text:
Lemon Scones with Dried Wild Blueberries

Dried blueberries are amazing! Blueberry Lemon Scones

I am not quite sure why I am just realizing this, but after my friend shared some trail mix she made with dried blueberries, cocoa nibs and roasted almonds and I had to force myself to stop eating them all, I knew I needed to get some of these lovely blue jewels!  I quickly went to Trader Joe’s to get a bag of their dried wild blueberries and began thinking of something I could make to showcase them.  After much deliberation, I decided to make some scones infused with lots of lemon zest, the wonderful dried blueberries and a glaze made with fresh lemon juice and zest.  And yes, lemon and anything is a favorite flavor combination!Grated Butter

Did you see my grated butter up there?  I read somewhere that this was another way to accomplish the distribution of the cold butter in pastries.   It works well and does make for a pretty picture, but it takes WORK!   I felt like I would never finish grating the butter!  I should say that my butter was frozen, so that could have contributed to the extra effort involved.  I decided to forgo using my trusty food processor because I didn’t want to damage my beautiful blueberries.  I probably could have used the processor for the butter portion, then added the wet ingredients and blueberries, but I wanted to give this new way a try.   Glad I did, because did you see those lovely butter curls!Grated Butter 2

My definition of scones is that they are sweeter and butterier (not sure if that is an actual word) biscuits.  In theory, this means that they should be very good, but unfortunately I have had my fair share of really bad scones… like those terribly dry ones that require a lot of liquid just to get them down.  For this recipe, I think that all the butter keeps it moist and well… buttery!  And the glaze helps as well!  Now that I think about it, I believe that a shortcake biscuit might just be a glorified version of the scone, maybe?!?  So then, should I call these blueberry shortcake biscuits?  And perhaps top one with ice cream and fresh blueberries, yummmm… Must make soon!

Dried Blueberries and Lemon Collage

Whatever we call them, I can tell you that they are really good and that you should make them and then eat them everyday in your car with your morning coffee while driving to work until you run out… well, that’s just a suggestion, but I can tell you that system worked quite nicely for me!  If you haven’t already tried dried blueberries, please do, you won’t be disappointed!  I can’t wait to find new ways to use this ingredient and would love to hear from you if you have some favorite ways of using dried blueberries.

glazed lemon blueberry scone collage

Lemon Scones with Dried Wild Blueberries
Recipe adapted from Bonappetit, Fast, Fresh, Easy Cookbook
Makes 12 scones

3 cups self rising flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup chilled, unsalted butter cut into small cubes
1 1/2 cups dried wild blueberries
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk
1 1/2 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel

  • Preheat oven 425 degrees and position rack in top third of the oven
  • Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper
  • Whisk flour and 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl
  • Grate butter into flour mixture (or use fingers to rub butter into flour mixture until size of small peas)
  • Add dried blueberries and toss to coat
  • Mix 1 cup buttermilk and lemon peel in separate bowl
  • Pour buttermilk mixture into flour mixture and stir until dough begins to form.
  • Transfer to a floured surface and knead a couple times until it comes together, don’t handle the dough too much or you will melt all that dough you so carefully grated.
  • Cut out scones into desiderd shapes or wedges, whatever you like best and then transfer scones to prepared baking sheet.
  • Brush tops with remaining buttermilk and sprinkle remaining sugar
  • Bake for 15 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

2 thoughts on “Lemon Scones with Dried Wild Blueberries

    • Thanks Tamika! You have a lovely blog as well, I can be a world traveler vicariously through your blog, Love it! Hope you like the scones when you make them, let me know how yours turn out! 🙂

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

WARC-Truncated: length

WARC-Type: response

text:
Hi!!! It’s been a long time since I last posted. I reopened the shop on Sunday. Lots of family things are going on, and I’ve been working on restocking and developing new products, one of which is my Salve:

Treat yourself to this luscious, organic salve! I absolutely love this salve for dry skin anywhere. It is almost 60% Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, perfect for sensitive, dry and irritated skin. With added Unrefined Shea Butter, Organic Sweet Almond Oil, and Essential Oils of Lavender, Bergamot, and Vanilla, what you will experience is a healing synergistic blend of oils with a light, refreshing herbal scent.

I tend to have chapped lips throughout the year. When I apply the tiniest amount of this balm to my lips they are instantly refreshed and moisturized. And when I use it overnight, I wake up with new lips!

Use this salve for:
Cuts and scrapes
Dry hands and feet
Deep tissue massage
Cuticle moisturizer
Skin & diaper rash
And so much more.

Ingredients: Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Unfiltered Beeswax, Unrefined Shea Butter, Organic Sweet Almond Oil, Essential Oil Blend.

Packaged in a 2 oz. tin. Purchase it at my Etsy site: http://scentualsoundtracks.etsy.com

warcinfo:
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-158-191-93.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-51
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for December 2017
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf


text:
Top HSC Exam tips from Dr. Stephen Fogwill at UTS

These are Dr. Fogwill’s top tips. He’s been an advisor to writing HSC Physics papers as well as a senior marker for many years.

Plus an all round lovely guy, willing to share his expertise with people.

