"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well" (The Little Prince by de Saint-Exupéry). One woman's journey to wellness through a well-adjusted heart, well-watered soul, well-educated mind, and well-tuned body. "Love the Lord your God with all your HEART, and with all your SOUL, and with all your MIND, and with all your STRENGTH" (Mark 12:30-31).
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Wednesday's Goals
Read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Papa's Wife
Pray through and post Job 27 on BBC. Pray for those needs pressing.
Meet with Nourieh for Genesis
Prepare for Sunday's class
Workout with George at club and fix something healthy for dinner
Load of laundry
(I did everything but the load and Papa's Wife, but I did the load on Thursday)
Twas The Month After Christmas
Twas the month after Christmas,
and all through the house,
Nothing would fit me,
not even a blouse.
The cookies I'd nibbled,
the chocolate I'd taste
At the holiday parties
had gone to my waist.
When I got on the scales
there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store
(less a walk than a lumber),
I'd remember the marvellous meals I'd prepared;
The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared,
The wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese
And the way I'd never said, "No thank you, please."
As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt...
I said to myself, as I only can,
"You can't spend a winter, disguised as a man!"
So, away with the last of the sour cream dip.
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip.
Every last bit of food that I like must be banished
Till all the additional ounces have vanished.
I won't have a cookie, not even a lick.
I'll want only to chew on a long celery stick.
I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie.
I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.
I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore...
But isn't that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot:
Happy New Year to all, and to all a good diet!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
If They Had Lived to See This Day
It is in the Providence of God that I would be reading these books the week prior to the inauguration of the first black president of the United States of America. Could they have even dreamed of this day?
Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington both rose up out of slavery by hard work and industry and better the black man and woman. Their lives were inspiring.
My children and I watched a video from the Biography of America. You can register for free and watch the important video on "Slavery." I wept through most of the 26 minutes.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
100 Classic Books You Must Read Before You Die
This is based on the Penguin Classic's list of "100 Classic Books You Must Read Before You Die". http://www.listsofbests.com/list/11632. Its for people reading them, wanting to read them or wishing they hadn't read them LOL.
1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. Diary of a Madman and Other Stories - Nikolai Gogol
3. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
4. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
6. Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
7. Spy In House Of Love: V4 In Nin'S Continuous Novel - Anais Nin
8. Lady Chatterly's Lover - D.H.Lawrence
9. Venus in Furs - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
10. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
11. The Karamazov Brothers - Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
13. Diamonds Are Forever - Ian Fleming
14. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
15. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
16. A Room With a View - E. M. Forster
17. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
18. Don Juan - Lord George Gordon Byron
19. Love in a Cold Climate- Nancy Mitford
20. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
21. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
22. Middlemarch - George Eliot
23. She: A History of Adventure - H. Rider Haggard
24. The Fight - by Norman Mailer
25. No Easy Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
28. Notre-Dame of Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) - Victor Hugo
29. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
30. The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens
31. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
32. Bram Stoker's Dracula - Bram Stoker
33. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
34. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
35. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
36. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
37. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
38. Baby doll - Tennessee Williams
39. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
40. Emma - Jane Austen
41. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
42. The Odyssey - Homer
43. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
44. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
45. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
46. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
47. Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
48. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
49. The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
50. Against Nature - Joris-Karl Huysmans
51. The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X
52. The Outsider - Albert Camus
53. Animal Farm - George Orwell
54. The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
55. Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
56. The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
57. The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
58. The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
59. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
60. We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
61. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
62. Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga - Hunter S. Thompson
63. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
64. Another Country - James Baldwin
65. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
66. Junky: The Definitive Text of Junk - William S. Burroughs
67. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
68. Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
69. Subterraneans - Jack Kerouac
70. Monsieur Monde Vanishes - Georges Simenon
71. Nineteen Eighty-four - George Orwell
72. The Monkey Wrench Gang - Edward Abbey
73. The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
74. Bound for Glory - Arthur Miller
75. Death of a Salesman - Georges Simenon
76. Maigret and the Ghost - Georges Simenon
77. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
78. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
79. A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan, Sir Doyle
80. The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
81. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
82. Therese Raquin - Ãmile Zola
83. Les Liaisons dangereuses - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
84. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
85. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
86. I, Claudius : From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54 - Robert Graves
87. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
88. The Beggar's Opera - John Gay
89. The Twelve Caesars - Suetonius
90. Guys and Dolls - Hal Leonard Corporation
91. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
92. The Iliad of Homer - Homer
93. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
94. From Russia with Love - Ian Fleming
95. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
96. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
97. The Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith
98. Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
99. Scoop - Evelyn Waugh
100. Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Friday, January 09, 2009
What Have You Done?
