Month: October 2008

Monday Stuff

Weekend Snapshot(s) – On the Move

Karen

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Share your weekend snapshot.

We were a family on the move this weekend.

Saturday, the husband and I drove to Mt. Vernon for the Apple Butter Makin’ Days’ Festival. (I know my mom is probably blinking in shock over that sentence *grin*). It was a gorgeous day and I was craving apple butter. Seriously, the apple butter at the Apple Butter Makin’ Days is THE best apple butter I’ve ever tasted.

So, we drove 20 minutes and bought a jar. We did walk around and look at all the cool crafts – in fact, I bought GD’s first birthday gift, a wooden keychain with his name engraved on it – but we didn’t stay very long. The place was PACKED and it was like walking through a hive of busy, stinky (the air was thick with BO!) bees.

By the time we got back home, it was time to leave to take MK up to the high school to play with the marching band – again. Last weekend was optional and for extra credit. This week was mandatory and for a grade, so his entire band class showed up.

We (and Springfield’s entire south side) went for ice cream afterward. It was a nice, relaxing family outing and even GD loosened up by the time it was all over. (He was pretty stiff and awkward in the stadium, but I think that was largely due to the fact that we had about four HOT girls sitting behind us and he was feeling self-conscious.

I’m so THANKFUL not to be a teenager anymore. 🙂 )

After Bible study Sunday, we went and had our family pictures taken at Sears. They are REALLY good, except for one thing – my hair looks hideous. Seriously. I love this cut (it’s layered all over again as opposed to just being one length), but I still haven’t quite figured out how to style it so it looks like I slept on it in the pictures. Or maybe I’m just used to having poofy 80’s hair – who knows. At any rate, I love the poses and my guys all did really great so overall, I’m pretty happy with them. I will be posting the family shot in Saturday’s Photo Hunt – stay tuned.

After we had our pictures taken, we coaxed GD into getting behind the wheel of the husband’s truck, and we took him to a parking lot to try it out.

Driving - First Time

If you look closely, you can juuust make out the whites of his knuckles. In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard the boy’s heart thumping through the seat. *grin*

Other than whiplash from being jerked around so much (I was in the back seat – he has an extended cab, the husband was in the passenger seat), he didn’t do too badly.

No. He doesn’t have his permit yet. Ssh. And we have NO intentions of taking him on ANY roads, country or otherwise, but I think the husband is sort of excited about teaching GD to drive and just couldn’t hold it in any longer.

GD drove the truck for about fifteen minutes. He circled around the parking lot several times. He practiced parking and backing up (I lost about six months off my life the first time he laid on the accelerator and nearly backed into a light pole) and tried to get a grip on turning. Now granted, the truck is huge and a bit awkward to begin with, but there was no way in Hades I was allowing the boy to drive my Vibe so he sort of didn’t have a choice but to get used to it. But he did pretty well considering this was his first time getting behind the wheel.

And afterward? His eyes were SPARKLING with excitement.

Behind the Wheel - First Time

Sunday afternoon, the husband parked his truck in our backyard and proceeded to cover it with plastic.

Taping it Up 2

It was sort of hard to cover considering it was pretty windy.

Taking it Up

But after he covered it, he then spray painted the bed to cover the rust and scratches.

It looks almost brand new.

That’s what we do. We monkey-rig our belongings to mask the fact that it’s old and well used. But hey, it’s better than forking over cash, and going into debt, to buy a new one, right? 😀

Monday Morning Meme

Monday Morning Meme – October 13th

Karen

All you have to do is answer the questions below either in the comment section, or on your blog. And elaborate! Make these questions show your unique and special personalities. This meme entry will post at 12:01 every Monday morning and will be the first postentry listed on WFK all day Monday morning. (This is an all-day Monday meme, so please, play all day!)

Monday Morning Meme at writefromkaren.com

October 13th Questions:

1.If your children are going trick-or-treating this year, what costumes are they wearing? Do you take them door-to-door or do you take them to a sponsored event? Tell us about the last time you dressed up for Halloween. How do you feel about Halloween in general?

2. Do your friends and family read your blog? How does this knowledge affect your writing? Do you feel like you can totally be yourself on your blog? Where do you draw the line when it comes to disclosing too much about your life on your blog?

3. Are you an early bird or a night owl? What do you like to do in the early morning hours or late at night? How do your sleeping patterns affect the rest of your family?

4. Do you lie about your age? Why or why not?

Monday Morning Meme Participants

1. Marianne
2. Jodi
3. Judy		 4. Dawn\’s Daily Life
5. Sue
6. Rachel		 7. Oregonsunshine
8. Nicole
9. PhoenixTheBloggingMama

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

General

Joke: Masculine or Feminine?

