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Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday snippets, Oklahoma edition...
Oklahoma is OK!
CJ and Tony have such a darling house and are fixing it up so cute. I have no married sons yet, but one of the greatest joys of my life has been to be in the homes of my married daughters and watch them building lives with their husbands. Nothing like it.
Boehner has obviously been a busy man this week. No time for the tanning bed. But I did love his answer to Chris Wallace about smoking.
It's sad watching Egypt go down in flames. But I've wondered many times in the past few years what in the world was holding it together.
Bravo to the cast of "The King's Speech" for taking the equivalent of Best Picture at the Screen Actor's Guild Awards tonight.
I love my son-in-law. On the way home from church we stopped at Lowe's and he bought a fireplace screen and tools so he could build fires during the coming ice storm. We pulled up in front of the house and saw that while we were gone a tree had fallen down in the yard. So Tony turned around, drove back to Lowe's and bought a chain saw! Two hours later we had a gorgeous, roaring fire!
Tomorrow I head home, trying to
If you hear a rumor that I have succumbed to Words With Friends, it's false. Completely, totally, utterly, almost false. Nope. I don't have time for that.
However. I won't be driving fast enough to miss something else: tomorrow night my brother is making me fried chicken livers and cream gravy! That man knows how to please his sister!
On the drive home I'll be finishing up Some Sing, Some Cry and starting a couple more audio books. These companions make the long drives very pleasant!
But though I've enjoyed the audio books, I can't wait to get back into my hard copy of One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I can't tell you the treasure this book is. I'm sorry to see that the price has gone up at Amazon, but get it anyway.
From my Scripture memory work this week, a verse which has been precious to me for most of my adult life:
"...as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not all be ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death." (Phil. 1:20)
It's going to be a wild week at Granny's House, what with Nathan spending most of the weekend at home and lots of company coming in during the week for the festivities (not to mention the spectacular Green Bay win I'm expecting on Sunday!). I should have lots to report on the next edition of the Snippets! In the meantime, stay warm and off the roads and check back in during the week...
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Sunday snippets...
It's been the week of winter here. Five days out of the last seven we've had day-long fires in the fireplace, and that's never happened in the nearly ten years we've lived here. Wish I knew what I could do to make it stay...If I were a victim or the relative of a victim of last weekend's shooting in Tucson, I would feel victimized all over again by the way the debate morphed into something it was never about.
I've plugged it on Facebook but I must do it here, too. Please, go see The King's Speech. It's easily the best film I've seen in a decade, and I'll be seeing it again. I'll probably even buy it. Please don't be deterred by the inexplicable R rating...I can't get my head around why PG-13 movies can be so raunchy and yet this beautiful, wholesome movie where everyone keeps their clothes on and which explores so many lovely themes should be scarred with an R rating for the utterance of some curse words that are important to the story. Take your kids 12 and up, or at least wait for the DVD and watch it as a family.
How about them Spurs? San Antonio NBA fans are in heaven about now, so proud of our guys!
I'll be rooting for the Steelers and the Packers next week...and after that my son-in-law will have to put up with family rivalry: If it's the Packers and the Steelers in the Super Bowl, I'll be wearing a cheesehead :-)
I guess you saw the most disgusting news of the week?
Got plane tickets for my trip to see the Weltys at the end of February. Can I put in an order for a long winter there??
In books: Enjoying the very moving, heartrending Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, and still working my way through the quite lengthy but delicious Some Sing, Some Cry (Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza) in the audio version. Hoping to get through both of them this week because I have books piling up like crazy!
I just love fried chicken livers and cream gravy. It's a throwback to my childhood, one I've never gotten over. There aren't many places you can still get them, and making them at home is messy and unpleasant. This is just one of the reasons I still love Cracker Barrel. If there were one next door I'd be eating there three times a week. When I have done long stints in the hospital, John has kept me sane and nourished by bringing me a take-out meal of chicken livers from CB now and then. Anyone in the San Antonio area know of other places that are still serving them?
I just love fried chicken livers and cream gravy. It's a throwback to my childhood, one I've never gotten over. There aren't many places you can still get them, and making them at home is messy and unpleasant. This is just one of the reasons I still love Cracker Barrel. If there were one next door I'd be eating there three times a week. When I have done long stints in the hospital, John has kept me sane and nourished by bringing me a take-out meal of chicken livers from CB now and then. Anyone in the San Antonio area know of other places that are still serving them?
It's just my luck, of course, to buy a dishwasher and pay for a four year extended warranty and then really hate the thing. As bad as my luck is with appliances, I'm sure this one will NEVER break. Why, then, do I hate it? Because the inside is so small and the loading configuration so bad that we need to run it four times a day instead of two. Thinking about trying to sell it on Craigslist. To a small family.
