Fruitful Words

•  Lori, I’ve tried four times to leave you a message. Blogger won’t let me. Here’s the message in case I don’t ever get back in ever to talk to you: “How awesome!! You all must be so excited about your house and new family members! You will be in my prayers!” And if all fourteen messages get posted, I am not purposefully spamming you!
• Sometimes I check my blog stats to see what search words people use to find me: Here are a few of the funnier ones. And if I was funny, I’d have a great comeback for each of these. So sorry, you’ll have to insert your own voice-overs:

a. words not allowed during lent.   I don’t know- if they aren’t allowed, maybe we shouldn’t even be querying them?

b. grandma’s drawers cookbook.   I’m wondering what kind of cookbook this is exactly?

c. 40 inch cheeks!  Really, that’s a little rude! It makes me laugh everytime I think about it though. Doesn’t it make you want to google those words to see what were they thinking?

• Wendy and Bob are in Saigon. Check out their blog - it’s cool.  
• My dad was in Saigon as civiliann during the Vietnam War. He brought back cool things.

Like a doll dressed in native costumewhich my sista ruined by lathering the doll in lotion. Something about her not getting sun burnt which wouldn’t of happened had dollie stayed in my room!

Like a long pipe made out of ivory. I think it was used to smoke, oh, what’s that stuff made from poppies? Anyways it disappeared during one of our many moves. Guess the movers knew what to smoke in it.

• My sista’s birthday was yesterday. Go say hi to her. I like sista a lot. 
• And oh my - you should SEEher house. Give that woman a paintbrush and some scandalous color for the walls and the artist just comes flying out of her!

It seems like I’ve been away from this blog forever. I’ve missed writing to you all.  Isn’t it funny, when I write, I actually visualize you. When I’m done, I feel like we’ve had a proper converstion, albeit very one-sided. 

Things that took my away . . .

• Final papers for seminary. One down (14 pages for an Old Testament Exam), 4 majour ones and about 7 minor ones.
• Illness for almost a week.
• Leaky ceiling. I am so grateful that while it is raining hard outside tonight, not one of the 4 holes in my ceiling are leaking.
• Legal stuff regarding identity theft.
• My doggy. Chip (14 years old) had a tooth extracted today and I am spending a lot of time holding him. I feel so badly for him because since I didn’t brush his teeth, the tooth rotted. Oh man. Somedays I’m doing good to get my teeth and hair brushed. 
• My 200th post. You see, I wanted it to be something great. Nothing great came to mind.  So I procrastinated. Although Lynette had some great ideas, my ds still has my camera.

Have anything on your mind?

As part of celebrating my 200th post, I thought I’d update my 100th post. 

• #6.  Tea and Luke, my two gorgeous parakeets, were in foster care for about three weeks. Of course God orchestrated the perfect home for them. While on a visit to Tea and Luke’s foster home, LG heard of their need for a permanent home. Guess who had been saving $ to buy his very own birds? Prayer answered! Tea and Luke have new names, can’t remember what. And except for being VERY noisy when the TV is on, they are being accepted nicely into the family.
• #9. Sure I had my wrapping all done way before Christmas. Guess who lost a pressie and still can’t find it? Sigh! I wish I could say that sort of behaviour was the exception.
• #10 & #11. 4 year old CL is still way cute. Guess what he called me several weeks ago? Auntie! Oh, I adore being called auntie. BTW - I think he’s gotten over Tea and Luke’s adoption into another home.  
• #18. My oldest niece is so close to having her baby. Due date is April 15th. Several weekends ago we attended her baby shower. I got to do the games! It was good to visit with everyone - including my dd who came up from San Fran for the weekend.
• #38. The flybaby mantra of going to bed after cleaning the sinkful of dishes is finally materializing. Know how? So simple and I bet many of you already do this. I keep a tub of soapy water in the sink. Each dirty dish goes right into the tub. It is so easy to wash ‘em up and put into the drainer or diswasher.
• #41. You should’ve seen my Christmas tree this year: red, gold, and green ornaments on a white-lighted, white tree. Hey, you can still see it. I left it up so we could celebrate on 3 Kings Day with my son and then life fell apart. No celebration, but the tree is still up.  Because my life is so busy now, I’ll probably wait until this quarter is over - late March.
• #69. I graduated from high school in 1976. I graduated from William Jessup University with my BA exactly 30 years later on the same weekend. At the second graduation I got to wear a black cap and gown. Just like you are supposed to do. Don’t get me started on that topic.
• #73. I’m still a copious reader, but most of the reading is done for school or work. I have a lovely book by Alexander McCall Smith, 44 Scotland Street, that I am dying to read when I remember to think about it. Maybe during the break between quarters?
• #98. I didn’t have to hope very long about seeing The Polar Express at the movies this year. I got to go with 2 adult- and 1 kid-friend. We saw it free at the I-Max in exchange for a child’s coat. The experience was magical. And I met a teacher there from PEI. Prince Edward Island is on my “to visit” list. I guess what Anne of Green Gables fan doesn’t want to visit there?

