Sunday, August 31, 2008

Isaiah 3:12

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. ~Isaiah 3:12

And that of course is talking about Judah and what would befall them...any guesses on what I'm going to talk about?

The upcoming election of course. Personally, I don't know who I'm going to vote for. In North Carolina a candidate has to have a certain number of signatures to even be counted as a write-in, so I think the only one we have is the Green Party. Woo-hoo. We can vote for the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, so I'll have to do some research about that...I don't know about that either though. I don't believe in voting for the lesser of two evils...what does that accomplish? Okay, you kept a "scary" Democrat from winning, but if the Republicans are guaranteed votes because of that, all they have to do is be slightly less liberal than the Democrat candidate!

I am interested to see what McCain picking Sarah Palin as a running mate will do. I have a feeling it will have several results:

1. Some of the people who were going to vote for Hillary simply because they wanted a woman in office may decide to vote Republican.

2. She is conservative, so some Christians will be (and are!) excited about that and vote because of that.

3. However, the Christian vote will be split...there are people (myself included) who don't think a woman should be in power like that, and therefore wouldn't vote for the Republicans.

I wasn't intending to vote for McCain anyway, but if he had chosen an equally conservative, pro-life man, I probably would have considered it. I think it's great that Palin is conservative and pro-life and has five kids(and nice hair!), but I don't think she should be running for public office.

But, perhaps that's God's plan...it not a good thing to have women "ruling" the people, but it may be a punishment. And we certainly can't say that America does not deserve punishment. I know we (my family) were talking about it last month and talking about how if Obama picked Hilary as a running mate, how much like Barak and Deborah (Judges 4) it would be...and it's rather the same with McCain and Palin. "Hey, I can't win this by myself, the people won't want to vote for me, you help me by being my vice-president and maybe I'll be able to win."

Then if Obama wins it won't be great, but I figure that at least he'll do much less damage in four years than Hillary would have. I have a feeling he will win, I don't think Palin is enough to help McCain win...I could be wrong. If Obama does win he's going to be a busy man though! :) We watched his acceptance speech and really, all the tangible, material things he promised to do would keep him busy, as if he could even accomplish all that. But then the other things he mentioned, like improving the moral standard of the country aren't really even possible. Two of the things he said:

"I will restore our moral standing so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future."

"Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents, that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework, that fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that's the essence of America's promise. And just as we keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad."

Well, I do agree with him that parents have to guide their children and all, but what on earth can he do about it or the moral standards of people?!

So...anyway...I'm not voting for McCain, I don't know who I'll vote for, and I think Obama's going to win. It's the first general election I've gotten to vote in...I wish there were better options. :(

Friday, August 29, 2008

Friday rambling

Okay, so I finished my CPR/First Aid class. So I'm now certified in first aid for three years and CPR for one....do you feel safer now? :p

The class was certainly interesting. I've been trying to figure out the reasoning behind the way certain people teach. The first day we had a lady who was a bit hyper and slightly disorganized but thorough, and she was one of those teachers that threatens un-named consequences should the class not pay attention and follow instructions. I've decided that they must do that to insure cooperation, and then when no one gets in trouble and she lets you pass the class just fine, you feel relieved and lucky to have not been one of her troublesome classes! In reality she probably hardly ever has a difficult class. :p So anyway, we had her and a guy who had moved here from Utah and was helping her teach so he could renew his instructor's certification. Then yesterday we had a different lady teaching and she was more calm and serious and just went through everything slowly.

The class was mostly all people who had to take it for work, guys who worked for a construction company, ladies who worked in schools or other various things like that. One lady had to be certified before taking her girl scout troop camping...she was very impatient about how long the class was taking! I don't blame her, but I've figured out that it doesn't help to complain about it in class. :p

I also decided not to say anything yesterday when the teachers were finding a test written in Spanish for one lady, and then frantically trying to find a Spanish answer key to go with it. The test was multiple choice and you filled in one of four circles on your answer sheet. After they finally found the Spanish answer key I heard them saying that oh wait, they could have used the same answer key because it's exactly the same! Well...that's what I'd been thinking through all this, that I doubted the Spanish test was arranged any differently, so all they had to do was match the circles up same as with the other ones...

I'm also assuming that in a real emergency adrenaline would kick in and that it, along with my desire to be able to help somehow, would overcome any queasiness about first aid. I was reading through my book Wednesday night and couldn't stand to look at the pictures in there, and then during the class the lady said we needed to listen to the video but we didn't have to look at it if we couldn't stand it. *shudder* So yeah, I'm certified, but just to be safe, if you're around me don't injure yourself in any way that causes anything from the inside of you (other than blood, I don't mind blood) to be visible! Oh actually, to be completely safe in general, don't hurt yourself at all...but I think you knew that. ;)

Oh yeah, some of the things they talked about and mention in the book about how to recognize an emergency..."screaming, yelling, or calling for help", "breaking glass, crashing metal, or screeching tires"...now seriously! If you couldn't figure out that those things might be an emergency, I think you might need more than a first aid class!

Let's see what else did we do this week? Oh yeah, we had men's meeting here on Wednesday and our cat Gracie found the one guy in the room with asthma and started winding around his neck! And then shrieked when he removed her. Mom and I were back in the bedrooms, and I heard Gracie shriek (she lets you know if she's not happy!) and wondered what had happened...I thought maybe someone stepped on her. That bad cat! She couldn't go sit on any of the cat owners, or even the people who don't like cats but aren't allergic....oh no, she had to pester the person who wanted her around the least.

