1. I can growl. My old college friends used to get a kick out of it, but I rarely do it anymore....except for my dog or my little nephew. They both appreciate rare talent like that.
2. I 'know' what animals are thinking. Really. And I often let people who are with me in on it.
It's a gift.
3. I used to have a dream to animate puppets for Sesame Street. (later on it was Veggie Tales) I LOVE both of these shows. They fascinate me. I can animate almost any object you give me.
4. I'm very good at charades and Pictionary. *literal, visual thinker* I like card games, Web sudoku and raquetball. I don't like bored board games.
5. I don't like/watch reality shows (even Am. Idol), nor do I watch 24. Strange, I know. I almost didn't include this one for fear of ridicule, but there it is.... please don't hate me. ;)
Cleaning up, Drawing near Topic: God things
It was good to be in the House of the Lord today.
My husband had a great sermon.
The old covenant had the Law and the Temple, everything so laid out for God's people....for only God's people. If Gentiles wanted to come, they were allowed into the outer court to hear teaching. They could never draw near, but God did promise to remember them for their faith and devotion to Him. (Isaiah 56:3-8)
These outer courts were the very ones that Jesus cleansed with a braided cord, driving out animals and turning over tables of the men who charged the people to get appropriate coins for the Temple offerings.
Here we are, all nodding our heads. I was thinking, wow, this is interesting and I was writing it all down.
Then the zinger:
Charles parallelled Jesus' cleansing of the Temple, driving out the things that didn't belong there....WITH...Him wanting to cleanse today's Temple (our body, mind, spirit) from all the things that do not belong there....SO....that we can really worship Him in spirit and in truth, not just 'do church', but to draw near, actually into the Holy of Holies because He has made us His holy priesthood of believers.
See, we are all free to draw near to the Lord now. All of the Jews and the Gentiles can freely come....and when we do, WE become God's holy Temple, as He comes to dwell within us through the Holy Spirit. We are free from the restrictive Laws and from having to go to Jerusalem to offer our yearly sacrifices. No one is kept out now...
But with great freedom comes great responsibility and caution.
We need to make our aim pleasing the Lord, because we want to hear from Him and truely follow Him according to His way, not ours.....it was very powerful. I couldn't swallow by the end. LUMP CITY in my throat. I am going to keep this on the front burner of my mind so that the changes can take place...
....the repentance....prayer
....the replacing of my ways with His...meditate on His Word
....the shoving over of the tables, stockpiled with things that don't belong in this Temple....listening to the Spirit instead of quenching it.
.....I needed that today.....
Today's hymn seemed appropriate too:
Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord our God;?Will you pray with all your power, while we try to preach the Word??All is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down;?Brethren, pray, and holy manna will be showered all around.
Let us love our God supremely, let us love each other, too;?Let us love and pray for sinners, till our God makes all things new.?Then He’ll call us home to heaven, at His table we’ll sit down;?Christ will gird Himself and serve us with sweet manna all around.
Tangelos Topic: People/Family stories Smell is such a strong sense that one little whiff of some smell from our past can bring memories flooding back to us. My personality is extra-sensitive to the senses and I get very vivid flashbacks or mental images when I smell certain things. They are usually good things like the smell of certain colognes remind me of different people from my past, the smell of the pine woods reminds me of camping and a closeness of God's presence, the smell of a baby's sweet head reminds me of being a new mom and the sweetness of that new child.
A few days ago, I saw a neglected bowl of oranges sitting on the counter and weeded through them, having to throw out 2 because they looked iffy. Then I decided to eat one because they looked yummy......the good ones, not the squishy, shriveled ones. As I broke into that orange with my fingernail and the spray of juice from that fruit hit my hose, a flood of memories of my dad came into my head and heart and I stood there for a long time, hovering over my kitchen sink, peeling and eating the orange.
My dad was an engineer by personality. Everything had order and purpose and he loved that part of life. He lived in the house I grew up in, in Phoenix, for 30+ years and had many 'systems' that were not to be tampered with! The 2 car garage rarely housed a car. It was his shop, where he had every tool known to man. I know that because every man in the neighborhood stopped by to borrow things from my dad's garage. If one of them stopped by while he wasn't home, I'd say, "Well I don't know where it is." Which was usually responded to by, "Oh, I know right where he keeps it if you can just let me into the garage." I don't think Dad ever turned anyone away who wanted to borrow something. In fact, they often stayed to visit with him about their project and I"m sure they all got lots of advice from my dad, who could fix anything from a tiny watch to a washing machine. My dad was friend to all and everyone loved him.
