I Am Blessed

I will tell you - I fall victim to discouragement from time to time. My general demeanor is positive and upbeat - but there are times when it is hard to keep going. I praise God that He is always the lifter of my head. Generally speaking, it is usually in pressing into His word that I find the cloud of gloom lifting. However, God also uses other people to bless you - to encourage you and give you the added push you need. This week it has happened a couple of times. This Sunday, while perusing the nominees for the Homeschool Blog awards, I discovered very unexpectedly that I was nominated for not one but TWO awards - Best Cyber-Buddy and Best Variety. You could have knocked me over with a feather! It was a true blessing to think that anyone would think such nice things about me.
Then this afternoon in a comment to this post were these words that shook me in the depths of my heart. This is the kind of thing I live for - to love people and make a difference in their lives.

Sometimes I wonder if you ever hurt as much as I do knowing that we can't just meet up at Wal*Mart or taco bell. I wonder if you ever knew what kind of an effect you had on my life. I have been to many different youth group meetings, with many different AWESOME leaders, but for some reason they just can't fill that gap inside of me that you left. I never knew quite how to say thank you, so I just kept my mouth shut. I just really want you to know, that i will never forget you. You were my very first youth leader, you were my favorite youth leader. I miss your voice during worship, you always had a beautiful voice that stood out from the rest.
I hope you will always remember that little goofball in the class.
posted as
Anonymous

Talk about needing tissues. There ain't a blog award in this world that can top what that means to me. I am not certain who this is as there were a couple of goofballs in my life – and I loved every single one of them. If you read this – know that you always have my heart, even here, deep in the heart of Texas! (Please comment here and tell me who you are!)

Drivers License Test - Take 1

Tomorrow my oldest baby will be 16 years old. She was eligible to get her learners license last April, however we put it off until after we moved. Once we moved to Texas, she had to complete their "parent taught" drivers education course, which I could not order until I got MY Texas license. I got that in the fall, the ordered the packet - which we got in November. We made a long trip to WV, then there was Christmas and one thing after another until here we are - almost to her 16th birthday. I woke her up this morning and told her I was going to take her to take the test to get her permit. "But MOM, I haven't studied." I asked her if she'd read through the book, which she had, and then I told her if she didn't pass she could just consider it a practice test. She missed one more than you were allowed to miss, and so we go back next week for her to retake it. No biggie. It's not a secret. She doesn't have that serious sense of failure that I would have had in a similar situation, and I have to wonder if the difference is her personality or the fact that she's been homeschooled most of her life. We have similar personalities so I would lean more towards the latter.
As she was testing, I realized something as I watched her sitting at that little desk, struggling to concentrate through the ADD in a chaotic office, knowing that she would have been medicated heavily throughout elementary school or held back so her teachers could manage to make the child walk in line or not have to assist her in keeping up with her backpack - I realized that as a mother, my goal has been to teach her how to drive. What the state wanted was for her to "take a test". While I understand it is necessary to have some gauge in measuring the whole of society to determine road-worthiness of the individual, most of what was on her test had NOTHING to do with actual driving. She said about a third of the questions were about the amount of fines incurred for specific offenses such as DUI, etc. What does that have to do with driving I ask you? There are no sour grapes here - it just smacks of the stupidity of the system. There are some who may be able to recite the fines forwards and backwards - but whether or not they should be on the road remains to be seen. I think this is another HUGE piece of evidence that points toward what a warped idea we have as a society of education.
A month or so ago someone sent me this link of a song by Tom Chapin called "Not on the Test". It is a humorous look at what I'm talking about here. Hope it gives you a chuckle. On the homefront this week is to learn how to bend your brain around "the test"!
After all this ranting, I do have a warm fuzzy to share with. As Kendra and I were walking up to the DPS office for her to take her test, I said, "I just want to hold your hand and walk you in there like it is your first day of kindergarten." A few seconds later, this precious little hand - not much smaller than my own now, reached down and grasped mine. She may be almost 16 but she's still my baby!