  • all science students are expected to know what the gradient of a line means
  • students tended to draw trend lines incorrectly
  • students need to be prepared to answer questions on all parts of the syllabus, including the contextual outlines
  • the big mark questions are the ones that make the most difference, students need to practice how to do them
  • exam strategy: first look through and find pictures, then read through 7 mark questions, then read through the options. Finally go back and answer the multiple choice questions. It’s good to have a strategy
  • draw diagrams where possible
  • check the batteries of your calculators
  • where the paper says “do not write”, definitely do not write in that section – it will not be marked
  • in Physics and Earth, students should use the formula sheet and data sheet as a summary. Prepare your notes around it so that when you look at it in the exam it actually has more meaning because you’ve associated various sections of the course with the data provided to you
  • when considering safety in a scientific investigation make sure you look at safety specific to that investigation rather than simply wear safety glasses and have covered shoes
  • for each mandatory prac students should be able to do “VARS” which is validity, accuracy, reliability and safety as well as being able to describe the prac and general trends that were observed
  • teachers job to train students to do really good brief summary notes
  • when finished writing an answer go back and check that you’ve answered each part of the question
  • his website is

Its STEM not STEAM. Here’s why.

The reason STEM is such a big focus/ push/ buzz word right now, is not because other areas of education are less important. It has nothing to do with that.
It has everything to do with the fact that future generations have to deal with huge, global problems, that they need STEM skills to do.
As an aside, here they are* :
– Antibiotic resistance
– Climate change
– New energy sources
– Over pollution of the world
– Draughts and limited fresh water
– Over population
Instead, STEM has to do with the fact that students doing engineering courses at university are declining. These are our real world problem solvers and we are producing less of them. This may worry you. Rightly so.
STEM doesn’t mean arts and creativity is not important. On the contrary, any scientist or engineer knows that innovation requires creativity. It does mean however, that we are not talking about literary creativity here, or creativity in the arts. There are different kinds of creativity. In STEM we ask students to solve a problem. There is an absolute need for what they are to construct.
If we start using STEAM. Then why not add languages to it too? We know that speaking two languages changes the brain to be able to better adapt to problem solving and increases working memory. It also decreased problems in later life. Not to mention bilinguals have excellent cultural awareness. So we should then make it STLEAM.
Wait a second? Are we forgetting health? We cannot forget health because without proper sleep, food, exercise and mental wellbeing, we cannot call ourselves healthy human beings.
So it now has to become STLEAMP.

Can you see that it is getting a bit out of hand?
Let’s just agree that right now, there is a need for STEM students.
But we as teachers are educating the child as a whole. And we are not discounting the importance of other areas of education.

* Thank you for indulging my inbuilt scientific need to write lists

Prac Take 2. And what I’ll focus on.

So it’s time for my second teaching rounds and I got to meet my first class. Let’s make a list, I love lists. These are the things I will be focusing on this time around.

  • having a structure in my lessons. A CLEAR start, middle and end. This was a HUGE problem last time around and honestly I really regret it. There is nothing worse than a teacher that is running around fumbling trying to finish off the lesson. Aside from seeming unprofessional, it also suggests that your content isn’t so important cause you can quickly rush through it.
  • Developing my students reflective learning practices. I’m going to focus on plenary – 1 thing you learnt this lesson, 1 thing you’re thinking about (link to other subject, found something interesting…)
  • Differentiating my instruction. I will have a lot of group work and I’m going to try to organise groups based on learning styles and ability. This is because many of my classes have a huge varying range of abilities and it’s clear that some students need extra support, for example they are just transitioning to this school from an intensive English school. While on the other hand, in the same class, I have students who are so obviously beyond this content and really require more nurturing. My supervising teacher already does this in the form of different tasks but I feel like I could be more useful if I did it during class time.
  • making science fun! I want to have such a positive environment that (a) students are talking about their learning (b) they are actually happy in class
  • focusing on OPEN ENDED questioning! And allowing students response time. This is going to be my strategy: (1) ask an open ended question (2) allow students to respond in their books (so I must pick these questions carefully, because they are going to form the basis of their notes for that lesson). (3) pick a students’ name randomly to share (I’m going to do this with double sided paddle pop sticks that I stole from here).
  • focus on literacy and numeracy, not so much ICT this time around
  • being consistent when enforcing school policies
  • guided note taking using my pretty awesome, if I do say so myself template that you can totally use and abuse
  • exit cards – with a question on it about the lesson. You need to teach the students how to be reflective though. For example (1) I didn’t understand…. (2) I wonder if…. (3) Is this why…. (4) Can we use this to….. (5) How can we use this information? etc…
  • Greet students outside the classroom where possible and try to enforce good learning practices including having a diary out etc

ICT Tools I love

1. Blendspace: Allows you to curate resources and then share it as a package with your students. Allows collaboration amongst your students and allows you to ask questions of your students. Basically my favourite way to organise lessons to share with my students.
2. Pinterest: One of the best ways to find new content on the internet. I see it as a curated Google because it’s what other people find interesting so basically it sifts through all the low quality material and gives you the creme of the crop.
3. Evernote:

1. Google Drive: THE best way to collaborate online. Allows you and your students to share work and be constantly up to date. Allows you to upload from within the site and share with people you want to collaborate with either as a View Only option or an Edit option.
2. Brainscape: Creating flash cards in an easy to use platform. Also has a neat feature to “remember” which you got correct and which you got incorrect and retest you on those you aren’t sure of.
3. Curriculet: A way to annotate passages of text. This would be fantastic in class when we are reading a new bit of information and it’s got a lot of new terms in it. Students can comment and ask questions on the text.