While they lived in that house, he tried several garden projects. Once, he pulled out the huge bushes that shaded our backyard and put in a vegetable garden with asparagus, green beans, sometimes okra, tomatoes, and other assortments. Eventually his free child labor rebelled and he filled in the garden plot with grass and planted fruit trees. These were chopped down a few years later because the birds got most of the fruit and they got diseased. One of the first things he planted though, the things that lasted and he was never disappointed in were his tangelo trees.
Over the years, they grew higher than our house, which was 2 stories and produced hundreds, maybe a thousand or more tangelos....each! They were his pride and joy. He tended them, he pruned them, watered them faithfully, he even ordered preying mantises through the mail to let loose into the trees to eat the bad bugs. And they did, and they were fun to catch too. (he let us catch them as long as we put them back into the trees when we were done playing....which we actually did gently or we got in big trouble!)
THEN came January, February and March, in which time you were to make as many plans for Saturdays as you could so you wouldn't have to pick tangelos or worse yet....juice them! He finally got an electric juicer, but that was only in the last few years they lived there. Most of those years, those dreadful tangelos were juice by hand, the juice was poured into ice cube trays, transported to the downstairs freezer, then when frozen, popped into ziplok bags, labeled with date, number of cubes and set lovingly onto the freezer shelves.
After they were all juiced, the juice frozen into cubes, the cubes numbered and dated, he did his calculations. He actually numbered out how many cubes he had in the freezer until the next tangelo harvest! So he knew how many cubes he could eat every day. If ever a man was addicted to tangelos, he's your guy! I don't remember my dad having a selfish bone in his body. He was generous with his family and neighbors of his time and his possessions. But man, you didn't mess with his cubes!!!!
He knew if someone had been into them and we heard about it! Yes, he juiced them all, so they were HIS....kind of Little Red Hennish of him, don't you think? Well, none of us really cared much for tangelos anyway, so it was just as well. They smell much better than they taste. My husband though, was groomed by my dad to like tangelos and sometimes he looks for them in the store or threatens mentions buying a tangelo tree. Maybe it's because he didn't grow up having to pick them or juice them or clean up the kitchen after a juicing day!
So for a couple of months each year, our house smelled of tangelo juice. When the fruit was ripe, every morning, he would go out to his trees, pick a tangelo and bring it back into the house and peel and eat it methodically and thoroughly!
Since it was also the time of day when the coffee was made, the smell of fresh coffee and fresh citrus fruit wafting together in the air became a sensory memory that was deeply instilled in my mind. And it is a very pleasant one. Each morning in winter, I would come down to the kitchen to be greeted with that smell and with my cheerful dad eating his oranges and reading his Bible or some devotional book. I can still see him sitting there, munching his tangelo and looking up to say, "Gooooood morning, cricket!"
Such a sweet memory. His birthday is on Monday. He was born the same day (different year) as Martin Luther King Jr. We'll be thinking of him this year, but he won't be joining us, as he went Home to be with the Lord last August.
And I'll bet he's in charge of the tangelo trees there. I wouldn't be surprised to get to Heaven and be greeted by him with a long fruit pickin stick in his hand and the smell of a tangelo on his fingers, "Well helloooo, cricket! What took you so long? Let me show you my trees."
Forget not His benefits Topic: People/Family stories
Weather report:
Currently it is 72 degrees with a mild breeze, sunny and bright blue sky here in Phoenix.
Sure wish you were out here on the patio with me and my laptop, drinking ice water and watching the lemons on our little tree ripen and the Gerber daisies blooming. =)
The dog isn't even bothering me.....very nice day indeed.
You never can tell what the weather will do in January in Phoenix. It's been cold over the weekend, even breaking out my winter coat for the evenings, but today and the rest of the week it will be in the 70's....
......until Friday when the high will be in the 50's.