01. Start your own blog — Yes
02. Sleep under the stars — Yes
03. Play in a band — Yes, sang with one, but that is my instrument
04. Visit Hawaii — No
05. Watch a meteor shower — Yes
06. Give more than you can afford to charity — Yes
07. Go to Disneyworld — No
08. Climb a mountain — Yes! Canadian Coastal range in the fog, no view, but life is the journey not the desination!
09. Hold a praying mantis — Yes
10. Sing a solo — Friends think I can sing in their weddings
11. Bungee jump — Nevah!
12. Visit Paris — No
13. Watch a lightning storm at sea — YES, from the coast and airplane
14. Teach yourself an art technique — Yes
15. Adopt a child — No
16. Eat sushi — YES, with Ginny and Lorraine
17. Walk to the top of the Statue of Liberty — No
18. Grow your own vegetables — Yes (mostly George, but we are one)
19. See the Mona Lisa in France — No
20. Sleep on an overnight train — More times than I care to remember. Europe!
21. Have a pillow fight — Yes
22. Hitch hike — Nevah!
23. Look at the rings of Saturn through a telescope — Yes
24. Build a snow fort — Nope
25. Hold a lamb — Nope (do stuffed ones count?)
26. Climb to the top of a lighthouse — Yes (Newport, Oregon)
27. Run a Marathon — Want to walk one
28. Ride in a gondola in Venice — No
29. See a total eclipse — Yes
30. Watch a sunrise or sunset — Yes
31. Hit a home run — YES!
32. Go on a cruise — I am going on May 18th for the first time!
33. See Niagara Falls in person — No
34. Visit the birthplace of your ancestors — Just Sweden. Penn some day
35. Visit an Amish community — No
36. Teach yourself a new language — Yes (Malay)
37. Have enough money to be truly satisfied — Yes
38. See the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person –No
39. Go rock climbing — Just on a wall
40. See Michelangelo’s David — Oh, some day I dream
41. Sing karaoke in public — Sang "Silent Night" and Carpenter's "Close to You" with Nancy Casady. It was piped through the whole shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur! LOL!