1. Spicy Nodes: Absolutely stunning way to create mind maps. Students can collaborate on them and add images and websites.
2. Venngage: Creating infographics! So gorgeous. So easy. The only downside to this site is you can’t export it to a PDF unless you upgrade your account but you can still view them online.
3. Podomatic: Creating audio podcasts online. Students will love using this platform as a different method of submitting assignments. Students need to create the audio file on their devices and share them using this site.
4. Make beliefs comix: Creating comic strips using templates has never been easier. The graphics are great and students can add speech. I can’t wait to use these.
5. Label59: Allows you to add labels to diagrams.
6. Edpuzzle: Allows you to edit, crop, add audio, add quizzes and totally transform videos either found online or that you’ve uploaded to the site. Totally flipped classroom worthy.

Getting To Know My Students

00This is my own multiple intelligences chart.

We’ve been told numerous times (and I’m sure that you will agree from your own personal experience) that rapport with your students is one of the most important things to build in a classroom. So many issues that arise in class that relate to classroom management stem directly from a poor teacher-student relationship. We have to know them! We have to know what they like or don’t like. How they learn. What their learning background is. So how the heck can we learn all of that while on Practicum? We have basically less than a week get to know our students.

I used this get to know you template. But I’ve tweaked it to suit my needs. Some of my students were quite offended about the Mothers occupation and Fathers occupation section so I’ve removed that and some other generic questions and tried to target questions that really tell me how my students are as learners.

To make the task less daunting I volunteered information on myself. In the updated version I’ve also added the Gardners Multiple Intelligence quiz and fill-in-the blank scaffold. It is my intention to use this template in my upcoming Practicum in order to facilitate group work. Students will be assigned particular roles in groups that align with their preferred intelligences. In a survey I had my Practicum 1 students complete 78% of them said they understood the purpose of the activity and most said that it was a positive way to get to know them. One student commented that she would have liked to get to know her usual classroom teacher in this way also! This task allowed me to build a rapport with students who were then more comfortable with me as they knew I was trying my best to treat them as individuals (Buskist & Saville, 2001).

You can download a PDF version here. or if you’d like to tweak it yourself: Here’s a Word Document.

Buskist, W., & Saville, B. K. (2001) Creating Positive Emotional Contexts for Enhancing Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from

What my students say about me.

One of the most useful things I did on my first practicum is invite my students to complete a Survey Monkey about my teaching methods. I used the AITSL standards as a basis for my questions and tried to keep it nice and sweet. For each question it was a Yes or No with an option to leave a comment. The questions I asked my students were:

1) Did you feel like you knew the purpose of the Facebook get to know you activity?

2) Do you feel like I challenge you enough in class?

3) Do you feel like you can ask me questions in class?

4) Do you feel like I explain things well?

5) Do you feel like you learn in my classes?

6) Do you feel like the class environment is well managed?

7) Do you feel like I give you enough feedback on whether you are achieving the learning outcomes of my lessons?

8) What do I do in class that you like? Or what would you like to see What do I do in class that you don’t like?more of?

9) What do I do in class that you don’t like?

Obviously I kept it anonymous. However, I wanted to bribe my students to do it with candy so I added a second page that they could screen shot to show me that they did the survey. Side note – I would never give out candy as reward for doing class work. That should be a reward in itself. *off my soap box now*

You can view the results of the survey.

There are some things that arise from this survey

  • students felt that they knew the purpose of the get to know you activity however some questions were irrelevant
  • I don’t challenge my students enough. They feel like I’m just cruising them through on the bare minimum that they need to know. This has a lot to do with my inexperience at differentiating lessons. I don’t go into enough depth with the content sometimes.
  • I encourage students to ask questions in my class and I’m approachable
  • I explain concepts well but sometimes I go too fast. Using different methods to get my point across e.g. videos helps my students to understand better. The use of analogies was very helpful in explaining difficult concepts.
  • I try to explain things a number of times to ensure that my students understand.
  • Students need more guidance as to what to write down.
  • I don’t give my students nearly enough feedback on whether they are achieving learning outcomes.
  • Students overall liked: animated descriptions, humour in class, mini-whiteboards, videos, class discussions, guided note taking, practicals, fun facts, the questioning methods I use.
  • Students didn’t like: comprehension worksheets, that I didn’t challenge them enough, when I explained things too quickly, too much information, not revising previous lesson or outlining learning goals.


