Happy International Women's Day!!

Stand proud, my sisters.

Celebrate the amazing women in your lives, my brothers.

Remember the ones who are hurting and abused. ((prayers))

International Women's Day Website

**breathing**

OK, so by providential arrangement, I came across a job posting looking for a motivational speaker. So tomorrow night I'm taping my audition speech. And Friday I send it all out--audition tape, resume, and cover letter.

And then I wait.

Please pray!!

I want one

I really need one of these.

Hello, Mr. Robin!

I saw a flock of robins yesterday. That's not all that unusual since they winter down here, but this flock was bigger than normal. And so I wonder... are they grouping up to fly back north? 'Cause that would mean that spring really is peeking around the corner!!! :-)

I can't wait for things to warm up permanently. It's about 70 degrees here today. I love being able to walk out the door and not flinch when the cold air hits me. But I opened all the windows and doors yesterday, and I'll do the same thing when I get home today. It's marvelous.....

Announcement

Excuse me, everyone. I have an announcement.

Winter is over. The end.

It is going to be 60 degrees outside today, and winter is over in my head. So from now on, it's all spring clothes. Cute hats. Flirty little scarves. Short skirts and sandals. I am going to bring spring in by sheer force of will and pretty dresses. No more cold for this girl. I am done with winter.

Thank you.

That is all.

See Spot Grow

And Tom and Jane and Sarah and Harry and....






Little green seedlings are popping up all over the place. There's at least one of everything peeking out of his or her comfy little peat pot. It won't be long now until they graduate to the big plant pots. :-)

Beware the LGSs!

The LGSs are coming! The LGSs are coming!

This is what they looked like when I left this morning:



And this is what I found when I went home for lunch!!!




We have growth in the flower, bean, cucumber (above), and herb (below) quadrants:

Starlog Entry 823472450sdliksg7b890werjg

[BEGIN LOG ENTRY]

Tuesday finished off fast and furious with the Little Green Seedlings (LGSs) popping up in several cells.



Overnight, the situation accelerated. Wednesday morning found the LGSs pushing ever closer to the roof of their domicile.



Great watchfulness and caution is called for now. The LGSs are on the move! It won't be long before the last of them break free....

[END LOG ENTRY]

UPDATEUPDATEUPDATEUPDATEUPDATE

Day Three of the Great Garden Gallivant:

The seeds are sprouting! We have growth in cells A2, E4, and A8 (per the charts in the previous post ;-)). A8 is still only visible through a tiny crack in the peat, so here are pictures of

A2


and E4.


Sigh....aren't they precious?

I know you all want to get some sleep tonight...

...so just in case you were wondering where each plant is slumbering in my seed tray, here's a diagram. ;-)

Snarky alert!

If you're not in the mood for snarky, read no further. 'Cause this just makes me boil.

Check out The Modesty Survey. I'm sure they mean well, and I'm truly not impugning their motives when I say this, but what are they thinking? How can this not turn into anything other than a list of arbitrarily defined rules drawn from a statistically invalid survey? Is this really anything more than one more stick to beat women over the head with? As if we all don't get beat over the head enough with the modesty stick and the submission stick enough already?

I am an ardent supporter of modest dressing for men and women, but I hate hate HATE the overemphasis on female modesty to the virtual exclusion of male responsibility. (And for the record, I'm not accusing the Harris brothers of doing this. I'm not.) It's a murky, self-defeating path. No matter what a girl wears or doesn't wear, somebody somewhere could "stumble." What are we supposed to do? Never come out of the house and--for goodness sake stay away from the windows!

Women ought to dress modestly because it reflects their worth as children of God. Women ought to dress modestly because it strikes one more blow against the sick idea of women as sex objects. Women out to dress modestly because it'll help keep at least some of the creeps away. And women ought not to intentionally provoke lustful thoughts in men not their husbands because that kind of behavior doesn't reflect the kind of love the body of Christ is supposed to demonstrate.

But strangely enough, the only one of those principles that gets taught and emphasized is that last one. The one that takes all the responsibility off of the men. The one that makes all women subject to the frailities of all men and in doing so makes all women subject to all men.

OK, breathe....

The following bit of genius, I'm afraid I can't lay claim to, but I was lucky enough to get permission to post it up.

What if ....we get turned on by a man in jeans that ride low on his hips or a tshirt that pulls across a broad back? Would we dare ask them not to dress that way JUST IN CASE they came across a girl that struggled with looking at nice figures? Would we ask them to wear their hair sloppy or not wear the latest fashions so we wouldn't be tempted to look? MEN--don't brush your teeth...cuz ya know what...I like a fresh mouth with pearly whites. I might actually look twice and think "nice teeth , cute lips." and you know where THAT will lead! Yessir...I will most likely SIN in my thoughts about your nice teeth and cute lips...and you don't want to make a sister "stumble" do you? And those forearms and manly hands!! What a serious weakness that is to many women I know. We'll often whisper to one another "Did you see his forearms ? They were huge! And his hands! *sigh* So handsome. Just a light dusting of hair." Men, did you know this was a big thing for us? And since you are so concerned with us girls covering up to keep men from 'stumbling'...you need to award us the same favors. Heaven knows when I see man's hands, I just can't stop thinking about them all day. It would help if you wore gloves. Seriously..cuz then we wouldn't see your man hands and we wouldn't be tempted. And the forearm thing...wear long sleeves. Even in summer. I know how you hate to do that in summer time...but all those muscle shirts just send us swooning. Which in turn leads to sinning. We can't figure out why men would walk around flaunting such things in our faces!

