Blogolalia

Friday, May 16, 2008

My church is one of the satellite sites for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit every summer. Having attended two of those summits at Willow Creek, I can attest that they are great and I highly recommend them.

However, they are entirely mock-able as shown here.

Hilarious. I love the quote from Ike.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

I’m proud to say that I have not read a single one of the 50 Best Cult Books.

[via chai llama]

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

I’ve read posts by Brant Hansen that I’ve seen linked at other blogs. He’s a funny writer with good insights into the Christian faith. His newest category addition is If Jesus Had a Blog and the first two posts are brilliant.

He just moved and this post sums up my apprehension about our newly pending move this summer.

Gilbert Meilander once wrote about moving.  He likened it, for the young, single person, to flitting about in a glider.  You want to go left?  You go left.  Want to dip?  You dip.  Wham.  That easy.

With a family?  It’s different.  More like commanding an aircraft carrier. You want to go left?  You signal about six months in advance, and begin a process that throws every hand on deck into upheaval.  More accurately, it’s like commanding an aircraft carrier to begin turning left, then losing your glasses, iPod, and underwear for a week.

I can’t find anything.

He’s been added to my blogroll.

Monday, April 28, 2008

I mentioned that I went to high school with Chris McCandless of Into the Wild fame (or infamy). My sister saw the movie and shares her thought on it here as well as some memories of McCandless and a picture of him from school, too.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

From Jaynee at Cootiehog.

The rules are:
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
Each player answers the questions about themselves.
At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago. I was in New Hampshire. In April 1998, I was probably preparing for the summer camp season and enjoying my second spring mud season in New England.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? 1) Work on special order, 2) pick up groceries for lunch at Beau’s Sis’s tomorrow, 3) go to church, 4) take a nap, 5) laundry.

3. Snacks I enjoy: chips/salsa, chocolate, chips/salsa

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire. This is an unimaginable amount of money. There would be much tithing and giving to charity. I would set up trusts for family. I would buy a house. I would invest in small business ventures (think of my friend’s shop that closed because of a bad location but was fantastic). I would take lapidary and metalsmith classes. Beyond that I can’t think…

5. Three of my bad habits: procrastination, piling my clothes instead of putting them away, potty mouth

6. 5 Places I have lived: Washington, England, Virginia, California, New Hampshire

7. 5 Jobs I have had: retail customer service clerk, telemarketer, tech writer, executive secretary, budget analyst

8. 5 people I want to know more about: Anyone! Feel free to participate!

Friday, April 18, 2008

The following is graphic.

As caltechgirl said, “Wanna-Be murderer jihadists planting an IED without sufficient training, as captured by a US AC-130.”

Friday, April 11, 2008

Ok, so I missed the last 30 minutes of Idol Gives Back on Wednesday night and therefore missed the Idols singing Shout to the Lord. And then I missed the controversy about them switching the name of Jesus to shepherd in the song.

But I did see them sing it last night, apparently an encore of sorts, and they did sing the name of Jesus. And I get the controversy a bit, but I also understand the reasoning for the slight change to make it seemingly more inclusive. But word change or not, there’s no getting around that they were singing an overt song of praise to God on national TV when millions of people were watching. It’s quite amazing when you think about it. Watching the Idols sing it made me wonder which of them may be Christians because of their demeanor when singing it - a few of them were clearly very comfortable and, dare I say it, worshipful as they sang.

I wonder what Darlene Zschech thinks about it. The Idols were good, but nothing beats the original artist.

Monday, April 07, 2008

I saw this recipe at A Year of Crockpotting and had to try it. I substituted a couple of things and marked them in italics.

The Ingredients.

--2 largish pieces of salmon
--2 T brown sugar
--1 t paprika
--1 t cumin
--1/2 t crushed garlic (garlic powder)
--1/2 t oregano (Italian seasoning)
--1/2 t kosher salt
--1/2 t red pepper
--aluminum foil

The Directions.

--in a medium-sized dish or small pan ( I used a glass pie plate), combine all of your spices with the brown sugar
--spread out a length of foil on the counter for each piece of fish
--put each piece of fish in the center of it’s own foil
--rub the top of the salmon with your spice and sugar mixture (it’s okay to mound up the spice a bit, and it is fine to only rub the top)

--fold the foil over and crimp up the sides to make a contained packet

--put the foil packets into a dry crockpot

--cover and cook on high for 2-3 hours, or on low for 3-5.

--serve with rice or quinoa and some steamed or roasted vegetables.

I had two thawed pieces of salmon and 2 still frozen pieces. I decided to take the frozen pieces out of the freezer and put them on the bottom of the pot to be eaten tomorrow as leftovers. Tonight we ate the top two pieces - they cooked a wee bit too long, but the flavor was very good. I’ll be interested to see how the other two came out when we open the foil packets (I popped them in the frig untouched).