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
Archive for December, 2009

Healthy Homes Part 2

December 7, 2009

The second workshop in the the Healthy Homes program took place this past Saturday at the Enterprise Center. Staff from the the Enterprise Center CDC and the Partnership CDC came together to facilitate the workshop. The participants learned about the causes of illness in the community  from a representative of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. They also received fresh produce and learned buying tips from a Farmers Market professional. The children learned about healthy homes through an art project supervised by the Sprial Q Puppet Theatre. For more photos check out The Enterprise Center’s photos on Facebook.


text:
Month: September 2012

A 7 Day Political Fast

September 26th.

It was a Wednesday.

At lunch I spoke to a friend about politics and afterwards realized I needed a break.

My lunch was pleasant enough, my friend and I have similar viewpoints.

But in my quest to understand all sides of our heated race to the November elections I had been watching and listening to too much biased and mean talk from both lefties and righties.

Starting my day with Morning Joe on MSNBC, listening to conservative talk on the radio, and then back to liberal biased  MSNBC in the evening was too much.

Overexposure to something can poison you.

Sun, or political talk, both are dangerous.

And I decided to cut myself off from the media voices until the debate this Wednesday night in Denver.

It has been refreshing.

And productive too.

Who Represents You?

Okay, so you probably know who the President of the United States is.

Do you know who the President of the Senate is?

It’s the Vice-President of the United States.

Do you know who represents you in the Senate?

Here’s a hint.  You have 2 Senators. Each state has an equal number for a total of 100.

Do you know who represents you in the House of Representatives?

There’s only 1 person, and the total number is 435.

Senators were originally selected by each states legislators, not you and I as voters.

It was the adoption of the 17th Amendment less than 100 years ago,  April and May 1913, that gave the power to the people of each State to vote for Senators.

That’s it on a Federal level and the sad part is most people cannot name all 5 of their Federally elected representatives.

As we move down the food chain, so to speak, to the state and local level it gets worse.

Since each state has their own system of government, your state may be organized differently than mine, which is Indiana.

We have a Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

We also have a State Senator and State Representative that we elect to represent our interests in Indiana law making.

If you live in Indiana, you can go here and discover who represents you.

Indiana is divided into counties.  Each county is divided into townships.  There are elected officials at this level of government that the general public is usually clueless about.

I live in Allen County.  Take a look at all the various forms of governing bodies we have that includes many elected officials.

And I live in Fort Wayne which has even more elected officials.

I challenge you to find out who you are electing and who represents you at all levels of government in your life and spread the challenge to others that you know.

The Role of our Federal Government

This morning I took a 12 question quiz  that is supposed to tell you where you fall in the political spectrum.

I took it, based on my thoughts about the Federal Government and then retook it with a local and state government mindset.
The results were significantly different.

I was watching a political roundtable show Saturday that for a brief minute or two spoke about the different roles of the federal government of the United States vs. the individual state governments in our lives.

I am probably pretty liberal when it comes to local level politics and pretty conservative concerning the Federal side of government.

I find it an interesting read to look at how we came up with our current balance of powers between Federal and Local.  It precedes the Constitution which is generally considered the 2nd legal document that our original 13 colonies were unified under.

Look up the Articles of Confederation and you’ll see the history and arguments our founding fathers had before the Constitution was adopted that we now live under.

Without going into a complete history lesson, the Constitution that serves as the legal foundation for our Federal government of the United States of America.

Read the 10th Amendment, also known as the last of the 10 items in the Bill of Rights:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This is where I believe our current Federal Government has overstepped the boundaries and where you and I really have more power than we realize regarding our lives and the rules, regulations and laws we live under.

Too often the attention is placed on Federal elections and not enough on local or state wide elections.

I would love to see more people become aware of the boundaries that each level of government is supposed to have.

Wishful Thinking for Fairness

I wish…

That whatever rules, regulations and laws, our lawmakers passed applied to everyone, without exceptions.

At the Federal level all laws would apply to all persons in all 50 states and perhaps districts (like the District of Columbia) and outlying territories.

Same for State, County and City levels.

Today I have two examples of these exceptions.

At the local level, our City and County have monthly hearing for Zoning Changes which are exceptions to the big master plan.  This is handled by a Board of Zoning Appeals and the public meetings are mostly a formality to rubber stamp a request.

The Average Joe and Jane Citizen has no idea what is going on even if they read the agenda which is written in code and shorthand but is available online. Here is an agenda from last month.

Why create zoning rules and regulations that are supposed to control the mixture of business and residential land use if we are then going to bypass the plan with exceptions?

One solution would be to simplify the entire plan.

I’m not saying eliminate a land use plan.  I’m saying make it simply, so simple a 5th grader can read it and understand.

But what I believe is a worse offense to fairness is at the Federal level.

An online search using Google, Bing and DuckGoDuck uncovered many false claims that Congress has exempted themselves from the recent health care reform and student loan repayment, there were a few items I found that are worth looking into:

I also read about the 1000+ exceptions or waivers granted to “organizations” who want to opt out of the health care reform and the official White House response.

Clearly, all is not clear and I am simply suspicious of all politicians of any party that allows exceptions to apply to anyone that does not apply to all of us.

Gearing Up for The 2012 Elections

It has been over a year since I added anything to this site.

I have been very selective as to who I share my political thoughts with.

Not that there is anything wrong with them.

It’s just that the political climate has continued to become more divisive instead of unified.

