Wasabi Tobiko

We made it!

2011-11-27T14:12:00.001-08:00

So the last 7 or 8 months have been interesting, to say the least. My 23rd birthday came and went at the end of April without much fanfare; I got switched from taking billing/general inquiry calls at work to taking more equipment/programming upgrade calls, and finally getting some sales incentive bonuses for those upgrades in June; we had to move out of our beautiful house and wound up renting two rooms in our new roommate Rose's house a few miles away, which eased the rent burden significantly; we started and (almost ended) playing my first live-action role-playing game, or LARP, Vampire: the Masquerade, where we met several new friends in August or thereabouts, started catching up on bills in September and October; celebrated our first anniversary on November 1st, and are looking forward to Andrew's transfer/promotion from Manager of Tire Sales at the main Firestone to the Sales Manager position at the new one on base to be finalized soon.
So much more has happened that I don't even remember, both for good and ill, but we made it through our first year alive and kicking. They say the first year is the hardest; I certainly hope so, haha! Ironically, it seems like our biggest problems surfaced right around that pivotal one-year mark. It's funny the way life throws things at you all at once, too; this month has probably been the hardest on both us, with trials and tribulations coming from almost every conceivable angle for both of us, individually and as a couple. But as always, we remain focused on making it work, and so far, we've come out of each battle alive, "... hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair... struck down, but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:8-9), which Christ as our anchor and lighthouse in every storm to guide us back to safe harbor.
Andrew has been getting together with several of his closest friends to put together a video series on YouTube called "Manprovement", which will follow them as they lose weight and get fit, quit smoking, get and keep jobs, get financially stable and secure, repair and maintain relationships, and give all sorts of manly self-improvement advice, sort of like the Art of Manliness blog does in text form. He's been really pumped up about it for a while, and is learning how we can make a living of sorts off of a series like that with enough of a fanbase, using things like Google Adsense and partnership with YouTube. While I think it would be awesome if they could make a million in their first year like Epic Meal Time almost certainly has, for instance, I am super excited about the changes that he and his friends will wind up making in their own lives, and especially for this fresh inspiration and excitement in my beloved as he plans this latest adventure.
I've lost about 18 pounds since April myself, and am aiming for somewhere closer to 115-125 within the next several months; and Andrew plans to get back to somewhere around 180, I think (where he was near his peak physical conditions previously) and to quit smoking (which of course is a great relief to me). If we wind up joining a gym, I know I'll get back in tip-top shape myself within a pretty short span of time, as will he; if not, just the fact that I have far less stomach capacity for food lately (God knows why, but I'm not complaining) is helping a lot in the meantime, even without working out right now. We'll figure something out for that later on, but either way, we're both pretty stoked right now to see how this pans out.
Andrew and one or two of his friends in particular have already been encouraged to exercise their gifts of wisdom and encouragement to get into something like life-coaching anyway, so that aspect of the series is also highly anticipated to produce wonderful results, if not in our friends' and our lives, in others, so now mater what, if anyone benefits from this endeavor, we'll be happy.

Lazy Sunday, Pt. 2

2011-04-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, so after I got out of the shower, I tidied up our bedroom, made a sandwich (note to self: should've bought more bread), spent some more time on the computer, unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen floors, and that's about it. So I got a little housework done, but nothing major. All the same, I don't feel that today was wasted. I've still got some things to get done on here anyway, so yeah. One of these days I post something that isn't absolute drivel, but for now, this is what you get. (-_-;)

Lazy Sunday

2011-04-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning to my beloved's goofy antics around 6:30 or 7. I haven't seen him this playful and full of life in a while, despite the stress and strain of life only increasing lately for him. He had to leave for work a little early this morning to get some things done, so considering my fantastic mood (and remembering how horrible I felt after oversleeping on Friday), I decided it would be a good idea to get up around 8:30 or so.
Note to self: we need milk.
Spent my morning surfing the Web, watching Pastor Levi's live sermon at www.freshlifechurch.com, and downloading a few nifty new Apps to my MacBook Pro, and made a failed attempt at lunch before finishing my Internet binge and sitting down to blog a bit.
Note to self: once this post is done, a nice long shower is in order, I think.
It's kinda nice being able to sit around and do nothing sometimes, but it really does get old after not many hours. I'm finding myself to be far more active a person lately. I can't stand these long days with nothing to do. I need an outlet for my energies. Now would be a great time to plug my need for a gym membership, of course... But I could just as easily pour myself into housework, which would be far more practical, as there is nothing I can do at this present moment about the former, and nothing hindering whatsoever (apart from my own laziness) from tending to the latter.
I would very much like to lay out in the backyard and attempt to get a little color on my body, but Andrew has warned me that I got lucky the last time I tried that, because we are prone to legit fire ants here. (Thank You, Jesus, for keeping them away the last time I went out!) I'm actually even tempted to go for a jog around the block too, but it's pretty warm out (though at least not as humid for now). I may try to drag Andrew to a gym later tonight to sign up and start getting back in shape together (wish me luck). I suppose I could do a load of laundry...
Yes, pop a load in the washer, unload the dishwasher, defrost some chicken for dinner, tidy up the house, vacuum the carpets, sweep and mop the kitchen floor, maybe work on that back room a little bit, take the laundry from the washer and put it in the dryer, stop staring blankly at my computer screen...
Anyway, I've decided to shoot for the moon with my weight loss goals, and stop being satisfied hovering around the exact same weight like I have for the past few months. For one, my appetite is still nowhere near what it used to be, so cutting back my intake is no big deal. It's a lot easier to eat healthy now that I've gone grocery shopping and almost left myself no other option, except to go way out of my way for fast food at ridiculous prices.
I'm trying to learn how to cook different staples, too (for both our sakes), and now that I've got my bento boxes again, it's just a matter of taking the time to pack something for work to avoid the vending machines of doom. If that means getting jumbo eggs to hardboil and mold into cars or fish and tossing them in a bento with seasoned rice and maybe some rabbit-carved apple slices, that sounds like a good enough, quick-to-eat lunch for me.
One way of making it easier to get time to sit down and eat lunch at work, too, is by picking up more hours, or switching to full-time so I get a scheduled lunch break every day, which would really help our finances too.
Back to my original point about my weight loss goals: I'm not gonna lie (it's not like it's a secret to anyone who sees my anyway), my current weight is 161.2 lbs as of this morning. I'm going to do my best to lose about 70 pounds this year. That would put me at about 90 lbs, which I realize is *tiny*, but I'm short enough, and I think I have a small enough frame, to pull it off. Not to mention the fact that all fashionable clothing will then be guaranteed to fit, because it anything's too big, it can always be taken in. (^_~) I know it's way more ambitious than I'm used to, but I'm a Rezendes now, and that's how we roll. Besides, even if I hit a wall at say, 115, I'm gonna look a hell of a lot better than I do now, and I know I'll be feeling fantastic!
So yeah. This should be fun. I may post "before" and "after" pictures or something at some point; I haven't really decided on that one yet. All I know right now is that my first day back in the gym is going to be extremely depressing as I realize just how much muscle tone I've lost, and just how bad my endurance is. I'm really not good at "taking it slow". Blech. xP
Anyway, so now that I've spent an hour putting links to images into my little bento diatribe, go check them out. I'll be taking a shower and doing a couple of chores, since I already spent most of the time I would've had for them writing this entry. (-_-;)

Ah, Procrastination: Or, I'll Do Housework Tomorrow

2011-04-07T15:28:00.000-07:00

Short work day today. I was only scheduled for 10:30 to 3:30, so I dropped Andrew off at Flamepebble around 9, made a coffee run for my hunk-a-man, ran home because he'd forgotten his belt, and stoped at Chik-Fil-A to pick up breakfast for him and Ray, and myself. Mmmmm, Chik-Fil-A. Made it home in time to take a nice hot shower before work, and got my minty-fresh self to Convergys. Not a huge fan of the job, but it's really not half bad. I really think I'm worth more than the minimum wage pittance they pay me, though, and so today I actually sat down at my computer when I got home and sent out a few resumes in response to ad postings on craigslist. God willing, I can start making a decent salary soon, and start paying some of these old accounts of mine off and close them out. Why did I waste so much money when I was single? (Oh yeah, it wasn't so much that I wasted money, as it was that I didn't have enough insurance and paid for it later. Lame.) The grammar Nazi in me is already cringing at this entry, but the lazy bum is just excited to actually be "accomplishing" something. In any case, the housework I should be doing right now can be done when Andrew is home, working on his novel or catching an episode of Supernatural, and it's not a whole lot to do, so I don't feel too terribly bad about procrastinating just a little bit.
My mom sent me a bunch of the rest of my good yarn today, along with a few needles I'd inadvertently left behind, so perhaps tonight I will again attempt to knit something cool, or at least design something with my yarn for inspiration. Later this week, I should receive a shipment of my bento boxes and gear, as well as my boxing gloves and some other things, which I am really excited about. I've missed making my own lunches, and my wallet and waistline have suffered for lack of them. Poor Andrew will be so ashamed of me when he sees them all, ha ha ha. They're so juvenile-ly cute, and the sheer mass of my collection is rather astonishing to most people. Ha ha. Poor man. He married a kid. (^_^)

Inspiration

2011-04-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

My husband is a great source of inspiration to me. As a veteran Storyteller/Game Master in our regular RPGs with friends, I know that he is very talented at weaving tales to delight the masses. Lately, he has been working on a his own RPG/LARP called Reign, and most recently, begun work on a novel; he has an inkling (pardon my pun) that this may be what he wants to do for a living someday, God willing. Seeing him so lit up with inspiration of his own has rekindled my creative drives, leading me to pick up drawing and knitting again, and to a limited extent, blogging. His enthusiasm in infectious that way; you all know how rare it has become for me to actually get around to posting anything (and how bad that makes me feel). I'm excited to be able to preview the book myself, but I know better than to push before he is ready to show it to me. After all, it was his poetry that first caught my attention.
I think my best bet is to pick at things here and there, little by little, as they come to me, until it becomes a habit. Bits of stream-of-consciousness writing and hodge-podge journaling will inevitably give way to full-fledged articles and essays, maybe even some creative writing of my own -- who knows? At the very least, I've got this small entry to show for it.

