Twenty & Four

http://www.othersomethings.com/?p=125

Everyone knows wise advice can be found in fortune cookies.

“You find beauty in ordinary things, do not lose this ability.”

or

“A thrilling time is in your immediate future.”

Things that  anyone with half a brain could type up and ship off to Chinese take outs across the nation, knowing they’ve enriched lives in doing so.

This however, I have never seen the likes of. It’s wisdom is so far beyond my  comprehension that I fear I’ll never truly understand or appreciate the full meaning.

If you can, in any way offer enlightement on what you are about to witness, please do not hesitate.

Help me. Please. Please, make this make sense!!!

Okay. I just turned on Fresh Air. What the hell are they talking about?

http://www.othersomethings.com/?p=122

If wishes were fishes, I would never utter the word wish. Ever.

Thankfully they’re not. And this downpour is making me wish I had built myself a rainbarrel. The runoff from my roof could have filled it in 30 seconds.

Then I could run a hose out to my garden with a timer on it and never have to battle snakes to water my plants again!!!!

Big wish, I know. But look at this!

I'm at the doctor. Man just walked past the "no food or drink" sign while chomping on his Cheetos.

I tweeted about this, but I'll post, too: I purchased tickets to ascend into the crown of the Statue of Liberty for our October NYC trip. In case you didn't know, yesterday the crown re-opened for the first time since 09/11/01. Also, I scheduled our tour for the day after Dad's 62nd birthday to get him the senior discount. Heh.

I am pretty excited, ngl. Even if we are going to waste most of one day at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Sigh.

On a completely unrelated topic, I have a pretty good-quality bootleg rip of The National's new song "Blood Buzz Ohio" (as evidenced by my "now playing" widget), so if anyone's interested, I'll upload it.

This shirt would have been great for #TAM7 http://ping.fm/VSC6t Probably too late to order.

http://www.othersomethings.com/?p=114

Live blogging (sorta) Shoreline. Pondering if this is too redundant, since the whole thing is available on video. I’m going to post it right away, I’ll fix typos and add pics later

Top level of the theater is Shoreline Baby Factory, as usual. 3 babies under 4 weeks old, the Landry’s 4 day old boy. Dawn, you crazy!

Music by common thread – I thought it was going to be reggae all morning, but no, just first two songs. *whew!*

Videos – announcements, need to be run about 2 seconds longer cause I’m missing the last line on the texty ones. Video of last months baptism – nice vignette effect on it, well edited.

Sermon. (some of this is going to be my paraphrasing or interpreting, obviously.)
I think this is a vision message. Eric is jumping right into scripture. John 1. No personal story, no joke – he’s changing it up. This is going to take me a minute to figure out what his point is. He’s using a lot of biblical examples that aren’t immediately connected in my mind.

Uh oh, he’s warning us he might get boring. Hm.

Talking about ah-ha moments, about peoples lives being changed, about following vs. Believing? I must have missed something. Oh. Following first, and then believing. Like the apostle Matthew.

Now we’re in Romans. Reaming (reaming? Really iPhone?) BREAKING down the word righteousness. “A right standing with God.” A status that can only be given BY God. We can’t create our own righteousness. How? Well, Jesus. Faith in Him. If you believe, you have faith.

If you don’t believe you’ve ever sinned, ask a family member. All fall short.

I keep looking at my ankle because a phantom spider is crawling on it. Aghhhhhhh…

One of the bible’s existential questions: Why did God make rules we can’t keep? Because we thought we could be just like him (snake in the garden?), and he was proving us wrong. Proving, essentially, that we need him.

Here is the personal story – stealing coke bottles to redeem them for a nickel.

Jesus redeemed us like a coke bottle. Is it me, or is something not working with this analog?

Jesus applied his redemption policy retroactively. Not just for people of his day and from every day on, but for the folks from before he walked ye old earth as well.

God is the just. Jesus is the justifier.

This is the impetus of Shoreline. Creating a place where people can just follow. Our “pressure free, hassle free” atmosphere is for this reason. Don’t want to perpetuate the idea that what you do at church, how often you volunteer, if you bring your bible with you, has ANYTHING to do with taking the step to Follow Jesus. He said to Matthew “follow me.” and that’s what we are encouraging. Matthew followed. And when he did, the belief came.

He explains why we ask people to take the next step, after following and believing, to serve. Why we ask people to give. Why we ask people to make room for visitors. Why we invite people to go to life groups.

Someone at some point in your life made the effort for you. And now you’re here. Now it’s your turn to make the effort for someone else.

Now he’s moving into prayer – oh wait, throwing in a call to salvation. Good move.

Wrapping it up.

Plug for the panera lunch, plug for church at McGuire’s.

One more song. Matt Kearney, Hunter Dawson style.

Leaving theater to get Ella from the nursery, I’m PRAYING she doesn’t get sick this week from it.

That’s it for now.

I think blogging the service helped me take it in more. I’ve never been a good note taker, but this kind works for me. I might do it again. If no one objects.

http://www.othersomethings.com/?p=113

If you’re a dude, this post is not for you.

If you’re a woman with any amount of literary dignity, this post is not for you.

No, this post is for Leah – Circa 1994.