The hate, the bitterness, the yelling, the noise is getting too loud.

And so I have avoided these discussions with anyone that could make a judgement call based on hearing anything I say, or imply something from what I have said.

Too often we rush to judgement and labels without understanding both the details and the big picture.

But I will post some of my thoughts as we are now less than 2 months away from our next national election.

If you read the previous posts, you’ll see some of my thoughts from the past.

And I reserve the right to change my opinion.  It’s the evolution of thought we call learning and maturing.

More to come in the days ahead.


text:
Posted by: scrabblequeen | February 11, 2008

Why I Am The Queen

By the ScrabbleQueen

I have to do this quickly, before anything comes along to disrupt my Queenly universe. As of 6:15 pm, Pacific Standard Time, Saturday, Feruary 9, I have re-claimed my title; The Scrabble Queen, in fact, The Super Scrabble Queen. You may curtsey. 🙂

My friends and I have played Scrabble together lo these many years. I know for sure we were playing before my currently 16 yr old was two, as we have photographic evidence. Somewhere along the line, many years ago, one of the players created The Cube. The Queen Cube. This is the way it works; Whoever wins this week’s game gets the Cube and is Queen. Lately we don’t play weekly, but you get the general idea.

The Cube in it’s holiday finery
cube in finery

The Cube, au naturale
cube au naturale

Anyway, Saturday afternoon three of us got together for Super Scrabble. Steph’s sister found it, it’s bigger than regular Scrabble. The board has quadruple word scores, and tons more triple word scores, not to mention quadruple letter scores, and more tiles. For example, there are two Q’s and three V’s and tons and tons of vowels. It takes longer to play because of all this extra stuff.

I’ll make a long story short. I won. A loverly come-from-behind and catch them off-guard win. I had been in third place, there may have been some smuggness involved by the leader, we were that colse to the end. And then I did it. I played a “Q” word on the quadruple word score, and! the Q was on a double letter score. 98 points later, I was in the lead, and never gave it up!

My friends were both dressed for the event, I, sadly, was not. Donna had on her Scrabble T-shirt

Scrabble shirt 1

Steph was wearing her Scrabble pants

Scrabble pants

And while I’ll be first to admit how cute ya’ll were, I still won. Let me enjoy for now, lest the next game rob me of my title!

super winner

Pam, Bev, and Bonnie did not play, and claim the game therefore did not count as a Cube game. Ha!! They would have said differently if they had been the winner and someone else was missing. No dice girls, I am The Queen.

  1. 98 points for one word?! You ARE the Queen! 🙂

    I love that t-shirt and those pants!

  2. All hail the queen! Good for you.

  3. Ok, what do I say? Congratulations? Nah! Must’a been your lucky day? Nah! I’ll have to think about it and get back to you. 🙂

  4. You’re so humble!

  5. Great story! I only play Scrabble with my best friend and my Hubby, both of whom do not play to the death draw as certain members of my family do! LOL That took all the fun out of it for me. But I think it is really neat that you have been doing this all these years. What a great tradition.

  6. Hi,

    I’m desperately looking for a pair of pants like yours (the Scrabble ones…)… where did you get them from? Can I buy them online? Please, please help! I’m in Italy and I would really appreciate if you’d help me.
    Rosa Parrella

  7. Hi Rosa, I have a couple of pair of these pants in my eBay auctions.
    These are Size LARGE
    You can get these in my ebay auctions, or you can email me for a direct sale.
    Thanks, joyce

    • Hi do you still have scrabble pj pants?

      • Dear Tammy and all else it may concern, I never had any Scrabble pants. They belong to my friend. They were a gift from here daughter. She will not give them up. We do not know where to find more. So sorry.

    • Hello Joyce, I was wondering if you still had these pants for sale on Ebay. I am very interesting in buying a pair but I need to do it before Christmas. I know I procrastinated too much. If you could please email me my email is

    • Do you have any Scrabble pajama pants on your ebay auction/ for sale? ~Maria Luckey

      • I don’t have an ebay shop, or any Scrabble Pants! I never have had either of these things. Please understand, the ones pictured belong to a friend, who also does not have anymore, or a shop.

  8. I am also desperately looking for scrabble pajama pants like that. Do you have any more for sale or can you refer me to where you got them??? Thank you!

  9. […] has been nearly three years since I posted (and boasted) about being THE Scrabble Queen. This post gets a lot of traffic, though, to be […]

  10. I so need the Can’t Spell Awesome Without Me shirt for my daughter. She has become addicted to scrabble. Please let me know where to purchase the shirt and pants.

    • Stormmom,

      I looked online and found that Cafe Press sells those shirts…I don’t have any, not even one of my own.'t-spell-awesome

      As for the pants…..I found one pair of them at Marshals before Christmas, and someone bought those. I DO still have the Scrabble PJ’s in size XL if you care about those.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this:


text:
Archive for the ‘political’ Category

True Ramsey and Maria Stories(Daddy Rant…)

August 23, 2016

Just checking out the news and saw this. The swimmer who lied about being held at gunpoint.  I’m puzzled at this one.  Why lie???  You were wrong and got caught.  Plain and simple.  Own up to it.  Damn…..so we can focus on something else….Im just saying…this has been brought to you by the good folks at Political-Hop(tellin’ it like it T-I is….)