Karen

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

‘House’ for instance, is feminine: ‘la casa.’
‘Pencil,’ however, is masculine: ‘el lapiz.’

A student asked, “What gender is computer?”

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men’s group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender (la computadora), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (el computador), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Abundant Life

Teaching: Tools for Basic Bible Study Part Seven

Karen

Read part one, part two, part three, part four, part five or part six.

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

From the Bible Study Guide

Principles and Keys to Bible Study

One of the major reasons why people have different ideas concerning what the Bible says is because they use different rules or standards for interpreting it. We believe that the following principles and keys are essential to understand and apply if Christians are to arrive at a correct understanding of the Bible. We have divided these into two major categories:

1. Principles of biblical interpretation
2. Keys to biblical interpretation

The “principles” are the basic assumptions upon which we base our study of the Bible. We freely admit that people have challenged and disagreed with these principles through the years. Obviously, for example, if a person does not believe in God, then the idea that the original text of the Bible was authored by God is preposterous. As for us of Spirit & Truth Fellowship International, we believe that God exists and that He has communicated with man via the document we refer to as the Bible. We believe there are pre-suppositional truths upon which genuine and profitable study of the Bible must be built, and we have attempted to set them forth in this study guide.

In contrast to the “principles” mentioned above, the “keys” to biblical interpretation are the rules and guidelines we must follow to come to a correct interpretation and understanding of Scripture. Keys “unlock” what is unknown so that it can be known and understood. It is these keys that clarify how and from where apparent contradictions enter into Scriptures. Every serious student must keep in mind the principles and the keys as he studies in order to arrive at a proper understanding of the Bible.

Vodpod videos no longer available.


(If this video will not play for you, you can find the original file on this page).

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page.

Next week, part eight. Thank you for visiting and God bless.

General

In Case You Missed It…

Karen

I confess, I have a “thing” for Factcheck.org. I love reading/hearing about all the truncated quotes and misleading claims, from both sides, because let’s face it, politics are fascinating, in a morbid kind of way. The trick is to weed through the rhetoric and ignore *media bias and find the truth – and then make your decision based on that truth.

Don’t base your political opinions on what your neighbor is doing. Don’t base them on what is popular. Base them for what is right. For what is right for this country. We don’t need any more spending. We don’t need our government to hold our hands but to guide us down a successful and prosperous road (if we choose to go that route).

We need to hold our politicians accountable for the funding they’ve received, not give them more money to squander away. We need to make sure they spend OUR money wisely. We need them to do some internal butt-kicking and make sure Washington is doing what WE are paying them to do FOR US.

Here’s a wrap-up video from Factcheck.org. Again, don’t be sucked into the emotions – the media is playing you like a well-tuned instrument.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

*One media bias example, Sarah Palin’s photo on the cover of Newsweek: The media manipulation to subliminally impact the populace to vote for the party of the media’s choice by keeping Palin’s photo intact, untouched, when, in comparison, the Newsweek cover with Obama…at more of a distance without one obvious facial flaw and a light diffusing from the top of his head, which made him look like a moment in the movie The Ten Commandments — the halo effect told a lot about the “messiah-like” impression that this publication was attempting to create to influence the readership.

I personally think the whole controversy is ridiculous and in fact, only showcases how beautiful Palin is without the fancy touch-ups; it makes her appear more “real.”

Why is it so hard to treat candidates, from both sides of the fence, equally?

And may I just ask, what was the deal with the byline on the Palin cover?

“She’s One of the Folks.”

Is this implying that being regular “folks” is a bad thing?

Because I like being a regular folk. In fact, I prefer it.

Friday Fun

Fleeting Thoughts

Karen

I can’t believe this weather. It. Has. Been. Gorgeous. As in, sunny and low 70’s gorgeous. And LOW humidity! That’s really saying something for this area of the country. (I live in SW Missouri, in case you’re curious).

The tips of the trees are beginning to turn. I really hope we have a blinding in-your-face sort of fall. I am the most relaxed (and dare I say happiest?) this time of year!

I think Google is mad at me. And I’m not even sure I can explain this, but I’ll try. I purchased my own domain name – writefromkaren.com. I’ve had it for quite some time, actually. Anyway, when I moved my blog over to wordpress.com and redirected my domain to this URL (so that when you brought up my blog, my URL showed http://writefromkaren.com instead of https://writefromkaren.wordpress.com) I noticed something really curious – the number of visitors to my site plummeted. Which doesn’t really bother me overmuch, I don’t base my blog success on how many hits I receive, but I was curious.

