Thursday, August 28, 2008

13 Thursday Favorite Restaurants

1. Olive Garden
2. Red Robin
3. Golden Corral
4. Consuelo's (Mexican)
5. College Cafe (Chinese)
6. Vern's (even though there are lots of dead animals on the walls)
7. The Red Lobster
8. Bubba's Barbecue (now out of business)
9. The Chili Wagon (Canon City)
10. Pizza Hut
11. Taco Bell
12. Panda Express
13. Sonic

Monday, August 25, 2008

Tired

I'm too tired and unmotivated to write much. Sorry. Don't even feel like making comments on others' blogs.

1. Please pray for friend Becky Molyneaux--having surgery today on carotid artery.

2. Mother-in-law of friend at work passed away over weekend.

3. Uncle of another friend passed away Friday.

4. Coming up on anniversary of my sister's death--very sad and on my mind.

No one needs to comment.

I am pitiful, but I'll live. (;>

Thursday, August 21, 2008

13 Thursday Recent Themes of My Life

A while back I had a 13 Thursday Themes of My Life. Well, I'm going to do it again.

1. Kidney stones (husband and son)
2. Work
3. Church
4. Bible Clubs
5. Getting shower fixed (took about a month)
6. New dog
7. Buying gas
8. Cooking
9. TV
10. Dishes
11. Driving to work in semi-dark
12. Husband and son and daughter
13. Blog

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Writing Challenges But No Prizes

Two writing challenges for fun--no prizes, but maybe someone will enjoy what you write.

1. Write a short paragraph about something. Then put it into Babel Fish and choose a language to translate it into. Translate it one more time into another language and then translate that back into English. Then put the new English version and the original English version back in as a comment on this blog.

2. Write a sentence or a paragraph using words that start with the same letter or words that are similar but not the same. Example of the second one: The flower flourishes after being dusted with flour at four in the morning by Fixit Flora in the fountain. ( I guess this is an example of the of using the same beginning letters also.)

Monday, August 18, 2008

Random Thoughts

1. I cooked quite a bit over the weekend. For Saturday breakfast I made omelettes using the little GX food makers. You know, the ones Kathy someone advertises on the TV. Then in the afternoon, I used them to make cake with chocolate candy in each piece. For Sat. supper I fried a few pieces of chicken. We had a potluck at church for Sunday lunch, and I made a meatloaf, a pasta salad and a fruit salad. The kitchen gets pretty messy.

2. My daughter Jen is preparing for a tropical storm/hurricane. I worry a little.

3. My husband's birthday is coming up this week. I hate to admit I have a problem remembering exactly which day it is. My dad's birthday is Aug. 19, an old boyfriend who passed away when I was 16 had Aug. 21 as his birthday, and Gary's birthday is Aug. 20. For some reason, when we get close to Gary's birthday, I mix the other dates in there too and can't always be certain of Gary's day. However, yesterday at church I heard him tell someone else that his date is Aug. 20. I'm good for this year. (I had been thinking it was Aug. 21.)

4. I sang in a ladies trio yesterday for morning church. Gary said it sounded good.

5. One reason I like our little church is because it gives a lot of people opportunities to do many things. Our young teen girls sing in a trio. One of them plays the keyboard. They all helped with the Bible clubs. Two little boys (probably 5th grade) are going to sing together. One of them can't really sing, but we don't let that stop us. Another young girl, probably 5th grade, is going to sing a solo. She can sing pretty well.

7. My dog, Riley, can go pretty far dancing on his hind legs.

8. I was given some lovely fresh veggies straight from someone's garden over the weekend.

9. My husband's kidney stone started acting up yesterday. He has a couple that are too big to pass and will need to have surgery. We are hoping this one isn't one of the big ones or that it will stop.

10. On August 30 several members of my family are going to have a picnic in a state park near Castle Rock. I'm looking forward to it.