PS:  the song for the weekend is, “Have a Nice Day,” by Roxanne Shante…..

True Ramsey and Maria Stories(Daddy Rant….)

March 23, 2015

So the Presidential campaign is heating up.  The Great State of Texas got a MAJOR announcement today.  El Dummo Loco Cruz will be running for President of The United States.  The earth shattered here in Texas.  He talked like he knew what he was doing too.  I couldn’t do nothing but shake my head.  All we need is for Perry to run and then this election comedy.  Lawd, how mercy what will they have me laughing at now….This has been brought to you by the good folks at Political-Hop(tellin’ it like it T-I is)

…..and you know this, maaaaannnn!!!!!

True Ramsey & Maria Stories(Daddy Rant….)

January 7, 2015

Today was a crazy day in France.  Unfortunately, there was a deadly shooting spree there.  The gunmen walked into a magazine publishing office and started blasting.  No one one knows the reason for the shooting.  But damn, in Paris they get down like that???  Thought it was a joke at first, but it is real.  Our world is getting more and more ruthless…this has been brought to you by the good folks at Political-Hop(tellin’s it like it T-I is….)

True Ramsey Stories(Daddy Rant….)

September 27, 2013

I’m tired y’all of talking about this shutdown.  What’s the guys name Boehner or Boner is acting like a little girl dog.  I’m not gonna start calling people names but damn how itchy can you get?  You come with a Bill with a stipulation you know the Senate is going to say, “Hell No!!!!,” to.  Then you wonder why Americans are looking at you like ummfoofoo!?!   What happened to The Party of Lincoln?  The Grand Old Party is looking like the Grand WTF Party!!!  I hope they get a clue soon….This has been brought tp you by the good folks at Political-Hop(tellin’ it like it T-I is…….)

The some for the weekend os gonna be Underground Texas style.  The song is, “The Prayer,” by Racola……these crooked cops doing an illegal —– search….

Another Post from The One and The Only Scratchatary……

True Ramsey Stories(Daddy Rant….)

February 28, 2013

I’m a comic fan, I have to admit and I recently purchased one that featured the death of the latest Robin.  Now nomally, books really don’t get me amped about anything, but this one did.  I know Robin is fiction, but the cruelty displayed by the killer was too much.  The character Robin is under the age of 10 years old and to see him brutally murdered seems to have been taken from the evening news.  We have so much bloody and guts stories these days with kids.  Aren’t kids supposed to be protected from this mess.   Apparently not because the folks  that made this have made it a point to advertise this mess.  I thought kids were our future not used for target practice…this has been brought to you by the good folks at Political-Hop(tellin’ it like t T-I is…..)

True Ramsey Stories…

December 1, 2010

This is a public annoucement, our Queen has this to say, “I’m BAAAAAACK, just whenyou thought I was dead and buried.  Did ya’ think just because I layed low I was not planning more stuff.  Well, I did.  Unlike the President, I run a country.  I have been elected to run Pre-School(LOL!!!)  However, I do have to deal with hte mini-version of the Party of  No.  So, I will get back to my business.  C-YA and I wouldn’t want to be ya!!!!”  Oh oh is looks like she is going to very irritating!!!

True Ramsey Stories…

September 22, 2010

The Queen is executing her, be nice’, campaign against Motely Sue and Skinny Smalls.  Just as she expected they walked in with their fake smiles and said, “Hello.”  Thye were expecting another outburst from the Queen that would further damage her reputation, but she did the opposite.  This is what she said, “Girls, what’s up?  You guys look so good today.  Where did you get your Dora purse?”  Thase comments floored her opposition.  The Queen walked away with a smile.  I just will be very scared if she acts real nice to me from now on.

True Ramsey Stories…

August 20, 2010

The two Queens have set of on their plot to takeover Texas.  They have hatched a diabolical plan to accomplish this. They will use the, “I’m just a little girl”, tactic.  The Queen showed Alliyah how to do this.  She said, “All you have to do is go to the Governor and act like he hurt your feelings.  Then you cry and cry.  When he asks what you wan you tell him Texas.  That should work.”  The crazy thing is the way things are going now this might actually work.

My Opinion on Lebron

July 22, 2010

Good evening everyone, its good to be back my computer was down and it has been a drag.  Anyway, as Ihave been watching the news the biggest thing in the sports world is Mr Lebron James.  It seems everybody has an opinion on him choosing to play with Mr. Wade and Mr. Bosh in Miami.  Well, since everyone has an opinion he is mine.

This is how I see it.  Yes, I wish he could have stayed in Cleveland, to try win a championship there it would have meant a lot to that city.  But, let’s be real what have they done for him in seven years to help him.  They continued to bring in srub after scrub to help him.  In LA, Kobe got Gasol in the steal of the century.  Boston got Allen and Garnett to help Pierce and he got Shaq.  Not saying he is a bad player but not a superstar at this stage of his career.  He literally, saw the future everytime he saw Barkley, Malone, and Stockton.  We all say they were great players, but did not win a championship.  He saw his legacy going that road and he chose to switch lanes.

