It’s Wednesday, time again for Melli’s ABC photo challenge. We’re supposed to look for letters in common everyday things or in nature without actually manipulating anything to make the letter and without photographing the letter itself in a word or sign. We’re doing two letters a week, and this week it is S and T.
I found many more S’s than I thought I would. This first one is on a bench outside our church doors:
This is scroll work on a picture frame:
This is on my bread box:
Looking at it now, it actually does have more swirls than a regular S, doesn’t it? But my main impression was an S.
There are three in sight here on my baker’s rack, one in the brass-ish color and two in white on their sides on top:
I debated about whether to use this one, because the S is backwards. I thought about flipping it, but it would be obvious because the sign would then be backwards. But I thought doing the mulch this way was unusual.
Then I didn’t find as many T’s as I thought I would. The first one is at the end of the brick edging next to the driveway.
Would you call the pillar with the decorative work a T shape?
That was a cross stitch piece one of my sisters did for me.
There is a T in the back of the rocking chair:
This is a little plaque in my hallway:
You can visit Melli’s to see a list of links to the other participants. It’s been fun each week to see what everyone comes up with!
An update from yesterday’s post: everyone is much better. Jesse is a lot perkier, though his appetite isn’t back 100 % and he had a headache when he went to bed. But overall both “patients” are much improved.
When I bought my cookware, there was a large pan called a Dutch oven in the set. It’s probably the least used of my pots and pans. Occasionally I’ll prepare corn on the cob in it, or a big pot of soup.
Sometimes, however, it is used in a manner for which it was not originally intended. Once when we were waxing alliterative, we came up with these appellations:
Barf Bucket
Vomit Vessel
Upchuck Urn
Retch Receptacle
Hurl Holder
Puke Pot.
Forgive me — I have all boys. They’ve rubbed off on me.
When they were sick when they were little and couldn’t always make it to the bathroom in time, we kept the pan by their beds “just in case.” I don’t know about the older boys, but Jesse, at least, still likes the security of having the pan nearby. He used it once today — the other times he made it to the bathroom.
The poor guy has had a sore throat for several days, which progressed to some coughing, which today led to nausea.
Since it seemed like an abundance of mucus was the main culprit, I gave him some Dayquil this afternoon, which actually seemed to help. He hasn’t been able to eat much but was finally able to keep some chicken and rice down for dinner. He’s still feeling really crampy, though. I’m hoping he is able to get some sleep and feel better by morning — and I’m hoping all the rest of us don’t get whatever it is.
Then Jim went to the dentist to see about a filling that seemed to have come out. I thought they were just going to look at it, see what needed to be done, and then reschedule him, but I didn’t know he had told them he wanted to go ahead and get it taken care of today. And then I thought they’d just replace the filling, but they did a root canal. So he wasn’t feeling too wonderful when the numbness wore off.
So this has been not the best start to a week — here’s hoping tomorrow is a better day!
Between now and Easter, my pastor is preaching on the seven saying of Christ on the cross. Today he discussed His conversation with the thief on one side of Him:
Luke 23:39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.
42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
I had heard it pointed out, many times, that the thief’s conversion is an illustration of the fact that it is repentance and faith alone that saves us, not baptism or anything else the church asks us to do or we think we have to do. We do those things out of obedience, or to show forth what has gone on in our hearts after believing, but they are not a part of the salvation experience in themselves.
But I tended to leave the thief’s story at that. He repented, he believed, he gives me hope for some of my family who have not yet believed, he went to be with Christ in Paradise after he died. Wonderful! On to the next verse…
But my pastor pointed out this morning what happened just after the thief believed. Verses 44-45 say, “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.” How frightening that must have been for everyone, to have sudden darkness for three hours, and then to have the veil of the temple suddenly torn — access to what was once only the domain of priests. That’s a wonderful truth now (“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:1-2). But at the moment probably no one realized what it meant, and it was just one of the many strange things happening that day.
Then Mark 15:34 records, “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
What must the thief have thought or felt? Confusion, fear. “This isn’t how I thought things were going to happen.” Yet none of that nullified the promise Christ made to him.