My Scripture memory project is going well and has been a blessing I couldn't have anticipated. As I mentioned before, it's been a very long time since I committed a large chunk to memory and I've been nervous about how much I could really do. But even if I don't get much farther than this it's already contributed a treasure to my life that can't be taken away...
Anxiously anticipating the arrival of Ann Voskamp's new book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. I don't think it's one I will be reading quickly. Soon, but not quickly. [I just now checked, and mine is due to arrive on Thursday!]
Hoping you are living fully right where you are today...have a great week.
Hoping you are living fully right where you are today...have a great week.
Labels: Body of Christ, Family, Food, Movies, Sports, Weather
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Sunday snippets, New Year edition...
It was wonderful to sing all the verses of "How Firm a Foundation" in worship this morning...what a great beginning to a new year, singing about the foundation laid for us by God in His word. And then The Papa preached a fine sermon on "holding fast the word of life" from Philippians 2. It's a Happy DayAfterNewYear's!And how good it was to have CJ (Tony had to drive back this morning) and Kristen and Dave and family with us in church. If Aubrey hadn't broken her foot this week she'd have been with us this morning, too, but she's being carefully tended at home to make sure that the multiple fractures heal properly...
I'm wondering...can we have a Christmas do-over now that the weather has turned [somewhat] cold?
The Fighting Irish might have just barely managed a winning season, but they didn't have too much trouble showing the Miami Hurricanes who was boss in the Sun Bowl on Friday. Way ta go, ND!
And what about them Horned Frogs, huh? I know, I'm almost embarrassed writing their name...I'm thinkin' that now they've hit the big time they might need to reconsider that.
Notice how the traffic has already thinned out?
Crying and singing my way through Some Sing, Some Cry. Do get the audio version...this book is full of several dialects, songs, and ethnic characters and it's very much enriched by the fabulous narrator, helping me to process things I know I'd miss if just reading it.
Crying and singing my way through Some Sing, Some Cry. Do get the audio version...this book is full of several dialects, songs, and ethnic characters and it's very much enriched by the fabulous narrator, helping me to process things I know I'd miss if just reading it.
Nathan is beginning his fourth week in Basic Training. He sounded tired when he called Friday, but things are going well and he's being challenged to the max!
Waiting to see how the effort for the repeal of Health Care Reform Destruction fares. I don't think it has much of a chance but it will certainly require that each congressman clearly flies a flag and goes on record, and that may be almost as important right now as repeal. Later, they can worry about starving it bit by bit. Either way, I think the cat will be skinned.
Come on now, the crab dip is GONE? ALL OF IT?
Come on now, the crab dip is GONE? ALL OF IT?
By tomorrow all the holiday visitors to Granny's House will be gone, as well as some of the normal occupants who are heading north today to visit CJ and Tony's new home in Oklahoma. It's going to be awfully quiet here!
I don't make a list of New Year's resolutions each year, but some years I do, and this is one of those years. I'll spare you my entire list, but two of the most formidable:
First, I've committed to memorizing the entire book of Philippians with the goal of completing it by Easter. It's been a very long time since I've done any lengthy memory work, so this will be a serious challenge to my aging mind. But I don't think there's any age limit to the command to hide God's Word in my heart. I'm attempting this with the support and company of many others...you can find out about the Partnering to Remember (P2R) project (and get started yourself) at Tim Brister's site. You can also follow the P2R project on Facebook and Twitter.
I love YNAB. You will too. And this is a great month to try it.
No, my decorations are not put away. But other New Year's Eve rituals were accomplished: putting up six new calendars (I'm a calendar freak, and if it weren't for what other people think I'd probably have twice as many); donating half a closet of clothes to charity; throwing away two large bags of stuff from our room that we don't want or need; changing the checkbook to a fresh book of checks to start the new year (though nowadays it takes half a year to go through one pad!); sharpening several new pencils and taking stock of other office supplies; setting up new schedules for work, school, household responsibilities, etc. I'm ready for 2011!
May you have a beautiful and blessed New Year, building on the foundation laid for you in God's excellent Word:
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said
Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said
Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?
In every condition, -- in sickness, in health,
In poverty's vale, or abounding in wealth,
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea, --
The Lord, the Almighty, they strength e'er shall be.
In poverty's vale, or abounding in wealth,
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea, --
The Lord, the Almighty, they strength e'er shall be.
"Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
"E'en down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.
"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never, forsake!"
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never, forsake!"
"How Firm a Foundation," lyrics by John Rippon, 1787
Labels: Books, Family, Food, Holidays, Music, ObamaNation, Political Observation, Sports, Weather