And it looks like the winter rains are coming. I love winter rains in Phoenix. I grew up here and it's the only time it really seems 'wintery'.
The dog is beside me now, bumping me with her food bowl, which she's been licking the tar out of. I guess I'll go get her some kibbles.
And I hope you're enjoying your Monday, January 8th, 2007! Each day is a gift, no matter how many trivial frustrations come with it.
Psalm 103:2-5 (NIV)
2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-
3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
Amusing stuff Topic: People/Family stories
Things I was extremely amused by recently:
****One of my teens said something that made me fall off my chair. We were up in the mountains and the air there is very dry. Oh, I should also say that she went to a youth lock in the night before and stayed up all night. She turned to me and said, "Mom, do you have any chapstick? My lips hurt real bad." To a normal person, this is not funny. It's a legitimate request. But to us whacko's who have watched Napolean Dynamite more times than we want to admit, that is pretty hilarious. She almost had it exactly right. Because of the lock in, her eyes were half open, and she drew out her words just like he does. It's actually a line from the movie that my other teen regularly says to make me crack up. (otherwise I don't know if I would have recognized it) I'm sure Emma has heard Bethany saying it to me on numerous occassions...and me cackling because Beth does a good Napolean imitation. She shouldn't have been so offended that I laughed so hard. I couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard!
****My husband and I were sitting outside on the patio. We've been trying to find our dog Winnie a good home because she has shown aggression and nipped at 2 children since we have had her. Well, we cannot find anyone to take her, even though she is a lovable dog. So Winnie was 'standing' up, her front legs in my lap, face to face with me getting some snorgling. And Charles said at that moment. "We should just be resigned to keeping Winnie instead of constantly thinking of giving her away."
At that exact moment, a smile came up on that dog's face. She had her eyes closed, mouth closed, but as Charles finished that sentence, she opened her eyes and opened her mouth to pant, which looked suspiciously like a triumphant smile.
****On my way driving down Cave Creek Road to a friend's house, I saw a little cactus or plant on the very top of a distant mountain that reminded me of a person, standing with their arms up in a triumphant Rocky pose. As I drove closer, I realized it really was the figure of a man doing the Rocky pose, maybe a statue? I looked up as we passed that mountain and realized it really was a real man. He really was doing the Rocky pose and acting very silly. I think I grinned all the way to my friend's house!
****My little nephew sat with us for the Christmas contata, right behind his parents. He is 10 months old and really enjoyed all the Christmas music, sitting on cousin Hannah's lap. Every time the music would begin, he would raise his little baby arms up in the air and 'conduct' the choir along with our choir director. (it really looked like he was praising God, but then we realized he was watching and imitating her) He was also humming along with the songs, which was nothing less than delightful and extremely entertaining!
His favorite Christmas song at home was the Little Drummer Boy. He loved the rumm puh pum pummm part, joining in on the last 'pummm'.
****During the Christmas season, I would end up in the early evening on the couch, zoned out by cold meds and congestion. We gave up satellite television a few months ago, so there wasn't much on except for the Hallmark Movie Channel. Every night in December they had some very sentimental Christmas movie. You know......the kind where the nice stranger in town turns out to be Santa Clause or where the orphans find a loving home. These are the kinds of movies I generally avoid like the plague, but there we were....might as well....it was Christmas, after all.
I love how my husband can't hide his feelings. While watching those movies, I would look over at him during some very sentimental part, thinking he'd missed it because his nose would be in his computer. But it wasn't. He loves things like that and when I'd look over, I would see him with a big grin on his face.....then our eyes would meet and we'd crack up. =)
Cold-hearted Topic: People/Family stories
Things are filling my mind to write about on my blog lately. It's just really too bad that they go through my mind when I'm driving, when I'm shopping, when I'm at church, in the shower and not when I'm actually sitting at the computer! When I sit here, my mind goes...."derrrrrrr, huh?" Very frustrating, but probably a result of the cold meds I'm taking and the cold itself. So here are some blips, as they come to me, not necessarily in sequence. =)
A few weeks ago, Maggie (my 9 year old, youngest child) came down with this cold virus too, but she got a very sore throat. I looked at it, went "eeeeeewwwww". She is quite precocious (note: that is not precious, but precocious....extra syllable there...whole nother word. Although she CAN be precious sometimes too.) ....looked at her throat..... yes, bright red, HUGE tonsils.....with a smattering of white spots.