What I’ll change next time:

1. I’ll kick up the spices a bit more.
2. Less time in the crockpot, unless the frozen pieces turned out better. In that case, I’ll start with frozen salmon fillets.

We had basmati rice and baked beans on the side.

Clever, until the very end. But worth it anyway.

[via VK]

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Thinkling Bill poses a great question about family sayings.

My family will know the post title reference and guffaw. I shared what it means in the comments of the post. Go read and share your own!

I predict this post could garner enough comments to rival The Gatorade Post.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Taking a page from The Crock Pot Lady, who is my new hero, I going to try to use the crock pot more than once a week. I’m not quite sure I’m ready for daily yet. Baby steps.

First, I’m going to try her Red Wine and Cranberries Pot Roast next time I do a roast. Looks delicious.

Second, I forgot to thaw any kind of meat for tonight’s dinner. What to do? Crock pot!

Today’s experiment:

6 frozen chicken thighs
1 bottle General Tso’s sauce

Put chicken pieces into the crock pot. Season with salt. Pour sauce over the chicken. Set pot on Low, 8 hours.

When ready to eat, I’ll cook some rice in the rice cooker and will add some frozen broccoli to the crockpot. I figure in the time it takes the rice to cook, the broccoli will have warmed. Maybe I’ll add it a bit earlier than when I start the rice, just to be sure.

I’ll let you know how it tastes later, but it smells yummy right now.

There’s a new, really bad quality, video up at WC.

And I just added new pictures, including this one:

Saturday, March 29, 2008

We get to meet the Sleepy Baby tonight! I’m very excited.

We’re heading over to have dinner with Beth and Tim - our annual get together. At least up to now our meetings have been just once a year.

Beth requested chili and I’m happy to oblige, especially with the new crock pot. I don’t think I’ve ever made the same recipe twice. It’s still the basic chili recipe I use, but I always manage to switch something up because of the ingredients I have on hand. Today’s additions include chipotle peppers and some roasted green salsa. Oh, and this time there wasn’t much liquid, so I added a bit of veggie stock. It smells good, so I’m hoping it’ll taste good, too.

I need to remember to take my camera to get pictures of The Baybee.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

My new hero, courtesy of my BIL, Denis.

We tested the new slow cooker yesterday with mixed results. The cooker worked perfectly. The meal I put into it was less than stellar - my own fault. Since it was only edible by putting the contents into a flour tortilla I will not share the details. OK, here are the details:

2 cups uncooked white rice
1 can black beans, drained
6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can Ro-tel
1 cup vegetable stock

Set cooker for 7 hours on Low.

The meat was tender, but looked nasty. The rice was super sticky - we determined later than rather than the regular rice used, I should have used Basmati rice and less stock or no stock. And I should have added one more can of beans. And seasoned the whole thing. So we sliced the chicken and wrapped it all up in tortillas - a dash of salsa, sour cream and cheese and it filled the stomach. But we both agree it won’t be repeated.

Next up in the new slow cooker - BBQ pulled pork with homemade buns (leftover from our hamburgers a few weeks ago) - tomorrow! Woo!

And don’t think I won’t be hunting for recipes at that A Year of CrockPotting blog.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Happy belated Easter. He is Risen!

The weekend was a full one and good.

Friday I worked hard and it paid off - no work had to be done yesterday.

Saturday we had a long day at Marmie and Pop’s house since the Cooties were in town. The morning was spent discussing our Disney trip. We got some things accomplished. Other things are still to be worked on, but we’re in good shape I think.

Then Uncle Bill came over and we had our Easter feast - the requisite lamb roast and accompaniments. There followed a lovely early birthday celebration for moi - I received a new crock pot, The Apologetics Study Bible, a great etagère for my jewelry display, and a gift card to Borders.

Clean up ensued and then we all trekked to church for Easter service. I think it was fantastic - they switched up things with the message pretty much at the beginning (it followed a great video and drama/recitation of Scripture). Then we worshiped in song and rejoicing as some folks were baptized. It was powerful to have a baptismal service on Easter weekend. I think this may be how we do Easter services in the future. Anyway it was really crowded for a Saturday night.

We headed straight home after a slight mishap with Jesse falling onto his forehead on the marble floor after the service. He’s fine, there’s not even a mark, but it was a bit scary for a minute since I didn’t see what happened, just the reaction of the folks around him who saw it. After such a long, loud day we all were exhausted and crashed to bed.

Yesterday Beau had his normal parking duties at church, so he headed over there just before 7:30am. A bit later, after feeding Jesse breakfast, we headed over to Marmie and Pop’s for a little more time with the Cooties before they hit the road for home. I ended up watching High School Musical with my niece and nephew. It was cute and I liked it better than I expected.

The afternoon was lazy, with a nice long nap. I woke up long enough to see Davidson beat Georgetown, which was fun. Then Beau and I watched the latest installment of John Adams on HBO before going to sleep.

Today is a less busy work day than I had expected, but it will still be a long one. So it’s time to get back to work.