Weepers and Creepers

Last week I read two older books by Nicholas Sparks ... "The Notebook" and maybe the other was "A Walk in the Park."

Any-who, they were not fun. They were sad, weepy, maudlin tales that set me back weeks on my road to being depression free.

But, happily, three chapters of a Tami Hoag mystery "The Alibi Man" has me back on the right track. I am ready to iron shirts, grocery shop, clean out the skimmers ... and generally do all the things I hate to do ... as a pledge that when I finish, I can read.

Yes, settle down and read a good ole murder in which I don't have to agonize about morals, or the right or wrong thing to do, or worry about what young sweet thing is going to die of a dreaded disease ... for I know she will be brutally killed and usually isn't truly a sweet young thing ... albeit, she may be young.

A salute to all mystery writers, for they are my escapism.

Unique and Useful Tips from a Friend

Reheat Pizza

Heat up leftover pizza in a non-stick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.

Easy Deviled Eggs

Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the corner tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting

When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar/calories per serving.

Reheating refrigerated bread

To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

Newspaper weeds away

Start putting in your plants; work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

Broken Glass

Use a dry cotton ball to pick up little broken glass pieces of glass - the fibers catch ones you can't see!

No More Mosquitoes

Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

Squirrel Away!

To keep squirrels from eating your plants sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

Flexible vacuum

To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gif wrap roll to your vacuum hose. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

Reducing Static Cling

Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and - voila - static is gone.

Measuring Cups

Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill it with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry the cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Foggy Windshield?

Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car. When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Reopening envelope

If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Voila! It unseals easily.

Conditioner

Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's a lot cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair...

Goodbye Fruit Flies

To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass fill it 1/2" with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dishwashing liquid, mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

Get Rid of Ants

Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it "home," & can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, esp. if it rains, but it works & you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

Take baby powder to the beach

Keep a small bottle of baby powder in your beach bag. When your ready to leave the beach sprinkle yourself and kids with the powder and the sand will slide right off your skin.

These are great tips to pass on your friends!

Long Time, No Write, No Baseball

The Braves game wasn't very interesting and the Yankees don't play until 9 so will think off the top of my head for a few minutes.

The first Saturday of April I worked diligently all morning so I could sit, knit and watch the games at 12 or 1, depending ... and then went off the wall ... couldn't get either team and both were playing. Basketball and Augusta were on.

Called Direct TV.

Got someone in another country. Could not understand her so I asked her to speak more slowly. I think she did, but still couldn't understand her. Asked to speak to her supervisor and she said, "I ony one he."

Hung up, called again, still an off-shore answer.

Hung up, called again and got a real live American speaking. But he still couldn't help. Kept telling me they were playing Sunday. I told, "Yes, they are playing Sunday, but they are playing today also and I'm paying for the games and I want them."

No luck.

So I sent emails. Got a reply Tuesday.

That helps, doesn't it.

Got the following explanation (shortened)

On Saturdays in the regular season, FOX TV has exclusive national rights to broadcast games up until 7 pm ET, 4 pm PT. So, while you will not receive MLB on your MLB Extra Innings channels -- you will receive the available Saturday night games that begin after 7 pm ET ... for Saturday morning and afternoon games, check the FOX local schedule.

Don't you know I had already checked the FOX stations and every possible number on Direct TV ... NO BRAVES ... NO YANKEES !

I was an irate customer. Or, maybe, regular season didn't begin until Sunday and we've been playing in the dead of winter since.

The frost nipped all the crepe myrtle leaves, otherwise, all is well.

Another Year - 2007

When first learning about years - months - weeks - days and how they are counted, I often speculated about what the 21st Century years would be called orally. It seemed natural to say or write nineteen-thirty or nineteen-forty and even nineteen-nintynine, but I couldn't comprehend calling a year twenty-o-o.

All the years I knew were "something-hundred," as in nineteen-hundred or eighteen-hundred. Or instead of saying nineteen-forty-eight we often shortened it to forty-eight and every one understood the year we spoke of.

