Thursday, July 28

Blogging lite

Well, I'm off. I'm heading out for work to oversee an event and hang out with some of the best counselors and conciliators in the nation. Heh. I get paid for this!

Then I'm heading to The Cities, my old stomping grounds. Hanging out with all my college girlfriends and buddies. Hopefully it'll be a really relaxing vacation.

God is sovereign! Amazingly, almost all of our "crowd" will be in town, even though none of us specifically planned it, and we're spread around the nation from California, Montana, Wisconsin and China. A small window of opportunity to hang out, but God knew from the beginning. It was a great surprise He planned, really.

The only downer is that I'm feeling something coming on - and I'm not sure if its allergies (I am one of the most allergic people on earth) or if it's a cold. Please pray for me - traveling with a cold is so miserable, but so far it hasn't slowed me down that much.

Blogging: sporadic, as determined by my internet access, but I'll try. Until then!

Wednesday, July 27

A tiny bit belated, but...

Happy Birthday to you, Trae. I love ya. See you Sunday!

Tuesday Quotes again on Wednesday

Watching Jay Leno last night (while packing). Bill Maher was on. Very common philosophies on fidelity by humorists:

Bill Maher: Any woman over the age of 9 who asks why a man cheats is an idiot. Men are wired that way. (He went on to say that most women want to get married. And as men are wired to cheat, women are wired to create a nest.)

Chris Rock: A man is basically as faithful as his options.


Of course, Chris Rock’s statement is funnier, but they both hold the same worldview. By the way, I don’t buy either one. But Chris Rock’s made me laugh. Bill Maher was mildly funny at times, but not enough that I’m going to buy his book.

Tuesday, July 26

Really good Therapy


One of the best photos I've ever taken, in my opinion. Probably just because I love my sister!

There are more here - DMM got herself a black lab puppy from the litter. (my aunt and uncle have bred labs for 20 or so years. They again swear this is the last litter.)

I get my film developed today, so I'm sure you'll see more of these.

Saturday, July 23

Real Sex Follow up

Following up on my comment here. From Real Sex, by Lauren Winner:

"This is how sin works: it whispers to us about the goodness of something not good. It makes distortions feel good. It tells us we'd be better off with pleasure in hell than sanctification in heaven."

- and later she makes this very good point -

"If our feelings could be trusted - If we felt good every time we did something good, and felt bad every time we did somthing bad - we would need neither biblical guidelines of right behavior nor a community to help hold us accountable to those biblical standards."

Friday, July 22

Friday Photos

Photos from our recent Peacemaker Puppets, mentioned here.

Puppets dancing....



Kids dancing (or Jumping, rather)

Blessed are the Peacemakers

For they will be called sons of God.

Matthew 5:9

Wednesday, July 20

Not only collecting Crap, but "working is painful," on top of it.

FOXSports.com - Tour De France- Armstrong won't work 9 to 5 in retirement:

"No, never,' Armstrong said recently. 'Life is funny, sometimes we have to do things that we don't want to do, but nine-to-five sounds really painful.'"

Unless you've lived through not being able to pay the bills, because you've worked as temp help, and your income is sporatic, to put the nicest spin on it. Unless you've learned that spending what you want, when you want, lands you in debt. Unless you're a normal human being, thankful that you have a job to go to.

But, I don't have Sheryl Crow and fame to live up to, either.

Or in other words, we've got too much crap.

Self-Storage Nation - Americans are storing more stuff than ever. By Tom Vanderbilt"

"But living in a land of wants, not needs, creates its own dilemmas, as evidenced by the concurrent rise of stores like Hold Everything and the Container Store—stuff to hold stuff. Note the curious growth in the 'home organization' market: reality shows like Clean Sweep and magazines like Real Simple, or, more strikingly, the robustness of the National Association of Professional Organizers, which saw a 50 percent rise in membership in the past year."


Eeiiinteresting. Elsewhere, the auther says "So, let's get this straight—houses got bigger, average family sizes got smaller, and yet we still need to tack on a billion-plus square feet to store our stuff?

Tuesday, July 19

Tuesday Quote(s)

When we’re not sure about God – about his goodness, his love, or his control over our circumstances – when we begin to believe our lives are meaningless and beyond hope, when we lose the energy or the will to face another day, unbelief has set in.

Unbelief never travels alone, but brings bitterness and other sins of the heart.

Carolyn Custis James, When Life and Beliefs Collide

Sunday, July 17

had you been here, you'd have heard...

{Lonesome Dove in the background}
Ains: "Did you know Diane Lane is in a romantic comedy coming out soon?"
Madre: "I wonder what's happened since Lonesome Dove - Diane Lane looks like she's been on a starvation diet."
Ains: "Mom, it's Hollywood. They've all been on starvation diets."

Friday, July 15

Oh, and Happy Birthday!


That's the Birthday Man (a.k. The Bro) on his 21st a few days ago. The Madre did a great job of hitting the dollar store for lais, balloons and a very Rat-Pack era looking plastic hat. On which yours truly wrote a very difficult "Happy Birthday" and "21." Then we (Madre, Little Shoe Girl, and Ghetto Phone Boy and me) surprised him at work. They're nice enough to let us crash the party.

Happy Birthday Bro. You Rock.

Friday Photos


Clarks Fork Canyon - From our recent trip through Sunlight Basin to Yellowstone Park Posted by Picasa

Enjoying a little Bubbly (not worth even the little we paid, if you remember) in front of our cabin #3 Posted by Picasa

Thursday, July 14

A movie I'm not necessarily recommending

I watched Before Sunrise last night - finished it before it needed to go back.