I'm trying to make a paper mache pear...trying being the operative word there. I've only had time to put one layer of paper on it, so right now it just looks like a paper-covered balloon. Hmm...something's obviously going to have to be done about that. Pears don't look like balloons. I think maybe as an experiment I'll try blowing up another balloon and if I can shape it with tape or something I might start over. If the tape doesn't work I'll stick with what I've got and see what can be done with it.

I saw in the paper yesterday that there's contra dancing in Winston...Cool, I didn't know that! And there's also an English country dance at Bethabara park (and that one's free...always a plus)...I wonder if you have to wear authentic English garb? If you do I think I'd rather pay the seven dollars for the other dance, although an English country dance would be so neat and Jane-Austen-y. So now I just need to convince some of my friends that they want to go dancing...Amanda? You said you'd had a friend who wanted you to try contra dancing...would you like another person bugging you? ;)

Oh, labels; out of all five people who gave their opinion on labels, it's 4 for and 1 against. I think I'll start labeling...so now I have to figure out what to label various posts as! Hmm... :p

I also have a strong suspicion that this post may not make a whole lot of sense. I'm tired today so I kind of rambled. If it makes sense to you, great! If it doesn't...I'm sorry. :( I got to bed late last night and got up early too many days this week... *yawn*

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Labels?

I probably won't blog much this week, because I have been, and still will be, rather busy. But in the meantime, I'll give you something to think about.

I was trying to decide whether to put tags (or labels) on my posts...you know, the things that categorize the post as being "opinion", or "crafts", or "cooking", or whatever the case may be. I guess I was wondering how often people even use those. Personally, I find that you can just search the blog using the blogger toolbar at the top if you're looking for something specific, but I also find it interesting to browse through a category of labels.

So, shall I label or not? I'd start labeling from now on, and eventually get all my old posts labeled as well, although that would have to wait till October.

Anyway, I'm going to be fairly busy till October because of the fair and stuff so actually the posting may be a bit sparse all through September, not just this week...we'll see how much spare time I have! :)

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Sunday musings

Ah, I'm liking this new schedule we're doing for church...it's nice to have Sunday evening free, it's a little more relaxing before the next week starts. :) Of course then you have to get food ready every Saturday...so maybe it's even after that. I think maybe we're going to go back to our regular schedule after Summer is over...we'll see. Our church seems to be shrinking for various reasons...*sigh* :(

A couple of families have left, some have moved...it's sad, although I know we've left a couple churches too. I'm not sure whether it's just because in those cases we were the ones leaving (usually with several other families) so we knew perfectly well that we had a good reason to leave, or if it's just because I'm older now that I don't take people leaving so well. :( Our church has been meeting for almost 6 years now, and although some people left at the beginning we expected that (it was a church split because the other church didn't like our pastor, and I think some of the people who came with us weren't sure they wanted a small church, but they didn't agree with the other group either.) And then we've had people who just had to move, the one guy for med school, and then another couple moved to California just this week. He graduated from Duke divinity school, and she graduated from Wake Forest med school, and I guess she got a residency out there and he got an...internship?...something like that, so they're out there now (or on their way out there). As far as I know, I don't think anyone else is going to be moving any time soon..I certainly hope not! Anyway... as my friend reminded me yesterday, God is sovereign...which is a good reminder in so many areas of life.

Uh, where was I...something not so gloomy perhaps?...oh yeah, shrinking...I guess I was going to say that we may keep meeting at peoples' houses in the afternoon since we'll all fit most Sundays, I don't know. The weekend after next some people are going to be out of town, so Mom was saying we might be able to fit everyone over here (actually we probably could anyway, but it would be a smidge squished!). I pointed out that that way I could have a sort of birthday party too. Not exactly a birthday party, but having a bunch of people over is fun enough. :)

Next week one of the pastors from Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Mebane, NC (where on earth is Mebane anyway?) is going to come preach. I think we're just going to have a fellowship afterwards instead of having a study also...Pastor Beasley was saying that people could play volleyball, but that he was claiming the visiting pastor for his team because he's really tall! :p

So, that's what's up... now I think I'll go clean some stuff. I have an urge to reorganize a bunch of things including my bathroom cabinet. No matter how often I clean out and organize that cabinet, it gets messed up again really fast because I bring hair accessories or hand lotions or whatever from my bedroom and leave them in there, and then I always just fling things in there anyway, so usually if you open the cabinet door at least the toothpaste is likely to come sliding out! :p In other words...it really needs cleaning, so I should probably go do that since I feel like it.

Oh, my friends and I were talking about the Olympics during lunch, and my friend Zoe was asking if I'd seen when they were talking about how strangely proportioned (but good for swimming) Michael Phelps was...I told her I had, and said that wasn't that flapping thing he does really strange-looking? She didn't know what I was talking about, so I was trying to demonstrate somewhat...I think I pulled something in my back...lol! :p I think I'm fine really, but something is a bit sore...I'm obviously not as flexible as Phelps...which is fine since I don't swim. It amused everyone else anyway... :p And Zoe knew what I was talking about after I demonstrated!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Oh, I forgot...

...I was also going to blog about two other things, but I forgot when I was writing the last post. One was this ring I made the other day...it's made out of the little rings you get for jewelry making, jump rings they're called:









I was trying to make a Celtic knot to put on it, but making a Celtic knot out of jump rings and attaching it was more than I could do! I had to wear my reading glasses to see what I was doing as it was, and was feeling bug-eyed by the time I was done...those rings are rather small!

