Links for 2011-05-20

Serious

:: The Tulip Girl posts this quote from Bryan Chapell, and not a moment too soon. I need this kind of encouragement.

::Some of you may know that my school days are among my least fasvorite memories. Here, Ann Voskamp writes about redemption for painful memories.

::You knit me together in my mother's womb. Click.

Silly

::Smiaguel. Hahahaha.

::A shorn alpaca.

Other

::Yumm. More in-a-jar baking.

::Families need each other. If it's true among the animals, how much more among us people?

Dancing in Public

I'm aggravated at YouTube's not letting me embed this right here on my blog, but OH WELL.

Please, please click through this link and go watch this awesomely cool YouTube video. Please.

A List of Short Posts all Rolled Into One Post

For my birthday, I received a Lodge Reversible Grill/Griddle. Last night, I made pancakes on it. Love it. It cooks so well!!

I want these biscuits. Right NOW.

The last few days around my house have been like a sewing sweatshop. I'm sewing, sewing, sewing! BUT last night I sewed fleece for the first time, and sewed a zipper for the first time...I sewed a zipper onto fleece. Something cozy is on it's way!

I recently got a promotion at work. Now I teach art lessons, science demos, and story time. It's been good so far.

LInkage: 7 December

I want to listen to all the accents! I love accents!

This is awesome. But the book is much, much better. (Much. I might also say, real life is much, much better than the FB.)

You can be assured I'll be checking this for a good forecast just as soon as I can! (10 days before Christmas, it says! 10 Days Before is coming right up!)

The school principal from my junior-high days (who also, ironically, turned out to be my husband's first boss...in a totally different region of the country) used to talk about the pitfalls of an instant culture. That was almost 20 years ago. It's still true now, and Intellectuelle has posted an excellent essay on that very same subject.

I like to read 6YearMed. She recently posted about the discomfort of not quite 'fitting in' in your town. Not that my town is snooty (hah! far from it), but every now and then the 'Southern gentility' fits just a teensy bit too tightly on this Coloradan.

Knowing and being known

Knowing another person is a fearsome proposition. When I meet someone new, he's already been living for years on a screwed-up planet. What bruises has he picked up along the way? I've formed the beginning of relationships only to discover people were clingy addicts or incorrigible gossips ... and I had no idea at first. It's enough to make me afraid to shake hands after church.

Being known means revealing your own scars from 20-odd years of wading through life. You're opening yourself up to rejection on a deeper level than those junior high insults when people said your Mama dressed you funny. The eighth-grade clowns could only pick on your looks. If a person knows you, he has power to stomp your dreams.

Read the rest of this article here at Boundess.org, which has come through once again with good writing. Write on, Boundless staff!

Some thoughts and links, Part 2

I'm going to make this breakfast casserole the next time I make a breakfast casserole.

Why not buy inexpensive crates and personalize them instead of buying expensive stuff-to-hold-stuff?

I need to organize my crochet hooks.

Here are some cute placemats.

Organizing crayons? Not necessary for me, but you never know if some young friends or relatives might want to!

Even better than organized crayons is a kit for colored pencils and notebook.

Some thoughts and links, Part 1

Hi! How are you? It's been a while (as my title says), and life continues to march forward, but none of it seems important enough to blog about. It's just time, sliding by.

So I'm sharing a few posts today (hopefully) that will give you some reading and thinking.

First, this article from boundless-dot-org: When Pigs Fly. It gave me a new insight into some cultural influences on the men in my life--specifically my husband--and how to pray for them. When we got married, I made it a goal of mine to study him and learn him, and make him feel like I know him better than anyone else.

(whoa, I feel a post coming on! off I go!) I like to learn about personalities, reading books about personalities and relationships any chance I can get. Once I learn a little bit about patterns, I can learn how my husband tends to react in similar situations, and I can accomodate him and make him feel valued and treasured.

With all the different facets that we people have in our personalities (the topic of the article being only one of many!), it's a challenge to be a continual student of my husband's patterns, but it's a worthwhile and satisfying way to honor and respect him.

"Respect him." Two simple words! The one is the verb--what I should do (and tacked on to it is the subtext of why I should do it); the other is the object--whom I should respect. I'm not commanded to respect his masculinity, or his career, or his spirituality (though those are very vital parts of who he is)...I'm commanded to respect him. The wholeness of his personhood. How can I do that to the very best of my ability if I don't tailor it to the uniqueness and quirkiness of who he is?

Let Us Then Rejoice

Taken from Intellectuelle. It's a quote from Malcolm Muggeridge's The End of Christendom.

Let us then as Christians rejoice that we see around us at every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power, see intimations of empires falling to pieces, money in total disarray, dictators and parliamentarians alike nonplussed by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them. For it is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every recourse this world offers, moral as well as material, has been explored to no effect, when in the shivering cold the last [log] has been thrown on the fire and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out, it's then that Christ's hand reaches out, sure and firm. Then Christ's words bring their inexpressible comfort, then His light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever. So finding in everything only deception and nothingness, the soul is constrained to have recourse to God Himself and to rest content with Him.

I like it, too.

Here's a link. It is about why traveling is fun. Please read it.

presenting...the Early Fall Makeover!

There it is.

Primary inspiration from the photo, which is my brother-in-law Peter's work. (Thank you, Peter. You are talented and should keep taking pictures.)

