lovely, serene, and inspirational place. Nestled in the Ozark Mountains near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, it is a very nice place to visit and I hope you will try and see it in person, but until then enjoys the pictures on the web site….Pete Hester

The football picks seem to be a total bust this year, so I am going to discontinue them. Alabama will go undefeated and I wonder who, if anyone, can beat them this year. And Dallas is going to have to have some help on defense if they are to win many more games this year, oh, yeah and a little help on offense, but other than that, they are a pretty good team….duh…..And I’ll be surprised if the Lobo’s can win another one this year, but they will give all a tough game, you can count on that. The Aggies may win out now, what a season….Listen Coach, schedule a few more easy opponents next year, I mean, Texas, UCLA, Minnesota, Boston College?…come on, you are New Mexico State not the Denver Broncos….Oh, well, I will quit writing about it, but I will not quit thinking about it…savvy…Pete

I have not gone to Branson for a few years, I think it was 2007 or 2008….Something like that anyway. And always, a trip down Highway 76 was a major deal…coming onto Hwy 76 from a motel you usually had to depend on a car stopping to let you in as it was always bumper to bumper…. Whoa, not so this time. Very seldom did traffic impede my entrance to the highway, except at show time, of course, and even then it was not like years past. I could cruise down  76 and I had to worry about speeding, I mean really, just no traffic….. At the Cracker Barrel, we were seated upon arrival….Really, and here in Albuquerque we almost always have a wait at Cracker Barrel….Double whoa……The Presley’s, Baldknobber;s and Daniel O’Donnell were packed, so that was good. Where are all the people? You know what, I think I know….I think they were all up at Ozark, Mo., at Lamberts. We had a two hour wait up there…Hey, and we waited. (Sweetie says it was under an hour wait…I guess it just seemed like 2 hours)…. Coach Z was our waiter and he took real good care of us. By the way, Coach Z coaches soccer down at Branson. He waits tables a couple a days a week. It’s a shame, but that’s what a lot of teachers have to do anymore to make ends meet. He had his first named spelled out on a clothes pin on his chest as Hey-zeus. I asked him why he spelled it that way and he said he got tired of people calling him, Jesus, pronounced the same as our Heavenly Father. Living in New Mexico, of course we knew all about that and shared a laugh with him as we know a couple of Hose’s(Jose’s)…..You heard the one about Jose going home one night after his first day on the job so sad, telling the wife there were signs hung all over the walls saying, Fire Hose…..Fire Hose….Yeah, ok, it is a little old but at least I hope you still smiled….Pete  ps If you eat at Lambert’s, Ozark, MO and you see Jesus, please tell him the folks from New Mexico said hello and if he does a good job for you, tip him well. Ok? He is a very nice young man…..

Tired of reading the same old post for a few days? You didn’t notice? Oh, no!!!!…..well,, I have been gone for a while….traveling around to some of my favorite places…..Lambert’s, Ozark, Mo, Branson, Mo, Eureka Springs, Ark…..We saw several shows, all outstanding, ate some wonderful food, saw some great sights and prayed at one of our very favorite places to pray….It’s just so peaceful, so beautiful, so serene, so quite…..just seems like God lives in those hills…Where is that you ask? Well, Thorncrown Chapel near Eureka Springs, AK….Yeah, I know that God is available everywhere, but it just seems like He can hear me a little better in the Thorncrown Chapel….Maybe it’s because my heart is a little more settled, that my mind has slowed some in that setting, that a peace has come over me like in the quite days of my youth…Well, I really don’t know the reason, nor do I need to know why, I just know the peace last for a while after a good talk with the Master in that setting. If you are around Eureka Springs, give it a try….Pete Hester

Sorry, I missed a week on football picks. Its ok, as the winner won and the losers lost. I did not pick the weekend of 11/9….but I would have picked Bama over LSU…I would have picked Arizona and they lost to UCLA….I would have picked the Lobos and they beat the Falcons…I would have picked Boston College over the Aggies, but the Aggies played them tough. I really thought they might win, but……I would have picked Wisconsin over BYU…I would have picked Richmond over Stony Brook and I have not seen a score on that one. Denver won and I would have picked them, Dallas lost and I would have picked them. So, I don’t know what that makes my record, but its not real good whichever way it was…..

Bama has an open date…..

Arizona vs California….Arizona by 10 points…Az won….