Then, I didn't go to prayer meeting Wednesday night because I wasn't feeling very well, but Mom brought home a gift from the Beasleys. I wondered why they were giving me a present...my birthdays isn't for two weeks and I couldn't think of anything else. It was a graduation gift! Aww...presents are always fun, but totally unexpected ones are even better! :) It's a lovely fountain pen! They all have fountain pens and always go to the pen show in...hmm...it's either in Raleigh or Greensboro. So they got me a fountain pen, though not at the pen show, so I'll be able to get ink at the office supply store...that's good! A fountain pen seems so...graduationy. lol! It's a neat pen, shiny blue:





It's going to take little getting used too...especially since I write fast. You have to write a little bit slower with a fountain pen. And it's got little ink cartridges, but I still managed to get ink on my arm and my sleeve trying to fill it... Hannah wrote me a note explaining how it worked, but I was still a little lost...thank goodness for Google.

Oh, and about the fair...I said there wasn't much thrilling, but of course there are all the usual rides...but I'm the only one in my family who likes rides, so we don't usually go on any. If you'd ever seen anyone pick Colin more than 3 inches up off the floor, you would understand why... ;p

Crafting...and rambling about the fair

I've been working on knitting and crocheting and trying to figure out what all I'm going to enter in the fair...and forcing myself to not sign up for a bunch of things that I might (with very little possibility) get done before October.

Anyway, my sweater is progressing, very slowly, but it is progressing. And I'm also working on a crocheted baby afghan. One of the ladies in our church is going to have a baby, and I usually make an afghan for the new babies. Only problem is that this is a boy afghan (well, I guess the colors could work for a girl too, but it's not terribly pink and girly) so if she has a girl, I'll need to make another afghan, but then I won't be able to enter it in the fair. Oh well.

Look! I took pictures! :p

Back of the sweater:












Front...I'm just starting on the patterned part. Just to remind you, this is the pattern I'm knitting:












And this is what I've got done on the afghan so far...it goes pretty fast though:









I've already got a dress and a skirt done to enter in the fair, but I was going to make an apron too. I should have time to sew one more thing though, I think....I hope so anyway! :p

I have...let's see...40 days to get things finished. Hmm... One thing in my favor is that the days I'm working I'll have some time to get some knitting or crocheting done without feeling like I should be doing housework or something. I think I need to write down everything that I want to get done for the fair and estimate how much time each thing is going to take to finish and see what I really have time for. Like I said, I've got some things sewn already, most of the baked goods that I was thinking about entering I'll get done and put in the freezer, and I picked out some photos and I need to have my pre-judge take a look at them. ;)

It's nice to have a Dad that can tell you ahead of time whether you should bother to enter a particular picture...although sometimes the judges at the fair have completely different taste in photos. I enter in the Amateur Photography section because I don't want to waste money on framing things for the Arts and Crafts photography category, and in this category you just have to have the photo mounted on a piece of foamcore. However, that also means that there are hundreds of entries! I really don't know how they can judge all those photos. I think I've got some options for sunrise, flowers, landscape, other-color, and other-b&w. There's also a people category, both in color and b&w...but I don't take pictures of people very much, so I don't think I've got anything to enter in there...I think when I was looking through my photos the only people photos I had were just some I took of my 2nd-cousins in IL, my cousins when they came to visit, and Colin...and I really don't know what's a good "people" photo. I'm not sure if they're looking for artsy candid shots, or studio-like, or what.

I was looking at the fair webpage to see what sort of entertainment they have this year...well, we have the usual two country singers and two Christian singers. For country we get Mel McDaniels, and I didn't think I knew what he sang, but I looked him up on Wikipedia and I do know a few of his songs I just didn't know who sang them. And then we also get Bucky Covington. Oh boy. I don't know if he's gotten better since he was on American Idol, or if he got some help speaking more clearly...because when he was on AI, all his songs sounded like: *first word of song, mumble, mumble, mumble, last word of song*. Maybe he's learned to enunciate....or maybe there's a reason he's performing at our fair where the concerts are free... although I think he's going to be at the state fair too? Oh, ha-ha! They're only charging five dollars there...nevermind. :p

(Wow, they actually get some very popular singers at the state fair...they've got six country singers/groups that I've heard of, and a trendy-looking Christian band called Leeland..who are performing with another rather emo-ish Christian group called Skillet...Skillet??! Anyway...) Sorry...should have put a link in so you can see the bands: NC State Fair

For Christian singers at our fair we have Mandisa and Matthew West. I was hoping maybe they'd have Jars of Clay come again. They were at our fair one year, but that was before I had heard any of their music and realized I liked it. :(

Oh and then there's the Demolition Derby, and rodeo, and tractor pull, and all that sort of stuff. :p Hmm...yeah, the best things about our fair are winning prizes and eating a funnel cake...other than that it's kind of lacking in much of anything terribly thrilling. :p

I need to figure out for sure what I'm going to enter this year, and figure it out soon, because you have to get your entries in by September 1st...and that's a lot closer than I realized!

Monday, August 18, 2008

It's Monday already?