(Re)introduction

2010-08-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

As it has been so abominably long since last I posted, my set of friends has changed so drastically (as have I) that I feel a new introduction of sorts is in order. Even among those whom I call my friends, very few people really know me (if anyone at all, frankly), due in part to my tendency to be somewhat of a loner.
I’ve always been socially awkward, and as a result (and likely contributing in large part to my awkwardness) I think most people’s first impressions of me are largely inaccurate and, well… weird. (^_^;) My interests and personal tendencies are all over the map, and I fear that those which are most readily apparent are neither particularly flattering nor properly indicative of me on the whole. My personality runs the gamut from very feminine to quite tomboyish, and my interests range from the very traditional to the very offbeat and unconventional. Unfortunately, the latter are what get noticed most readily. (-_-;)
For instance, many people would instantly recognize me as a huge geek, enamored with Japanese pop culture, gaming, Apple computers, and sci-fi/fantasy novels; a total nerd captivated by science (from marine biology to astronomy, ecology and quantum physics), theology and apologetics, even going so far as to attempt to learn Japanese on my own; and a bit of a dork, silly and (seemingly) random.
Others might see me as a rebel, with my purposeful rejection on conventionality, propensity to question authority, apparent inability to follow the rules, and ambitions to become a tattoo artist and open my own studio someday.
Still others may see me as a loose cannon, brashly shooting off my mouth on a fairly regular basis, always ranting about something or other, and often alienating people due to offenses taken or even simply due to the relative random or bizarre nature of the topics my rather impassioned speeches.
Now, while I won’t deny that all of these observations are to some degree based in fact, what most people either overlook or miss entirely are the other things that make me who I am, and which are far more significant aspects of my life. Of course (Murphy’s Law reigning supreme as usual), most of the good stuff falls into this category. Naturally. (-_-;)
My extreme zeal for life carries over into pretty much every area of interest for me, thus lending a somewhat “larger than life” effect to my discourses, and creating a somewhat skewed perception of me so that certain relatively minor quirks are greatly magnified, and vice versa. I have a very all-or-nothing mentality at times, so when I geek out (or nerd out) about something, I really geek/nerd out, because when I think something is cool, I think it’s about the most amazing thing in the world, ever. I’m mostly “on” or “off”. Add to this my and tendency for wildly fantastical dreaming, and my expressed dreams and goals for the future can wind up being blown out of proportion and be taken far more seriously than they often should be.
For example, I have mentioned to a few people that I am working on my art portfolio in hopes of procuring an apprenticeship to become a tattoo artist and eventually open a Christian-oriented tattoo studio in the future, which would also function as an outreach ministry (much like C28). I have always been very artistic (both visually and musically), and since I was in high school I have dreamed of running my own business, from a comic shop to a yarn shop (featuring my own line of custom hand-dyed yarns) to a tattoo studio. I discovered last year that I can actually draw, and my technique and art has improved dramatically over a relatively very short amount of time and small amount of practice. Over this last winter I discovered, and subsequently became fascinated with, the art of tattooing (and in February, that it really doesn’t hurt all that much, when I got my first bit of ink ^_^). All of these wheels turning in my head collided with my passion for the lost and the realization of what a dark industry it is to form the idea of planting a flag for Christ deep in enemy territory and also creating a place where Christians could come for their body art without being faced with profane, demonic, or pornographic images or vulgar language, etc., and also giving Christian artists a place to work with a Christian atmosphere.
Make no mistake, however: while I am putting forth an honestly rather small amount of effort in pursuit of this dream, it is only that: a dream. I honestly don’t expect to see it ever come to full fruition, and I remain completely open to, and actively seeking, the Lord’s plan for my life. I figure, even if His plan for me is different, I can always sell my designs as flash, or bless friends with custom art, be it for a tattoo or a wall hanging in their home. I think I definitely come across as sounding more certain than I am about my various “dreams” of this nature, however, which is why I bring this up.
Ultimately, my heart’s deepest desire remains, as ever, to marry a godly, ministry-oriented man who will lead me and our several children in serving the Lord and equipping them and others to effectively spread the gospel in this lost and dying world, able to defend their faith against any attack of the devil or the world, and to be an example of Christ’s relationship with the Church to the world. I am striving to attain all the skills and habits possessed by the “Proverbs 31 Woman”, down to spinning my own yarn (which I do in fact know how to do ^_^).
Ministry-wise, my greatest passions are worship, solid doctrine, and evangelism. I very much desire to visit Japan and do some missionary work there if I ever manage to learn the language properly, and after that, I would love to be able to tour the UK, spreading the gospel as I go. Having just switched churches, I am going to try to find out about serving on their worship team and use my gifts and talents for God’s glory however I can.
I have always been somewhat of an activist, I suppose, focusing on controversial topics such as abortion, evolution, apologetics, and ethics (you know, the proverbial “religion and politics”) since at least I was in junior high, and my zeal for the Word of God and seeing His Kingdom furthered on Earth has, needless to say, lost me a few friends and earned me a few enemies over the years. I don’t tend to make a fuss about differences of opinion or style, and I won’t even try to argue right living with nonbelievers, but when it comes to defending the truth, I am absolutely unyielding and uncompromising. 2+2=4, not 7. I’m sorry if my saying that hurts your feelings, but if you think 2+2=7, you are wrong. Period.
But I digress. My main point in writing all of this is to give you lovely, lovely readers some idea of who I am, and dispel some of the confusion I’m sure I tend to cause unintentionally. Expect to hear from me again tomorrow, this time on the topic of adoption and its implications for believers.
Cheers! ~ <3
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my posts here, so feel free to leave me comments or questions below! This way I’m not so much ranting to a vacuum as talking to friends. Isn’t free speech awesome? :D

Oh hey, look at this blog I found under my bed

2010-08-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been over a year since I've updated this thing. This simply will not do. I am going to do my best to update this at least weekly from now on (pray for me heh). The first couple of posts may be drivel, frankly, but I need time to warm up and get back into my groove. It'll be good, I promise (how may times have I said this now?). Just you wait and see. Watch this space, geek at work.

Just another day in paradise

2009-04-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

I got to chat with Stephan briefly this morning. He's back in Afghanistan, and he posted this article on Myspace about his platoon from last month. As you read it, continue to pray for him, and don't forget to keep praying for all of our troops!

ASMAR, Afghanistan — When the young American lieutenant and his 14 soldiers glanced up at the rock face, they thought that the major who had planned the mission must have been kidding.

Elijah Carlson, a strapping, blue-eyed Southern Californian and self-proclaimed "gun nut," gripped the crumbling rock, tugged backward by 90 pounds of ammunition and gear. "If we fall back, we are dead!" he whispered to Lt. Jake Kerr, the platoon leader.

In seconds, a rock shot loose beneath one soldier's boot and dropped 20 feet onto another soldier below, sending him tumbling 15 feet to the base and cracking his bulletproof side plate.

What transpired over the next 16 hours was the kind of clash that's led Kerr's commanders in the Army's 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., to conclude that there's no "victory" waiting around the next bend in Afghanistan, only a relentless struggle with a fleet-footed, clever enemy. For Kerr, a recent West Point graduate who specialized in counterinsurgency, it was the first face-off with an often-elusive opponent and a case study in the complex politics of rural Afghanistan.

Kunar, where Combat Company of the 1st Battalion of the 10th Mountain Division's 32nd Infantry Regiment is stationed, is one of the most violent provinces in Afghanistan. Asmar is just 10 miles from the border with Pakistan's Bajaur Tribal Agency, which has been a sanctuary for al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban leaders.

The mission was to disrupt the men and weapons infiltrating from Pakistan and root out their staging bases in Afghanistan. The Americans had hoped first to confer with village elders, but after intelligence indicated that insurgents were in the area, they moved in with heavy machine guns.

Kerr's platoon moved for three hours in the darkness. Each time they thought they'd reached the peak, the land shot up farther. The unit came across enemy fighting positions, piled high with rocks and littered with food wrappers.

Afghan and American intelligence reports said these were "Bakt Ali's men," insurgents who lay claim to nearby villages in central Kunar. Ali is a senior Taliban guerrilla leader in Kunar who's thought to have direct ties to Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, an Egyptian al-Qaida leader in Pakistan. At each dug-in position, Kerr recorded the GPS coordinates of unmanned enemy positions, down to the 10th digit.

As dawn broke over the rocks, company commander Maj. Andy Knight, of Ann Arbor, Mich., set out on foot in the valley 700 feet below. Kerr would provide support from his eagles' nests as Knight attempted to clear two villages where, he said, residents had complained of insurgent intimidation. Accompanied by a reporter, Knight and a detachment of Americans and 14 Afghan soldiers stepped carefully along mud dikes, greeting Afghan children and their parents with a cordial "Sengay?" - "How are you?"

What Kerr, from Lake Placid, N.Y., heard from his perch above the valley was a surprise: Unseen men along the valley floor were shouting to one another like an oral tag team, passing the news that "the Americans have arrived."

Within minutes, three men - one in a white shalwar kamis (a loose pajamalike shirt and pants), another in a black one and a third in a brown shawl and gray pants - sprinted down the valley from the west with machine guns toward Knight's patrol, which was walking along a dry, rocky streambed about 1,000 feet away.

Kerr, 25, part of a new generation of American warriors schooled at West Point in the raw lessons of fighting counterinsurgencies in the Islamic world, spotted them instantly.

"They were running at Major Knight with AK-47s," Kerr said after the battle. "We opened up on them, and they began firing. But we had the three men outgunned, and they dove for cover in the streambed."

In the valley, the hiking party splashed through irrigation channels and dove for cover amid tall bushes that lined the stream. The chatter of machine guns fired from both sides echoed off the ridges and stone walls.

Knight, who played tight end on the Army football team, shot past in a blur to the front of the marching party. He didn't yet know that two of the insurgents had been hit. They were pulling themselves on their bellies through the rocks, desperate to reach a bend in the stream.

Within five minutes, two Apache attack helicopters buzzed the valley, scanning for enemy positions and listening to Kerr direct them to the target. "I was shooting tracers down at the two fighters crawling in the stream, and the other man in a brown shawl was shooting back," Kerr said.

Hidden behind a wooden shack, Knight's party could see the two Apaches sweep down, ripping up the stream bed. The insurgents had slipped just out of Kerr's sight, however, back up a bend in the stream and away from Knight's party. When the Apaches unleashed their Hellfire missiles, the men already had vanished.

"Dawg 1,6!" Knight snapped into his radio to Lt. David Poe, 24, of Buffalo, N.Y., a few hundred yards away, as he crouched in the rocks. "Are you near the woman in the green dress, tending to the animals? We are moving towards your location."

Almost all the males in the valley had gone missing, but Afghan women were trying to keep spooked cows and goats from fleeing. As Knight's party climbed into the rocks above the stream and dashed along the mountainside, a woman in a black shawl appeared, waving her arms and wailing, berating U.S. and Afghan forces as they passed. An Afghan soldier shouted back, incorrectly, "Back in your house, lady! They shot first!"

Knight stopped to catch his breath. "Do we have maps of these villages?" he demanded of Lt. Eric Forcey, 23, of Lynchburg, Va., who was at his side.

"No, sir," Forcey replied. "For all intents and purposes, they do not exist."

"I think they've existed for a long time, Forcey; the mapmakers just have not found them," the major replied.

"Yes, sir."

With "shhh-thwamps, shhh-thwamps," two more Hellfire missiles crashed into the rocks.

With constant translations of the enemy radio chatter in Pashtu, picked up through electronic eavesdropping, and the major's narration of the battle, events appeared to turn. "I think one of them is badly injured," Knight speculated. "They will have to make a decision to drag him out or leave him."

The U.S. forces, augmented by the 14 Afghans, were deliberate, at times cumbersome. From above, Kerr's men heard radio traffic indicating that the insurgents had slipped into a larger village farther up the ravine.

Enemy radio chatter also indicated that the helicopter strikes were landing just in front of the house from which Bakt Ali's men apparently were talking.

Still, this was a shell game with no certainty about the targets' whereabouts, and Knight - who spent a year in Kunar in 2006 and 2007 - knew it. He refused to order an airstrike on the suspected hideout.

Instead, he took Kerr's plea over the radio: "We can own this valley, sir!" He ordered two Humvees to rush up the stream bed and take up "support-by-fire" positions in front of a group of wooden houses and dispatched Dawg Company's Poe to oversee a group of Afghan commandos, who'd search the village on foot.

The choppers returned from refueling. Once in the village, the Afghan soldiers went house to house, room by room. A cluster of women and children stood on a rooftop. "This is a virtual ghost town, sir," came Poe's report. An Afghan interpreter sniped: "It almost always ends this way."

Kerr and his men were tired and frustrated. No one had found the fugitives' "blood trails," which he'd hoped to follow.

As his men packed in their heavy weapons and began to pull back down the mountain, the insurgents' radio traffic intensified.

"We could hear them actually counting our numbers, and they were saying that they would hit us. A commander told them to wait until we were grouped." The insurgents apparently wanted to target only the departing forces and to avoid destroying the village.

Kerr's team hiked back down the ridgeline, descended about 1,000 feet into the riverbed, linked up with Knight's fighters in U.S. jeeps and reached for water bottles.

Suddenly, an Afghan interpreter, monitoring radio traffic, heard Bakt Ali's commander order the attack. Kerr dove for cover. The pavement exploded with rocket blasts and fire from massive PK machine guns. Carlson, 23, from Torrance, Calif., dropped to his knees, curling into a fetal position under a dirt ledge with his machine gun trained on the crest of the mountain he'd scaled earlier. One U.S. soldier was hit in the groin as he leapt for cover.

But Kerr's platoon's work was about to pay dividends.

With a rush of satisfaction, Kerr reached into his pocket and pulled out the GPS coordinates of the enemy positions he'd scribbled down that morning. From six miles away at their base in Asmar, a 10th Mountain artillery battery unleashed a torrent of 105 mm howitzer shells onto the enemy positions. In the twilight, .50-caliber machine guns blazed.

The day was over. No one was going back to hunt for the living or the dead. The insurgents had lost fighters, but they'd proved to be a wily, disciplined and mobile force.

The U.S. and Afghan forces had had a reality check. If they didn't already know it, they now understood why they'd been unable to have a peaceful discussion with the village elders. Bakt Ali's forces owned the villages, and until last Thursday, they more or less controlled the entire ravine. It would take more than better maps for the Afghan army and its U.S. allies to wrest control of them.