I think he proved that he is a championship player who cares about winning at any cost.  That is what champions do. That is why he nade the decision he made.  If you don’t like the decision blame free agency not him.  Those guys in Miami were able to pull off something most people only dream about and to really show you how much they were committed to each other they all took a pay cut.  None of the guys offering these so-called opinions even take that into account on his behalf. So yeah, he did it, now let’s hate the Miami Evil Empire.

The Reason Why We Don’t Need One Party Controlling Everything

July 14, 2010

Good morning everyone, I was just looking at the news and noticed something that was funny to me.  The Democratic Party is coming to the realization they may lose the majority in Congress.  They looked depressed and sad.  Personally, I was saying that is great news. Here is why.

I think that one Party should not control both houses whether Republican or Democrat.  Remember within the last few years we have had both and what were the results.  They were horrible.  We need two parties that will work together though.

That is were the problem lies will they work together.  I hope so, back in the day these guys used to work with other somewhat, but now, forget it.  I hope this helps us along that road.

Anyway, catch you guys later.


text:
Stephanie Leonidas

Jodie Kidd

Kelly Brook

Gemma Atkinson on the beach

I’ve stated i don’t like candids, but i’m making one exception with these since they’re so well taken and overall quality is great. And Gemma is… well you can see!

Gemma Atkinson feet & soles

Gemma Atkinson feet & soles on Barefoot Beauties

Roxanne Pallett

Roxanne Pallett feet toes legs

Gemma Garrett

Lucy Pinder (BIG!)

Told ya!

Lucy Pinder soles

Lucy Pinder

She deserves a BIG post. Don’t worry, it’s coming.Lucy Pinder feet soles bikini Barefoot Beauties

Elizabeth Kelly

Elizabeth Kelly bikini showing her legs, feet and toes on Barefoot Beauties blog

Bianca Gascoigne

Bianca Gascoigne on Barefoot Beauties

Previous Older Entries

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 231 other followers


text:
SMM Updates

To Whom Shall We Go?

  When in trouble, we tend to run and hide from the very thing we need: to be in the presence of God. We know that God is a “consuming fire”, but despite being a just God, we learn from His Word to us that He is also a forgiving God (Heb. 12:29; Ex. 34:6,7; Is. 38:17). If we know this, then why do we hide? The stronghold of sin contends strongly against the Divine impulses that God sends to us through His Holy Spirit. As a result of this, our nature is to hide from what we know of God’s nature (sinfulness vs. holiness). When the Light of God’s presence shines upon us in our current state, It reveals to us the ugliness of our sin and shows us our desperate need for immediate cleansing. Apart from the Blood of Jesus, the atoning that appeases the wrath and judgment of God can and will never take place (Heb. 9:22-26). So why do we run and hide from the presence of God, when He graciously provides the way of escape from the very thing that seeks to separate us from Him? Should we not, instead, run to Him?…#thinkonthesethings

© 2015 The Joshua Generation Ministries. All rights reserved.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited,
except with the written consent of The Joshua Generation Ministries.

1 Comment on To Whom Shall We Go?

  1. same error Adhikari // May 14, 2015 at 04:13 // Reply

    fantastic I was feeling everyday pace marcy joy

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this:


text:
Influence of internal fixator stiffness on interfragmentary movement in healing murine femur fractures – A computational analysis

V. Pönnighaus, R. Steck, G. Chen, P. Krishnakanth, D. Epari & M. A. Schuetz
Objective: With the decoding of the mouse genome and the availability of mutated animals, the mouse has become an essential animal model for the study of molecular biological processes during fracture healing. However, until recently, there have been no experimental models available to study fracture[for full text, please go to the a.m. URL]


text:
11/14/2013 12:00:00 AM

TAMPA, FL – `Tis the season for family traditions! Last year, Busch Gardens® Tampa launched the biggest Christmas celebration ever, and this year, Christmas Town has even more jolly times in store! This year, Christmas Town has more snow, even more event nights and more than a million twinkling lights! Christmas Town transforms the park into a nighttime holiday wonderland of wintery surprises and all things Christmas, filling guests’ senses with seasonal sights, sounds and flavors, and continuing a beautiful tradition for Tampa’s families. What’s even better than that? A portion of the proceeds from Christmas Town will benefit All Children’s Hospital here in the Bay area.

This year’s event has added even more nights to experience all-new evening attractions, shows and shopping. Christmas Town is open 18 select nights from 6 to 11 p.m., Nov. 29 through Dec. 23.

NEW THIS YEAR! Enjoy unlimited admission to all 18 nights of Christmas Town with the Christmas Town Unlimited ticket for just $89 plus tax for adults and $29 plus tax for children.

NEW THIS YEAR! This year’s event also introduces Discovery Dollars, a new cashless wristband that can be preloaded with cash or linked to a credit card. Dollars can be used at merchandise and dining locations around Christmas Town to make your family’s night even merrier! Guests who set up accounts with cash can visit Guest Relations upon their exit to have unspent money returned. Unclaimed monies will be donated to SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.