Oh boy, my schedule is all off...bother the Olympics! :p I haven't even been watching them that much, but we've all been going to bed later than usual, and it finally caught up with me yesterday and this morning. Yesterday afternoon after lunch I almost...or rather, I'm afraid I did fall asleep during the Bible study. Oh dear. One of the pastor's daughters fell asleep too...but she's only seven.
I'm not sure how well this new schedule is going to work out...if I sit still right after lunch, I'm going to fall asleep! And I wasn't the only one trying to stay awake. So, I slept in this morning, although I had planned to get up and go divide the hosta plants this morning. I guess that'll wait till later...it's too hot and humid out there now.

Dad and I got my storage unit put up yesterday evening...or rather...yeah, it's up, but it's tilted. It's pretty heavy, so we got two brackets put in the studs....but then, right where we need to put another bracket (or just put the second pair) there is no stud....just empty wall. Hmph. *grumble, grumble, fume* Just so you know, this isn't the first strange thing we've found about this house! So Dad's going to get another pair of brackets and use some drywall anchor/screws to fasten them...and that'll help some.

Anyway, the unit is up...although Dad was worrying me because he kept coming in and looking at it like he was surprised it was still on the wall! He assured me that it wasn't going anywhere, he was just looking at it. It's nice...I was picturing something more rectangular than square, but it works, and I like the color and everything.









Something already stored itself up there...









I'm looking forward to getting some stuff stored up there....and I think, since Gracie can get up to the bottom cubes, that I'll not put anything breakable up there! :p

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Casting Crowns song

The Altar and the Door ~Casting Crowns

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Three things...

...that I'm thinking about, due to the Olympics and the commercials run during the Olympics.

1. How do the women swimmers find clothes to fit? I have somewhat wide shoulders, so I have trouble sometimes getting shirts that fit without the shoulders and sleeves pulling...but these girls have very muscular shoulders (as they'd have to, to swim that fast!). Maybe they just wear sleeveless shirts, or big t-shirts most of the time?

2. I saw the commercial for the prescription pain medicine Lyrica. It's meant to treat fibromyalgia pain, which sounds wonderful! A pain medicine, specially designed for fibromyalgia would be great...since they don't have a cure for it, maybe they can at least treat it. Well, a few of the side-affects for the medicine are tiredness and muscle pain. Ummm....but that's part of what fibromyalgia is...tiredness and muscle pain...how is that helping? According to the commercial the lady taking it is able to travel to foreign countries and go shopping while she's there...how about they come up with something that doesn't have those side-affects and that helps you just get through the week while not on vacation?

3. One of the players on the Chinese volleyball team is 6' 11"!! Wow! That's really tall...I mean, I've got guy cousins and 2nd-cousins who are around 6'3" t0 6'7"-ish, and that seems pretty tall right there! But almost 7 feet tall? and Chinese...I thought the Chinese were rather short...maybe not anymore.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Ha-ha...I'm silly sometimes...

Hmm...busy Friday!

I made the fig jam I mentioned yesterday...and I ended up canning it, because I made more than we had room to store in the fridge. Plus I can enter some in the fair, in the "other jam" category. So...I had to make the jam and then go through the whole canning process, which takes a while.

Basket of figs:









Chopped figs, ready to cook:









They look kind of funny...like a combination of pickles and watermelons. You see what I mean?

I'm not sure that I'd use fig jam for anything but cakes...I don't much care for the taste of plain figs, plus it turned out really, really sweet. The recipe called for 6 cups of sugar and I put in 5, but I think if I made it again, I'd try 3-4 cups and just let it cook down longer. It's like fig candy now, but I think it'll be great for in a cake. So, very satisfactory, but time-consuming. Then I had other things to do today too, and I babysat tonight.

I forgot how much fun playing dress-up was. ;p I think the little girl had more fun picking out things for me to wear, then she did dressing up herself! I told the kids we could get all dressed up and take pictures, but then the little girl decided she didn't want her picture taken and kept turning around with her back to me...so I didn't get any pictures of her dressed up (she was a butterfly.) So I took pictures of myself in what they picked out for me...I think I was a pirate queen maybe?












Then they added a veil sort of thing.












Then I was a...uh...Greek or Roman princess...but that was more my idea!












It was fun...silly, I know, but awfully fun. *sheepish grin* (I want to make one of those things like I've got around my wrist. It's a basic hair elastic with ribbon tied around it...not my usual style, but I thought it was neat...either for hair or a bracelet.)

Don't mess with the pirate queen!












Silly girls!












C. playing "golf":












C. and A. building a gate of sorts:









I thought this one was cute...she was determined not to let me pass! :)









So I had a busy, but fun day!

Oh, I got my storage unit put together last night, so I'm going to see if Dad has time to help me hang it up tomorrow...and I need to make a cake tomorrow!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Thuuuurrrrrsday!

I started writing this this morning, but I had to leave for work...so, if it sounds like I'm writing in the morning and then the evening...I am. :)

Ow...I'm a bit stiff this morning. Last night I went for a jog around the neighborhood with my friends...and then we did a few sprints. Guess what, I can actually sprint even after jogging till I can't jog any more. I was very surprised! I can sprint, I knew that, I'm much better at sprinting that long-distance running or jogging, but I thought there was no way I could even move after the jogging. So anyway...I'm a smidge stiff this morning, but I can walk, which is much better than sometimes. I just have to keep moving...if I sit for a while I get stiff.