Mister Linky Tutorial

I have noticed more and more, when I try to browse the auto link pages from some of the collective Mister Linkys that they are very inefficient. Especially when you are browsing older link lists, you have to often weed through numerous posts in order to find what you are looking for. This has its advantages. I was browsing around this evening for some crock pot recipes and got to know much more about this blogger, and I am so happy that I did. However, for efficiency's sake, I thought maybe if somebody just pointed out the problem, it may be a "lightbulb moment" for others. When you are using these linkies - for Slow Cookin' Thursday or Wordless Wednesday or the Quirky Quote Qontest or the "Scrap Happy" Meme that is soon to come to this blog (stay posted for details), the only way to make sure someone actually gets to the post that relates to the specific theme, is to link to the actual post. It took me a bit to figure this out as well. If I just link to my blog - and someone doesn't get to go through the Slow Cookin' Thursday linkies until the following Tuesday, by that time, my specific post (in this case a shared recipe) may be buried under like 20 other posts. The most efficient way to use the linkies is to use them to link directly to your related post. You do this by clicking on the title of your related post - and magically in the address bar at the top of the page it is on will contain the exact link to that post! A simple copy & pasting action, and you grab that bad boy and paste it in the "URL" spot in the Mister Linky - just under where you put your name. And there you have it - a way to save yourself and others some time and help them get directly to what you want them to find! Oh yeah, and don't forget to click the "Enter" button at the right!

Long Day - Blah,Blah,Blah,Blah Life Goes On

I know it is very unlike me to have so little to say - but I am just bordering on a mental coma right now. I had to take my car to the dealership to have it looked at and it turns out that what we were worried was a major deal turned out to be that my tires just needed balanced. So $39.99 all said and done - not bad. Making a big trip at the end of the month to WV - so it definitely needed to be all checked out.
And just in case you are wondering, I got an email today sharing this secret recipe with me! Aren't you so jealous! I'll never share fatty's secret - never - never. (Maybe if you share something better with me we can make an arrangement!)
And just in case I gave you the impression this past week that my husband is Mr. Charming - let me just tell you that last night the man made hysterical fun of me for posting on my blog about WHERE to put the trampoline. I explained to the prince that if I had made any real-life, living and breathing, come-on-over-and -tell-me-what-you-think- about- where-I-put-my- trampoline friends, I might NOT have to blog about it! (Just between you and me - I would anyway - but we'll make him suffer guilt a bit longer - dragging me all the way out here and then making fun of me for having cyber buddies that I share it all with! Hmpf!)
I hope that everyone is visiting the Quirky Quote Qontest Voting Poll daily to cast at least two votes for your favorite quotes. There are only 3 days left to make your opinions known.
I went to Dollar General earlier this evening and started having a very bad episode of some sort of rapid heartbeat - my pulse was racing and I feel very shaky so I better just say goodnight. Nighty night y'all. Hope I am back to myself tomorrow - I hate feeling this way.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Whew! It got soooo hot today - mid-80s and it is just now noon. It is also very humid. All the storm windows and inside windows went down. I live in a house of glass - so this is no small feat. (It was one of the things that I LOVED about this house - and my husband hated was the massive amount of large windows!) Most people around here have had their air on for weeks - but we have enjoyed the cool mornings and evenings and endured a few hours of warmth in the afternoons around dinner time. It must be the windows but we seem to have a lot of cross-ventilation that creates a breezy atmosphere, not to mention the ceiling fans on at various speeds different times of the day. I didn't want to close the windows until I knew they would be shut for a while, because of their age and the sheer quantity of them, it is no small feat. This morning I knew I was in trouble when I broke a sweat scrubbing the toilet! So, we are bracing ourselves for the heat. I am thinking that it might be a nice week to take a trip to the gulf coast. What is the weather like where you are? (Don't forget to tell me where you are!)