Would we call the new century year twenty hundred? 2-0-0-0 was awkward and didn't sound right or musical. Perhaps 20-0-1 would be comfortable to say, but none seemed to roll off as easily as nineteen-ninety-nine. And if I ever knew "K" meant, except for military K-Rations, I'd forgotten it.

And you know what? The year 2000 arrived and I'd lived to the Twenty-First Century. Nothing sensational about the name of the year two thousand but there was much hoop-la. The date change would cause computers to crash because most software would not recognize year two thousand, just as Social Security computers had trouble when people passed a hundred years of age. And then there was the big attempt to frighten people into believing the world would end.

And now it is easy to spectulate that if this world stands, some people living today will still be living in 3000 or K3 or whatever it is called.

How will the world remember US? "Us being not only the USofA, but the entire world. Greedy, adulterors, licentious, gluttonous, cruel, and vile people? Child predators, dope sellers and users, uncontrollable neighbors, unprincipled
nations, reprobate legislators, profiteering presidents, irrational, obscene and vile habitants of this earth?

We seem to be as evil and undisciplined as the Romans before their fall. So which nation will conquer us? Who will be our master?

Or has each century suffered and survived the same conditions that exist today? The Trojan Horse or Weapons of mass destruction, plagues and diseases or aids and immorality, floods and famine or Katrina and African starvation, sheihks and harams or pimps and prostitutes.

Each century suffered the same torments only different. The health fears in my childhood were infantile paralysis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, measels, mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough, scarlet fever, yellow fever ... diseases rarely seen today in the USofA. Yet, we still have flu but rarely to epidemic proportions and no longer is all cancer fatal and the majority of people survive heart conditions.

War hasn't touched our soil since the nineteenth century and the War between the States, but there was that matter of the Mexican War when the U.S. annexed Texas in 1845-46 sort of mixed in with President Polk's negotiation for California.

In this century some of our fathers and grandfathers were force-marched by the Japanese on Bataan; many of them dropping dead in their tracts . In 1838 Native Americans from our very own state were force-marched to Oklahoma Territory. Those who survived the "Trail of Tears" were resettled on foreign soil without any intervention from President Andrew Jackson.

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we invaded Iraq.
Private employees and American service men number about the same in Iraq.
Anna Nicole and James Taylor are still above ground.
And to quote what's-his-name Grizzard from Newnan, GA, "Elvis is dead and I don't feel so good either."

I could go on and on, but I'll let you come up with world thoughts of your own ... are we better ... no better ... and maybe worse ... that the generations before us.

Peace.

Not Much New, But Some Things Changed

I' m happy to say that our friends Candy and Scott solved several of my computer problems. Am now doing email via the little icon with the clock on it instead of the one with the stamp. And I can now click on an address in an email and be taken to the web-site. What a relief from copying and pasting which is what the Bell South man in India told me to do.

It's neat because information is easier to find plus having a pertetual calendar at my fingertip.

They also burned my pictures to a CD which I had not been able to do, but now I think I can. I'm not sure we figured out why I can't download Microsoft updates, but we ran out of time (and I forgot).

Lola spent the weekend here while Chuck, Lisa and Kara were in Nashville for Cheering competition. She loves the yard and wanted me to play outside with her, but it was just too cold for me ... and I can't run anyway.

Any research that I'm doing is on hold ... one project is closely reading Acts of the Apostles to see what was being preached ... and so far I've found that they preached "Christ." Nothing about what to wear or not wear, nothing about what songs to sing, and very little if anything about the traditions we follow in worship service. I think it all boils down to "Christ and him crucified" but I'll let you know when it's finished. Am ready for the 17th chapter.

As soon as I finished altering pants for Brother I hope to get back to Acts before beginning cooking for Christmas.

I know this is dull as dish water, but have hope.

Am reading Jeffrey Archer's "False Impression" about a Van Gogh painting. So far it's a mystery readers mystery instead of a novel that seems to make fiction into fact.

Peace

Daily Living

Our new surroundings:
The hole in the floor project is complete. Have new dining room tile floor matching the kitchen and under that six new floor joists and two pillars. We seem to be secure.