Let's see, what else...oh, I want Dad to spray bug spray around the foundation of the house! I worked yesterday morning, so I didn't get around to making my bed till afternoon. When I did, I picked up a pillow and there was a big black spider sitting on it! Aaaahhhhh! Well, actually I didn't scream, I don't usually, but I believe I said "Oh my goodness!!" and carried the pillow outside squeaking "goodness, goodness, goodness!" the whole way...because I sure wasn't about to squish that big thing on my pillow! *shudder* That was not fun...and I'm not sure exactly what kind of spider it was. It was about an inch around, and it was black with a red spot, but it wasn't shaped the same as most black widow spiders, the body wasn't very round. Either way...poisonous or not, I'd really rather not have one in my bed if at all possible. :( I can't seem to find any spider online that looks like that, so I don't know if it was some starved black widow spider, or what. Is anyone a spider expert?

We didn't end having men's meeting here, our pastor wanted his father-in-law to be able to come, and he has a bad back and can't ride in the car much, so they met at the pastor's house instead. So Mom and I didn't have to stay in our bedrooms all evening. :) We were able to sit in the living room and watch the Michael Phelps show...I mean, the Olympics. ;p I'm getting a bit tired of all the swimming...it's interesting, I like watching it, but I'd like to watch some other stuff too. Maybe they haven't started the other stuff yet? All they're showing on NBC is beach volleyball, syncro-diving, gymnastics, and Michael Phelps winning yet another gold medal. And then you only get to see the US team, and the Chinese...and whoever is playing against May/Walsh in women's volleyball.

I was listening to the CD my friend gave me and realized that she put some Steven Curtis Chapman songs on it too...sneaky. I thought the "bonus tracks" sounded different from the first 10 tracks... I didn't realize it until I got to the "Cinderella" song, and thought "Wait a minute! That's not Casting Crowns!" I'm not a big fan of SCC, so it's kind of a running "feud" between us. ;)

My birthday's in three weeks!...wow.

Oh dear, I still haven't remembered to take a picture of the sweater I'm knitting. I'm going to be done with it before then at this rate!

Oh, I got one of those storage cube thingies from Target. I think I'll pull it out of the box tonight and either put it together, or at least make sure all the pieces are there, while I watch the Olympics. I ended up getting what they call "espresso" colored. I was going to get a white one, but when I saw they had this (dark wood...or rather, laminate) I thought it would look better with my desk.

I've got two free weeks now. I worked today, but then I don't have to work till September 2nd...and the 4th. I'll be working on my birthday...that baby better give me a present!! ;p I'm kidding. I do have two days of Red Cross CPR classes last week of August though, and I told Mom I'd get Colin out of her hair so she could do some lesson planning. We'll probably go to the park or something...depending on how hot it is. :(

I'm going to make some fig jam tomorrow. My grandma has a fig tree and more figs than she knows what to do with, plus I need a dessert for Sunday. So I'm going to make fig jam, and then a fig preserve cake from the Southern Living cookbook which, according to BooMama, is wonderful. I hope I agree...it certainly sounds yummy!

It sounds like we're going to be doing this same routine every Sunday...at least until everyone gets back from vacation and we can't fit in the Beasleys' house...morning service, fellowship lunch, evening service at their house. Which is fine...their house is much nicer than the depressing church we usually meet at in the evening. The only thing is coming up with a side dish and dessert every week...although it also means that Sunday lunch is taken care of. So if anyone has any good side-dish or dessert recipes, let me know! :)

Monday, August 11, 2008

Today...

I am listening to the CD my friend let me borrow...it's great! I think I'll have to buy it sometime...maybe see if I can find one on ebay or something (CDs are so expensive!). I'd say they sound more like Jars of Clay than Caedmon's Call...but either way...it's good.

I'm happy that I got my closet cleaned today. I like things clean, but it's hard to keep them that way. :( I got some neat green hangers, so I was hanging up my clothes and thought I'd clean my closet while I was at it.












My dad's birthday is tomorrow, so I'm trying to figure out what all I need to get done tomorrow. I'm going to make him a coconut cream pie, but then I might need to make some cookies too, because men's meeting is going to be here this Wednesday and we need to have some snacks. Mom said she could make a cake or something if I didn't have time to make anything tomorrow.

I made some snickerdoodles last week with this recipe because Colin wanted some. They tasted really good, but they sort of sunk and I thought snickerdoodles were supposed to be kind of rounded on top. I don't know...anyway, I was going to try to make them again and add a little more flour to see if that helped. So I might make some of those tomorrow too if I have time. Coconut cream pie takes a while to make though! :)

I'm also thinking about buying one of these from Target. They're on sale this week, and I want something like that to hang above my desk and store stuff in. I thought maybe I could make one, but I'm not so sure about that, so I should probably just buy something. See, I saw this, that this lady posted on her blog, and that's where I got the idea to store some stuff like that. She said her husband made it, and it looks really neat, but I don't think whatever I tried to make would look that nice! :p So I want to get to Target sometime this week and get one of the cube things.

Dad went and got his driver's license renewed today, and this evening we were comparing photos...I guess he hadn't seen mine before, because he burst out laughing and said I looked like a deer in the headlights. Thank you, Dad. I wasn't exactly happy to be at the DMV...so I think Colin was more accurate in saying that I looked like I was about to hit someone over the head. :p Dad somehow manages to smile normally, but the shadow behind him always makes his beard look like a big bushy beard for some reason...