11. At church we are studying Revelation. It always disturbs me to see how terrible the future will be for those left behind after the Rapture.

12. I think that's it for now.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

13 Thursday English Language Oddities

(Actually I have 25 oddities here.)

1. “Ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.

2. The two longest words with only one of the six vowels including y are the 15-letter "defenselessness" and "respectlessness."

3. “Forty” is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. “One” is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.

4. "Bookkeeper" is the only word that has three consecutive doubled letters.

5. Despite the assertions of a well-known puzzle, modern English does not have three common words ending in -gry. "Angry" and "hungry" are the only ones.

6. "Antidisestablishmentarianism" listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, was considered the longest English word for quite a long time, but today the medical term "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" is usually considered to have the title, despite the fact that it was coined to provide an answer to the question ‘What is the longest English word?’

7. “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.

8. There are many words that feature all five regular vowels in alphabetical order, the commonest being abstemious, adventitious, facetious.

9. The superlatively long word honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters) alternates consonants and vowels.

10. “Fickleheaded” and “fiddledeedee” are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.

11. "Cwm" (pronounced “koom”, defined as a steep-walled hollow on a hillside) is a rare case of a word used in English in which w is the nucleus vowel, as is crwth (pronounced “krooth”, a type of stringed instrument). Despite their origins in Welsh, they are accepted English words.

12. “Asthma” and “isthmi” are the only six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between.

13. The nine-word sequence "I, in, sin, sing, sting, string, staring, starting (or starling), startling" can be formed by successively adding one letter to the previous word.

14. “Underground” and “underfund” are the only words in the English language that begin and end with the letters “und.”

15. “Stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.

16. “Almost” is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

17. The longest uncommon word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops (a grass genus).

18. The longest common single-word palindromes are deified, racecar, repaper, reviver, and rotator.

19. “One thousand” contains the letter "A", but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an "A".

20. “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.

21. “Rhythms” is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.

22. Excluding derivatives, there are only two words in English that end -shion and (though many words end in this sound). These are "cushion" and "fashion."

23. “THEREIN” is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.

24. There is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row: queueing.

25. "Soupspoons" is the longest word that consists entirely of letters from the second half of alphabet.

Did you like them?

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Cannon Ball

We should have named our dog Cannon Ball. When I am sitting in the armchair at the end of the hall, Riley runs at full tilt, hits the floor about 3-4 feet from the chair, hits the arm of the chair, and then hits me. I am often grimacing with fear of being murdered as he runs at me. He is quite the little character.

At night when it's time for Riley to go to bed, he doesn't want to. He gets a little bit pouty and I have to pick him up and gently place him in the wire kennel. Then he sleeps all night with only a tiny bit of whining sometimes. Lately when I get up at about 4:45, I just leave him in the kennel until I'm ready to let him go outside to visit with nature. He just continues to lie down and try to sleep.

This new dog has added some spice to our existence. We are trying to learn what he wants us to do, but we are not very fast learners.

Monday, August 11, 2008

English as She is Spoke

The above is the title of a book written in 1855 by Pedro Carolino. He wanted to write an English phrase book for Portuguese students. The problem was...he didn't speak English.

To quote the preface of this book:

"...he didn't own an English-to-Portuguese dictionary. What he did have, though, was a Portuguese-to-French phrasebook and a French-to-English dictionary. The bizarre linguistic train wreck that ensued--published in Paris in 1855 as O Novo Guia da Conversacio, em Portuguez e Inglez, em Duas Partes: The New Guide of the Conversation, in Portuguese and English, in Two Parts--became celebrated as a bizarre masterpiece of unintentional humor, and it went on to be reprinted around the world for the rest of the 19th century, under the title English as She is Spoke."

