::on Opa's 83rd birthday::

Signing off for the weekend...

I am sooooooo sorry!

I think it was Tuesday night LATE and I was sitting in my bedroom when I heard the loudest boom. It was so loud it shook my bed; I am not joking. Our house is just a little ways from Interstate-94. There is a horse pasture and some trees in between our house and the highway. [So, if you're ever bumping down I-94 and you're passing through Chesterton, honk and wave! :) ]

Anywhoooo, I found out the next day via our podunk paper that a semi-truck carrying cattle had crashed. The tires blew up and hence the noise.

Here is a letter to the editor from yesterday's paper:

The recent headline "Eighteen head of cattle perish in I-94 crash" is horrifying. Can you imagine the terror of the cattle trapped inside a burning truck, some probably with broken legs and unable to move. Every time I see an animal transport truck I cannot bring myself to look into the eyes of the pigs, cattle or chickens looking out at me. They are terrified, sometimes they get broken bones while being herded on and off the trucks, and then they stand for hours in the trucks. In the summer some of the die of heat exhaustion, in the winter they are freezing. And when they arrive at the slaughter house, where as many as 30,000 animals a day are slaughtered; can you imagine the horror of that scene? The animals have spent their entire lives standing in their own waste along with thousands, yes I said thousands, of others. They will never graze in a pasture nor do any of things that they are meant to do, like keep their babies. And this, all so that humans can eat them. Please think about them today.

WHEW!

That is typed exactly how it is written in the paper.

And just for the record, I do NOT saunter up to cattle or chicken or pig or horse transport trucks to peer into the eyes of the animals. They stink.

I'm off to eat my Micky D's cheeseburger this afternoon!

Have a happy Friday. I know I will...

::a list::

::i love lists and calendars::
::today i received my work schedule for the next three months for nannying.  i sat and filled the calendar in with the rest of my miscellaneous jobs.  i'm all set now::
::anything that makes me organized is fantastic::

::before I turn 30, I would like to::

::read the Bible through 2x on a 90 day schedule::
::memorize Psalm 119::
::visit the Sights & Sounds Theater::
::visit the 8th and I::
::a big, loooooooooong road trip::
::run a half marathon::
::learn to make a really great pie with a homemade crust::

endless gifts {310-321}

310. a reminder of Heaven and all of the loved ones we will see again
311. music
312. "old" friends
313. Sunday morning
314. funny Jade and an empty pack of Mentos
315. TEACHING by the Holy Spirit {have you ever thought how often the Holy Spirit teaches us through His Word...how much more patient I need to be when teaching children}
316. laughter
317. hot, hot, hot weather
318. watering and pruning flowers and seeing a correlation between the physical world and my spiritual life
319. a fantastic sermon in the evening church service
320. singing
321. down-pouring sheets of summer rain


Thanks for reading...

Passionate, genuine affection for Jesus will lead to all sorts of vows and promises which it is impossible to fulfill.  It is an attitude of mind and heart that sees only the heroic.  We are called to be unobtrusive disciples not heroes.  When we are right with God, the tiniest thing done out of love to Him is more precious to Him than any eloquent preaching of a sermon...We all have a lurking desire to be exhibitions for God, to be put, as it were, in His showroom.  Jesus does not want specimens; He wants us to be so taken up with Him that we never think about ourselves, and the only impression left on others by our lives is that Jesus Christ is having unhindered way.

Walking on water is easy to impulsive pluck, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is different.  Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he followed Him afar off on the land.  We do not need the grace of God to stand crises; human nature and our pride will do it.  We can buck up and face the music of a crisis magnificently, but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of the day as a saint, to go through drudgery as saint, to go through poverty as a saint, to go through an ordinary, unobtrusive, ignored existence as a saint, unnoted and unnoticeable.  The show business, which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from our Lord's conception of discipleship.  It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we do not.  We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners.  That is not learned in five minutes.

--Oswald Chambers--
Daily Thoughts for Disciples
July 24

favorites: the buildings!

My view of these normally dreary, dim places is bright and sunny because it was unusually warm there. So all of the cute jackets and sweaters that I had bought and brought were basically of no use! However, I'll take bright and sunny over dim and dreary any day, even with the cutest sweaters and jackets!

Catherine's palace

in Estonia

the Peterhof--summer palace of the czar's

my uber-favorite place--Stockholm!!

favorites: family

I am attempting to upload my "favorite" pictures from vacation for my benefit -- so that I don't forget the memories!  Here are some of my favorite,  unedited pictures of our family in no particular order of importance, favorability, or date of occurence.  :)

Mom and Dad in Helsinki, Finland.  See those stickers on their shirts?  They might as well be flashing lights that say, "Tourist.Tourist.Tourist."  haha  We had to wear those stickers when we were with a cruise sponsored tour.

Opa and Geoff -- last night of dinner.  {No, we did not wear chef's hats each  night.}

Geoff in front of Catherine's Palace

Mom and I at the Tower of London with a bridge in the background.

Our favorite place to relax...the Explorations Cafe.  It was at the top of the ship and had a fantastic view!