42. See Old Faithful geyser erupt in person — No
43. Buy a stranger a meal at a restaurant — Just Starbuck's
44. Visit Africa — No
45. Walk on a beach by moonlight — Yes, Malaysia was the best!
46. Ride in a helicopter — No
47. Have your portrait painted — No
48. Go deep sea fishing — No
49. See the Sistine Chapel in person — Someday
50. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris — Not yet
51. Go scuba diving or snorkeling — Yes, snorkeling
52. Kiss in the rain — Yes
53. Play in the mud — Yes
54. Watch a movie at a drive-in theater — Yes
55. Be in a movie — No, but I was no Channel 7 New in LA once
56. Visit the Great Wall of China — No
57. Start a business — Yes
58. Take a martial arts class — No
59. Visit Russia — No
60. Serve meals at a soup kitchen — At a kids dinner outreach
61. Sell Girl Scout cookies — Ye
s62. Go whale watching — Only from the shore
63. Get or send flowers for no reason — Yes
64. Donate blood, platelets or plasma — Yes
65. Go sky diving — Nevah!
66. Visit a Nazi Concentration Camp — No
67. Adopt a pet from a rescue shelter — No
68. Pilot an airplane — Nevah!
69. Save a favorite childhood toy — Yes
70. Visit the Lincoln Memorial — No
71. Eat Caviar — I think but have blocked it
72. Make a quilt — YES!
73. Stand in Times Square — No
74. Tour the Everglades — No
75. Visit the Viet Nam Memorial — No
76. See the Changing of the Guard in London — No
77. Drive a race car — No
78. Ride on a speeding motorcycle — Yes
79. See the Grand Canyon in person — Yes
80. Publish a book — No
81. Visit the Vatican — No
82. Buy a brand new car — No
83. Walk in Jerusalem — No
84. Have your picture in the newspaper — Yes
85. Read the entire Bible — Yes
86. Visit the White House — No but love the C-SPAN documentary!
87. Kill and prepare an animal for eating — Yes
88. Hike the Appalachian Trail — No
89. Save someone’s life — No
90. Sit on a jury — No
91. Meet someone famous — Michael W. Smith, James Taylor, Elizabeth Eliot, Jo Shetler, Ronald Reagan walked by me
92. Join a book club –Oh, my guilty pleasure - three of them!
93. Own an iPod — Yes
94. Have a Facebook page — Yes
95. See the Alamo in person — No
96. Swim in the Great Salt Lake — No
97. Cross country snow ski — Yes
98. Hold a snake — Yes
99. See DaVinci’s Starry Night in person — No
100. Read an entire book in one day — Yes (many times)
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Job 9:1-13
Job 9:1-13
1THEN JOB answered and said,
2Yes, I know it is true. But how can mortal man be right before God?
3If one should want to contend with Him, he cannot answer one [of His questions] in a thousand.
4[God] is wise in heart and mighty in strength; who has [ever] hardened himself against Him and prospered or even been safe?
5[God] Who removes the mountains, and they know it not when He overturns them in His anger;
6Who shakes the earth out of its place, and the pillars of it tremble;
7Who commands the sun, and it rises not; Who seals up the stars [from view];
8Who alone stretches out the heavens and treads upon the waves and high places of the sea;
9Who made [the constellations] the Bear, Orion, and the [loose cluster] Pleiades, and the [vast starry] spaces of the south;
10Who does great things past finding out, yes, marvelous things without number.
11Behold, He goes by me, and I see Him not; He passes on also, but I perceive Him not.
12Behold, He snatches away; who can hinder or turn Him back? Who will say to Him, What are You doing?
13God will not withdraw His anger; the [proud] helpers of Rahab [arrogant monster of the sea] bow under Him.
