And As It Always Has: Rock Crushes Scissors

If you are a fan of Big Bang Theory you will enjoy this chart which explains Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.

Walking

Angela Hunt on the Devil and Demons

This is part two to the article I mentioned last week that Angela Hunt wrote on angels.

A quote from the article:
Demons can do scary things, but they’re much more likely to do beautiful things in order to fool people into following false religions. Because Satan hates God, he wants to keep people from following God. So he uses every trick in his book, not to convince people to follow him, but to follow anything but God.

Very much worth reading the whole thing.

The Point

"The battle is not the point. Evil is not the point. The point is the love story. We live in a love story that is set in the midst of a war. When you understand those two things, you will suddenly understand Christianity, and you will understand your own life."
-- John Eldredge

When I was adding list of books I had read in 2010 to the archives of books read, I found the above quote from the book Adam by Ted Dekker which I read in 2009. It isn't in the book itself but in an interview included with the book.

Chain Stitch ATC

This is for a swap on Swap-bot for the first in a series of Embroidered ATC's. This one is for the chain stitch. My first thought when I saw this was to use some of the South African embroidery -- love the 2 Ndebele ladies pattern there -- techniques I had learned last year which often start off with a chain stitch and then embellish that stitch, but finally I decided to just go with a plain old chain stitch.
One thing I learned when I did the dragonfly ATC is that I did not want to draw on the card itself and then punch the holes, because there is always erasing to do and that doesn't always go so well on the darker background. So this time I drew on a piece of scrap paper cut to ATC size and once I was happy with that I used that as my template as I poked a pin through it and the actual card. The nice thing is I have the pattern for myself if I want to try it again with the more embellished chain stitches.
Next, I picked some shorter lengths of embroidery floss I had in my stash and that I thought looked good with the ATC card (which was cut from the back of a Christmas card) and got busy doing the chain stitch.
Hope my partner likes it.
The next swap in the series is for the lazy daisy stitch.

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Two Ads I Hate and One I Like

Twice today I saw the Bayer aspirin ad with the man on the plane who is suffering from back pain. He asks the stewardess for help by pointing to a page in some booklet that shows some Asian characters and the English words "back pain." She offers him Bayer aspirin.
"I'm not having a heart attack," he says.
The stewardess assures him that aspirin can also relieve pain. And it turns out she is right! Who knew stewardesses were up on the latest in medical research?
And that's right, I am saying stewardess instead of flight attendant because it reminds me of an earlier time when people knew that aspirin could relieve pain.
Here is the real question: Why is this man allowed to travel overseas all by himself? Where are his mommy and daddy?

The second ad I hate is the one that starts off saying, "Many men over 45 [insert random symptoms here]." It ends by saying, "don't blame it on aging."
Was this written as one of those party games where each person writes a different line without knowing what anyone else wrote and then hilarity ensues when you read all the lines together? Am I just missing the joke?

Then we have the Mayhem ads. I enjoy them so much. This might be my favorite:


It reminds me of this scene in Fried Green Tomatoes:

Folder Journal

The most recent issue of Cloth, Paper Scissors (Jan/Feb 2011) has an article called Folder Journal about making a journal from a manila folder.
When she came over for Thanksgiving my mom gave me an almost full box of surplus legal-size manila folders from her office.
So clearly this was meant to be:



Since this was my first attempt at this project I decided to use some paper I didn't like very much which is some of the orange papers. As the project came together I found myself liking the way the orange paper looked and adding other papers and bits & pieces that I thought fit in . Eventually I will be adding some of my favorite Bible verses and maybe some other inspirational things to the back of the journal cards. Once I get that done, I will have a better idea of just how to finish the fronts of the cards.

Angela Hunt on Angels

I think it has only been in the last year that I read my first Angela Hunt book, The Canopy which is about an American researcher who is dying of a particular type of brain disease and is looking for a cure in the Amazon jungle. It was fascinating to learn about the people of the Amazon and their spiritual beliefs, especially about Yai Pada (so impressed that I remembered that name).
Next I read The Debt. I had to force myself to get into that one since it is about the wife of a televangelist, but it turned out to be one of the most worthwhile books I read last year. The title is based on the story Jesus told of the the two men who each owed a debt to another man. One owed a large sum of money while the other man owed a small amount. Neither could pay so the man they owed the money to forgave both debts. Jesus asked the listeners which of the two men loved the one who forgave their debts more. I don't want to say anything else about the story because you should read it for yourself. Wonderful.
More recently I read The Novelist about a very successful author who is teaching a community college class about writing. The way Ms. Hunt tells that story is very interesting as she writes about the author/teacher and her family and students and then also shares the story she is writing as she teaches the class.
Of the three, The Debt is my favorite, but I have a few more of her books waiting in my to-be-read stack so that may change.

Anyway, the only reason I am sharing that with you is that I wanted to share the post she put up yesterday about angels. It debunks some of the popular myths about angels and I look forward to reading part two next week.

Christmas Wish

Normally our church raises money in October to be sent to our missionaries as a Christmas gift above and beyond their normal support. Last year they raised about $4,000 dollars. We support about 25 missionaries.
This year nothing was said until after Thanksgiving. The elders and staff had decided they wanted to buy new mattresses for the local homeless shelter. Including our missionaries' Christmas gift, which they had already sent out on faith, they would need to raise $15,000. Now we have a pretty giving church as it is and we haven't escaped the current economic situation so that was quite a step of faith. I forgot to mention that they did not tell the homeless shelter they would do what they could. No, they promised the mattresses.
The Sunday before Christmas was the big day when they would be taking a separate offering just for this "Christmas Wish." Of course, some money had also come in the previous two Sundays since they made their announcement.
At the Christmas Eve service they told us that they had met their goal and had enough money to send the missionaries a second Christmas gift. Then, with the money leftover after the two Christmas gifts to the missionaries and after buying the mattresses they gave the head of the homeless shelter a check for $10,000 for anything else they might need.
This Sunday they said that a little more money had come in for this same project and they had used it to pay medical bills for two missionaries who have had some serious health problems this year.
Wow.
**********
I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:18-19

Happy New Year!

So clearly I have not been a faithful blogger, but I have been looking forward to making trying to be better at this one of my new year's resolutions. Let's see how long it takes me to break this one.
The sad part is that even though I have been looking forward to this and have been on the computer twice earlier today, it did not occur to me that I should actually post something until after my husband came back from the dog park and became involved in some British comedy series (curse you Netflix "watch now").
Now you may be asking yourself why my husband would be at the dog park. This is why:

This is Rover. Our son picked out the name since this is "his" dog. It is a classic dog name and yet I have never actually known a dog with that name, but I love it.
Anyway, Rover joined our family the week before Thanksgiving. He is a Miniature Schnauzer. Neither my husband nor I have had a Miniature Schnauzer before, but we think this one is wonderful. So far he has learned the commands sit, stand and come. If he thinks you have a treat for him he will go back and forth between sit and stand until you realize that you should have a treat for him.
He loves to go outside and being a terrier, I am sure that he would love to find a mouse or gopher in our yard, but so far he has had to content himself with pincher bugs and earthworms. My only hope is that the rabbit we had visiting last year decides to not come back again this year.

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