Workbook Heebie Jeebies

Workbooks freak me out. Can I just say this without offending anyone here in my own little corner of the blogosphere? No offense intended. I have a dear friend who delights in them. I am waaaayy too compulsive - and have to fill in every blank - and not only that - I must write nicely. These are obsessive compulsive tendencies are derived directly from years of elementary school education. I just can't leave a blank undone. What does one with this issue do with a Bible study workbook? It makes me feel fake - because whether I've pondered the issue or not - I must have an answer every time. Yes, some are easy enough - the answer to the questions are direct and found easily in the material. But what about the spiritual issues with more depth? I have to mull those over in my mind. I took the Experiencing God study because our previous church required it for membership - and like a good little student, I filled in every blank. In all sincerity, I got little out of it. Later, when I was a leader of the group, and was able to use my first book that was already completed and able then to just focus on the material, I benefited far more from the lessons. Today I started a new Blackaby bible study for the Sunday School class we have started attending called, "When God Speaks". The information in this first lesson was basic. I didn't find the information to be difficult, but the two questions at the end of the chapter hanging in the air are completely unsettling to me -

• What did God say to you during your study today?
• What will you do as a result?

I feel like perhaps I should have had a major revelation from God during this time, but I didn't. God usually speaks to me when I'm doing the dishes, or making a bed, often taking a shower. I find it difficult to fit the relationship - I talk to God and then I listen to see what He has to say - into a workbook format. Yes, sometimes it does come very clearly and suddenly - but other times it is a process. Is there an elementary school purgatory for those of us who cannot fill in all the spiritual blanks? The Bible studies that ask these things of me come across cheesy, even if there is depth in the rest of the material.
Can anybody feel my pain?
I'm off to take some Benadryl - I think the whole thing gave me hives!

Redneck or What?

I have to ask a question of my discerning friends. My house and yard is slightly difficult to describe. It is the "side" of our house that faces the road. I stood in my neighbor's yard to take this first picture. Technically the part of the house to the left of the frame is the "front" of the house - and the "side" of the house faces the road here. There used to be a road in the front of this house when the house was built somewhere between 80 - 100 years ago, that is no longer there which is why it is sideways. The only porch/deck/entrance to the outside of the house is the two doors that walk out onto the "L-shaped" porch. We finally bought the kids a trampoline to replace the one that we gave away before moving from WV - and put it up today. I had a dilemma - I could put it up in the back yard - in the hot sun, a pretty good walk from the house - OR just to the left of the house, here, which may somewhat appear to be the front yard. I need to know if this looks trashy. This would fall into the category my mom would call "rednecky". The bottom picture is the view from the road. If you look to the left of this picture that was taken from our road - you can see the trampoline behind a large bush and nestled underneath a couple of trees.
I like this placement for a couple of reasons: First, it is in the shade and the kids can possibly enjoy it even on the hottest days. Second, it is a long trek out to the back yard - which would most definitely keep Kullen from wanting to use it on his own. Third, I can sit on the porch and see them on the trampoline, as well as from my desk which is just inside the porch window.
What do you think? Honest opinions. Remember we live in the country and not a curb and guttered subdivision. I know these things aren't that important - and when it comes down to it - I will leave it in the place that most pleases the 5 of us that live here and use it - but I have to know what people think when they see it. Thanks!

Wildflowers

Almost twice in a week - and really it's almost too much to take! First there was the honking incident, and then this - the hubby picks me these precious wildflowers Friday on his way home from work. It really melted my butter! (I think the combination of too many Beth Moore books and living in Texas is getting to me - we don't use such phrases in WV!) Anyway - they were gorgeous - and are a perfect reminder - I'm wild about the guy - and he must like me too sometimes. If you knew how hard this must have been for him, picking flowers out in public. Perhaps he found some growing behind a dumpster where he could pick unnoticed - either way I know it wasn't something that came naturally. They even came complete with stems fastened together with a tight black band of electrical tape. I'm such a spoiled girl!