When I was 12 or something, I read the “love comes softly” book series. Basically a more overtly Christian little house on the prairie style tale.

Apparently Hallmark made some movies out of the books, and while it was 15 years since I last picked up one of them, if im remembering even 10% of thr details right, these movies are total bastardizations. Seriously, why call it by the same name if nothing else is even remotely the same?

I know, I know. “the book is always better than the movie. ” well, that doesn’t really apply here because that would be implying the books were good. I mean, they were fine. But they werent masterpieces of fiction by any means.

So what is going on with these movies?

A. They thought the books were soooooooo grood and decided they needed to be made into movies.

B. They decided little house on the prairie needed a revival, and picked these books to take names and places from but nothing else.

If a, BIG FAIL. If b, why bother? Why not just make up your own crappy names and places and call a spade a spade?

Seriously.

Aaaaaaand I’m watching them anyway. I’m such a loser.

Okay, after the failboat that was 2.02, 2.03 renewed my faith in True Blood. Thank you, Raelle Tucker.

( Yeah, Momma keeps her doll collection in my closet. )

In a week, I'll be in Vegas. For a week.

http://www.othersomethings.com/?p=112

I think I have a pretty good vocabulary. I was that nerdy kid who ran out of things to read so I read medical textbooks and the dictionary. My spelling of all those words sometimes fails, but nobody is perfect. Oh, and typos. I’ve decided not to stress about typos on this blog, they happen and I fix them sometimes. But the iPhone’s auto-complete and correct feature tends to kick me down a path of infuriating typos every day. A few days ago I tried typing “helper” and it correct the word to “leper.” very intuitive, apple – most people probably DO talk about leprosy with more frequency than they they do about helping. Granted, without the phone I wouldn’t be blogging at all, so the trade is more than fair. Just don’t think I’m a world class dolt because something says “of” instead of “is”. Or if lepers join the conversation without warning.

Words. Right.

So now Ella is building her vocabulary.

She understands rather a lot. But she only speaks a few of those words. Ok, like three.

Dad.
Cheese.
Uh-oh.

I don’t if uh-oh counts as a word, since it’s sort of like “huh” or “um”. Just a filler sound appropriate to the moment. But she says it when she drops something, etc., so she has it right at least.

I can only conclude that words do not exist for her when it comes to describing me. All lack of any consistant sound in reference to her mother is pretty solid evidence of that, right?

She has many gestures in place of words. Goodbye is a solid wave. All gone is a palms up move. No and yes are appropriate head movements. Pointing occurs with pretty much every third thought that flits through her mind so I don’t know how to qualify that gesture. Anything related to drinking is a search for her sippy cup. I guess that’s not a gesture – but it is the action accompanied by the word, so…

Ok. It’s not that many.

Time to word up, Ella. Your three words are cute, but they’re not going to get you far in this life. You have to add at least a few adjectives to make it past the front door. And people who just say “cheese” and “uh-oh” all the time aren’t people at all but are battery opperated toys made by Hasbro.

Overall good progress. Let’s keep it moving.

Book meme from hopelessfangirl
( Continue! )

http://www.othersomethings.com/?p=111

I haven’t had much to say the last few days. I don’t have a problem with that, do you?

Yesterday I got knocked flat with strep throat. Don’t know how I got it – one of lifes little mysteries. A trip to the dr., 2 shots, a prescription and a handful of painkillers later, I feel pretty much the same except my fever keeps coming and going and I feel like a menopausal woman stuck in a freezer. Alternating between freezing under a blanket, then boiling up so hot I have to check the thermostat to make sure it’s not 90 in here. Rinse, repeat.

Anybody want to come clean my kitchen while I’m down for the count? Any takers? No?

Darn.

Ok, here is a funny story. Sort of. Last night my loving husband offered to make me a cup of tea with honey and lemon. The staple of sore throat remedies, right? I thought that was great. I took a sip, and immediately tears started pouring from my eyes – apprently one of Shannon’s tried and true sore throat remedies involves cayenne pepper. He added it to the tea and failed to mention the fact.

I was in so much extra pain, I started hurling hateful things at him and actually swore at him for the first time in my life. That obviously was incredibly uncharitable of me and I felt horrible afterward – he was just trying to help. I apologized. But I have tried the cayenne thing before and already knew it didn’t do the trick for me – rather made things worse. But he didn’t know that.

Ah well. He took me to the doctor and entertained Ella for the long wait, and he’s a wonderful husband. I appreciate him so much. Even if my throat was burninating the countryside. And the peasants. And all the people everywhere. In their thatched roof cottages.

I’m going to go quadruple check the thermostat. This is ridiculous.

• Oh man...strep throat is kicking my butt.

the end.

(Part of) What I did today was to make a strawberry-rhubarb crumble. I'd never cooked with rhubarb before, so it was slightly adventurous. Or so I thought, until I discovered that uncooked it's like harder, less-stringy celery, and cooked, it's like a softer, more-tart cross between strawberries and apples.

AND DELICIOUS. I'd had it before, of course, but what I made today is probably the best. Not to brag. It's just the truth.

( Within are pictures of the construction, and of the final product. Very porny. )