Oh What a Beautiful Day! And More!

I needed to drive out beyond Sandy, OR today and I wish that I had had a better opportunity to take a picture of Mt. Hood. She was ostentatiously showing her beauty to the world. What an outstanding view! Unfortunately, the only image that I currently have of her is in the middle of summer.

She was beautiful that day too, don't you think?

Have you been watching the Olympics? I know that I recently posted that sports isn't a big deal around here but somehow the Olympics falls into a different category. I'm not so interested in the subjectively judged events but I truly love to watch the timed events and I think that my overall favorite is short track speed skating.

Although it is usually over in a flash, the drama, strategy, and suspense of the race is truly captivating. During the winter games, I have to be extra cognizant of the passage of time so that I get to bed early enough to be useful at work the following day.

Today, after our little jaunt to Sandy, Debbie wanted to check out all of the Goodwill stores that we passed along the way home. She's been eyeing this serving set for a number of weeks and today it was half price. We brought it home and after giving it a swim in the sink, we tried it out. I chopped up some salad items and we each enjoyed a lovely tossed salad. The main bowl contained romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and baby spinach.

The items that I kept separate so we could each build a unique dish were boiled eggs, red bell peppers, avacados, ham, dried cranberries, and crushed cashews.

Here's what mine looked like when I'd finished building it.

Yeah! You're probably right. It would have been a lot healthier if I hadn't enhanced it with all of that lovely Gregg's ranch dressing. Oh well, we only get to live this life once and after all, each breath is really determined by the Creator anyway.

Let me just finish with a thought from the words of the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 40:26 NKJV (He's talking about the stars.)

Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things,
Who brings out their host by number;
He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the strength of His power;
Not one is missing.

Love? Work? Maybe It's All The Same!

I was just reading up on the Valentine's Day traditions. I thought that I had read somewhere that the traditions were based, at least loosely, on some actual historic person. Today, I'm reading that the "historic person" is a little ambiguous. I guess that there are a few different people with the name Valentine who might be the person referred to as St. Valentine. Apparently, the romantic association may have been invented by the poet philosopher Geoffrey Chaucer. Is this history being rewritten or is new truth being revealed? Whatever! I am not going to research all of the ancient documents to discover the truth on my own. It just isn't that important to me.

Ok, let me admit this much! In the final hour, I drove to Albertsons and purchased a couple of boxes of candy/cookies with French (the love language) writing on them. I don't know if it made any difference but it did suffice as insurance in case my beloved had secretly purchased a confection or floral gift for me.

Let me tell you how my love was revealed in action. Perhaps you are aware that we, Debbie and I, supplement our income with a hobby enterprise which I shall heretofore refer to as junking. Junking is the act of buying someone elses junk and turning it into treasure for a third party. Well, this weekend there was an estate sale which started on Friday. The address was to be made available on Thursday evening and so I found myself in the general neighborhood with my beloved partner refreshing my mobile at the approximate time when the address was to be revealed. When we got the address, we hurriedly drove to the destination to get our names on a list to gain early access to the contents of said estate the following day. I was unable to attend so my "second", son Jonathan, stood in for me as a second is bound to do. Together, Debbie and Jonathan worked feverishly for ten or fifteen minutes to accumulate a pile of booty which in this case consisted of nearly a half ton of ornimental concrete.

Oh my goodness! Did I have my work cut out for me on Saturday and, yes, it even ran into Sunday afternoon. Don't get me wrong! If she can make money buying junk, (and she can) even if it is old concrete, then I am fully ready to sacrifice my body for the cause. You have to remember that in todays economy, if you have the ability to make money, then you had better do it because it just isn't coming as easy as it may have in the past.

I love my Valentine! She has been endowed with talents which not only generate money but enhance this loving relationship to the nth degree! What could be better than that?

A Collection of My Thoughts

Now sports is not a big priority in this family and that seems to be kind of a tradition with us. I don't see any interest in sports in my wife's parents and there was very little interest in my own family as I was growing up. In fact, I had never watched a football game till I moved here to Oregon when I was a sophmore in highschool. The first Superbowl that I can recall viewing on the television was when I was a freshman in college in about 1979. As it turns out, I do enjoy watching the game once in a while and although I don't think this year was my favorite Superbowl, it was a good one and held my attention to a fairly decent degree. I generally root for the underdog and was pleased to see New Orleans come out on top this year. It is always a good reminder to see someone or in this case, a group of someones, overcome all of the challenges ahead of them and find themselves at the top of the mountain.

I told you a couple of posts ago about this new phone that I purchased. It has been an interesting few weeks as I have continued to become more familiar with it and its features. I now feel fairly confident with the device but let me share with you a fun little experience that I had with it tonight. We need to purchase a headset with a microphone so Jonathan can keep in touch with his teachers. Perhaps you already know that he does his schooling at home on line. The school has had a couple of very low end headset/mic combinations delivered here but the quality has matched the price and they haven't worked very well. We decided to check out the availability of better sets this evening and went to BestBuy. They had options ranging from $19.99 to $127.99. Oh my goodness! What makes one set that much better than the other? There was a set marked down to $49.99 but I couldn't tell what the original price was. It occurred to me that I had recently downloaded a free application to my phone that utilized the camera as a barcode reader. I chose to scan the barcode from the item and discovered, to my complete surprise, that this particular headset was available online at any number of websites for nearly half of the price that BestBuy listed as "on sale". Well, needless to say, we left the store and will be purchasing a headset from one of the popular online stores.

Ok I've been thinking. I know that you're tempted to warn me not to hurt myself by putting all of that extra pressure on my brain. Well, its too late! The thoughts have already escaped the gray matter and are now leaking through my fingers into the blogosphere.

I was thinking about synthetic sweeteners. You know man-made replacements like saccharin, nutrasweet, aspartame, artificial sweeteners. They make things taste sweet but they always seem to leave a bitter aftertaste in the mouth. I'm told that if one uses it long enough, one will begin to prefer it over real sugar. I suppose that may be true. I hope that I never get to the place where I prefer a man-made supplement to the real thing!

NKJV Psalm 119:103
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Who Stole My Church?

Did you see the obvious trap? Don't get caught! It's not my church. It's not your church! The true owner, who paid a dear price for it, will continue to take care of it. All through out time since the formation of the church as we know it, a righteous remnent has been preserved. We can be confident that the true head of the church will continue to protect its legacy in spite of the present culture within which we live.