Before I even had the flashlight put back in the drawer, she raises her eyebrows in the bossiest way, and says, "Mom, whatever you do, even if you give me 3 candies or pay me money, I am NOT going to gargle saltwater. So don't even ask me."
How.....did she know that was my next sentence?? So I just looked at her....she looked so serious....and I cracked up. There was no pretense of parent/child pecking order left here. My comeback (in true one-up-manship fashion), "Well, if you refuse to gargle with saltwater, then I don't want to hear any whining about your throat." Then I called the doctor. She hasn't been to this doctor's office yet since we've lived here less than a year, so we had to go to urgent care. I found out that new patients can't just make a sick appointment. We have to have a well visit first. (Well excuuuuuse us for being sick and not well...gee whiz.)
We sat in the urgent care parking lot (waiting room) for just over 2 hours. I was just about to order out for pizza when they called our name. *YAY* Everyone in the waiting room glared at us jealousy as we went into the inner rooms and after a short wait, we saw a young doctor. He looked at her throat...."Oh, very badly infected tonsils".....he felt her glands on her neck...."ooo, you can feel them from the outside!" A normal, good, kind, sweet mom would have been melting in sympathy for the youngster, so badly infected with germs. But me? The doctor told me that he would order a Zpack of antibiotic and make sure that several times a day, she was to gargle with saltwater.
My cold-hearted mom eyes met her disappointed, sicky eyes and all I said was one syllable....
A very told-you-so, "HA!"
After-thought: I hope the doctor didn't write that in her chart. ;)
Did I mention I've been sick? Since Thanksgiving to be precise. I have gone through 2 bottles of Tylenol Nightime cold medicine, the last of my prescription strength guafasin from last year, a bottle of Mucinex with expectorant and cough suppressant, a small boat load of Ibuprofen, bags of cough drops, and I made quite an indentation in my bottle of Mentholatum ointment too. But by far, the most interesting cold medicine on the market today is Sudafed. I used to buy Sudafed once a year by the bottle and it would happily carry me through cold/allergy seasons. This year I had to get registered in order to buy it. There is a sign on the shelf of cold meds saying "if you're looking for Sudaphedrine containing products, please ask in the pharmacy. So I asked. And they asked for my driver's license, current address information, and pass a polygraph test. Okay, I made up the polygraph part, but it was pretty intimidating to have to go through all of that in order to decongest my sinuses. I realize it is to keep track of people buying sudaphedrine and using it to make illegal drugs. I'm happy to comply, as long as they don't pull it completely from over the counter accessibility!
The funny thing is, after taking all this information and reading warnings of criminal use of the product, etc.....the girl at the pharmacy desk asks me, "Okay, how many packages would you like?" I said, "Well, I don't know. I was going to buy one, but I may as well get 2 so I don't have to go through this again soon." She said, "Are you sure you don't want more?"
She was either trying to tempt me to see if I was going to use it for criminal purposes.....or she was not getting the purpose of limited accessibility!
Mixed emotions Topic: God things
The capture and execution of Saddam Husein has me wondering what to think. A year ago, I would have thought it would be a relief to have someone who had done such evil things gone. But all I feel is a sadness. God's compassion and mercy toward us is unfathomable, but I think this sad feeling is a hint (a very slight, smidgeon....almost undetectably so) of what He feels. At least that is what I'm thinking today...about that.
Jana at Bread Crumbs put it into words in a very thoughtful way. If you have any feelings at all on the subject, you should go and read her posts.
Friday's Feast #124 Topic: Humor/memes
This is a fun little blogging game. It's called Friday's Feast...a buffet for your brain and it is located right here if you want to join in! I have been seeing this over the past year on many blogs, but this will be my first one. It's just a way to get your thoughts going and share something relevant. *usually*
Appetizer How do you usually celebrate on New Year's Eve? Having a pastor for a husband, we are usually attending some church sponsored NYEve party. This year we will be up in our old stomping gounds of Williams, AZ to attend a wedding in which my husband will sing, one of my favorite songs!