Ironically, I'm sorta speechless

2009-04-05T21:22:00.000-07:00

I am completely shocked that this is my art. I learned this wet-on-wet oil technique from watching The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross on TV, and used his basic starter set an extra tube of paint and a few different brushes on a cheap canvas from Michaels while watching Les Miserables with Dad tonight. Within the first few brushstrokes I was sure I'd already ruined it, and this feeling prevailed throughout much of the process, right on up till the end, even up to signing it (that took a few tries, and I'm still not thrilled about that part). I still have a hard time believing that the wet oil painting on my kitchen counter is mine.

Come to think of it, though, Zach's right: the pine tree in the foreground does have a pretty crooked trunk. (^_^;)

Note: the snow is much pinker in person.

Holy WAR

2009-03-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

So last Friday night/Saturday morning, The Well went to WAR, short for Waging a Revolution, which was an all-night prayer rally. It was sheer awesomeness! The Lord totally showed up in a powerful way, and the Spirit was moving in us like never before. I can't wait till we do it again!

We prayed for everything from our nation to our city, our schools, our family and friends, and everything in between, from 2300 hours Friday till 0600 hours Saturday, with short praise and worship "intermissions" between prayer sessions. I cannot stress enough the amazingness of it all. Really, I can't. I can barely think of any half-decent words to use here, out of my alarmingly sizable vocabulary arsenal. Basically, I'm darn near speechless. Which, if you know me, is kind of a big deal. ^^;;

I pray that we never lose that wonder that God Almighty hears our prayers, Who holds the universe in the span of His hand. That I never go back to my previously pathetic "prayer life", but continue to press on in growing in the Lord, in spending more and more time in prayer and in the Word and in fellowship with other believers. I am such a wretch, and it just highlights how amazing the Lord is to not only hear my feeble prayers, but to pray for me when I don't know what to pray, to intercede for me constantly before the Father! It just blows my face off that He would bother, but He goes out of His way to draw me in to Him! (@_@) Wow.

In other news, Stephan is back for another week and a half or so on leave. Hooray! <(^.^<)(>^.^)>\(^o^)/ Unfortunately, when he stopped by our house to visit, I was in the Crusade Office making calls, so I missed him. But I'm sure I'll see him around soon, so it's okay. Do keep him up in your prayers, though; it's unbelievably hard to go through what he has to on a daily basis in Afghanistan! Pray that the Lord uses him to minister to his buddies there, and for His continual hand of protection upon him, and all those in the 10th Mountain Division (and in all of our armed forces while you're at it).

Until next time, hooray for Jesus! (^v^)v~Victory!

Stephan Alemdar Update

2009-03-07T22:41:00.000-08:00

I am such a slacker, it just makes me sick sometimes. (-_-") I've been meaning to update you all with any news about Stephan in Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division of the United States Army as I receive it, and I have been remiss. I've found three articles in the Press-Enterprise reagrding his unit, and I will share them with you now, in link form because for some reason I can't get flickr to accept these JPEGs:

Keep Stephan in your prayers, along with all those in his unit, and in all our Armed Forces! God bless America!

Just Get Married!

2009-01-25T19:20:00.000-08:00

Every now and then, the Lord moves a servant of His to deliver a radical, bold, earth-shattering, life-changing message that affects Christendom for years to come ("Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God", for example). I believe that this message delivered through Pastor Ed young of Fellowship Church in Florida is just such a sermon. The title says it all: "Just Get Married". Gird up your loins, Christian soldier.
These days, it seems like fewer and fewer young Christian men are getting married (or even dating, as far as I can tell), and the average marriage age is on the rise. Single guys (very few that I have known are worthy of the title of "men") are putting off marriage at an alarming rate in order to instead pursue education, careers, and just plain goofing off. Meanwhile their eventual mates are put in an unnatural position of having to provide for themselves, when God never intended for this to be the case.
These "man-boys" are waiting until they've had their fill of carefree, single life, until they're past they're prime and set in their ways, to seek out the "wife of their youth". What they don't realize is just how arrogant this proves them to be: they expect us women to "look like Angelina Jolie, with the morals of Mother Theresa," and yet we are left to just take whatever we can get for fear of becoming an old maid. They avoid commitment like the plague, excusing their cowardice with statements like these: "I need to be 100% sure;" "I gotta 'feel it;'" and even the ultimately chauvinistic "What if someone better-looking comes along?"
Let me ask you something, Christian: Were you 100% sure when you first gave your life to Christ? I don't think so! Or do you think your parents always "felt like" not killing you in your teens, or that they let you live out of sacrificial love for you, regardless of their emotions (which are chemically based, mind you)? Oh, and guess what: There will always be someone better looking! Since when has a successfully God-honoring marriage EVER been based on the outward appearance? (Please don't forget that we have eyes too.)

The bottom line is this: If you have a desire for the opposite sex, it is God's will for you to marry! (1st Corinthians 7:9) Because, guess what: marriage solves most of the sexual temptation that plagues us right and left in this world and within our own sinful hearts!

"When you get married... your sex life with your spouse will cause you to seek God in a deeper way, and in a more profound way, and even in a more passionate way.... In marriage, as we fulfill each other sexually, it will free us up to hear from God in a deeper way."

Pastor Ed talked about the new depths that your prayer life can reach when you are sexually fulfilled in marriage because when you're satisfied, you won't be all distracted when you're trying to pray; this reminds me as well of hunger: when I am hungry, I become very distracted from whatever I am doing, and find my thoughts turning toward food constantly until I am able to eat. Then once I'm satisfied, my mind becomes clear once again and I am able to focus completely on the task at hand. And though my own thoughts have not been straying in a sexual direction, I have noticed that the past few months have been incredibly frustrating for me with my own prayer life and worship because I find myself constantly thinking about someone in particular. (And if you think that either you can guess, or that I am going to tell you whom, you need to go take your meds because you are out of your mind. ...Let's just say that all of my trains of thought, no matter if they carry cargo or passengers, must run through the same depot. ^^;;) Back to my original topic now...

Other problems solved by marriage include laziness and selfishness, as you strive to obey the Scriptures and be a godly husband. Let's face it, guys: The greatest sermon you will ever preach is in your marriage! Ephesians 5:22-33 makes it very clear that marriage is meant to be a picture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church. In order for you men to lead your wives in following Christ, you must exemplify Him in your own life, following after Him with every fiber of your being!

Please note, however, that I am not saying that this problem is one-sided; we women are not innocent victims! On behalf of my half of the family of God, men, I sincerely apologize for not striving to be the godly women that godly men deserve and need as helpmeets! We have neglected our bodies, the Temple of the Holy Spirit of God, by stuffing our emotions down our throats and lazily avoiding exercise; we have not been the pure and chaste women we should be, partying and clubbing with our friends; we have told you with our lips that we want to be pure, but with our clothing that we do not; we have put our own education and careers above developing those skills so vital to being a good homemaker for you, a good mother for your children; we have ourselves chauvinistically blamed all of our relational woes on you while doing nothing to ensure that we are worthy of the men we so long for.

Ladies, we also must rise up to be those women that the Scriptures declare are to "be praised" (Proverbs 31:10-31; Titus 2:4-5; 1 Timothy 2:9)!

But men, it is your duty to initiate the relationship, to lead the woman in following Christ, and to earn her respect for you as her leader. In those cases where the woman feels she must take charge and initiates the relationship, there will always be a measure of insecurity that she wasn't good enough to be pursued. Things just have a tendency to go badly when the man does not lead.

And for those of us who find ourselves twitterpated (at least seemingly) without return but who refuse to wreck their chances by taking matters in their own hands, I humbly suggest that you take more chances--ask us out. Don't play around, but diligently seek out a woman who can be a good helpmate for you, a supportive wife and loving mother, and don't wait until you're "sure". In my opinion (for what little it's worth), as long as God is being glorified and the devil is denied a foothold, it is in God's will. Don't over-think it, just follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and walk according to the Scriptures, and you cannot fail to please the Lord.

"See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." --Ephesians 5:16-17

Ryan's Sweater, Part 3

2009-01-15T11:38:00.001-08:00

Does my procrastination know no bounds? The following pictures were taken on 14 December, 2008, and given to me on 21 December, and I have only just this morning scanned them in order to post them on my blog. Robert and Melissa brought Ryan to church with his little sailor sweater on so I could see it on him and get my picture taken with a real-life Internet celebrity. ^^ And so, without further ado, I give you: the goods.

Isn't he just adorable? (^w^)

In other news, I'm back at the gym now (FINALLY!), and when I can't get a ride there, I've got that wonderful Bowflex (finally getting all the bugs worked out, and getting used to it now) to help me keep my muscles strong and burning fat. I'm learning the hard way, however, that I simply cannot get away with failing to stretch after a particularly strenuous leg workout, and not working out at least a little the next day. So, Dad, you get to say "I told you so." I deserve it. (-_-;)

Our family friend Stephan Alemdar,

18, Charlie Company, TF 1-32 Infantry out of Fort Drum, NY, shipped out to an extremely remote and dangerous part of Afghanistan today (I think his tour is nine months). Please keep him up in your prayers, for him to draw close to the Lord and for the Lord to touch all the men in his unit through his witness, and for Him to supernaturally protect them from any and all harm as they relieve a unit that has suffered heavy casualties in this war or terrorism, this fight for freedom and security.

Also, my friend Aimee is undergoing brain surgery as I type to relieve the pressure because her brain is too large for her skull, and had been dropping down into her upper neck, giving her unimaginable headaches, etc. Please be in prayer that the Lord would bless the surgeons' hands as they operate, and that not only would He bring her through this trying time, but also that her parents would be driven to more closely seek the Lord as well.

Finally, all that stands between me and my ISSA Certification as a Fitness Trainer is my exam, and a CPR/AED course I take on 22 January at the Red Cross here in town! I am so excited to be so close to the finish line! I will be taking my practice exam today, just in case, and soon, I'll be working and able to actually pay off my bills! (>v<)

Oh yeah, one other thing: this Sunday, 18 January, I'm singing worship at the Eastvale Satellite Campus of Harvest! It's kinda scary, but also really exciting to lead worship on the frontline for the first time. And, I have to admit, it's extremely appealing to me that my call time is at 0800 hours, instead of the usual 0630, which requires me to get up at 0430 in order to speed my way to church in time (terrible, I know (>_<;) ).

By the way, my family is hilarious. ^^

Pray for our troops; they keep us safe at the cost of their lives!

Christmas stinking ROCKS! Part 2

2008-12-26T15:24:00.001-08:00

I downloaded this WYSIWYG blog editor, Qumana, last night this morning, so I'm praying this will finally be the answer to all my blogging woes. So, here goes nothing...
So where was I? Oh right, the gifts. Awesomeness. ^^
So Friday I got my present from April, though I wasn't allowed to open it until Christmas (which I did as soon as I'd finished wrapping presents around 0030 that morning ^^); Sunday, Robert and Melissa blessed me with some cash in a card (did I mention I love them? (^w^) ), and another friend of our family gave us some pecan pralines in a cute tin (oishii!). Grandma Dorothy send us kids some money as well, and on Christmas Eve, Hilary gave me a beautiful pink and black houndstooth scarf/wrap:

and a tin full of the yummiest cookies. And let's not forget the cute little gold necklace I wound up with at the Well Christmas Dinner's white elephant gift exchange on Saturday.

Now, Christmas morning had come, and my wonderful mother gave me the entire Harajuku Lovers fragrance collection, complete with Love, Lil' Angel, Music, Baby, and G mini-spritzes, collector's drawstring bag, and collector's "stage" box;

and the prettiest pearl-and-diamond watch with a mother-of-pearl face:

(SmartBargains.com has got the most incredible prices on jewelry, I tell you!) She also ordered this coat for me from Victoria's Secret (they actually sell some great clothes!),

and she also preordered the Halo: Uprising graphic novel (brought to us by Marvel Comics),

and The Art of Halo: Creating a Visual World

for me a couple of months back from Amazon, and they should ship on Monday, 29 December. I'm so excited! 8(>v<)8

But nothing prepared me for the surprise I knew Dad had awaiting us the third-car garage: a near-mint condition Bowflex Extreme 2 (upgraded from the standard 210-lb capacity to 310 lbs)!!!

But, oh man, you should've seen the look on Mom's face when she opened the plain envelope Dad handed her to find a picture of the exact refrigerator she'd been looking at in to paper that morning cut out, with a promise to bring home the real thing! That's one thing she definitely didn't see coming! (^v^) Dad went to Howard's and bought it today, and it'll be delivered tomorrow. The coolest thing is that this is the first brand-new, mint condition fridge they've gotten (and boy, is it a cool fridge-no pun intended ^^;;).