Here are some samples:

This pen are good for notting.
What news tell me? all hairs dresser are newsmonger. (Insult to a barber)

With a gardener: What you make hither, Francis?
I water this flowers parterre.
Shall i eat some plums soon?
It is not the season yet; but here is some peaches what does ripen at the eye sight.
It delay me to eat some wal nuts-kernels; take care not leave to pass the season.
Be tranquil, i shall throw you any nuts during the shell is green yet.

It's very interesting and was actually used as an authoritative resource for several decades, and then it wasn't. It has been used as an example of tortured English in the decades since and perhaps as a warning to others as the way not to write a phrase book.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

13 Thursday Neighborhood Bible Club Facts

1. My church (and I) have held two Bible clubs everyday.

2. I have been the Bible teacher.

3. The "Wordless Book" stories have been the Bible series I have taught.

4. "Tifam" has been the missionary or "adventure story."

5. We have had a total of 40-50 kids in the clubs.

6. Nine children have trusted Christ as Savior so far this week.

7. I have gotten a sunburn from being in the sun mostly in the morning.

8. The 11:00 club has been held in a park. The 1:30 club has been at a home, and except for Monday, we have been inside for that Bible club.

9. We have had a total of ten workers and two 6th grade boys. They all have been wonderful.

10. The pastor has started out each club with prayer and a promise to hand out ice cream certificates to the children who bring visitors the next day.

11. Because I'm not teaching the missionary story, I sit down during that time. At one club I was sitting behind a little boy and he was pushing on my fat foot and leg, trying to figure it out.

12. Tonight I am very tired. We have church tonight.

13. This has been a wonderful week of blessing. I praise the Lord for the opportunity.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Neighborhood Bible Clubs

My church started our Neighborhood Bible Clubs today. We had two clubs in two different neighborhoods. Other than church kids, we had only one other child in the first one. In the second one we had eight other children. Even though there weren't many visitors, both clubs were great. The children were attentive, the workers were wonderful.

Today at both clubs, the pastor offered to give each kid who brings a visitor tomorrow a $2 gift certificate to the Dairy Delite. I think we may have some more visitors tomorrow.

In spite of the heat, both clubs were successful. I think our host families passed out nearly 300 invitations ahead of time, so at the very least that many homes have received the Gospel and info about our church. We passed out tracts today for the kids to take home as well. The children received special ribbons for attendance and for bringing their Bibles. Tomorrow more ribbons will be passed out for bringing visitors and for saying today's Bible verse.

I think overall there was joy in serving the Lord and being part of working with other Christians toward a common goal.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

The Lighthouse

There was a song published in 1971 called "The Lighthouse." It is about Christ being the light that stands on the hill to protect the big and small ships. I've always loved this song.

My husband and I got married in 1972, and we have been involved in Christian ministry most of the years since that time. My husband has sung "The Lighthouse" as a special number in most of the churches we have worked in. Well, G. sang that song this morning in church for the first time since we have been attending here. While we were practicing before service, the song brought tears to my eyes--partly because of the words, partly because of its part in our personal history and partly because it reminded me that we've gotten old since we first started singing/playing that song.

Sometimes music, maybe more than other media, brings together a lot of memories. When the words are wonderful and are about Christ the Savior and King, it is very touching.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Overbearing

OVERBEARING--the hated word from my childhood. It's what my mother called me on a regular basis--usually when I asked about a thing too many times, when I did an irritating thing too many times, when I was obnoxious too many times. And apparently I was overbearing a lot.

I think I am still overbearing sometimes. But now as an adult I have learned to observe people's reactions very carefully. If I see someone's eyes glazing over or their expressions changing, or I get a clue that they are not appreciating or agreeing or liking what I'm saying, I will often modify my behavior or message. That's partly the pleaser coming out in me, and it's partly my spiritual gift of mercy, and it's partly survival instinct. That's doesn't mean I change the truth of my message, but I may change how I'm presenting it.

The trouble is that sometimes I'm so tactful, I don't get my message across. This is pretty irritating to me when it happens. But at least I'm not as overbearing as I once was. I think.