What food for thought is there. No matter what happens, no matter that I don’t understand what’s happening, God’s promise is always sure.
I don’t remember how I found this, but Encouraging Caregivers is a blog that seeks to do just as its title says by one who is a caregiver in her home. Though my mother-in-law doesn’t live in our home, we’re actively involved in her life and care, and I’ve found much here to be helpful. A couple of the many good posts there: Things you can do to encourage yourself and Life with Mom.
Brenda’s Blog from Paraguay has some great, great advice for short-term mission teams. I was thankful that the mission trips my sons have been on were led by people who had been on the mission field, and this echoed much of what they were told. You might pray for Brenda — she’s just found out she has breast cancer and will have to come home to the US for treatment.
I’m not familiar with the blog All you have to give, but from a link somewhere (I forgot to note where) I found this great post on fasting.
Just for fun, I did go head and look up “interesting” at Thesaurus.com: “appealing, entertaining. Synonyms: absorbing, affecting, alluring, amusing, arresting, attractive, beautiful, captivating, charismatic, compelling, curious, delightful, elegant, enchanting, engaging, engrossing, enthralling, entrancing, exceptional, exotic, fascinating, fine, gracious, gripping, impressive, intriguing, inviting, lovely, magnetic, pleasing, pleasurable, prepossessing, provocative, readable, refreshing, riveting, stimulating, stirring, striking, suspicious, thought-provoking, unusual, winning.” I think many of those adjectives apply to many of these links. 🙂 Not “suspicious,” though. And I need to look up what “prepossessing” means (the dictionary can keep me occupied for hours…)
Hope you have a great Saturday. I need to do laundry (again), make a smallish trip to the store, restock the missions closet at church for visiting missionaries tomorrow, and attend a baby shower. And then maybe jump into any of the 101 other things that need to be done around here. Or maybe not. 🙂
Susanne at Living to Tell the Story hosts a “Friday Fave Five” in which we share our five favorite things from the past week. Click on the button to read more of the details.
So here are some of my favorite things from the past week.
1. Chick-Fil-A biscuits. (I always seem to include food as one of my five, don’t I?) I had to get Jesse to school an hour earlier than usual, and had a little bit left on a Chick-Fil-A gift card my step-father had sent as part of his Christmas present, so I stopped for one after dropping Jesse off. That biscuit really hit the spot this morning!
2. Fine Arts Festival. Our state organization of Christian schools is sponsoring a fine arts festival this week that students in all its member schools can participate in. The host school is a couple of hours away, so I hadn’t planned to go to watch Jesse’s choir sing its two songs, but last Friday our school had everyone who was performing for the festival do so for a school assembly, so I got to see all the performances then. Everyone did a good job, but the standout performance for me was a duo acting piece by a couple of our seniors. I hope they all do great today! (Incidentally, this was why I had to get Jesse to school early — he had to be there at 6:45 a.m. and won’t get back til this evening. It’s going to be a loooong day for all of them.)
3. Chair pads. I had been looking for some non-slip chair pads for our hard wooden kitchen chairs for a long time. We had used the ones that tie on, but eventually the ties always pulled loose from the pad. Last year I finally found some that went with my kitchen decor at Kohl’s, but they only had three. I figured I’d mix and match with solid colored ones, but didn’t find any in the right colors. Then, after months of not having them, Kohl’s unexpectedly had more of the same style and color. So now all my kitchen chairs have pads that match and go well with my kitchen and don’t slide around when you’re trying to sit down. A little thing, in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me happy. 🙂
4. My new theme. I had been trying to change my blog over to this current theme for a while, but whenever I tried, it threw my sidebar into a mess. It acted as though possibly one of the graphics had been coded to be positioned to the left, and it was pulling everything else off kilter, but I went through and looked at each of them individually, and they were fine. I tried a few different things and nothing worked. I don’t know a whole lot about html code, but it occurred to me to try putting <li></li> between each graphic, creating a line of space between them — and voila! That worked. I was so pleased to have figured it out myself without asking my son for help, which I was just on the verge of doing (there is hope for me after all!) It’s not a big dramatic change of themes, but this seems cleaner, the font is bigger, and I like the way links are done here better — the old one had a dashed line under links in a post, which I didn’t like. Plus! I didn’t realize this theme had this til I switched over, but I had been wanting the feature where, if you’re on a particular post, a line at the top will tell you what the previous post and next post are. So I was really pleased to find that.