So, I changed my blog URL back to https://writefromkaren.wordpress.com. And suddenly, I started receiving hits again.

And then, being the dolt that I am, I forgot about that little experiment and changed it back to http://writefromkaren.com. And when nearly a week had gone by and no one had entered my photo contest (what is up with that, btw? The photo contests are usually so popular!), I began to wonder what was going on. Oops, it was because of the URL change. (I’m assuming! Maybe people don’t like me anymore).

So, I changed it back to https://writefromkaren.wordpress.com again.

Apparently, Google gets cranky when you toggle back and forth like that. I didn’t know that, but I read it somewhere.

So … I need to quit messing with stuff and allow Google’s spiders free reign. WELCOME GOOGLE! (It never hurts to do a little butt kissing, now and again).

I just received a reminder call from Sears Portrait Studio. We are scheduled to go in this Sunday and have our family picture taken. The last time we did this was in 2006. I have no idea what we’re going to wear. I dressed (the boys would die of humiliation if they knew I share the fact that I “dress” my kids when it comes to picture time. HEY! Pictures are important to me, they aren’t going to look like homeless geeks that day, mmkay?) the boys in sweaters last time, I’m thinking something a bit more dressy this go-around. In fact, I think I’ll shop for some oxford shirts for the boys today. Then all my guys could wear different colored oxfords and me … well, I’ll wear something to color coordinate.

I know. I put WAY too much thought into getting our pictures taken.

Speaking of pictures – we took a bunch of random pictures of our family outside in our yard this time last year. And they were some of my favorite pictures of our family. We set our camera up on a tripod and the husband had one of those remote control things and just began clicking away. There are several where we’re all laughing or just acting goofy and I LOVE them! I think we’ll do that again. In fact, this weekend is supposed to be nice and we live just a half mile from the lake … maybe we’ll go down and take some casual family pictures this weekend. (maybe)

The boys will be THRILLED! *grin*

GD is riding in a car, with a stranger, today. And I’m not exactly worried, but … okay, I’m a little worried. He is going to a park with his Graphic Design class today to take some pictures. And considering he’s only 15 and not driving, he needed a ride.

His teacher offered to take him and two other classmates in her car (and yes, I asked if it was just going to be him and his teacher. Because if so? I would have driven him myself). I’m nervous because he’ll be putting his life in someone else’s hands. She better take good care of him or I’ll kick her ass.

Just sayin’.

MK has been limping for a solid week now. And not just a little limp, a bona fide lopsided walk sort of limp. He says his heel is hurting him. But he doesn’t want to go to the doctor. And it doesn’t hurt him when he runs, only when he walks.

WTH? What sort of pain only hurts when you’re walking and not running? Shouldn’t that be the other way around. So, I’m wondering if it’s his way of getting attention or trying to draw sympathy from people or what. I can’t decide what is wrong with that boy. We’re going to give it another week and if it’s still hurting, I’ll take him in.

But I really don’t think it’s anything serious. I’ve looked at his heel and it looks fine (though that’s not always a good indication, I know) and I watch him when he’s not looking – he limps sometimes, and sometimes he doesn’t.

Mainly when he knows I’m watching him.

Hhmm … suspect.

I think I’m wearing the wrong kind of makeup. Look at this picture:

Pale Face

Look at pale my face is!! Compare the skin on my face to the skin on my chest – VERY DIFFERENT shades. I think my makeup is too light. Which wouldn’t surprise me because I’m not the sort of person who spends too much time thinking about what makeup I’m wearing. It covers blotchy spots and freckles? Works for me!

I think I’ll buy a little darker foundation and see if that helps.

Of course, it would help if I wore blush but that takes time and … I don’t really care all THAT much.

I can’t decide if I like reading Dr. Laura’s blog or not. Though I like the woman, and I like what she has to say (most of the time), I think she might be just a tad too off-putting for my tastes. I’m pretty arrogant in my opinions, but I’m a marshmallow compared to this woman.

Read this blog entry and then tell me what you think.

Me? I think feminism HAS gotten way out of hand, but geez, not every woman aspires to be a 50’s wife cardboard cutout.

Thoughts?

And speaking of blog entries – here are some that really touched me this week:

Huckkdoll’s Carnage

The best pouty face I’ve EVER seen over at A Whole Lot of Nothing.

I’m REALLY enjoying Abbey Ryan’s art. She posts a new painting each day and you can even buy it from her on eBay!

Spidey’s dance totally made my week at Mommy’s Martini.

If you have some fun/interesting/touching blog links to share, please do! I’m always looking for new blogs to add to my reader.

Have a great weekend, everyone!