Let the Voting Begin

Wow! So many of you have entered the Quirky Quote Qontest - 57 entries! That well exceeded my greatest expectations. I am so excited to have so many of you here - and hope you will all show up to vote. I tried to be fair - and if you see that somehow I have missed you, please notify me via email at julientexas at sbcglobal dot net. All quotes were cut and pasted directly from the blog of the contestant - only adding attributions when necessary.

Make sure to read through the list of all the quotes in their entirety carefully - and then proceed to the poll at the bottom of this post. Please feel free to cast 2 votes each day - but please not any more. This will go on the honor system. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
After hours of entering the quotes into the Poll Daddy maker - I was only able t0 have 30 quotes per poll - therefore there are two here. It should not be difficult to compare the 2 in order to find a winner. The poll would also only show part of the quotes so make sure to go to this post to read them in full. The quote numbers on the poll should correspond with that list as well as the Mister Linky in the original contest entry post.

Please publicize the voting so that readers at your blog will come and vote too - and feel free to sway them to vote for you! Know that I am posting this well beyond the hour that I should have gone to bed - and will be proofing it again in the morning for clarity! Best wishes to all the contestants!

All Quotes in their Entirety

Here is an exhaustive list of all the quotes that were entered into the Quirky Quote Qontest:

Quote 1 - The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or even touched; they must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller

Quote 2 - “When we started homeschooling, I felt as if I tucked a child under each arm and jumped off a cliff. Imagine my surprise to discover we had wings!” -Maura Seger

Quote 3 - “If the schools were perfect, I would still homeschool my children–because it isn’t about school. It’s about families taking their children back and educating them as they see best. It’s about giving birth to a child and loving that child enough to want to nurture him and be a part of his life until he no longer needs you. It is the natural thing to do. School is only a substitute for the real thing.” –Kathleen

Quote 4 - Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria. - Dr. Peter Venkman

Quote 5 - beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.
~miss piggy

Quote 6 - I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair.
I hate the way you drive my car.
I hate it when you stare.
I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind.
I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme.
I hate the way you’re always right.
I hate it when you lie.
I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry.
I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call.
But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
~10 Things I Hate About You

Quote 7 - I am not afraid of failure. I am afraid that I will succeed in things that matter not to God."

Quote 8 - I can't find the entry on this blog

Quote 9 - "What kind of monkey doctor are you?"
-- from Curious George, TV Show.

Quote 10 - "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-- credited to Groucho Marx –

Quote 11 - Brenda: Uh, those are hot dogs, right?
Hot Dog Vendor: Yeah, want one?
Brenda: Mmm, yeah I'd love one.
Hot Dog Vendor: That'll be two bucks.
Hot Dog Vendor: [Brenda hands him a check, he stares incredulously] A check?
Brenda: Yeah, but it's a good check. See, Chris' mom wrote it to Chris 'cause Chris bought her something, I can't remember what. Then I bought Chris some press-on nails, I gave Chris the difference, and she wrote the check over to me. So I'll write the check over to you, you keep the difference, and I'll take the hot dog. So, you got a pen?
Hot Dog Vendor: Get outta here!
Brenda: Wait! I'm starving, you'd rather throw it away than give it to me?
Hot Dog Vendor: I work on a cash-only basis.
Brenda: But it's a perfectly good check!
Hot Dog Vendor: No! I'll make it very clear. you slip me the cash, and I'll slip you the wiener.
Brenda: But I don't have any cash!
Hot Dog Vendor: Then I don't have a wiener!

Quote 12 - share your M&Ms. there are bags and bags of them all over the place. if you give them one of yours, even the green ones, you will not be lacking. honest injun. now apply this to time, concern, touch, interest, and being vulnerable.
~ hugh elliott

Quote 13 - Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word - Author John Steinbeck

Quote 14 - Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.
--Helen Keller

Quote 15 - "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."--Brooke Shields.