Finally, I opened my inbox this morning to see a $15 gift certificate waiting for me from taking a customer survey for the Press-Enterprise a couple of weeks back. Now I can get those last two Halo novels from Borders! (^v^)v~Score!

And, as if all of that weren't enough, the 20% pay cut and cut in hours that my dad was going to have to take because his print shop hadn't enough work has just been completely reversed in specific answer to our prayers that their biggest client would increase their orders. In fact, not only will he not have a cut in pay, he will actually be working more than usual now! God is so AMAZING!!!

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21) Note the lack of a comma after "exceedingly": this verse is saying that not only can He do abundantly beyond our wildest hopes, but exceedingly so! "Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased!" (Luke 2:14, American Standard Version)

Christmas stinking ROCKS!

2008-12-25T20:54:00.000-08:00

Okay, so today was pretty stinking AMAZING. And not just because of the presents or the turkey, or even because of being able to spend the day with my family with nothing to do and nowhere to be, but because of the amazing gifts that God so freely bestows on me, a wretch among wretches! I mean, seriously: like it wasn't enough to give us His Son, and even after the way we savagely murdered Him, to give us Heaven for free, new mercies every morning, and abundant grace according to His riches and glory! It's too much! WHY?!?!?! (*w*) *Sigh* Isn't our Lord good?

I've been working the last few weeks on a lovers' mitten and glove set for Brian and April (cutest couple ever), and I got to hand-deliver it today while they were at April's house, since I only finished it at about 0130 this morning. ^^;; I was excited about how the yarn had worked up so exactly all on its own, and about the fact that I'd even had a little left over (about one

color repeat), so this could potentially be something I could sell, either completed or as a kit someday (most likely as a kit ^^;;) if the concept was well-received by my unwitting test subjects although they ere actually the ones who thought of the moneymaking opportunity for me ^^. However, I was a bit nervous as to the reception of the gift: would they think it was lame? Would the gloves/mitten even fit? Well, I am pleased to say that all of my fears were unfounded: they loved them! <(^.^<)(>^.^)>\(^o^)/ They even modeled them for me for my

blog (it wasn't until later that I realized I'd forgotten to take pictures before wrapping them

and all... Oops. ^^;;) Here they are, the dynamic duo (aren't they adorable?):

That short visit was such a blessing for me in so many ways! Thank you, Father; You always know just how best the bless me! (^w^)

Even though our family had to cut back our spending, we all got some amazing gifts for each other, and mine started with April's present on Friday: the most kawaii Hello Kitty Origami Letter Set and Hello Kitty bubble gum! (She knows me so well! ^^)

Ugh. I'll post the rest tomorrow. Blogger is being evil again, and this little semi-post has taken over THREE HOURS. CURSE YOU, BLOGGER!!!!!!! "P"(>.<)

Ryan's Sweater, Part 2

2008-11-03T18:23:00.000-08:00

This Sunday, Robert gave me some pictures he took of Ryan's reaction upon receiving his perfectly-fitting sailor sweater. He told Mom and me that once Ryan touched it, "he was all Mr. Giggles," so he just had to take pictures and show us. These being extra copies, I got to keep them, so now I'm working on making this adorable little boy and Internet celebrity. Or something like that. To my relief it was soft enough for the little guy after all. How cute!

A Sailor Sweater for Ryan Benjamin

2008-10-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

One of the guys my dad ushers with at church, Robert, got married just over a year ago (or maybe longer, I don't really remember (^_^;) ), and not many months thereafter announced the impending arrival of his firstborn: a son to be named Ryan Benjamin (or, as his father put it, "Ryan been jammin'!"). He and his wife are so sweet, I decided to knit little Ryan a sweater, and settled on an adorable little sailor sweater pattern very quickly. Based on past experience, I assumed that while I had way more than enough time to complete it before his arrival, my remaining on task was unlikely at best, so I was relieved to find that the smallest size for the pattern was for 6 months. Sure enough, I've only just finished it today, and Ryan is a couple of months old. (^_^;) Thankfully, the yarn I had at my disposal was wool, so by the time he's big enough to wear it, it will be seasonally appropriate. Isn't it amazing that God is watching out for me in every way?

As always with my knitting, seeing a young girl knitting in public tends to draw a lot of attention from bystanders, and several people asked about it. I finally replaced the batteries in my digicam, and took come very nice photographs before I wrapped it up for surprise delivery tomorrow morning so that all of you could see how it turned out. So, without further ado, I give you... pictures!!!

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

2008-10-24T00:20:00.000-07:00

Lately my life has been just amazing, which leaves me wondering when the other shoe will drop, and things will return to my sad excuse for normalcy. Which then prompts the question: where did that phrase even come from? Here's what UrbanDictionary.com has to say:

Waiting for the other shoe to drop
To await an event that is expected to happen, due to being causally linked to another event that has already been observed. Gets its origin from the joke in the example. A guest who checked into an inn one night was warned to be quiet because the guest in the room next to his was a light sleeper. As he undressed for bed, he dropped one shoe, which, sure enough, awakened the other guest. He managed to get the other shoe off in silence, and got into bed. An hour later. he heard a pounding on the wall and a shout: "When are you going to drop the other shoe?" Thus the term "waiting for the other shoe to drop."

I mean, lately my life has just generally been going right for once: I have a few amazing friends whom I get to see quite regularly at church, where I have resumed attending the Sunday and Wednesday night services after a long (and mostly just lazy) hiatus, I have finally been able to start unraveling the cause of my sudden weight gain earlier this year, and it is starting to (slowly) come back off (^o^) due to my new eating plan (not a "diet," mind you) and stepped-up workouts, I have been getting lots of compliments from my peers on my appearance (which I must confess I owe mostly to my mom's hairdressing skills... (^_^;) ), and all manner of other various and sometimes seemingly random blessing from Father, to the point of it being just ridiculous. Some of these aforementioned blessings may seem insignificant and even petty to some, but for someone with my history of rejection and ridicule, they mean so much... (TvT)

I feel like for the first time in my life I really belong, and that I am actually wanted... And that feels just too incredible for words. I am truly blessed, and I owe it all to the Lord! One thing I know: my past heartaches and failures have prepared me for my future, which He has promised me is good (Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 29:11, etc.). I just can't wait to see what He has for me, and I'm so glad that He has used these things in my past to make me into who I am today. I'd actually be friends with me now! (^_~)

People actually like this crap?

2008-09-17T23:14:00.000-07:00

I think the Lord has been poking me lately to reanimate this near-defunct little Web log, and He has lately had to resort to some very strange measures to get my attention... And He's got it.

Last night I came home from Bible study to find an e-mail in my inbox from a Messianic Jewish pastor on the east coast, commenting on this post from last year. He said he'd been studying the title Scripture for a sermon he was writing for a student of his in Ghana, and stumbled across my blog on Google. He said it was rare to find so young a person with such strong convictions, and that he'd felt led by the Holy Spirit to let me know that I was on the right track. I can't tell you how much this e-mail blessed me; I felt as though I'd been stuck with a blessing grenade in the heart by the Lord Himself! (Apologies for the "Halo" reference; I'm kind of a nerd that way... (-_-;) )

So, tonight, I get a text message from Facebook saying some person I don't know has sent me a message. I come upstairs about 2300 hours, open up the message, and I get another tac-nuke of a blessing: he'd googled the same Scripture, John 13:35, and says he's sorry for the bad experiences I'd had, he's gone through the same sort of thing, and wanted to let me know that there were people out there who care. If it weren't for my parents sleeping in the next room, I would've burst into laughter at the amazing grace of God to a wretch like me!

I am just astonished at the glory of our King, that with all of the universe to look after, He would sent these two messengers to minister to me in just the way that I needed (though before I knew it not), and at the same time, remind me of how far I've come these last 16 months. Why on Earth would He bother with me? It boggles the mind.

Baruch hashem, our Lord is good!

Facebook actually isn't evil after all

2008-09-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

I see now that I am just going to have to force myself to post on a semi-regular basis now, because if I just wait until I feel like it, you get lulls of five months between posts... (-_-;) So here I am, posting a new one. Hurray.

Well, my room finally got redone, and I'd post pictures, but it's kind of messy right now and I forgot to take pictures sooner, because I keep expecting further improvements and delaying my photographic endeavors until I feel it's really "finished". I will soon, I promise! (^_^;)

I've also decided to get certified as a personal trainer and performance nutrition specialist with the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA), and then work at the gym by my house for a living. The awesome thing about it is that not only would my family's memberships be free, saving us $150 a month, but I would be getting paid to help people get healthy and fit, my job would actually make it easier for me to get my workouts in, it's close to home, it pays well, and I'd finally start pulling my weight (no pun intended) at home, easing the financial strain on my family! On top of that, the hours would be largely self-determined and flexible, and when I get married and have a family, there's a daycare on the premises so my children could come with me to work. The only "lose" in this situation is that I'll have to put to death my laziness, a price I'm willing to pay. (^_^)

I'm enrolling and ordering my course materials tomorrow morning, and since my credit card's APR just got lowered to 1.99%, I can charge the whole thing and pay it off myself, or with help from my wonderfully willing parents, with very little inconvenience. The whole deal, including the two certification courses, a weekend training seminar, and CPR/AED certification, will cost only about $1200! Once I start working, the savings in gym dues alone will pay for it in only a matter of months! I'm so excited, I can hardly wait! (^v^)

In the meantime, I finally ran out of reasonable excuses for avoiding Facebook, and signed up. I had no idea that so many people I know are on there! It's truly amazing how quickly I have acquired 27 friends already! At first, it seemed clunky and unwieldy, but I am quickly getting used to the interface, and I am already loving the advertisement policies. Unlike the often-inappropriate and immoral ads on Myspace, these all have been very tasteful, and give you the option of rating them as well. To top it off, the very first ad I saw, I kid you not, was for Knit Picks! How could I not fall in love with the whole scheme? (*w*)

I have been very remiss in putting off this post for so long, and by God's grace, I shall post much more often in the future. Keep checking back for updates! (^o^)"/"~bye!

The Hunter

2008-05-16T18:06:00.000-07:00

Deep, deep, in the scariest corners of my closet dug I this day, till lo! I stumbled upon more poetry of old, which I shall magnanimously share with you now. It had no title, so I dub it now

The Hunter

There's a chill in the air tonight
The stillness runs deep in these woods
Snow muffles the screams

Silently, so silently, the hunter creeps
Closer, closer to the unwitting prey
Never saw it coming

Believe it or not, I wrote this in church waiting for service to start, with the original intention of writing a... are you ready for this? Love poem. *Sigh* Such is my life.

The Wolves

2008-05-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

I've been rearranging some stuff in my room due to the recent renovating that started while I was at The Well's Refresh Retreat the weekend before last, and I came across this poem I wrote when I was seventeen, and studying Language Arts Through British Literature, including poetry, for my junior/senior year of high school. Add to this not terribly shocking discovery my recent promise to post a new blog soon, and I give you, without further ado:

The Wolves

They sing! They dance!
With regal stance
They run through woods so still
And prance and play
And still they stay
Rulers of the wooded hills

Over hill and over dale
They follow prey whose scent is stale
Till suddenly, a scout, she howls--
Her voice is taut
The scent is caught!
Their only competition owls

The hunt is silent
The kill is violent
The chase a wondrous thrill
The pups all drool
But know the rule
No food till Father's had his fill

The pack moves on
And though the sun
Is strong, the wind is bitter cold
Their camp they pick
Their coats are thick
All are warm, even the old

The snow is white
The night is bright
Overhead the moon is full
The stars the glitter
A small child shivers
Even from town he hears the call--

A scout has found
A thing profound--
A lame and wounded moose alone
The pack moves out
The cubs they pout
They're left behind with just some bones

And a sentinel
Their stomachs rumble
It's past time for a fresh-caught feast
The hunting slow
Because the snow
Has made grass rare to say the least

The elk and deer
And the moose queer
Faced with a dilemma real
Search on for food
Chased on by doom
To find or to become a meal

Alas! the wolves
Who ruled these woods
(Like royalty on high they reigned!)
Rule them no more
And from them were torn
By Man, over whom he let Fear reign

"And that's all I have to say about that." Aptly put, Forrest (teehee! No pun intended).

Goodbye, teenage years...