We got a couple whole chickens at Costco last Friday, and I cooked them today. Mom was wanting to get some and freeze the cooked chicken, but she said she didn't feel up to doing it this week so I said I'd deal with them. I cooked them outside in the electric roaster (which is very handy for doing things like that!) so I wouldn't heat up the house. It smelled SO good...like Thanksgiving dinner. Mmmmm! Mom picked the chicken off the bone when they were cool though, which was great. I hate trying to get the chicken off...I end up with chicken embedded under my fingernails and chicken grease everywhere...ugh. So I'm really glad she did that part! Then we bagged it up and put it in the freezer...you only get about nine cups of chicken out of two whole 5 lb chickens which is kind of disappointing. It seems like you should get more, but that's enough chicken for almost five meals for us anyway.

Now I think I'll either finish listening to the CD, or go watch the synchronized diving...that's always fun to watch!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Randomness

This Sunday we again met at the pastor's house after church instead of our regular service, plus it was a bit of a going-away party too. One of the men in our church is moving up to Maryland. He's about my dad's age, but he decided he wanted to go to med school, so he's going up there, and I believe he's going to have a job at the same time? He has been working at the med school here, in research and I think that's what his job's going to be in Maryland too. So it was a bit sad to have someone leaving, but with all the characters in our church, no gathering can be too gloomy! :p There was quite a wide range of discussion from the Large Hadron Collider (the particle accelerator that's supposed to either blow up the earth or create a black hole) to politics, moving, pets...moving with pets...buying fish, camping, and hunting. Oh, and shooting watermelons. So it was a pretty interesting afternoon. :p

Including one couple telling about how when they were first dating, she was at his parents house and they were getting ready to go on a hike. Apparently her grandfather had said he wanted a dead crow to hang up to keep the live ones from eating his garden. So anyway, she was in the kitchen packing up some carrot sticks to take on the hike and looking out the kitchen window at the wonderful peaceful view, mountains and trees, and a crow sitting in one of the trees. Meanwhile, her husband-to-be had gone upstairs to change before they went hiking, and she suddenly heard this loud noise and the crow fell out of the tree...because he apparently also saw the crow out there and took the opportunity to just open the bathroom window and shoot the crow to give to her grandfather!

So yeah, as I said, we have some characters in our church...and this was the same guy who was talking about shooting watermelons. :) But despite all the shooting things...this is a guy who bought a fish at Walmart (at 11-ish at night!) because he called his wife to ask her if he should buy a fish at Walmart or not, or would it just die right away? She told him that if he didn't buy it, it was just going to die at Walmart, so it didn't really matter! So he said he bought it because he couldn't just leave it to die there under the florescent lights at Walmart! :p It didn't die, btw, they've had it for about a year now. :) They're so funny, those two... It's her sister I'm working for, and she and her husband are pretty funny too.

I went to Goodwill on Tuesday and found seven pictures, so that we can use the frames for framing cross-stitch instead of having to buy custom frames. Unfortunately, now Dad's not sure if he has the right tools to cut down a frame and put it back together. I thought we'd use his miter box and then staple the frames together, but he doesn't think a hand-cut miter is going to be smooth enough, and (what I hadn't thought about) he has no way to clamp a 45 degree angle to put the frames back together, whether with glue, or staples, or v-nails. So...I'm not sure what we're going to do. I guess he's going to figure out some way to do them...they were only $17 dollars for all seven of them anyway. That's less than the price of one custom medium-sized frame. I also found a really nice black linen shirt-dress. It's Talbot's brand (which is good...Mom and I found a similar one online for $100-something) and it's got a nice lining and everything...and it was only five dollars!

I know I said something a few months ago about not buying more clothes, but I've been finding some really good deals on things, and I decided that it was better to buy some nice, classic things when I find them cheap rather than waiting and looking for them new. Plus I've got a job now, so I'm allowing a smidge more money in my budget, although most of my salary I'm planning on putting in savings.

So I went ahead and got the dress, and I really like it and Dad said it looked nice too. It has extra fabric in the skirt (I'm blanking on what those are called) triangles of fabric inset in the skirt so it swirls wonderfully! :) I tried to get a picture of it, but it's really hard to photograph black things.

We watched some of the opening ceremony for the Olympics Friday night...we went to bed sometime after seeing the US team in the parade of nations. Colin was very disappointed...he was lying on the floor complaining that he thought there was going to be a ballgame!! The president looked like he felt the same way...he was certainly bored...sitting there tapping his feet and checking his watch and slumping lower and lower in his seat. He sat up and put his jacket back on and pulled out a flag to wave when the US team came out.

It was certainly um, interesting to watch the opening ceremony. It was very impressive all the technology used in it, and also where there wasn't technology, like the things that were supposed to look like Chinese printing blocks moving up and down in patterns...and there were actually people under each block, moving them!
But then there were all the things that were supposed to show how wonderful China is. Yes, really, their people are happy and everything's just wonderful! Uh, everyone knows they're a communist country, is anyone really fooled by all that? And their national anthem is called "The March of the Volunteers". *cough, choke, cough*

I don't know, the Olympics are fun to watch, but there's just so much time and money that goes into all the big production that's involved. I mean, the China soccer team is going to have an awesome stadium when this is over, but really... And the commentators were saying that Greece still has debts from when they hosted the Olympics, "but it boosted the morale of the country!"