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading. Got any questions? I might have some answers since I’m in the writing mode.

Seems like yesterday (actually July 2006) when I started this addictive medium of expression.

And I have enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for reading and sharing your lives with me.

To celebrate, I’d love it if you all would join me in doing something meaningful for 20 minutes. If 10 of us did that, that would be 200 minutes. What a great way to celebrate a 200th post.

You could . . .

• Do one or more random acts of kindness.
• Write an encouragement note or two on real paper.
• Make food (meal, muffins, cookies, hot chocolate mix) for someone.
• Delurk and comment for 20 minutes.
• Play with a child.
• Take someone’s dog for a walk.
• Give spring flowers to your post lady.
• Take a “praying” walk.
• Wrestle in prayer about forgiving someone. And then do so.
• Weed out some of your good stuff and give it to one in need.
• Read something encouraging.
• Sing to God - maybe even make up your own words.
• Pick up litter.
• Swallow your criticism and praise instead.
• Call a lonely person and let them talk.
• Do someone’s chore anonymously.
• Hug 20 people.
• Buy someone a “just because” gift.
• Write up your gratitude list.
• Look at your finances, find an extra bit of money and tithe it.

Share what you did. I’ll share mine too!

I was hoping that some of you would answer this on your own. Remember my #2 reason for blogging? I’m nosey.

So come on, go ahead and share why you blog. Or do I really have to shout out some names?

On some of my posts (like the last one) I only included part of the article. It ends with the more link to click. That takes you to the rest of the post.

Some posts include the whole thing on the home page.

The questions are . . .

• Which do you prefer and why?
• If you like the more link, how do you know when to stop? Like is there a word count or something to aim for?

Thanks.

The lights were low. Candles were lit and cloistered around tall wooden crosses. The overhead screen asked us to thoughtfully prepare ourselves for the upcoming service. People bowed their heads and quietly sat in meditaion. The smell of carnations filled the sanctuary.

To me, carnations are the smell of death.

(more…)

What does this passage teach us about God or His creation or their relationship to each other?   

I have organized my thoughts around 3 areas: God, Believers and Unbelievers.God . . . 

• Sometimes the Lord is silent and does not answer the call of His people
• How God rights unjust situations is not always understandable by man.
• Sometimes God uses the wicked to punish His people.
• God’s timetable regarding justice is not the same as man’s timetable.
• God will answer at the appointed time, when He sees fit.
• One day God’s glory will fill the earth and not all this greed, violence, covetousness, murder, drunkenness and idolatry.
• The Lord is alive, on His throne and has an actual dwelling place.
• God has placed prophecies in the Bible.

(more…)

Jessica from Homemaking Through the Church Year has set up a Lenten carnival. 19 bloggers have written about some aspect of Lent. I’m #18.

As you go through this Lent season, share some of your experiences and I will share mine.

Don’t you love baked potatoes? I do too, but often I don’t allow or have the time to cook them in the oven. And microwaved potatoes just aren’t as tasty. This simple tip, I learned from my brother-in-law, answers that dilemma. 

Follow this 4 step process and you’ll never fret about the inferior taste of microwave potatoes again.

1. Wash potato thoroughly. Poke through several times with a knife.
2. Place one on a plate and microwave on high 4-6 minutes - depending upon the size of the potato.  
   2 potatoes cook 6-8 1/2 minutes.                                        
   3 potatoes cook 8-11 minutes.
   4 potatoes cook 11- 14 minutes.
3. Take potato(s) out of oven and wrap in tinfoil. It (they) might still be a little hard.
4. Then wrap tea towel over the foil for about 8 minutes. My b-i-l tells me the tinfoil and towel wrap keep the moisture inside the potato therefore making it moist.

When you eat these, you’ll discover they taste just like potatoes baked in the oven.

This works for me. Go on over to Rocks-in-my-dryer for other Works-for-me-Wednesday tips.