2008-05-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was my twentieth birthday, and a pretty swell one at that. After so many fitful and tumultuous days prior, it was peculiar and very welcome to have a day where even the unexpected inconvenience of a blown tire and subsequently mediocre sushi were not wholly unpleasant. I owe my gratitude to God for that wonderful birthday gift, to be sure.

I'm a little irked with my current loss for words to properly convey that which I had planned to express here, so I think I shall have to continue this post at a later time. Please accept my apologies, and enjoy this little "teaser" post as well as you can, looking forward to a soon appendage to it.

Prayer Request

2008-03-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anybody will actually read this before this post becomes irrelevant, but if you do, would you please pray for my dad and brothers and their three traveling companions? They are in the Arizona mountains, on the road coming home from Oklahoma, and they are caught in a blizzard so bad that even the snowplow is stuck. The snow is coming down several inches per hour, and they are stuck in their rented minivan waiting for the roads to clear. Please pray for their speedy and safe return, and also for the other stranded motorists's safety as well.

Thank you all so much!

Erin

UPDATE: Praise be to God! Within an hour of posting this, God provided a way for the snowplow to make a way out, and Dad, etc. were able to get out of the mountains safely, and arrive home on time that night! Thank you all for praying, and please forgive me for not posting this update sooner! (^_^;)

Homecoming

2008-02-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

Just what is it about knowing that I should blog regularly makes it seem like such a drag, and sucks all the creativity out of me at the mere thought of actually doing so? What is it with the way my thoughts reassemble themselves all poetically once I finally do? And what do I type now that I've completely lost my train of thought? Hmmm...

Ah! I've got it: camp. Or more specifically, my homecoming.

I'd been deeply involved in my church's high school ministry since I was a freshman back in... was it 2002?--up until I graduated in 2005, going to the high school study on Wednesday nights and a sort of spin-off house fellowship led by one of the youth leaders on Tuesdays, singing in the fledgling Worship Revolution Choir, going street witnessing with the SWAT Team on Friday nights, and attending Sunday night services with my friends (and, of course, with my mom, being unable to drive myself). Me and my proclivity for developing crushes on people bound to break my heart and never know it had gotten me pretty depressed and was probably a main contributing factor in causing me to pull away from my friends, none of whom I saw outside of church, and before I realized what had happened I had become completely separated from that whole ministry, not even attending on Sunday nights, and spending Wednesdays in the main Sanctuary with my parents. I stopped attending on Tuesday nights as well after becoming fed up with the people attending completely ignoring me, and descending further into my hermitage.

For two very blurry years I spent a good deal of my time volunteering in the church's evangelistic outreach Office of previous mention (whether or not any of those posts survived the recent freak spontaneous deletion is anyone's guess), during which time I learned a very hard lesson in the importance of guarding my heart against those whose personalities seem taylor-made for mine but whose spiritual priorities were ambiguous at best. Because of the crushing loss that resulted I spent much of this last summer in debilitating nausea and indigestion, having stuffed my emotions deep inside rather than face the harsh reality of the duplicitous nature of the former object of my affections and my own failure in being so very foolishly deceived.

It took me several months to recover emotionally, but after a few months I returned to Sunday night Bible study, driving my brothers as my "excuse" to myself, and allowed the Lord to really minister to me there, reconnecting myself with some family friends and relearning how to interact with my peers. Finally, one sunny Sunday afternoon late in the year I suddenly realized that I truly had moved on. I no longer felt the desperation of still being single at nineteen with no prospects, and discovered a divine peace in my heart about my future. I distinctly felt like I had been through a winter season in my walk with Jesus and was coming into spring. I even resumed attending the Tuesday study in December, ready to try once more to connect with my brothers and sisters in the Lord, though still a little unsure of their reception of the fundamentally changed me.

So early this year, after several weeks of prayer and seeking the Lord, I talked to my youth pastor about getting involved as a camp co-counselor again. It had been two full years since my first camp as a leader, and that time I'd had to leave early due to my maternal grandfather's unexpected departure for Heaven. While I was preparing for camp and attending the pre-camp leadership meetings I felt the Lord might be calling me to continue and expand my pursuit of Christian fellowship with people my own age, so I began attending the college and career group on Friday nights, and opening myself more and more to the godly people I found myself surrounded by, who have graciously reached out to me like I can barely recall anyone doing before.

Once I got up to camp the weekend before last, I realized the incredible opportunity before me once more to pour my heart into the young girls in the church and comfort them with the comfort I have received from the Lord Jesus Christ, rediscovering a passion for the youth in my own heart, long ago forgotten. And as the Lord ministered to me at camp, and used me to minister to the girls in my charge, I felt Him tugging at my heart to get more involved in the high school ministry.

My mother had been struggling with whether or not to remain in the women's Bible study on Wednesday mornings, and finally received such clear confirmation from the Lord that she (and I) dropped out. I immediately felt the Lord's peace about it, as I wasn't really growing in it, and leaving my study group in the morning allowed Mom and me to get enough sleep to be able to make sure my brothers, who are both in high school, were able to attend Wednesday nights. This was especially significant for me since Tuesday night's studies keep me up pretty late (especially when I do things like this at times like this---yikes!), and I have been seeing so much more spiritual growth in my life since I started coming again.

So finally this Sunday night I was able to talk to the youth pastor's amazing wife before study about getting more involved in the high school ministry on Wednesday nights, and was met with eager approval (I really love this lady--she's just so sweet and godly!!) and advice. And last night, I was back in ministry, to the delight of a couple of my young friends, and to my own grea blessing. I am currently looking forward to continuing to deepen my involvement in the ministry and am met with a deep-seated peace and joy, and a feeling of coming home. No fear or trepidation hold me back now, but faith and hope sustain and propel me in this race against time for men's souls.

I am home.

Oops! Missing posts!

2008-01-25T23:45:00.001-08:00

Somebody has hacked into my blog and deleted some of my posts, a couple of which I have been able to recover (though I had to make an educated guess on the dates). Sorry for the mix-up! It won't happen again.

Promised Pillow

2008-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

I kid you not, I did not plan a single thing before making this pillow. I just started cutting and pinning and sewing. No sketches, just a general idea of what I wanted which continually evolved throughout the creation process (no puns were harmed in the making of this blog).

Here's my pillow next to the pincushion I knit for myself last year or the year before and the Hello Kitty sewing machine I got for Christmas from my brothers. I love them to distraction. And I really hate the red color on my bedroom walls. I am waiting for the weather to cooperate so I can paint it the color the Pacific turns in just the right summer conditions, at which point I will redecorate with my pretty Simply Shabby Chic duvet (and shams, I think?), this adorable little accent pillow (and hopefully some new friends for it soon), the "Sweetest, Softest Nap Blanket and Lambie (pillow) on Earth" (from Bath & Body Works) which I also received for Christmas, from Mom, and pink sheets yet to be purchased. I will also be repainting all my furniture ivory and sanding the edges for that coastal Shabby Chic look I love so much but can't afford (Can't you drop your prices a little, Rachel Ashwell?)

Here's the front:

And the back:

Close-up of front:

Up and Up

2008-01-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

So, what have I actually accomplished since my last post?

1. I frogged my sweater fronts down to the beginning of the neck and have started to knit them up again the right way (albeit slowly), both on the same circular needle to avoid the "Sweaterfront" variation of Second Sock Syndrome;

2. I finalized my collar pattern (or so I recall);

3-5. These are useless to start until the sweater is actually finished, so I haven't bothered;

6-7. I decided to start spending some alone time with God and my guitar, so there's another accomplishment;

8. Just 1500 envelopes left, and my gym dues just came in yesterday, but I may have a new job looming on the horizon (praise God!);

9. Camp meeting was last night, and there's another meeting for the girls tonight, and I'm so excited!!

10. Mom has decided I have enough underwear, seeing as I "can only wear one pair at a time," so that's that;

11. $5 for 8oz. of my signature fragrance is pretty sweet: I--I mean, Mom saved $7;

12. The new Guitar Hero III controller actually works (what a concept);

13. PacSun just ran out of Zach's size belt in that style (every store all at one, I kid you not), but he found one he really liked instead (for the same price! Isn't God good?), so it's cool;

14. Vitamin levels are looking good;

15. Mom wasn't in the mood to buy me extra supplements that weren't essential (and by the time I found them it was too late anyway), so no glutamine;

16. Lunch was smashing for two Wednesdays in a row (though the second was eaten on the way home from study as I wasn't needed in the Office);

17. Both Bible studies were finished (the important parts, anyway), though the second was finished at study;

18. Found out online that I just needed to loosen the screw on the bobbin case, so my tension problem's fixed;

19. Calibration is for wimps! Who needs accuracy anyway?

20. I made my discipleship calls a week late, and I have some more to make by tomorrow;

21. I'm still working on the whole "bedtime" thing, but I'm getting better;

22. Made that training appointment and a few others;

23. Threw out some bad stuff, and this morning I found some rice from the ninth in the back of the fridge that needs to be thrown out;

24. Used up my iTunes gift card but I'm waiting for some yarn to come back in stock at Knit Picks;

25. Cam up with new to-dos and such, blah, blah, blah.

The important thing is, I actually got some stuff done, and more besides! For example, I have a pillow ready to be sewed that took me all day Tuesday to cut and arrange (you'll see why when you see the pictures of the finished product). I also knit and unraveled a rainbow-colored beret --twice. I have returned the yarn to its former skein form, complete with reattached label. I'll try to find another pattern for it someday, but it just wasn't enough for a beret. Oh well.

So that's all for now; I'm too tired to think right now and Mom promised to knit.

And knit she surely shall.

To-Do Blues

2008-01-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

To Do:

Unravel both sweater fronts to top of button band, put band stitches on holder, reknit the rest (with slight shaping modifications).
Make final adjustments to collar pattern and knit the collar. Don't forget to factor in the white trim!
Weave in all loose ends.
Block and assemble. Take pictures for blog.
Redraw charts and write out pattern. Prepare Sailor Sweater pattern for submission.
File nails short enough to play my guitar again.
Practice playing my guitar.
Stuff 9,000 envelopes to pay off bills. Try not to think about the gym dues coming in later this month.
Prepare for High School Winter Camp '08. Make a list, check it twice, don't forget organic snacks for the girls in my cabin. And extra underwear.
Buy said skivvies.
Buy more body lotion at Bath & Body Works.
Exchange Zach and Nate's Guitar Hero III controller at Best Buy.
Exchange Zach's belt for the next size up at PacSun.
Buy more coral calcium and fücothin at Vitamin Shoppe. Make sure everything else is well-stocked before you go.
Oh, and pick up some glutamine while you're there.
Pack lunch tonight for between bible study and volunteer work at church tomorrow morning/afternoon.
Finish Bible study before it starts tomorrow morning.
Call Janome and find out how to fix bobbin/thread tension on Hello Kitty sewing machine I got for Christmas. If they aren't helpful, try a Jo-Ann store. Or Nancy your next-door neighbor.
Find a composite track and calibrate Nike+ sensor so it stops grossly overestimating your achievements. Try not to be too disappointed with the truth.
Make discipleship follow-up calls later this week.
Start going to bed the night before the morning on which you plan to awaken.
Get ready for personal training session Monday morning at 0830 hours.
Check kitchen and medicine cabinet for products of questionable viability and throw out anything that's expired. Look surprised when all of the boys' horribly unhealthy foods magically disappear around the same time. ("Who, me?")
Figure out what you're getting with your $15 gift card for iTunes and your $40 gift certificate for Knit Picks. Have fun spending other people's money again. (^_~)
Try to remember anything else I may have forgotten. Sigh.

2008, here I come!

2007-12-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

You know, it probably says a lot of bad things about me that it took Mom promising to take up knitting to get me to blog, but there you have it: weekly blogs from now on, as per my end of the bargain.

A lot has happened this year, most of it not so fun, but here at the end of December I can look back and see the refining work God has been doing in my life; and believe me, there was plenty of dross to be skimmed off, and plenty more where that came from. I've realized that I needed to get some things straightened out in my own heart and in my daily walk with the Lord, people and habits I needed to get free of, and complacent laziness that needed to be dealt with, before I can be ready for the work God is preparing me for, and before I can become the woman he created me to be. It's been a tough year, but now all's said and done, I couldn't be more grateful for His loving grace to save me from not only Hell in death but anything short of Heaven in life, His perfect plan for me, not the pretty good one I'd wind up settling for if He didn't love me enough to save me from myself.