Sorry to be so wordy on that one!
5. The Spring Reading Thingthat Katrina hosts each year. I love reading and love seeing what others have on their lists, and I like seeing their impressions about what they read at the end.
Janice and Susan at 5 Minutes For Mom are hosting their annual Ultimate Blog Party, a chance “meet and greet” other bloggers and to introduce your blog. It runs from March 20-27 and includes the opportunity to win a plethora of prizes. It’s a way to make new friends and let others know what your blog is about. It’s not restricted to mom-bloggers or even bloggers: anyone can join in. More details are here, and the links to other party posts are here.
Please make yourself at home, and help yourself to a Congo bar.
For those who don’t know me, my name is Barbara. I usually comment as Barbara H. just to distinguish myself from other Barbaras out there. I became a Christian in my teens. I am a 51 year old mother of three, married 29 years to my wonderful husband, Jim. Our 30th wedding anniversary is this December. My boys are 24, 21, and 15. None have left the nest yet, but my oldest is working on being able to support himself after being “downsized” at his job, and my middle son graduates from college in May and will be getting married in August. I am treasuring these last few months with everyone home but also excited about the future.
I’ve been blessed to be a stay-at-home mom ever since my first pregnancy. Besides keeping the home fires burning, I’m active in the ladies’ ministry at our church and in ministering to my mother-in-law at a nearby assisted living facility. I love to read and have just gotten back into cross stitch the last year or so (though I need a lot of magnification to do it now!) I’ve been blogging for almost three years. Though my blog is a conglomeration of my “stray thoughts,” both serious and silly, one of my main desires is to encourage women in the ministries God has given them, first at home and them outward to others, and to encourage us to keep in God’s Word. You’ll see those topics reflected in my favorite posts listed in the sidebar: I invite you to peruse those as you have time.
At the moment I can’t get into the 5 Minutes for Mom site because of all the heavy traffic for the Blog Party, but as soon as it settles down, you’ll be able to find the links to the details from the front page of their site. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you again!
In order to be eligible for the aforementioned prizes, we’re required to put links to the top three prize providers we’re interested in and numbers from the prize list for all the rest. The prizes I am interested in are:
#19: A $50 Target gift card provided by Shoot-Me-Now.
#21: A $50 gift card to Target from Agoosa.
#22: A $50 Target gift card provided by Beginner Baby Blog.
And if my top three picks are already chosen, I’d love any of the following (in order of preference):
68, 26, 91, 109, 113, 118, 123, USC 15, USC 47, USC56, 86, 114, 121.
How about, “What’s the worst ‘best’ book you’ve ever read — the one everyone says is so great, but you can’t figure out why?”
The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas was a big disappointment to me. I don’t know how much of the disappointment was due to the ending being totally unlike any of the film versions I’ve seen. It was totally depressing. I wasn’t crazy about The Three Musketeers by the same author, either, and I usually like swashbuckling “defender of the good and right” stories. I did enjoy Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, though.
I was also surprised not to really like Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen as much as I thought I would, though the DVD of the latter is one of my all time favorite films. I did really enjoy Persuasion, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park. I’d seen film versions of most of them before reading the books, so I don’t think that was a major cause of not liking the first two.
I would be willing to give all of these books another read, though, some day — maybe there was just something else going on at the time of my first reading that influenced my impressions.
It’s Wednesday, time again for Melli’s ABC photo challenge. We’re supposed to look for letters in common everyday things or in nature without actually manipulating anything to make the letter and without photographing the letter itself in a word or sign. We’re doing two letters a week, and this week it is Q and R.
I have to tell you I am very excited about my Qs!
Here is a lower-case Q in the wiring to the left of the traffic light:
I’ve been wanting to take a picture of this for weeks just because it amused me. This morning I finally had my camera with me, and, lo and behold, the wheels make Qs.