If you are looking for color codes to use for you own color-scheming, I like Computer Hope dot com's color page. It listed all the colors, all their hex codes, and gave good examples of each one.

I'm a feminist? Really?

I used to be angry. I had all the potential of becoming one of those women you read about in the newspaper or see on TV...you know...the ones that fly into rants and are so upset that their eyes bug out...the ones that are so desperate to be heard that they don't listen at all! You know, a Feminist.

I didn't arrive there. Instead, I'm here. I'm married to a man. I'm a happy member of a conservative Presbyterian church in a conservative Presbyterian denomination. Best of all, I don't have this huge, heavy chip on my shoulder that fills me up with anger and bitterness. I'm happy and (usually) at peace.

However. Last night I almost launched into a rant with some of my church friends. Both men, both leaders of our congregation. They made me mad, and as I stood at a figurative fork in the road with the choice to launch into a rant or let the moment pass in favor of peace, I let the moment pass.

I'm happy with my choice. If I had the moment to re-live, I'd make the same choice that I did. But let me just say that I'm so tired of being labeled a feminist because I pay attention to the way issues, policies, patterns, and sins affect women differently than they affect men. I'm not a feminist.

And, for your reading pleasure, I present a well-written essay that puts my thoughts into so much clarity. Intellectuelle, thank you for doing a better job than I can at putting these thoughts into words. I am in your debt.

Linky-Link Sidebars Updated

...and there are lots of them. Whew! I'm going to figure something else out. In the meantime, get your scrolling finger in shape!!

It's getting to be a habit. This is my 3rd post with nothing but linkage.

This Modesty Heart Check will be useful to me when 1) I start teaching middle schoolers again or 2) I ever have daughters.

So will this three-part series on modesty. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

I can't get out of bed in the mornings, and this list might help!

I'm going to browse through this list of organizers.

Motivation to do those chores I hate (I hate all chores, so this ought to be good).

I like this take on the marking of time.

Here's an organizer's take on setting goals.

The same organizer writes about evening routines.

Aaaand for fun: here's a dude who travels around correcting typos in public places. Hooray!

March 27: Links for this Week

These grocery tips are good for beginner homemakers like me.

Mmmm. Oatmeal.

Mmmm. Creamy, cinnamony rolls.

For our road trips, we always checked the states off a list as we spotted their plates. Here's a fun spin on that game.

I want to re-read this example of a household planner.

Three of the seven A's here at Route 5:9. (Read all seven A's here. There are 4 more A's, but it's not a harder read.)

I enjoy reading others' Ten Quirky facts (here and here are just a couple...also here) but I can't think of any oddnesses of my own to share. People tell me I'm weird, but to me it's normal and I can't think of things that you all might think are weird.

This Week's Links

I like these embroidered hearts.

Chocolate plus Easter dessert...yes.

Look! Who knew this local landmark was such a big deal nationally? I heard about this auction on local radio news, but here it is on national news.

I'm really intrigued by what others are reading.

This baby bed creeps me out. Here's a quote from the article that summs up by creeped-out-ness: "Having a cot like this there is no need to rock your baby by your hands because it has automatic rocking. This will free you from such dut[ies] as baby rocking and save your time." Eep!

Route 5:9 from Peacemaker Ministries is fast becoming a fave blog. I like this article about majoring on the minors. And this video is just plain funny!

This photo by souleMama is astounding. I love it.

New Blog! Check it out...

I've kicked off another blog. Yay. Stop by and say hi.

Unearthing the Lies

Having conflict? (Who isn't?) It's an unavoidable reality, unfortunately, and my own temptation is to analyze it to death so that I summarize how that person (usually my husband, because he's the one I interact with the most) caused it all. Terrible, I know. Antidote to that sort of self-protection? Gazing into the mirror of the Word.

Here's a list of lies that also helps unearth some of the foolishness we hide in our selves. It's a quick read, I promise.

Proposal story (not mine)

Proposal story!

Stop, Thief!!

Libraries...for the really motivated police officers. Hah.

Thankful Thursday IV

I missed last week's! There was something about having a long to-do list and I simply let it slip. I'm sorry. Anyway, here goes:

~The new header makes me happy. It reminds me of last summer's festivities. My friend cj took the photo.
~My husband remains sweet and kind and faithful, my truest friend.
~Regardless of insidious and sneaky attacks on our faith, or clumsy and fumbling rants disguised as fables and fairy tales, the Word of the Lord remains the only sure and certain testimony.
~Learning truths about the Lord Jesus and his ways from 2 Peter...who knew you could get pages and pages and pages of journaling from the first two verses, the salutation??
~Regardless of yesterday's flops and failures, the Lord's mercy is new every day.
~The sun is shining brightly today (I love sunshine!)
~We have had rain, rain, rain lately; we need more because of our drought.
~A pleasant conversation last night with a new friend. This friendship has lots of promise to become a long-lasting friendship.
~A good conversation yesterday afternoon with an old friend.
~Old friends whose friendships don't fade or break even when we've been through some serious stuff.
~My family. I miss them.
~My parents' faithfulness to the Lord, to each other, and to me and my sister. What a blessing to have godly parents!
~Spring Break.
~Language. You know how complex a language is, and how amazing it is that we just learn it? Babies just hear and listen and hear, and they pick it up. *Poof!*
~That the awkward and question-filled season of my life called 'courtship' is over. What a strain, right? Whew.
~It's worth it, though.