I've spent AD 2007 discovering who I am and who God is, and rediscovering the great need for prayer and fellowship in order to experience the vibrant and abundant life my Father had intended for me from before the foundation of the world, and will continue on this journey of discovery, self- and otherwise, through AD 2008.

Speaking of which... (Stop rolling your eyes; you knew it was coming...)

Resolutions to Break in 2008

1. Post a new blog at least once a week

2. Go to bed earlier

3. Pray more fervently, more effectively, and more often

4. Get back in fellowship with other believers my age and stop being such a hermit

5. Start running on a regular basis

6. Start saving money

7. Stop buying stuff

8. Add more traditional Japanese foods to my diet

9. Finish my Sailor Sweater

10. Stop waiting until the last possible minute to do my Women's Inductive Bible studies

See, now I've started, I don't want to stop, and I have so many things to blog about: the awesome stuff my awesome family gave me this awesome Christmas, the awesome fleece sweater I sewed for Mystery with my awesome new sewing machine, the awesome results I'm seeing after several sessions with my awesome personal trainer, my awesome plans for redoing my bedroom, my awesome "Specialtea" recipe using awesome teas I found this December and Silk light chocolate and vanilla soymilk...

But alas! all this will have to wait for a later post (and a photo shoot now that I finally have batteries for my digicam). So for now, I bid you adieu.

I'm Still Alive, I Promise!

2007-10-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

Oh my, how time has flown by since I last posted here. I'm sure anybody who sees this is wondering

what on earth could be wrong with me to make me so slack in keeping up my obligatory blog, and for once I do have several legitimate reasons... But I must admit: mostly, I just didn't feel like it.
Let's see, what has happened since August sixth?
1)I'm working on a sweater I designed in hopes of a perfect fit and a Vogue Knitting-worthy design; 2)I haven't been called on to volunteer but a few times in August, and not at all since September; 3)my brothers and I were given a fairly steady fulfillment job by my dad's boss to be done at home for very good pay; 4)I dragged my family into joining LA Fitness; 5)I've been adding to my bento collection (I promise pictures as soon as I get batteries for my camera!); 6)I got my first real credit card (pink, with Hello Kitty, no less! ^v^) and was recently approved for a very nice (very free) checking account so I can stop paying my dad to pay my bill from his; and 7)Women's Inductive Bible Study started back up in Romans.
Prepare yourselves, faithful readers: this one's a doozy.

The Sailor Sweater
I came up with the idea almost by accident, actually. I was toying with the idea of knitting a kimono-inspired sweater and quickly realized I would also have to design it, as I was immensely dissatisfied with the existing patterns available. So one day at the beach as I flipped through my Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book for tips (I got it because of the sizable chapter on design), stumbled across the section for collars, and was immediately drawn to the sailor/midi collar, reminiscent of those super-cute Japanese schoolgirl uniforms, and since I was already planning on a v-neck sweater, the idea was just perfect, and my design was completely redrawn.
I ordered fourteen balls of Knit Picks Swish DK (100% superwash merino wool) in Dusk, a bright navy(ish) blue, and one in white for accent, knit a gauge swatch, printed out graph paper in exactly the right proportions (knit stitches are not quite square, they're a bit smooshed from the top), took my measurements, and started drawing.
Here's an early sketch before I decided on a color, and here's my test swatch:

The whole thing is going to be knit in this unbelievably soft Dusk (which looks much less royal and much more navy blue in person), and the parts colored in the sketch are where the textured seed stitch pattern seen on the edges of the swatch will be placed. I will later embroider in a white trim around those edges and sew on beautiful gold buttons with anchors on them. God took the picture I'd had of them in my head and made sure there were real (and inexpensive!) buttons to be had; isn't He the sweetest Daddy ever?
Here they are, wrapped in the swatch to mimic the finished look of them being sewn into the textured trim:

I've also added vents to the back and to the sleeves, the latter having the smaller decorative buttons holding them together (two reasons: 1) I never unbutton my sleeves anyway, and 2) I forgot to knit in the buttonholes ^_^;). The collar also will sport a small button in either corner for decorative purposes only.
Currently, I have finished the back, both fronts, and the left sleeve of the sweater, and have only the right sleeve and collar left to be knitted, and then the assembly. After the sweater itself is finished and many artsy pictures taken in and around Newport Beach, I will rewrite the pattern and redraw the charts so that they may be easily understood by anybody else, and they will be sent off for submission to VK and Knitty in hopes of publication. Ooh, or maybe in a book or something. I'm finding myself increasingly dissatisfied with the knitwear design I've seen in books and magazines, and discovering that just maybe I might be able to do something about it. God help us all.

The Fulfilment Job
What was once a sporadic rush of envelopes, booklets, cards, boxes and packing tape has turned into a steady stream of activity around our house, between my dad, my brothers, myself, and, lately, my mom. And since the boys bought a TV to replace the one that died in the game room downstairs, we are no longer limited to only the family room or to a single program, movie, or game (as played by someone else, obviously) to distract us from total boredom as we stuff envelopes. The money is pretty nice, because the boys are both saving up for cars and stuff like the very nice HDTV they just bought to go with our (I pitched in too) Xbox 360 for playing Halo, my parents are looking at future home improvement projects, and I am happily spending most of mine almost as soon as I get it (and until I tightened the loose screw in my head, sometimes before ^_^;) on specialty groceries and phthalate-, paraben-, and carcinogen-free personal care products (gotta love Burt's Bees!), bento boxes and accessories, Sanrio stuff (I'm a sucker for cute) for a buck at Target, baking stuff for a buck at Target (okay, maybe I'm just a sucker), dishes, and presents for my family. The latter are by far my favorite expenses, and I have grand plans for my youngest brother Nate's upcoming birthday at the beginning of Christmas shopping season especially. Christmas...? Well, let's just say I'm keeping my options open. (Read: "I have no idea what to get anyone!")

The Gym
I love working out. I really do. I don't know why, but for some reason, when we get to the gym, I like to really push myself. For example, on Saturday it started raining as soon as we got to the beach for our bike ride so we came home and went to the gym to ride theirs instead. I just felt like running at first, so I started on a treadmill and wound up running a mile in 9:11! That is a big deal for me; my last record run was over a minute longer! Since we've started, I've noticed a reduction in some of my measurements, which although they may affect the fit of my sweater once it's done, are immensely encouraging to me after a loooong plateau.
Mom and I go four days a week, and would go more were it not for church services both morning and evening on Sundays and Wednesdays, and for our bike rides on Saturdays, and I absolutely love it! My brothers come with us often, and my dad comes occasionally (because of work and stuff lately, it's been hard for him to make it). We have a lot of fun, and I really enjoy having something we can all do together as a family. Here's a shot Mom took of me on the assisted dip/chin-up machine with her cell phone:

At the time I was not amused, but now, after seeing the shot, I can better appreciate the long and lean silhouette produced by the stretching effect of the machine. (^_~)

I will post more on some of the other subjects later, especially on my studies in the book of Romans, but right now Mom just got home from grocery shopping so I really need to get in the shower so we can go to the gym soon.

Psalm 12

2007-08-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

God is just so good! I came across this beautiful psalm in my reading the night before last, and Mom came across it randomly yesterday twice; it so speaks to my situation and brings comfort while expressing my utter disappointment and frustration with some of the "Christians" I know... To think that the Creator of the universe cared enough to highlight these verses for me at a time when I so need encouragement... it just blows my mind.

Psalm 12
To the Chief Musician. On an eight-stringed harp. A Psalm of David.
1 Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases!
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.
2 They speak idly everyone with his neighbor;
With flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

3 May the LORD cut off all flattering lips,
And the tongue that speaks proud things,
4 Who have said,
“With our tongue we will prevail;
Our lips are our own;
Who is lord over us?”

5 “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy,
Now I will arise,” says the LORD;
“I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.”

6 The words of the LORD are pure words,
Like silver tried in a furnace of earth,
Purified seven times.
7 You shall keep them, O LORD,
You shall preserve them from this generation forever.

8 The wicked prowl on every side,
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.

Is honesty really the best policy?

2007-06-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

"Open rebuke is better
Than love carefully concealed.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."
--Proverbs 27:5-6
Chuck Smith wrote a short commentary on this passage in my Word For Today Bible:

"Faithful Wounds
"A person who is really your friend will tell you what you need to hear, even though it may be painful. The wounds that come from a friend are like the wounds of a surgeon; they are designed to heal.
"If your doctor does a biopsy on you and finds cancer, he knows that it will hurt you to learn you have cancer. I f surgery is required, he knows that will be painful, as well. But what kind of a doctor would allow you to continue to walk around with a disease that will kill you because he wants to spare you the pain of dealing with the sickness? You could sue him for malpractice.
"There are many things in our lives that if they are unheeded will destroy us. They call for radical surgery; and a true friend will point this out to you, even though they know they are risking hurting you in the process. The word of God is like a two-edged sword. It cuts us, but it is always cutting to heal rather than to destroy. 'Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.' "

Unfortunately, sometimes it will cost the friendship. But if following Christ meant only doing what you want to do, everybody would be a Christian. ("Then He said to them all, 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.' " --Luke 9:23)
If only it didn't have to come through me!

"By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." -John 13:35

2007-05-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

People ask me quite often why I don't have any friends or seem to mind terribly, and why I'm not in different ministries at church to "meet people" and make friends. I tell them I'm best friends with my mom and that I enjoy just hanging out with my family, and that I really don't mind not having other friends, because I just don't have the time or whatever crap comes to mind.
The truth is, I don't have friends because they won't have me. I have nothing to offer as far as social standing goes, no money to speak of, nothing in my life of great interest, average conversational skills at best... Whatever their reasons, most people at church don't care to have me, so I have shielded myself from their inevitable rejection by withdrawing completely from the social scene. The only time I do anything without my family is when I volunteer in the Office for a scant four or five hours, usually making phone calls in seclusion. When I am free to talk, only the Interns are even close to my age (all of them are over twenty, and I just turned a very boring nineteen); the only conversations I have are with adults. Very rarely do I get to talk with the Guys, and even then, they're just, well... guys.
It's been this way almost as long as I can remember. I connect well with adults, can get along reasonably well with guys, and not all that well with other girls. I've never had a single real friend. The best friends I've ever had were boys. Maybe because they weren't subconsciously competing with me, maybe because their thought processes were simpler, maybe even sometimes just because they thought I was cute; whatever the reason, whenever the tolerant clique of the moment "downsized" it was me who was always "let go".
I spent years in constant fellowship with kids my age utterly ignored by everyone around me, screaming inside for someone, anyone, to reach out and save me from my loneliness, but they were all too busy chasing after the popular people to stop and say hello to a nobody like me. So beautiful, so superficial, so fake, so hypocritical; the more I saw of my peers, the more I was able to convince myself that my lifelong search for friendship wasn't worth it. Things only got worse with the birth of MySpace; I was appalled at what people would post about themselves and others, the sin they would not only inadvertently expose in their own lives, but flaunt so brazenly, and in disbelief at how these kids were allowed to remain in ministry, accoladed and promoted for their "godliness". It just made me sick.
So I tried a home Bible study close by, led by one of our youth leaders, frequently by many of those in prominent places in ministry. I attended for over a year, and never did find acceptance among the phony hypocrites that they by and large turned out to be. I was always there, but they didn't seem to have room in their cliques for me.

Today I heard That One Guy In Particular talking to another intern how he was hanging out at the beach with some of these very people yesterday, and I thought my heart would stop. Does he know who these creatures are? After watching them all these years, I can see that they are exactly the kind of users he has been dealing with his entire life as The PK at our church; why would he open himself up to that again? Is it simply that since we in the Office turned out not to be that way like he had originally assumed, he has let down his guard completely? Or was he really just one of Them all along?

People ask me a lot why I'm not in fellowship, why I don't seem to care whether or not I have any friends, and social life whatsoever. This is exactly why.

"But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you." -John 5:42

Japancast.net Frappr Map

2007-03-30T13:24:00.001-07:00

The Last Christian Generation?