Just last week I saw a man with a broad back, a nice-fitting t-shirt that showed his broad back , and when I looked at his hands, he had them decorated with a watch and ring , his jeans fit perfectly to his trim hips and thighs. He smiled at me as I walked past and his teeth...wow. Even and straight and whiter than white. I could tell he was wearing lip balm because his lips were full too. He probably used the excuse of "dry lips" but we women know he does that so we'll look. WHY WHY WHY would he do that? Why would he go out in public just to stir us women up like that? He has got to know he's asking for it dressed like that. Women WILL hit on him. How can we not? He clearly is dressing and grooming to get our attention. And biblically speaking , that just isn't right. I could pull dozens of scriptures that show a man should only do those things for his wife.

Which brings me to bathing suits. The way those boxer shorts sit on low on those trim hips? Yum. ohmyohmyohmy. Something needs to be done about that. Not even a shirt to cover your nipples. And then you have to do some sort of sport to show your athletic prowess. Either volleyball or surfboarding. We see you. We watch you. We like it and you know it. We see you strut your stuff. All to get us riled up and make us “stumble.”

In the end the men are only hurting themselves by grooming and dressing fashionably. Sooner or later they will be hurt by the way they've been treating themselves. Let us women help you repent from your flashy, flirty ways. Let us teach you how to dress so we won't 'stumble' and stare. Sure it may not be as quirky , fun and individual , but that's okay....because you know deep down you want to please us. Your future wife will thank us for teaching you how to dress modestly.

Honest.

I'm baaaaack.....

I am very pleased to announce that it seems that my carpal tunnel has gone into remission. :-) Many, many thanks to all of you that prayed for me. I am very thankful that God has cleared that up.

I embarked today on the adventure that is my summer garden. Hooray! My seeds finally, finally arrived. (I will NEVER buy seeds from Burpee again. :-( It was a very, very bad experience.)

Here are the peat pots and the peat tray, floating about merrily soaking up hot water.

My happy little seeds! We have dahlias, impatiens, mixed flowers, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, peppers, oregano, thyme, basil, and cilantro.

And the fully assembled project.

The first seedlings should start peeking out in about a week. If I don't die of anticipation by then ;-), I'll be sure to post an update.

Hiatus

I know I've been gone for a while, but I'm afraid I'm going to be out of commission for a bit longer. My doc says that I've got carpal tunnel syndrome, so that means as little typing as possible for at least the next two weeks and possibly longer. Please pray that the braces heal it up! We don't want to consider the other options. :-(

Say cheese!

I am inspired. This weekend, Chris gave me an early Christmas present, a beautiful full-color book on photography. So we dug out his film camera, and I have been playing with it ever since. Photography has always tickled the one very small creative bone that I possess, largely I think, because of my dad's constant instructions on how to take good pictures with his camera. The goal is to have a decent command of aperture and what not before going to Yucatan next summer. I can't wait!!!

Let the record reflect

The more reading I do for this Family and Society class that I'm taking, the more thankful I am for my hubby. Our relationship is so far out of the average, and he takes such better care of me than the average would predict that I can hardly stand it.

Just for the record, I love him to pieces. He's the best!

Ah the mountains....

Psalm 98

O sing to the LORD a new song,
For He has done wonderful things,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him.
Tthe LORD has made known His salvation;
He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.
He has remember His lovingkindness and his faithfulness to the house of Israel;
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth;
Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
With the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
Shout joyfully before the King, the LORD.
Let the sea roar and all it contains,
The world and those who dwell in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
Let the mountains sing together for joy before the LORD,
For He is coming to judge the earth;
He will judge the world with righeousness and the peoples with equity.

Fair Food

OK, I know it's been forever, but I promised to put up pictures of the State Fair food, and here they are. Don't worry--I kept them in the fridge so they wouldn't get moldy. :-)






I took pictures of the food places we didn't get to, but as you can see, we enjoyed what we did get immensely. :-)

Eaten but not pictured: basket of cheesy fries and one very sugary funnel cake (that one's for you, Becca!)

On this auspicious day

Please welcome to the sidebar the two newest members who are also arguably the cutest, Chloe and Eli.

We're going to the fair tonight!!!

I'm so excited! I can't wait to get there. I've only been to a state fair once (maybe?).

I'll post up pictures of the food.....mmmmmmm.

Hooray!

My MP3 player is finally here!! Major kudos to my bro who found me a 4 gb player for $45. Thanks, bro!!! :-)