I can also see a Y and Xs there!
All of my Rs are lower-case. I’ll be interested to see if anyone found an upper-case one. This is the first one I saw, a corner traffic light arm downtown:
And here are a couple more:
Of the remaining letters, I’ve seen all of them, though I haven’t taken the photos yet, except U and W. You can visit Melli‘s to see more photo challenge entries for Q and R.
Do you know the proper response to that greeting? “And the rest of the day to yourself.”
Though I think we have some degree of Irish blood in our veins, when I was growing up, we didn’t really celebrate or observe St. Patrick’s Day, except with the getting pinched if you didn’t wear green at school. which Sally tells us is an American invention. I don’t know why I never wondered why we did that. I don’t remember if we had corned beef and cabbage on that day — probably not, as it was one of my father’s favorite meals, we usually had it his birthday in late February. In my Christian college some staunchly wore orange rather than green to show their siding with Protestantism rather than Catholicism, though technically Baptists aren’t under the Protestant umbrella. But I like that the day seems to have become a celebration of all things Irish. Who doesn’t love the Irish? This poem I saw at Sally‘s says it well:
What Shall I Say About the Irish?
The utterly impractical, never predictable,
Sometimes irascible, quite inexplicable, Irish.
Strange blend of shyness,
pride and conceit,
And stubborn refusal to bow in defeat.
He’s spoiling and ready to argue and fight,
Yet the smile of a child
fills his soul with delight.
His eyes are the quickest to well up with tears,
Yet his strength is the strongest
to banish your fears.
His hate is as fierce as his devotion is grand,
And there is no middle ground
on which he will stand.
He’s wild and he’s gentle,
he’s good and he’s bad.
He’s proud and he’s humble,
he’s happy and sad.
He’s in love with the ocean,
the earth and the skies,
He’s enamoured with beauty wherever it lies.
He’s victor and victim, a star and a clod,
But mostly he’s Irish—
in love with his God.
One of my favorite missionaries, Amy Carmichael, is of Irish descent, and Irish folk songs are some of my favorite music.
Here are some St. Patrick’s Day links you might enjoy:
Updated to add this one: I saw on David McGuire‘s Facebook page this morning the statement, “It’s St. Patrick’s Day, but his inspirational life story is so much more than chasing snakes out of Ireland!” I asked if he has any good links about Patrick’s life, and he graciously sent me these:
I don’t remember who alerted me to One Pretty Thing, but I enjoy the compilations of projects and posts based on holidays or themes. She has several St. Patrick’s Day projects for kids here and here, and general St. Patrick’s Day projects here.
And Tipnut.com has a list of Irish-related links as well, including a live webcam to watch for leprechauns.
And I can’t have an Irish post without linking to my all-time favorite Irishmen, the Irish Tenors. Here they sing, “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears.” about the first Irish immigrant to come through Ellis Island, 15 year old Annie Moore.
In her little bag she carried
All her past and history,
And her dreams for the future
In the land of liberty.
And courage is the passport
When your old world disappears
But there’s no future in the past
When you’re fifteen years
And probably the best known Irish hymn is “Be Thou My Vision.”
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
I’m having a …. weird kind of day. I was wide awake at 4 a.m. so went ahead and got up. But I was falling asleep in my chair by 9 a.m.. One friend says, “Welcome to middle age.” Hmm. I guess it is a good thing my lifestyle and schedule is such that I can easily rearrange things. After a nap, I need to go get some things done, so it is a good day for more of a lightweight post. 🙂
You Are a Red Pen
You have an eagle eye for detail, and this often means you end up finding mistakes in people’s work.
You may seem quick to criticize or correct, but you think accuracy and truth is important.You like to be involved in every project. You feel like you put the polishing touch on things.
You would make a good editor, detective, or accountant. When facts matter, you’re the person to call on.
That last sentence is certainly true. I don’t know if I work well with deadlines — I definitely feel pressured by them, but I do get more done when they’re looming.
You Should Live in South Carolina
If you don’t want to live in South Carolina, you might also consider:Alabama
Kentucky
Oklahoma
Kansas
Mississippi
Stray Thoughts 