Simply from a matter of personal opinion... they're taking baseball out of the Olympics?!! That's not fair. *hmph* Oh yeah, speaking of which, we watched the Cardinals play the Cubs on Saturday...the Cards won. :)

Oh, my friends let me borrow a CD they just got, or rather, they let me borrow a copy because they couldn't bear to part with their new CD yet. :) But they made a label and everything for it...I thought it was funny.



























It's a free rental, but my friend would bug me if I didn't get a original hard copy back to her quickly. ;) I'm joking...

Well, I think the Olympics are on...sounds like...gymnastics. I think I'll go see if there's anything interesting.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Ha-ha! Oh dear... hee-hee!

Dover Publications (you know, the place that makes all the little coloring books, and sticker books, and paper dolls, and worksheets?) has...wait for it... McCain and Obama paper dolls.

I can't stop laughing about it. :p

Paper dolls.

These collectible paper doll sets feature realistically rendered paper dolls of Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, their wives, plus casual and formal outfits they wore during the campaign. Each paper doll set includes a brief biography, descriptive notes, and a bonus "Election Night Scorecard."

Monday, August 04, 2008

Multi-tasking fog?

Here are the vents Dad installed in the attic...unfortunately, he put the thermometer up in the attic and it doesn't seem to be much cooler up there than it was before. :(


















I've been trying to figure out how to change how much time I spend on the computer. I'm not going to stop blogging, or stop using the computer altogether or anything, I think I just need to consolidate my computer time and not keep getting on the computer throughout the day so much.
Obviously on days I'm working I won't be able to anyway, but the rest of the week I'm thinking I should maybe follow a similar plan. Check my email and whatever else I have time for in the morning, and then maybe again in the afternoon when I'm home, and then in the evening. Not blogging really wouldn't help anything, because actually blogging and reading blogs doesn't take that much time. It's when I several times throughout the day scan though the rss feeds to see if anyone's posted something, or pull up a blog because they might have posted and it hasn't shown up in the feed yet...that's what takes my time. So I think as long as I cut down on how many times I check things during the day, I'll be doing much better. And then I can blog the next time I'm on the computer after I've thought of something to blog about.

Maybe in the Fall I'll take a whole week off of the computer completely just to see what all I can get done...but I don't want to do that now when it's nasty and hot outside! :p

Aah...bother...if I don't blog till the evening I'm going to have to write down things throughout the day...I've forgotten what I was going to blog about. Ho-hum...this is annoying.

Well, I have a whole post formulating in my head about the whole theory that blogging is dead. (I don't think it is, btw. At least not in all ways.) But I don't want to write that right now.

I was cleaning and stuff today and Gracie must have been bored because that annoying cat was "helping" me with everything! I was putting clean sheets on my bed and she was sitting on the bed getting in the way, then she went and lay down on the sheets in the dryer:









She doesn't usually get in the dryer. For one thing, the first time she did, I spun it around by hand so she'd know what would happen if it was running. It's not a big problem really, we don't leave the dryer open except when we're getting laundry out of it.

Then later I was lying on the floor doing sit-ups and she came in and immediately plunked herself down on top of me and settled down. She'd never be that cuddly any other time, but no, now she can be cuddly and an annoyance at the same time! Multi-tasking!

Oh, that's one of the other things I was thinking about. I think I really need to work on paying attention to what I'm doing right at the moment, and putting full care and work into whatever it is I'm doing. I have a tendency to always be thinking of something else I need to do, or want to do, or something I need to plan or figure out, instead of what I'm actually doing.
Of course, when doing that, I end up functioning on auto-pilot most of the time. And I think that's why I've been forgetting to do things, or forgetting what Mom's asked me to do. I'm listening, I hear what she says, but my brain is busy with something I need to do a little later, and so whatever she told me doesn't really process and I forget it.

That isn't going to be easy because I multi-task (or perhaps I don't?) by doing that. I'm wondering if it's one of those things where if I took the time to pay attention to what I'm doing, I would end up getting that thing done faster and actually have more time in the long run? The problem is, I like efficiency, and sometimes that's the only way I feel like I'm being efficient. Because perhaps I can't at the moment be running around getting things done, but at least I can think through things that need to be thought about, right? Sadly, that also leads to me being upset when people talk to me while I'm working and thinking, because I end up seeing that as a big interruption. It's not that what they said or did bothered me, it's just that it feels like "I'm trying to figure x out, and what I should do about y, and I need to being doing z right now, and now someone is throwing another question at me and I can't handle one more!!"

I just figured this out recently, because Mom said it seemed like I wasn't interested in anything going on in the family, like I was in my own world and couldn't be bothered. *sigh* Yes, I'm afraid I was. At least I've figured out what was going on, and maybe now I can concentrate on not doing that. Does anyone else multi-task that way? It doesn't seem like very many people could do that, or we'd all walk around in a fog...not that I do that all the time, just when I'm busy.

Anyway...concentrated computer time and attention to details. Hmm...the attention to details probably has something to do with the same reason my dad and I never read the directions before trying to figure out how something works. Or maybe not, maybe that's just cause we're pretty sure we know what we're doing. I'm not sure of the percentage of times that's worked vs. the times it hasn't though...so I'm not recommending that method for everybody. ;p

I still can't get the pictures to upload, so I guess this post will have to go without pictures for right now. Maybe I'll be able to get them up sometime tomorrow.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Chocolate!!