New Mexico Lobos vs San Diego State…Coach Long of SDSU beats his ex team by 7 points maybe a little more….Come on Lobos, surprise me…win another one. Lobos lost

New Mexico State Aggies vs Louisiana- Lafayette .. Aggies should lose another one, but I going to pick the Aggies to win by 3 points…Come on Aggies, don’t let me down. Lets win the next four…..You can do it….Go Aggies ..Aggies lost

Wisconsin vs Iowa…..Badgers by 17 points…Badgers won

Stony Brook vs Maine…..Maine wins by a touchdown…Maine won

Dallas beats Minnesota….Denver has a bye week.. Dallas did win…wow

Boys and Girls, Men and Women, Sweetie and I use the Novitski Clinic for our cleaning and preventive dental care. When we lost our dental insurance upon retiring, we looked for something we could afford for our dental health. So, we found this clinic through a friend. We love it. Every year we see a new senior student, they work on our teeth, we fall in love with them and then they move on to a career in dental hygiene, and then we do it all over again. I noticed yesterday,, after our visit with another precious student, that not only Sweetie and I, but everyone who is a patient there, hugged their student hygienist before leaving the place. It is a good school and we help them to learn the trade by allowing them to practice on our teeth and they help us keep our teeth for a few more years and help us have a perfect smile, er, uh, well, most of the time anyway. Thank you young men and women of Novitski Hall, you are GREAT…..

To learn more about the UNM School of Dentistry go to: http://dentalmedicine.unm.com

Hey Dads, want to give Momma a break next Sunday morning or any morning? Here is something I make once or twice a week, so I am sure you can handle it. If you want you can scramble some eggs to go with them.

Pigs in a Blanket…

1 can of biscuits…3 wieners

pepper jack or American cheese

split the wieners in half length wise

half the wieners (You will need 10 pieces)

cut 10 narrow slices of cheese (same length as wieners)

 roll out each biscuit into thin piece,

put in one piece of wiener and one slice of cheese

roll biscuit around wiener and cheese

Place on cookie sheet and bake per instructions on can

Of biscuits. Usually about 10 or 11 minutes at 400 degrees

I let biscuits get golden brown.

Thank goodness God was in control of the rain this year and not congress. During July, August and September we got good rains statewide. Albuquerque also got a pretty good share of this rain fall. Our water table increased several feet even without input from the Rio Grande water flow. Some areas are still dry and needing rain. Albuquerque people, according to this morning’s Albuquerque Journal, used 6 % less water than in 2012….That’s great, however, some of the yards in my neighborhood suffered some until the rains started. Our grass was sure pitiful until it got the rain, that’s for sure. It is still looking pretty good but it is ready for another good shower…. I was talking to a Roswell area cowboy who’s boss sold off most of his cattle due to no grass and the high cost of hay early in the year, suffering a loss on the sale. During the monsoon rainy season their ranch got real good moisture and now the grass is about knee high. He said his boss sure wished he had his cattle back. That’s sad, but it is the nature of ranching, good years have to provide for the bad years…. I really like ranchers and their abilities….They can do more things and do them all well….Seems like all of them can be accountants,  do mechanic work, do carpentry, wield, use their imagination to improve conditions, dig wells, get by on a little of nothing and get a dang old pickup to run many years beyond a normal life span, and get a woman to live on a ranch and wear  old shirts and jeans, work on the ranch, still cook, be a mom and wife and love every minute of it. My hat is off to the American Cowboy…..Some mighty good folks in some lonely places and they love it…..Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Rancher……Pete Hester

Here goes:

Bama over Arkansas by 14 points….Roll Tide, and did they ever, big time. Sorry Razorbacks….

Arizona over Utah by 3…..Arizona is at home and Utah is going to have a let down after winning that shocker last week…Go Wildcats…Arizona Looked good in beating Utah. Good job, Arizona.

Lobos vs Utah State…..Lobos by 1…Lobos will finally get it together.. Uh oh, Utah State did a come to Jesus number on the Lobo’s..I don’t want to recount the score here…ok?

Aggies vs Rice…..Aggies win their first game beating Rice by 7. The pink “glow in the dark” jerseys will shock the Owls into submission, plus the Aggies had a week to rest up for this one…Uh oh, I don’t want recount the score here ok. er. uh, did I just say that. I did, huh…Well, I be dog. What can we try next if “glow in the dark jersey” do not work? We will work on it. Silky pants, maybe….

Wisconsin vs Illinois…..The Badgers win by 14, could be 21…..It was several. Wisconsin did good, ….make that, did well….

Stony Brook has a bye.

Denver and Dallas  both win…Dallas wins, Denver loses…..dag nab it….

Albuquerque Journal, Oct. 17, 2013 by Mike Bush, “Break the faith or stay home” article. Seems like Liberty Thompson, Cuba, New Mexico High School, class valedictorian, will not get to walk with the other seniors with her class on a Saturday’s graduation exercise. That is the Sabbath Day for Liberty and her church, The Seventh Day Adventist. State rules are against changing the graduation date. There are 43 in her graduating class and they are all for her and the change of dates….. Now, in my way of thinking, this is a personal issue between Liberty and God. Quietly, she should resolve the issue herself, staying home if her conscience so dictates or go to school and walk. Involving the community, state board of education, newspapers and what ever else seems to be calling attention to herself and what she wants and not to the schools program. Am I being unfair in that assessment? What do you think?…Pete  ps   She could attend Sunday church with one of her classmates, after all they do serve the same God, just worship Him on different days…..