This is Amazing!

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Facing The Giants

Today is the day that Facing The Giants was released on DVD. If you didn't catch it at one of the few movie theaters that carried it, I encourage you to get a copy of this movie. Netflix has it for rent, and my dh bought our copy at Wal-Mart.

When we saw it in the theater, there was not a dry eye in our family, including dad (who NEVER cries). It's an awesome story of faith. Tonight was my third viewing of it, and I still cried. I cannot recommend it enough, and this comes from someone who tries to minimize our media consumption.

Anagram fun!

I just love anagrams! It's when you take all the letters of a name, word, or sentence, and rearrange them to say something new, using each letter only once.

For example, Clint Eastwood = Old West Action.

Here are a few more.

The country side = No City Dust Here
The Morse Code = Here Come Dots
Slot Machines = Cash Lost in'em
Tom Cruise = So I'm Cuter
The United States of America = Attaineth its cause, freedom
Presbyterian = Best In Prayer
Statue of Liberty = Built to Stay Free
Debit card = Bad Credit
Indianapolis Colts = Spinal Dislocation
Chicago Bears = Coach Begs Air
The Super Bowl = Blowups There
American Idol = A Criminal Ode; or Idle Macaroni
Hilton Head Island = Shh, No Tidal Denial
New York City = Yow, icky rent!
Los Angeles, California = Slogan: Racial Felonies; or Orange Fossil Alliance

You can play around with your name at http://wordsmith.org/anagram/advanced.html

I give you this caution: it's addicting. I have already figured out anagrams for my entire extended family.

Signed,
Your friend,
Ashtray Mom, or Mama Shorty, or My Ham Roast

The Pie

Last night we had a big bowl of buttered acorn squash for dinner. Needless to say, I had a big bowl of leftover buttered acorn squash in my fridge today. It was the last of my garden veggies from last summer, and I didn't have the heart to throw them away.

Aha! thought I. I will bake a pie with it. So I did - gluten-free crust and all. It actually was one of the best pies of I have ever made-it was so exactly like pumpkin pie that you couldn't tell the difference.

And I almost got away with it too, except that I let DH in on the secret before cutting into it. He loudly asked the kids if they wanted any squash pie, which sent Hannah into a sobbing frenzy. However, the others had some and begged for more.

Hannah finally had a piece (I confess - we made her do it) but she stubbornly said she didn't like it (even though she ate the whole piece up).

Did God Create Evil?

This story has been circulated throughout the net, and has falsely been attributed to Albert Einstein, according to www.truthorfiction.com. Having said that, it's a wonderful illustration anyway!

This has a thought provoking message no matter how you believe. Does evil exist?

The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists? A student bravely replied yes, he did!" "God created everything?" The professor asked. "Yes, sir," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil." The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?" "Of course", replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"
"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat.

The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does".

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor. "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. "These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

Happy New Year, Friends

It's been awhile since I posted - I got sick on Christmas Eve and still have the remaining traces of the cold and cough. I hadn't been that sick in a loooooooonnnng time! Even with my garlic tea, colloidial silver, etc. etc, it was a long, drawn out thing.


So now that I feel back among the land of the living, here's a quick update on what else we have been up to.


Christmas was wonderful and low-key this year. We had a party here on the 23rd with five families in attendance, and we decided to do homemade gifts for one another. It was great to see how creative my friends were! There were homemade games, cookies, crafts... it was lovely! Then we all enjoyed lots of appetizers and played games. We can't wait to do it again next year.


We had a candlelight Christmas Eve service the next night at church, and came home to lots of wonderful leftovers from the party the night before. It was bedtime on this night that the ol' throat started hurting. We got up the next morning to a relaxed time of kids opening gifts. And then I crawled back to bed and stayed there for pretty much the rest of the day, sipping garlic tea and sleeping. I did homemade gifts for the kids... my firstborn LOVED his Steelers quilt!


We decided rather last minute to visit our good friends in the Twin Cities for New Years. A lovely time was had by all (except maybe dad, who started getting this flu thing New Year's Eve). We played games till midnight - and of course the kids loved staying awake that late.

Every year, we do this time capsule thing - we had gotten this little silver time capsule from (ugh, do I have to say it??) McDonalds back in the year 2000. Anyway, I made a list of different things on a piece of paper, such as favorite color, favorite Bible verse/story, favorite song, favorite hobby, best memory of the past year, something you'd like to learn in the new year, etc etc. Every year on New Years Eve I print out this sheet from my computer, and we sit around and give our current answers. Then we read aloud our answers from previous years (and usually have some good laughs). Finally we lock everything up in the time capsule and put it in our Christmas stuff to be taken out next year. Our little silver capsule is getting rather full; I am going to need to microfilm the sheets of paper or something!

This week has been back to the grindstone. I am starting a study on Ancient Greece with the older two kids. We finished up Ancient Egypt before Christmas. Most of the kids (and mom) listed "aloud reading" as their favorite school subject in our time capsule project. We love studying history this way, with living books!