So we had a fellowship and early "evening" church service tonight...and dessert. What was really funny is that Zoe and I both made chocolate pies...with whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top! Wow. Luckily they were a little bit different on the inside. So, here's the picture of my pie, in all its whipped creamy goodness:














Then when we got home I went for a bike ride (and got thoroughly chomped by mosquitoes!). But I got to hang out with some friends that I hadn't talked to for months, so that was nice. It's always nice to be at least be doing something fun while the mosquitoes make a buffet of you. :p I wish my friends still rode bikes though, and that there were more places to ride around here. :(

Oh look, you can make a crab as well as a cat: =^..^= -cat. ,,^..^,, -crab. Because it's so important that you know how to do that...

My friends and I had a really fun time talking together while listening to a little 4 (?) year-old talk to us non-stop about what he was pretending. It was really funny! :) At one point his shoes came untied and he decided that an African snake had untied them...so he pretended to put pepper on his shoes and the snake. At one point Zoe said something about not understanding why you would do something (I don't remember what) with a wedding cake, and the little boy thought she was talking to him and started agreeing with her that it was very silly, and he just didn't understand it. :p Zoe looked a little confused and then told him that no, she wasn't talking to him, he didn't need to worry about it! lol! Her mom decorates cakes, so I think she was saying something about what someone had ordered. We didn't realize the little boy was listening to us though! Poor kid...

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Saturday post

I'm going to half-recycle a post...or recycle a whole post for a half of this one I guess...I don't know. Anyway, recycling is good right? And I'm only recycling because I heard that song on the radio this morning, and now I have it in my head...and I wanted to share. :) Recycled post.

Anyway...I made teriyaki chicken on rice with green beans for supper last night...and I made an apple pie because we had some apples that really needed to be used. This was the first time I've tried making a lattice crust and I wasn't sure if it was going to work. My pie crust has done some strange things before...but usually only when I try to pre-bake an empty crust. It turned out fine, as you can see! Since apples aren't very impressive-looking after they're cooked, I wove it pretty close, because you don't need to see the filling. Now if it was something red or blue, I'd probably leave more space to see the pretty filling.














And I'm making another pie for tomorrow, a chocolate truffle pie. We are, yet again, doing something different for our evening service! This time, everyone's going to go over to the Beasleys for lunch and then after lunch, we'll do our regular evening study. This is really confusing, not knowing from week-to-week what we're doing! :p

Dad got the vents installed in the attic this morning...I would go take a picture, but I think it's raining...I'll get one later. He cut his hand on the siding, but all we had was Crayola bandaids, so he has a crayon bandaid. :) I got some regular ones at the store though, so he can change it to a regular one before tomorrow when he needs to help serve communion! :p

I went to a few garage sales this morning, I found a few things, and I could have gotten a cat...I didn't though, we really don't need another cat! I also saw my friend Zoe's cousins at a yard sale...I'm trying to think if I've ever seen teenage guys going to garage sales...I don't think so. Not that it's a problem or anything...garage-saling must run in their family! lol! :p

Mom and I have discovered Facebook...well, not discovered it, but are trying it out. :p I quite honestly am not quite sure what the point is...but it's awfully fun to track down all your friends and relatives! I feel like a stalker...oh well. If you've gotten a message from me, you already know I'm on Facebook...if you haven't, here's my profile. I don't think you'll be able to see that if you don't have a FB account though.

I've found all the people I can think of right now...and I'm wondering about some other people that I haven't talked to in years...hmm. To contact, or not to contact? I'm trying to think of other people I know that might be on there...I already know more people than I realized! :p

I don't know how much messing around with Facebook I'll do...it might just be a time-waster. But we'll see. And if you have an account and I haven't contacted you, let me know! :)

I'll try to take a picture of the chocolate pie before we leave tomorrow, so y'all can see what it looks like...oh boy, I have to get up early enough to make the whipped cream for the top, and put it all together. :(

Friday, August 01, 2008

August first

It's August...already.

First of all, a funny video for Friday:

Stop It ~Bob Newhart


Secondly, I was thinking recently that I really wish I had a laptop, so I could take it places. Like I could take it outside and work on stuff while being outside, or I could take it to work with me and when I have nothing to do, type recipes up. (I want to make a recipe book with all the recipes I make, so they all need to be typed up.) So I was wondering whether I could find a cheap Apple laptop on ebay...and highly doubting that I could...when it just dawned on me today that we have an Apple laptop! It's undependable and it won't connect to the internet, but it will run Microsoft Word, which is all I really need it to do!

It's a Powerbook 3400, and while it's certainly not thin and light-weight and everything that newer laptops are, it is portable. And I don't need to have an internet connection anyway. Dad had figured out a way to get it to connect (which involved resetting a bunch of things every time it got shut down) but that stopped working even. It also can't really be plugged in because something doesn't make contact properly when the adapter's plugged in, but as long as I remember to keep the batteries charged on the external charger, I should be able to keep it going...although it will shut down every time I change the battery.

I dug out all the stuff for it today, and I had to plug the adapter in and hold it in really tight, because the computer couldn't boot with just the battery. Crazy electronics...it can't run off the adapter, but it has to be plugged in to turn on! But the little "happy Mac" icon made me smile. :)








Although I imagine that if you were in a horrible mood when starting your computer up, to have it smiling at you might just push you over the edge! ;p

So, I have a laptop that I can carry around, and it will run Word, and should work most of the time. And if it doesn't, maybe I should just tell it to "stop it!". :)

That is...if Petunia even lets me use it...:









Hey, look at these! It's sheep...no it's phones...it's telephonic sheep!