2007-03-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to verify the alarming statistics floating around about how very soon only 4% of Christian teens will become Bible-believing Christians, but while the claims certainly have an alarmist ring to them, the findings should not be all that surprising to those who are watching for the Lord's return. The Bible speaks of the pervading wickedness of the Last Days, and of the Great Apostasy of the Church shortly before the Rapture and the End; we should have seen this coming, right?
Wrong.
The reason this has crept upon us so suddenly is that in fact, it has not. We as a nation have, quite simply, failed our youth. We have failed to raise them by the absolute teachings of the Bible which we claim to believe so strongly, and so they have been exposed to far too much of the world to come away unscathed, purity and innocence lost as we have thrown them to the dogs. Instead of living up to our responsibility as parents to protect them from the attacks of the enemy and train them up in the ways of the Lord, we have opted to act as "peerents," attempting to be their friends. Assuming that we have no say in where they go, what they do, and who they do it with, the media they are exposed to, and the things they are able to get away with, we think that perhaps by not passing judgment or punishing them, they won't rebel later, and will develop a closer relationship with us because of our trust in them. Sadly, this hands-off approach to parenting is what the Bible calls "hatred" of our children. They desperately need strong leadership and mentorship, and yes, discipline and boundaries, most especially during their turbulent teen years. Without it, they feel lost and abandoned and are left to their own inexperienced and naive devices, as vulnerable to the deceptions of Satan as they could possibly be. As a result, they rebel even more radically, resenting their parents for their apathetic lack of guidance and real love.
We have failed them in our education system, teaching them that they are nothing but accidental animals in an accidental world, and so they act on what they have been led to believe. We dump them into a corrupt and failing public school system that not only fails to teach them academically, but fills their minds with political propaganda telling them that being a Christian is stupid, childish, narrow-minded, hypocritical, and ignorant of the truth, and teaching them instead that our country was founded on principles of "taxation without representation" when it was founded on freedom to practice their Christian faith; that the universe is the result of the explosion of literally nothing and that they evolved from sludge and are no better, only a little stronger, than animals, when the Bible tells us that we were created by the hand of God in the very image of God; that since they were bound to have sex anyway, they may as well know how to use a condom; that it's their right (nay, responsibility to society) that they get abortions to murder their babies without their parents' consent, thus perpetuating moral decline and horrific patterns of sexual abuse, usually by older men...
We have failed them even in the Church, coddling them with a watered-down, cheap grace version of the Scriptures, never challenging them to grow up and mature in their faith and responsibility in accordance with what should by this time be their extensive knowledge of the Word, mirroring the secular world in nearly every way.
If only 4% of our Christian youth remain safe in the Lord, it is our own fault, and only we can turn the tide.
If indeed it is not already too late.

Links:
'Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers', New York Times
'Good Morning Students', Author: Bruce Malone

Mystery Bird, Part 2

2006-12-29T12:36:00.000-08:00

Remember the blue heron we were briefly visited by in August? I think today's chicken-duck (Chuck?) tops that.

As I type this, a good two hours after taking these photos, Chick Hearn (say it fast enough and it sounds kinda like "chicken"?), or Chuck, or whatever we shall name him/her, is still standing at the top of the hill at the back of our yard, apparently unable to fly, and Mystery is whining and straining at her leash on the patio, trying to get at it. Watching her try to catch the bird in the pool without getting in herself was hilarious. I think this is a sort of hybrid between a chicken and a duck, because of the chicken-like legs and talons and pebbly face-skin-thing, and the mixed-up coloring. Its feathers are black and white, but the "black" feathers have that green-ish opalescent color reminiscent of that on a Mallard. There is an aviary/duck pond of sorts over by church that has ducks, geese, and chickens, so I figure either a duck egg was fertilized by a rooster or vice versa. I wonder if this situation will go the way of the Mystery Incident, and whether we will consequently wind up with a new pet. In which case, I think we'll call "him" Chuck or Dickens (Chuck Dickens?) or something.
Life is strange sometimes.

The Best Dog In the Whole Wide World

2006-12-17T19:59:00.000-08:00

Blondie was truly the best dog ever to walk the planet, and she is sorely missed.
We brought her home on Saturday, the 18th of September, 1998, and Jesus took her to His home on Saturday, the 16th of December, 2006. She was in perfect health eight and a half years, then took suddenly and terminally ill the week before she died with lymphoma.
I can't really get too upset because I realize that Jesus deserves her more than I do, she's far happier and healthier than she ever was here, and He couldn't have picked a sweeter dog to bring home to His Father. I look forward to meeting up with her again, but until then, we'll just have to pay special attention to our remaining dog, Mystery, who is very lonely without her best friend. (She is not the puppy pictured here; that was Elanor, who had to be given to another family before she ate poor Mystery! This is Mystery-->)

Figures.

2006-11-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

None of my yarn sold. My four skeins priced at $18 ($24 Buy-It-Now) did not sell. I relisted them with the price I'd originally intended for them, $10.50 ($12.50 Buy-It-Now), and they'll be up again until next Friday around 1:30 pm PST. Needless to say, I'm a little bumed out by the whole thing, but hey, that's the breaks, right? Not everybody is wildly successful their first try. They'll sell this time for sure.
These are the things I tell myself to keep from breaking down and deciding that this whole yarn thing just isn't for me.
Then, I bring up the Dashboard and see my countdown-to-Christmas widget reads 44 days, 10 hours, some odd minutes and seconds left until Christmas and determination rekindles hope: I have presents to buy, some of which will need knitting before presenting.
This yarn has to sell.
In the meantime, there's a cute jumperdress in Vogue Knitting that's caught my eye that requires just exactly (maybe even a little less, since I'm planning on making it a good six inches shorter?) the amount of yarn that I have left undyed and at my disposal...
No. Must... keep... focus... Yarn... for... selling...
Then again, I might get better results with a fingering weight sock yarn, or maybe a laceweight...
Darn cheapskates. Now they got the darn hamster running again...

1,235 Hours Remain

2006-11-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

Target has my number. Remember the One Spot, with its insidiously cute merchandise at deceptively low Dollar Tree prices? They just started stocking their Christmas stuff. Mini trees in classic green and pearlescent clear, battery-operated strings of white LED light, packages of 12 multi-colored mini ornaments, sets of 6 make-your-own glittery ornaments, sparkly pom-pom garlands... very cute and pretty harmless, right?
Wrong.
Remember how this last stock of Fall One Spot merchandise had a special section devoted entirely to my worst of addictions, not simply dishes, but sushi dishes? And remember my dismay at seeing new little signs up reading, "2 for $5"?
My darling mother offered to buy me a tree and the aforementioned trimmings, including a second make-your-own ornament pack and a $1 wrapping embellishment/ornament for a tree topper, thinking it would only cost a few bucks, no harm done.... Until we reached the checkout and realized that we had both failed to notice (or was it not yet posted?) that horrible dratted sign... "2 for $5" What should have cost $7 (plus tax) cost $16. I was horrified, having just reached the checkout from my last-minute frenzied (an shockingly unsuccessful) search for those heaven-sent Brach's Autumn Mix candy corn bags marked down like 90% from Octoberween as Mom painfully signed her check. No, make that more like mortified. I offered to go return it all, as I never would've picked it up if I had seen the real prices, but she refused. She wouldn't even let me pay her the $1.08 I had in coins! (What? I got nothin' against coinage...)
Further confounding me at the unexpectedly astounding extent of her forbearance, she left my very messy glitterballs out to finish drying (as I speak, two are still not completely dry) overnight on her kitchen counter. Her obsessive-compulsively clean, black kitchen counter! Nothing left on that counter overnight is ever there in the morning. Ever.
And so we have...

The Tree.

Meanwhile, my fourteen-year-old brother Zach is going to his first skool dance Saturday night, and I still will be sitting at home with my mother. Eighteen stinkin' years of this nonsense is starting to get to me. I'm losin' my everloving mind. Is that knucklehead ever going to ask me out, or is he just content to admire my beax and leave me to my solitude, requiring no action or effort on his part? What am I, art?
But seriously, a girl can only take so much rejection and indifferent disregard before she starts to wonder... What, am I just not good enough?
I mean, guys have it easy: they can just go up to the girl they like and ask her out. Worst-case scenario she says no (well, actually, worst-case scenario she rends him limb from limb, but I haven't been working out quite hard enough for that option to be open to me yet...), whereas all I can do is wait at home for the phone to ring or my email program to ding, and pray that it's not just that silent prank-caller we keep getting or the library telling me one of the books I requested is now available for pick-up. Because I'm on my last book, and they don't have any more on knitting that I haven't read... And most of those sucked big time anyway.

Behold the Lamb!

2006-10-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

My shop is finally up and running!
...Well, sort of.
I ordered my first twelve skeins of worsted weight Peruvian wool yarn (very nice stuff) and have painted five of them so far, photographed them, and put them up in the shop at $18 a skein.
They are simply beautiful, although not all of them even resemble the color scheme I was trying to match, the way I was haphazardly mixing my dyes, flying by the seat of my pants, as usual. Structure? What structure? Chaos, my friend, is the mark of a true artiste!
...Or so I tell myself.
Go take a look, and e-mail me if you're interested. I'm probably going to put them up on eBay very soon, if not immediately, in fact, so keep an eye out for them there (my eBay ID is HeroOfTime777).
More blogging to come!

Well, well, well... Look who's back for more...

2006-09-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know, I'm terrible. This so-called "blog" is a waste of Web space. I am a lazy, slacking slacker who's very easily distracted by absolutely nothing whatsoever. I humbly apologize. I've not much to report, I suppose (that's any of your business, that is), except my new phone:

Isn't she beautiful? The Pink V3 RAZR by Motorola. I even got a new number and everything, and the best part is, I got her free with our new Faimy Share Plan! Mom got the same phone, and Zach and Nate each got V3i RAZRs with iTunes (theirs did come with a price tag). We love them to pieces. And mine even came with a very pretty wallpaper of sushi! How much more can this phone scream "ERIN!"?
I just started Women's Inductive Bible Study on Wednesday, and I think I'm really going to like it, even if it does force me to be sociable once a week... (Come on! I can do this!) I've been sitting in on the message for a few years now, but this is the first year I've done the study or been in a group. ...Which reminds me, I need to work on my study more tomorrow, because I didn't today. >.<
Zach's vest is bent on making me lose my everloving mind trying to finish it... This time, it's the side seams--you know, the home stretch. Tedious but easy. Riiiight. I've started marking every fifth row or so on each side to make sure that they match up as I sew them together, because last time they were ten rows off. Ten. Rows. Don't ask me how this could happen, since they're exactly the same... I got most of a seam done today on the way to and from the beach before it started acting up on me again (right as we were getting home, by the way). But hey, that's life.
Here's a little Tahitian eye candy for your enjoyment; enjoy!

Where Does The Time Go?

2006-09-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

How is it possible that I haven't had time to blog since that sorry excuse for a post on the third? What with all the "idle" time on my hands, I should be blogging once day, and I can't even manage to get around to it once a week?
Let's see, there's been the garden...

Look at all those peppers! From only three plants!

Then there's the beach twice a week...

Thank You, Father, for the ocean!

And then there's the knitting...

Almost finished, I just need to finish the hood, knit the yellow ribbing on top of the pockets and sew them down, and weave in all the loose ends. Oh, and knit the ribbed belt. Tantalizingly close, yet so much to be done.

Mind-numbingly boring knitting, but very interesting results with this open wrap-in-progress. Works up pretty quick, just seems to take forever.

Dad's hat's a little big for Scruffles, but he doesn't seem to mind. This Misti Alpaca is sooo soft and smooth, drapes so nicely, and is so shiny... I bought two balls, but I may only need one, or maybe just a bit of the second, so I'm going to make myself a pretty lacey beaded scarf with the rest, if I can find the right pattern. ...Or maybe just my own hat without the brim.

Zach's vest is coming along nicely; I just need to finish embroidering the accent lines, sew up the sides and weave in the ends. This was supposed to be done for his 14th birthday on the 15th. Of August. Oh well, he wouldn't be able to wear it yet anyway, until it cools down a bit more...

I'd add some more stuff, like the batts of spinning fiber I just received, but Blogger's photo service seems to be bent on driving me to insanity with its non-working-ness tday, so I'll try again tomorrow.
Maybe.

Coming Soon...

2006-09-03T22:40:00.000-07:00

Actual content! (Really, I promise!)
I've just been so busy lately, and every time I actually remember that I have a blog, my time is up and away I must!
In brief: I finished the second sleeve of my sweater (why is my gauge so much more relaxed with this one, I wonder?) and blocked all the pieces today. I started sewing up the sleeves to the front and back, but it's kind of hard (read: killer annoying impossible) to get the colors to match up perfectly unless I really plan ahead; I've only got one seam sewn of four (whimper).
I worked a little bit on the accent lines on Zach's argyle vest while I waited for my sweater to dry. I got one of the really long navy ones and one of the shorter/mid-length ones, too.
And riding from 61st Street in Newport to Lifeguard Tower 20(?) in Bolsa Chica is not quite as easy as I previously thought. (Although the ride back is lovely.)
Lots of pix coming!