Soup Name one thing unexpected that happened to you in 2006. Many, maaaaaaany unexpected things happened in 2006. The one that stands out the most is, of course, the death of my dad in August.
Salad Where was your favorite place that you visited in 2006? We visited a beautiful place in north central Arizona back in September called Big Lake. It's like a little bit of Colorado but not so far away.
Main Course What resolution is your top priority for 2007? To find balance in our lives in this new, hectic life in the big city. Flying by the seat of my pants for another year would just about do me in.
Dessert Using just three words, describe 2006. Adjusting Stretching Amazingly blessed
Well, there is my new header, but I don't know how to make it mesh with my blog.
It seems so detached and far away.....
Any ideas?
UPDATE: Kim, you ROCK! Thank you so much! I am so jazzed to have that figured out! I had to figure it out blindly, but your info was key!, because there is no template, just a blank html space to type info into. And all the details were encoded or hidden or soemthing. So I typed into the img src tag: width=990 (trial and error finding that number) and it worked! Then I had to put the img src tag under the 'head', not in the 'head' space to get it under the ads!
Maybe some day I can pay the 5 bucks a month and have no ads on here! lol For now, that will have to do.
My daughter Maggie, several years ago, would not go to sleep during a nap. I told her if she could close her eyes long enough, she would fall asleep. So this is how I found her, sound asleep, rocks to hold her eyelids closed!
The Fullness of Time Topic: Holidays/Vacations
Join us over at Sting My Heart to see other bloggers' nativity sets or to add yours to the list!
Merry Christmas!
Rustic nativity set, handmade by my husband our second Christmas together.
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ?Abba, Father.? Now you are no longer a slave but God?s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir. Galations 4:4-7 NLT
A year in hindsight Topic: God things My mom loves my blog. But she doesn't do the internet thing or know how to work a computer. So last Christmas I printed out my blog and put it in a nice notebook for her to read through for the next year. Which then obligated me to do so again this year. =) Of course. I don't mind and love that she wants it, but it the experience of it was surprising to me.
She is going to have to be satisfied with January through June for a while. As I was going through post after post about moving, then about my dad and his struggles, it all got very heavy in my heart. There is a time to ponder things, but this is not a good time for me to get all heavy. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and there is celebrating to do. My brother is here in town for a week and we'll be getting together a lot. Maybe for the first week of the year I'll finish up printing those blog entries. July and August will be the most difficult to wade through for me.
I think it is partly my personality type that lets me lay aside something unpleasant for a while, then get back to it. (Hey, I can lay aside something really unpleasant for years and years!) But I realized as I was reading some of the entries today, that God's taken me (as well as my family) on a real journey this year. It's been one of the hardest years of my life. I hadn't realized how hard until I looked back.
And now I am even more amazed that God has given us peace and hope through these times. (after all, I could be a complete blithering idiot by now if it weren't for God's peace) One of the ways God has helped me this year is that I've been so busy, with all the events and new things, which I love. I haven't had the time to stay focused on myself and to do much wallowing. I don't think that kind of living (by the seat of your pants) is the healthiest way to live long term though, and I am trying to get a grip on this big city life now, but it's kept my mind occupied. There was always something else on the horizon, something besides myself to set my focus on. And even though it's been a whirlwind year and time has just flown by, God has made Himself so much more real and almost tangible sometimes to me, especially by seeing my dad go through mental illness and death. God's presence was right there, He was such a comfort.
I am not the kind of person who, as a habit, deeply contemplates my life and the events in it. (although I admire people who can do that...because I find it exhausting!) It's more of a gradual dawning of understanding that I get and it can be months or years after the event that I finally 'get it'. I feel kind of backwards that way, but I've come to accept it as part of who God made me. Hindsight is a very cool thing for me...God shows me things and grows me through it.
So as I go through the rest of the printing of the year's worth of typing and thinking out loud that I've done, I'm hoping to learn some worthy lessons.
Stay tuned.