The barn has a new roof. I think it is only the second roof but that would be miraculous since the building is at least 40 years old. Brother says its the 3rd and he's probably right. I just don't know why it still had a white roof and the house has had a dark one for longer than I can remember.

Books I've Read:
Jack and Dana introducted me to the Philip Gulley books about the town of Harmony. They are a good light and funny read. For this season try his Christmas ones. Try to read the Harmony book in chronological order; the first is "Home to Harmony." If you don't see yourself you might see someone you know. They are in the genre of the "Mitford" books, Keillor's Lake Wobegon, and maybe Fanny Flagg.

Sherry loaned me "Angels of Morgan Hill" by Donna VanLiere and I cried all the way through it. Be careful with this one if you were born poor in a disfunctioning family ... it's too painful.

Dana's last sack contained Stuart Woods paperback "Dark Harbor," A Stone Barrington Novel. It was a quick and fun with nothing to trigger personal emotions. (can you tell by now that I don't like to read touchy, feely or self help books?)

Also included was Ken Follett's "Night Over Water." I began it hesitantly but it caught me. Didn't want to put it down last night. I'd forgotten how good he is with words.

And if you haven't realized it by now ... I'm cheap ... don't buy newly released hardbacks. Wait for paperbacks and have good friends, particular Sherry and Dana who share books so I end up reading things I wouldn't ordinarily choose and am usually pleased with how splendid they are.

Some other favorite authors are Stephen White and his Allen Gregory series. The first book of his that I read was "Higher Authority" about a case of sexual harassment involving the Mormon church. And Patterson, Parker, Scottoline, Cornwell, Hoag, Corben, Coulter and on and on.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow:
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!”

Doxology by Thomas Ken and G. Frano

Sing from the Heart

If you've read my earlier blogs you know that I have been interested in the history of church singing and songs. I've come to some conclusions that are mine only and I have no intention of taking them any further than this blog.

First, a little background on some rules for first century Jewish and Gentile men.

If I understand Acts 21:20-25 correctly, the Jerusalem elders gave Paul the following instructions concerning Jewish male Christians: "Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law." (vs. 24) The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them. (vs. 26 NIV)

The Gentile men had no need to be circumcised, perform other purification rites nor go in the temple. They were to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality." (Acts 21.25)

This being the ruling of the Jerusalem Council it seems to me that Jewish Christians would continue their ritual cleansing and rites, chanting of the Psalms and added the breaking of bread and drinking the wine as a memorial to Jesus Christ. And I assume this is what all the Christians did. If not, why not?

New Testament Scripture about Singing

Matthew 26: 30 "After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." (singing from humneo, aorist active participle, masc. nominative plural) (NASB)

Ephesians 5:19 "speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;"

Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God." (NASB)

I Corinthians 14:15 "What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also." (NASB)

I Corinthians 14:26 "What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation Let all things be done for edification." (NASB)

James 5:13 "Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises." (phalleto, present active imperative 3rd person singular). (NASB)

The passages from Ephesians and Colossians are often used as proof text and are in the middle of rules for living and household rules according to the custom of that time. History records examples of both Roman and Greek household rules and probably other societies do also. The Corinthian passages are in the context of worship.

So what is the outcome about music in worship? It seems to me that the words should pluck the strings of our hearts. In other words, BE HEART FELT. As to whether we are to follow the first century example of singing only from the Book of Psalms. Probably not. If man can compose an uninspired prayer to the Lord, then it probably all right that he (or she) write songs for worship.

I didn’t find any thing in the New Testament about using instrumental music, choirs, choruses, solos, quartets, and such like in worship services, but neither did I find anything condemning such. If uninspired songs, microphones, men and women sitting together, and so on are okay, then maybe pianos, organs, etc. are also. I really don’t know. Some say they come under the law of exclusion.

Outside of worship service I have no problem with singing, playing or hearing "gospel songs" accompanied by instrument music.

I grew up non-instrumental with little emphasis on singing. And now I will be much more diligent about singing and concentrate on the words so that they will be acceptable to God.

Peace