And actually, I'm not recommending it at all. A few reasons why: I watched all of it, but for the last quarter or so, I took my contacts out, and being as I couldn't find my glasses, I listened to the dialogue. Yup, I'm fairly blind. I can't really tell you for sure or not whether there was anything offensive. If there WAS an offensive scene, there was little sound to suggest so.

But it's a movie mostly about two people telling each other what they think. None of you will be surprised to know that it's mostly worldly blather. But there were two quotes I really liked.

Jesse: You know what's the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? Is when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they're thinking of you. You know, you'd like to think you're both in all this pain but they're just like 'Hey, I'm glad you're gone'.

(Responding to Celine's contention that conflict isn't all bad, that there are good things that come out of conflict)
Jesse: I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult - You know, that's what to be expected -then I might not get so pissed off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens.


Anyway, the first one I liked because -ha!- it's so true. The second one I like because it seems to me that Americans are in denial about the difficulty of life. Jesse says it perfectly. Even as he's saying it, you can tell he's not going to actually let his lower his expectations for an easy, conflict-free life.

And, yeah. Even though I'm not overwhelmed with Before Sunrise, I'll probably watch Before Sunset. Roll your eyes now.

Wednesday, July 13

For the Coffeaholics everywhere

Actually, fairly accurate. There were a few questions I could have gone either way.

Hat tip: Little Miss Reformed. This is the best quiz blogthings has put out.

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic

At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung

You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping

Your caffeine addiction level: high

Tuesday Quote

I just like this quote. It's been around a long time, and is fairly famous.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
Blaise Pascal

Monday, July 11

Blessed

Trae left on a jet plane this morning, going back home to Wausau. We had a great time - here are a few thoughts from this weekend:

1) Montana tends to not mark exits and highways well. (I told Trae that it's because we don't want visitors finding all the good spots and then staying here. Of course getting "lost" had nothing to do with our catching up and my not paying attention.) We had the privilege of visiting Warren, WY, a town so significant that it doesn't appear on Google maps.

2) Yellowstone animals are fairly acclimated to cars.

(You’re hearing "holy crap!" in the background. I mean, how often do you see a coyote trotting up the road like he owns the park? Christian or Molls will now tell me that it isn't unusual to see coyotes near humans.)

Also seen incredibly near to car: Elk and bison. Seen via high-powered scopes (and a bit more exciting than coyotes and elk): Wolf eating dead bison; wolf chasing off two black bears trying to eat said bison; Grizzly mama with her two cubs.

3) Sad moment: Knowing that we should be appreciating the beauty of Paradise Valley SO much more than we were, but absolutely numb toward it, we had seen so many beautiful places and spectacular scenes. We are truly blessed.

4) Everyone on earth should - at some point in their life - go to Chico Hot Springs and eat at the (very expensive) hotel dining room. Worth. Every. Penny.

5) Not worth every penny? Arbor Mist “wine.” But under the mountains of Cooke City, sitting on the porch of our little rent-a-cabin, it was worthwhile.

6) But the absolute best moment was realizing how normal it was to be road trippin', hanging out with one of my very best friends in the world after not seeing each other for a year. Realizing that, no matter when we see each other next, we'll be right back at that comfortable place. And that, even if it's in heaven, we'll always be blessed with this friendship- which has become so wonderful because it's weathered difficult times, not in spite of them.

Love ya, T. Congrats on your engagement, sweetie! ;)

Natural Beauty


View of the Clarks Fork on the way to Cooke City
Posted by Picasa

Thursday, July 7

More of God's Creation

So, as I was searching for hotels, I followed this. If you want to be mildly amazed at Google, you can do so, as well.

Go to www.maps.google.com
enter "Cooke City, MT"
Click Satallite images.


Anyway, I thought it was cool. Cooke City is where Trae and I'll be staying right before we head into the park.

For a picture of Yellowstone's Mammoth Hot Springs, Go to lbimaging

Saturday, July 2

God's creation

Between These pictures and These pictures, I'm made aware of how he's given us an awful lot of places that inspire our awe.

Friday, July 1

A thought for each day I haven't posted

Things I've thought about blogging this week and I've just been busy and lazy:

1)Wow. If you look at my blog, you'd think it was winter up here in MT. It's not.


2) It's really disgusting how many people search for Layton Hewitt. Seriously, eugh. He's the reason I've had an obscene number of hits on my site this week (considering I haven't posted a thing.) And also, Mwah-ha-ha! I'm not sure why I don't like Hewitt, except that he's never lost his punk attitude. Even Andy Roddick has lost a lot of his punk attitude. You'd think getting spanked by Federer in their last 8 matches would bring Hewitt down a notch, but no.

3)I'm WAY excited that my WI friend Trae will be here next Friday! Woo! If I'm REALLY ambitious, mabye I'll even take some pictures that will reflect the current season.

4)Our church worship team finished their cd, and it's only a matter of time until I get my own copy. For right now, I stole it from the VP of the ministry and ripped it onto my computer (I don't have a burner, so its safe). It's been a good way for me to entertain myself as I log in longer-than-usual hours this week.

and 5) These next weeks are going to be very busy: I'll be traveling for 4 out of 6 weekends. I'll be going to Yellowstone Nat'l Park; Bozeman MT; St. Louis, MO; and St. Paul, MN. Squeeze in two jobs, and we'll see what kind of state I'll be in, come August 12-13.

Friday Photo



My friend KB and I go on photodates - this was taken out west of town. I like this because is reminds me that the past wasn't that long ago - our city is taking over, but there's still a lot of old school Montana to go around.

Someday I'll have to figure out how to capture the shine from the sun bouncing off of the fields of snow. It was close-to-blinding, and I'm sure the camera adjusted appropriately so that I had a picture. This'll do.

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