Monday, January 05, 2009
2008 Movies and Documentaries
72. It's a Wonderful Life
71. A Muppet Christmas Carol
70. Ballykissangel: Season One
69. Can't Buy Me Love
68. Australia (Epic grandeur)
67. Two Weeks Notice
66. Sergeant York (GREAT!)
65. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
64. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
63. Elf
NOVEMBER
62. Kennedy (PBS TV Biopic)
61. A Man for All Seasons
60. Saved!
OCTOBER
59. High School Musical 3
58. Moliere
57. Foyle's War Final Season
56. Flash of Genius
SEPTEMBER
55. John Adams (Best of the Year!)
54. Stand by Me
53. Ever After (A Great Escape!)
52. Nanny McPhee (ADORABLE!)
AUGUST
51. Your Love Broke Through:Keith Green Story
50. Jaws II (Why?)
49. Nim's Island (on plane)
48. Leatherheads (on plane)
JULY
47. Hancock (Mindless Sci Fi Will Smith)
46. Mama Mia (Brosnan cannot sing)
45. The Cherry Orchard (Dench is amazing)
44. The Importance of Being Earnest (Redgrave ROCKS!)
43. A Doll's House (Bloom and Hopkins)
42. Mystic River (edited AMC version)
41. Picture Perfect (edited TV version)
40. Hamlet (Kevin Kline Version)
JUNE
39. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
38. WALL-E (Pixar Cute!)
37. Hamlet (2/3rd of Olivier version)
36. A Midsummer Night's Dream (Kline, Pfeiffer version)
34. Richard III (Olivier version)
33. Sense and Sensibility (Hilarious Emma Thompson Commentary)
32. Miss Austen Regrets (Masterpiece rewatch)
31. Sense and Sensibility (Masterpiece rewatch)
May
30. Cranford (Masterpiece)
29. Juno
28. Prince Caspian
27. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
26. Pride and Prejudice (Knightly version)
25. Anne Frank Biography
April
24. Northanger Abbey (Rewatch of Masterpiece)
23. My Boy Jack (Masterpiece)
22. Sense and Sensibility (Masterpiece)
21. The Way We Were
March
20. Exodus Revealed (Documentary)
19. Emma (Masterpiece)
18. Barak Obama Biography
17. The Odyssey (Hallmark - good)
16. The Ultimate Gift
15. The Adventures of Oicee Nash
February
14. Oedipus Mayor
13. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
12. Planet Earth:11 part BBC mini-series
11. The Teaching Company: Odyssey
10. Miss Austen Regrets (Masterpiece)
January
9. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
8. Mansfield Park (Masterpiece)
7. The Kite Runner
6. Northanger Abbey (Masterpiece)
5. Atonement
4. Persuasion (Masterpiece)
3. Charlie Wilson's War
2. Luther
1. Jane Eyre (Masterpiece Theatre)
2008 Books
84. A Christmas Carol
83. The Jesse Tree
82. Jotham's Journey
81. Voltaire and Rousseau by Charles Sherover
80. Giovanni's Light
79. Ten Powerful Phrases for Positive People
78. The Star Across the Tracks
77. Nature by Emerson
76. The New Nation by Joy Hakim
75. The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde
74. The Fourth Wise Man by Summers
73. The Story of the Other Wise Man by Van Dyke
72. Esther! Year One Done
NOVEMBER
71. What Ever Happened to the American Dream?
70. Nehemiah
69. Ezra
68. Self-Reliance by Emerson
67. 2 Kings
66. From Colonies to Country by Hakim
65. The Social Contract by Rousseau
64. Meditations by Descartes
63. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
62. A Man for All Seasons by Bolt
61. Utopia by Sir Thomas More
OCTOBER
60. True End of Civil Government by John Locke
59. The Road
58. Personal Narrative of Jonathan Edwards
57. Paradise Lost by John Milton
56. 1 Kings
55. Common Sense by Thomas Paine
54. Permission Evangelism
53. Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
52. Making Thirteen Colonies by Joy Hakim
SEPTEMBER
51. 2 Samuel
50. The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur
49. Frankenstein (Surprisingly good!)
48. The First Americans by Joy Hakim
47. Brothers Karamazov Cliff Notes
46. 1 Samuel
AUGUST
45. The Shack
44. Ruth
43. Judges
42. A School for Scandal by Sheridan
41. The Way of the World by Congreve
40. She Stoops to Conquer by Goldsmith
JULY
39. Joshua
38. Political Theory: The Classic Texts and Their Continuing Relevance by Joshua Kaplan (audio book)
37. The Republic by Plato
36. The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov
35. A Doll's House by Ibsen
34. The Landmark Thucydides: Peloponnesian War
JUNE
33. Deuteronomy
32. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
31. Hamlet
30. The Complete Sonnets of William Shakespeare
29. A Midsummer Night's Dream
28. The Prince by Machiavelli
27. Richard III by Shakespeare
26. Doctor Faustus (Sold his soul to the devil)
25. Everyman (Medieval Morality Play)
24. The Canterbury Tales
MAY
23. Numbers
22. The Odes of Horace (selections)
21. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
20. Sense and Sensibility
APRIL
19. Leviticus
18. Northanger Abbey
MARCH
17. Exodus
16. Landmark Herodotus: Histories
15. A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens
FEBRUARY
14. Birds by Aristophanes (Webb)
13. Medea by Euripides (Morwood)
12: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (Fitzgerald & Fitts)
11. Eumenides (The Good-Minded Ones) by Aeschylus
10. Choephori (The Libation Bearers) by Aeschylus
9. Agamemnon by Aeschylus (Vellacott Trans)
7. Genesis
8. Greek Lyrics (Lattimore Translation)
6. The Holman Old Testament Commentary: Genesis
5. Crazy for God by Frank Schaeffer
4. The Odyssey (Lattimore Translation)
JANUARY
3. The Glass Castle
2. Peace Like a River
1. A Thousand Splendid Suns
Friday, January 02, 2009
Quiet Time Notes from Day of Prayer and January 1 & 2
You have given me "rest on all sides" (2 Chronicles 20:30). Yahoo! I love the "culture of peace" I am in!
You act on behalf of the one who waits for You (Isaiah 64:4).
Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired
They will walk and not become weary (Isaiah 40:31).
Pray for the "welfare of the city" of Corvallis (Jeremiah 29:7)
These are all books I will be in this year for the Bible Book Club. Interesting.
January 2
You must increase,
I must decrease (John 3:30).
"Satan dines on what we withhold from God." Francis Frangipane, The Three Battlefields
Thursday, January 01, 2009
2008 Slideshow
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!
Friday Freewrite Fifteen
My timer is set for fifteen minutes. It is actually a Friday. When I first started doing these freewrites (too many years ago to remember), ...
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This is really more a short essay, but it is profound and important. It is one of the best things I have ever read and a pplying it will cha...
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These are all the books I get to read for my Year of Preparation for the Order of the Mustard Seed (OMS). They are not in the order I rea...
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In keeping with my prayer emphasis for 2014, here is another gem of a book on prayer written by the same person who wrote The Game with Minu...