Mystery Bird

2006-08-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning Mom and I found this bird hanging out by our pool after breakfast. We think it's some kind of sea bird, but have no idea what kind. Anybody know?
The thing was about two and a half feet tall with a minimum wingspan of six feet; how on earth did our dogs not notice it for over ten minutes?!

The Harvest Crusade was absolutely amazing; 4365 people gave their lives to the Lord on Saturday alone! (Which reminds me: I've got some follow-up calls/e-mails to make/send tomorrow!) David Crowder Band and the Newsboys were so incredibly awesome!I was totally blown away by the number of people down on the field those three nights, and even more so by the fact that God would use me to help bring it about! Oooh, I get butterflies just thinking about it!
On the downside, I saw a couple of my friends but didn't get a chance to say hi because neither of them ever came close enough, and I didn't want to just holler at them (they tend to go mysteriously deaf whenever I do that anyway), so I just talked with Mom while I knit Zachary's vest, who by the way also got to do decision follow-up counseling on the field the last two nights, which was amazing! One of them just kept whizzing by me on Friday so fast I could barely draw breath to call them over before they were out of earshot. ...Oh well.
Zach's vest is blocking downstairs now, ready to be sewn up, the ribbing knitted around the neck and armholes, and the accent lines for the argyles duplicate stitched on tomorr-- er, that is, today, on his 14th birthday(!). I'm taking no chances with mold as it lays out to dry tonight, with the ceiling fan on high and the light on, as I just lost $30 worth of soaked white Cascade 220 waiting to be dyed and sold on eBay today to mold. Apparently, even wonderfully mold-resistant wool will become infested if you leave it wet and on a dark bookshelf for two weeks... What was I thinking? Well, the last thing would have been to dry it quick in case I didn't get to use the kitchen the next morning, lest it should be eaten through by mold.
However, I did sell my two dyed skeins to the lovely Sandy of California Crafts on eBay, so all is not lost...
Well, my youngest brother Nathaniel is bugging me to get off the compy and go to bed now, and since he's totally right, I think I'll do just that. G'night!

Eek.

2006-07-30T19:59:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, ain't it?
Well, turns out I've gone and gotten myself a nice infection in a formerly innocuous little cyst/pore/hole/thing on my ear, and it's all swollen and red and painful, etc., etc., and once the Amoixicillin kills it off, I may need surgery to have it permanently removed, beacause apparently, once this happens once, it'll continue to happen every so often. Oh, and the doc says there's about a 50/50 chance that it could explode in a most revolting manner. (But he doen't think it'll happen because it's not that bad yet. And the swelling's already starting to go down since starting the antibiotic on Friday.) Fun stuff. Not. Other than that, I've really no excuse for not blogging. Bad bad me...
I finished spinning all my fiber, and I wound up with a little over 100 yards of a bulky-weight single, and about 250 yards of a fingering/DK-weight single. I wonder if it'll be enough for a pair of tabi socks, if I use the bulky for the toes and heels, maybe? Otherwise, I'll probably alternate the yarns in a nice lacy scarf or something. Or I may just keep it the way it is, all pretty and being my first spun yarn and whatnot... Hopefully, I can get hold of another batt of that lovely fluff so I can make enough for a cute wrap and those socks... Hopefully.
I've finally decided what I'm really going to do with my six skeins of white Cascade 220: dye and sell it in order to: a) recoup the forty-some bucks I spent on it, b) pay my brothers the money I owe them, and (hopefully) c) buy some even cheaper (identical!) yarn from KnitPicks to start up my yarn business. Gotta love that Kool-Aid!
On the slightly more depressing side, there's an old saying goes, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." I've experienced the evil thoughts and torturous emotions inspired by being (or feeling) ignored more than I care to admit, and so I leave you with a couple bits of advice: guys, if you're interested in a girl, do not be afraid to approach her, or you run the risk of unnecissarily stessing out your future girlfriend and making her cry and feel miserable and inadequate and (temporarily) hate your stinking cowardly guts. And girls, if he seems to be ignoring you, choose to pity his fear of rejection (how silly!) and his ignorance instead of researching voodoo dolls on the Internet and wondering what's wrong with you, and whether you'll be stuck single, no prospects, forever, a true spinster... Be patient. God will bring your husband to you in His perfect time--what a disaster it could prove should he come later... or earlier! Your heavenly Father loves you enough to send His only Son to die for you and bear your sin; surely he can be counted on to come through with a mate for his precious daughter!
Pictures will be added later, when I find that dratted camera and get some sleep.

A Lesson Well Learned

2006-07-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

I ran across this quote just now while checking my e-mail, and thought I'd share it with you:
"The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful." -- Mark Twain

Jesus Party Pics

2006-07-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

...Just like I promised.
Here's my sushi, which was a smash hit (!); I'm definitely doing it again next time, and more of it!

Jesus Party! Wooooo!

2006-07-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the Upper Room Bible study's monthly (or so) Agape Feast potluck dinner, and I made California Maki (rolls). Come to think of it, I'm going to make some ocha (green tea) when I get there, so I'm not stuck with soda and bottled tap water to drink. As far as the sign-up list last week was concerned, we have two edible dishes for sure: my sushi and Sonya's salad. Stephan and some other kid are bringing brownies, there will be cookies, vegan pizza (or lasagna, Elise hasn't decided yet.), chocolate-covered strawberries, and chips and dip and salsa. So I'll wind up with some salad with my sushi and ocha...
I'll post some pictures tomorrow (or whenever) of my very nicely rolled sushi (nothing (totally) fell apart this time! ^v^), which I'll take right before I leave. Even cooler than the fact that nothing went horribly wrong this time, I did it all myself! No help! (Well, having Nate fan the rice for me while I added the vinegar doesn't really count, does it?... And Mom did help clean up... ^_^;)
Okay, so I'm working on the Hooded Jacket from this issue of Vogue Knitting the last few weeks, and I've finished the back and pocket linings and am all ready to start the left front when it happens: I lost my size 10 needlepoints from my Needlemaster kit, they're my only needles that size, and I can't cast on anything new without them! Two weeks later, I'm going crazy needing to start the front, so I decide to try to work the beginning 10 rows (after which I switch to larger needles) on my short dpns (good luck keeping the stitches from falling off the other end!), and I get out my little shoebox of knitting needles. As I look into the box, searching for my dpns, a shot of bright green catches my eye: my size 10.5 circular needle from little Mystery's dog bed kit, repaired with green lawn edger string by my awesome dad. I figure, what the heck? Why not see what size my needle gauge says they are, and lo and behold, they are not size 10.5 after all... they're really size 10! Imagine my glee! (Picture little kids on Christmas morning upon receiving exactly what they've been pining over all year, and you get an idea.) So now I'm going to switch off every other day between my sweater and Zach's vest, and with some feverishly fast knitting and a lot of prayer, I think I might be able to get it finished in time for his 14th birthday on August 15th. He won't be able to actually wear it until at least September, but it'll be finished.
And in the end, that's really all that counts.

Home-cooked Sushi!

2006-07-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't what I meant. Although I did knit them myself...
Friday I finally got to cook my own sushi, and boy, is it harder than it looks! I kept forgetting basic stuff like wetting your hands before shaping the rice so it doesn't just stick to your hands, and my rolls didn't quite want to. But the highlight of the evening's fiasco--er, meal, even beyond the prep/cook time of about three hours (the time just flew!) and subsequent hour-or-so late dinner, and my dad's accidentally eating his half-inch ball of wasabi, thinking it was just a piece of sushi (poor guy, shoulda warmed him, huh?) was when my brother Zach completely gagged on the tobiko I bought from Akina Sushi-Teppan (they'll even sell you "kits" to make your own sushi at home, and they teach sushi-making classes!) and had to go-er, regurgitate his mouthful of fish eggs in the kitchen sink. (Although he did tell me the other stuff "wasn't too bad" afterward.) Nate, however, was a real trooper, and (I'm pretty sure) actually enjoyed the meal... for the most part. Me and Mom loved it, though, and that's what really mattered. ^_^
The real story, however, is in the series of total and complete miracles that God beautifully orchestrated to just about make my year. First off, one of the recipes called for tenderloin steak (the Inside-Out Rools with Beef Teriyaki for the boys), but (much to my noob stickler side's glee) said that really any kind of meat (even tofu) would work, and while we didn't have beef steaks we had swordfish steaks, so we used those instead. (This was the most minor, so bear with me...) Second, when our search for tobiko came up empty, Mom (or me, I don't remember) suggested I call some nearby sushi restaurants to see if they'd sell me any. I called Ooka first, knowing they served it (and wasabi tobiko too!) but there was no answer. Then I remembered that Akina, which is closer anyway, does serve it (most I've seen just serve salmon or maybe smelt roe), so I called them up, and lo and behold, they were willing to sell me some 8 tablespoons for 4 bucks! (You have no idea how thrilled I was! I've been looking forward to this forever!) This was around 1:30 or so, and they close for lunch at 2: perfect timing. When I get there, I almost didn't take my purse in (Mom said I wouldn't need it, just the four dollars she gave me), but on a whim (or the leading of the Holy Spirit) I took it with me. As it turned out, there'd been a miscommunication, and the little container probably had a bit closer to four tablespoons in it, and the price was actually $4.31-my pathetic bit of change was about come in handy, I thought, and when I looked in my wallet, I discovered much more change than I'd anticipated, and (remember I have NO INCOME WHATSOEVER) seven one-dollar bills. So I bought two more little cups. And then the guy tells me that they sell people whole kits for homemade sushi because of their classes, complete with rice, nori, and topping; all you have to do is put it together! Miracle after miracle, people! And so I told him; he seemed impressed.
And for a final touch, only God saved my rice from a certain doom (and the rice is the backbone of the sushi, as everything else we had, save the tobiko, had to be at least partially cooked); I forgot to watch it as it began to boil, and when I looked it was really going!
So not exactly perfect (not my Dad's cup of tea, as he put it), but all-in-all, absolutely wonderful. I finally got to use my pretty dishes, too! Next time, though, we fry the fish outside.

Cotton Candy

2006-07-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

I have been knitting for nearly three years now, and I recently started spinning my own yarn as well. Using some dowels as shafts and wooden toy wheel and plain disks as whorls, my dad and I made some spindles, and I bought my first fiber from Crystal Creek Fibers on eBay. Let me tell you, this stuff is beautiful, and very easy to spin. It is equal parts mohair, llama, and rambouillet (a breed of Merino) wool, in an oh-so-pretty pink-and-cream color blend that looks like cotton candy.
Having finally found our digital camera and conned Dad into buying some batteries for it, I've taken some pictures of my spindles (albeit already with the yarn on them) and fiber, as well as some practice strands of yarn.

Sadly, however, I've somehow lost my size 10 needles from my Boye Needlemaster, and I need them to work on my sweater... What a bummer, since the only other needles I have in that size are double-points! I fear I may have to actually buy replacements, which would totally not be cool, since the money I get in my allowance for the next month or so I owe my little brother! Oh well, the allowance is a new feature in the current scheme of things anyway, so at least I have some kind of income now where I had none previously.
The other day, I discovered Rosemary's blog, where she has posted pictures of her K'Nex spindles and Lazy Kate, PVC niddy-noddy and spice-bottle nostepinne. Awesome. I'm seriously considering building myself a spinning wheel out of K'Nex, since we have billions of them (Okay, maybe a couple thousand) and I have no money to buy one or the materials for one, or heck, even the plans for one! ^_^;
We'll see how that goes.

Wasabi Tobiko

2006-07-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

Wasabi Tobiko is tobiko (flying fish roe) and wasabi (the Japanese equivalent of horseradish) over sushi meshi (rice) and wrapped in toasted seaweed paper called nori and served raw as sushi in many Japanese restaurants. If you should ever have the courage to order it, keep in mind that the roe is normally bright orange, and that the amount of wasabi needed to make it so vibrantly green is enough to clear out even the stuffiest of sinuses. This stuff is not for sissies.
I figure it's kind of my theme food: a little weird, or maybe a little normal, but definitely not what you were expecting. I thank you for joining me on this, my latest journey into the unexpected.
Hang on.