Quote 16 - God brought us to it, and God WILL bring us through it... author unknown

Quote 17 - “I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” -Oscar Wilde

Quote 18 - "It's very good for strength, to know that someone needs you to be strong." Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Quote 19 - "Courage is endurance for one moment more…" ~Unknown Marine Second Lieutenant in Vietnam

Quote 20 - "Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over. Everyone, just... pretend to be normal."

Quote 21 - “I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”
~Monty Python

Quote 22 - “Don’t just do something…sit there!” Jon Courson

Quote 23 – Repeat of Quote 22 – SKIP

Quote 24 - Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. C. S. Lewis

Quote 25 - "Tis better to Remain Silent and be thought a fool, than speak and remove all Doubt" Poor Richard's Almanac

Quote 26 - "A person's worth is contingent upon who he is, not upon what he does, or how much he has. The worth of a person, or a thing, or an idea, is in being, not in doing, not in having."
- Alice Mary Hilton

Quote 27 – broken link

Quote 28a - Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone, But still miraculously my own. Never forget for a single minute, You didn't grow under my heart - but in it
-- Author:Fleur Conkling Heylinger

Quote 28b - Goals are like children, they're not always pretty but you love them when they're yours.

Quote 29 - "So if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that."
Uncle Frank(Steve Carell) Little Miss Sunshine, 2006

Quote 30 - "There is no difference between living and learning...it is impossible and misleading and harmful to think of them as being separate"
John Holt in "What Do I Do Monday"

Quote 31 - "I am convinced that if we as a society work diligently in every other area of life and neglect the family, it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic. "
Stephen Covey

Quote 32 – repeat of Quote 31

Quote 33 - "The multiplicty of facts and writings is become so great that everything must now be reduced to extracts." --Voltaire

Quote 34 - I wonder if other dogs think Poodles are members of a weird religious cult?
Rita Rudner

Quote 35 - The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
-- Tom Clancy

Quote 36 - "...be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now." Rainer Maria Rilke

Quote 37 - "I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God".
Queen Elizabeth,
Christmas speech, 2002

Quote 38 - "Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else".
Judy Garland

Quote 39 - The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
- Oprah Winfrey

Quote 40 - "Mistakes are a part of being Human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which at least, others can learn from."
Al Franken

Quote 41 - "God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Quote 42 – “A strong woman is a woman who craves love like oxygen, or she turns blue choking. A strong woman is a woman who loves strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly terrified and has strong needs.” - Marge Piercy

Quote 43 - “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” L.M. Montgomery

Quote 44 - Westley: Can you move at all?
Buttercup: Move? You're alive. If you want, I could fly.
Westley: I told you, "I would always come for you." Why didn't you wait for me?
Buttercup: Well ... you were dead.
Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
Buttercup: I will never doubt again.
Westley: There will never be a need. ~ The Princess Bride

Quote 45 – "And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." --Oscar Wilde

Quote 46 - God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. – C.S. Lewis

Quote 47 - “The world is run by those who show up!”

Quote 48 - "Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty" John Calvin

Quote 49 - There are twenty-four usable hours in every day."
-from the movie Empire Records

Quote 50 - "There's a skinny woman inside me just struggling to get out. I can usually sedate her with four or five cupcakes."
- from a Greeting Card

Quote 51 - "The best 'aromatherapy' comes directly from the kitchen." ~ Susan Branch

Quote 52a - "Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly and for the same reason."
~ R. Limbaugh

Quote 52b - "Wait on God and He will work, but don't wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see an inch in front of you." -Oswald Chambers

Quote 53 – I cannot find a quote linked on this blog

Quote 54 - "Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."- G.K. Chesterton

Quote 55 – repeat of quote 54

Quote 56 - "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein

Quote 57 - “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." - Proverbs 23:7