I hope that you can lay aside whatever it is that you are struggling through for a while and enjoy the peace He wants to bring to your life and your spirit this year. Just take your eyes off of that distracting thing you are focused on...and fix your gaze on Jesus for a while. See if your spirit gets a breath of fresh air....I know it will.
p. s. Patrice, this is just the kind of entry you'll love...it's all personal and intimate....Merry Christmas. ;)
Escaping Topic: People/Family stories Today we stayed home.....all day long. Yes, all six of us.
What we didn't do: ...shop for anything. ...bake anything. ...make any lists. ...look at any lists. ...wrap anything. ...cry or sigh or worry or scurry.
What we did do: ...ate soup for lunch. ...tapped buttons on our computers. ...ate biscotti that was for gifts. ...ate half a pound of toffee between us all. (also meant for gifts) ...read about 25 Christmas cards that we hadn't had time to get read yet. ...took pictures with new cell phones....early Christmas gifts. ...answered the door to a gift and run friend. =) ...played one round of LOTR monopoly....Emma won. ...watched Pirates of the Carribean. (the first one) ...while snuggled under blankies. ...with movie theater style popcorn. ...talked, laughed, tickled, turned on all the twinkle lights, indoors and out, all day long!
It's good to make one day of nothing in the midst of all the hustle, bustle. Tomorrow 3 of the family are going to Mexico to hand out gifts to children at the church we sponsor in Nogales, Bethany has to work, I have one more gift to buy, perhaps a quick trip to the grocery store, and I will be baking and wrapping...all day long. (well, maybe Maggie and I will sneak in one movie, snuggled under blankies)
Bethany did have to go to work at 4pm. We all felt great sorrow for her and then made cheesy chicken green enchiladas for dinner.
The old covenant had the Law and the Temple, everything so laid out for God's people....for only God's people. If Gentiles wanted to come, they were allowed into the outer court to hear teaching. They could never draw near, but God did promise to remember them for their faith and devotion to Him. (
See, we are all free to draw near to the Lord now. All of the Jews and the Gentiles can freely come....and when we do, WE become God's holy Temple, as He comes to dwell within us through the Holy Spirit. We are free from the restrictive Laws and from having to go to Jerusalem to offer our yearly sacrifices. No one is kept out now...
Smell is such a strong sense that one little whiff of some smell from our past can bring memories flooding back to us. My personality is extra-sensitive to the senses and I get very vivid flashbacks or mental images when I smell certain things. They are usually good things like the smell of certain colognes remind me of different people from my past, the smell of the pine woods reminds me of camping and a closeness of God's presence, the smell of a baby's sweet head reminds me of being a new mom and the sweetness of that new child.
While they lived in that house, he tried several garden projects. Once, he pulled out the huge bushes that shaded our backyard and put in a vegetable garden with asparagus, green beans, sometimes okra, tomatoes, and other assortments. Eventually his free child labor rebelled and he filled in the garden plot with grass and planted fruit trees. These were chopped down a few years later because the birds got most of the fruit and they got diseased. One of the first things he planted though, the things that lasted and he was never disappointed in were his tangelo trees. 
Did I mention I've been sick? Since Thanksgiving to be precise. I have gone through 2 bottles of Tylenol Nightime cold medicine, the last of my prescription strength guafasin from last year, a bottle of Mucinex with expectorant and cough suppressant, a small boat load of Ibuprofen, bags of cough drops, and I made quite an indentation in my bottle of Mentholatum ointment too. But by far, the most interesting cold medicine on the market today is Sudafed. I used to buy Sudafed once a year by the bottle and it would happily carry me through cold/allergy seasons. This year I had to get registered in order to buy it. There is a sign on the shelf of cold meds saying "if you're looking for Sudaphedrine containing products, please ask in the pharmacy. So I asked. And they asked for my driver's license, current address information, and pass a polygraph test. Okay, I made up the polygraph part, but it was pretty intimidating to have to go through all of that in order to decongest my sinuses. I realize it is to keep track of people buying sudaphedrine and using it to make illegal drugs. I'm happy to comply, as long as they don't pull it completely from over the counter accessibility! 
My mom loves my blog. But she doesn't do the internet thing or know how to work a computer. So last Christmas I printed out my blog and put it in a nice notebook for her to read through for the next year. Which then obligated me to do so again this year. =) Of course. I don't mind and love that she wants it, but it the experience of it was surprising to me.