And while Christmas Town brings exclusive Yuletide experiences, guests will also have the opportunity to ride some of Busch Gardens’ most popular roller coasters, including Cheetah Hunt, SheiKra and Gwazi.  The special event includes attractions exclusive to the nighttime experience:

  • This year, SnowWorld® Presented by Coca-Cola® brings real snow back to Florida! This guest favorite is bigger than ever for even more snow-filled fun! Slide down eight new slides, make a snowman, play in the soft white snow or pack the perfect snow balls to test your aim in the target practice area.
  • All aboard the Christmas Town Express for the biggest Christmas carol sing-a-long on wheels. Friends and family are invited join in singing traditional songs of the season like “Jingle Bells,” “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while circling the Serengeti on a beautifully lit vintage-style steam locomotive.
  • The Claus family invites you into their North Pole home at Welcome to Santa’s House. While the elves are busy preparing for Christmas, Mrs. Claus is in the kitchen baking holiday treats, but even Santa himself will take a break from his busy holiday schedule to meet and take photos with families in his private study.
  • Straight from the South Pole, the Christmas Town penguins have brought a bit of ice and snow all the way to Florida! Come chill with these dapper little creatures and marvel at their underwater antics at the newly expanded Penguin Point, complete with a giant penguin photo opportunity in the Nairobi area.

Even Busch Gardens’ most familiar fans will barely recognize the portions of the park that convert to Christmas Town through special entertainment, live music, festive treats, holiday shopping and more than one million twinkling Christmas lights:

  • NEW! Enjoy a trip back in time to celebrate Christmas in the good ‘ole days in Holiday Hills. In this nostalgic town, a live brass band sets the mood for seasonal fun with everyone’s favorite Christmas tunes while Mrs. Claus cooks up delicious holiday fare for the whole family at Mrs. Claus’s Family Feast.
  • NEW! Journey into Jungala to see a nature-inspired Christmas, including a new tree light show in Christmas Time Terrace. A larger-than-life Christmas tree comes alive every fifteen minutes with spectacular dancing lights. The breathtaking light show on this 40-foot tree is the perfect place for this year’s family photo.
  • NEW! Sneak a kiss with your sweetheart in the beautiful garden walkway of Mistletoe Memories. Here, romantic topiaries, flowers and sparkling white twinkle lights fill the trees overhead and set the scene for sweet moments with loved ones and beautiful photos worth cherishing.
  • Celebration Village brings together the rich, warm colors of Christmas and heartfelt voices lifted in song to welcome guests as they enter Christmas Town. Draped in jewel-tone ornaments and glowing lights, the Moroccan Village comes alive with local choirs in the Marrakesh Theater and shops full of holiday gifts.
  • Family and friends will cozy up to brave the chill in the air along Ice Wonder Way. The frozen pathway sparkles and shimmers in the night as brilliant white garland wraps the front of the Moroccan Palace, welcoming guests for special performances of Angels of Peace: A Christmas Journey on Ice.
  • Wild colors, exotic decorations and intricate animal patterns create the kind of Christmas found only in nature! Stretching along the Cheetah Hunt walkway, Jungle Jubilee welcomes guests to Florida’s only triple-launch coaster and the iconic Crown Colony restaurant, featuring special holiday fare and the Carol of the Bells light show.
  • Experience the humble magnificence of that first Christmas night and remember the real “reason for the season” along Miracle Way. Guests will marvel at a topiary representation of the Holy Nativity and illuminated angels, set along the Stanleyville Bridge in the warm glow of Christmas lights and sacred holiday music.
  • Christmas has come to Sesame Street! Meet Elmo, Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, Zoe and Abby for photos and plenty of hugs for a funny, furry Christmas in Sesame Street A Very Furry Christmas at Busch Gardens. Stick around to see the characters in the all-new, heartwarming show Elmo’s Christmas Wish.
  • When it’s warm in December and there’s more sand than snow, celebrate a Floridian Christmas with a touch of the tropics in the Enchanted Flamingo Valley. Guests will be “thinking pink” as they encounter decorated palm trees and a flock of festive flamingos created from thousands of twinkling pink lights.
  • Christmas is in full bloom along Poinsettia Parkway, where guests can lose themselves among hundreds of traditional holiday flowers that set the scene for breathtaking pictures.  Make a family memory in front of an enormous tree made entirely of beautiful red poinsettias.
  • On your way to seasonal shops, delicious treats or to play in the snow, stop by Jingle Bell Junction and step into a larger-than-life-sized greeting card for fun family memories beneath a thousand dazzling Christmas lights, located at the crossroads of Christmas Town in Gwazi® Plaza.
  • Explore Christmas Town Village’s quaint holiday cabins while shopping for the perfect gift and indulge in a delicious seasonal treat like hot chocolate, waffles with ice cream, warm-baked cookies and rustic sandwiches along the Gwazi® Park walkway. Kids can climb aboard the Jingle Bell Express, a pint-sized train for a holly-jolly ride.
  • Steps away from the playful flock at Penguin Point, bright and colorful lights line the pathway and fill every branch of every tree surrounding the North Pole. Savor holiday treats and sights as your family prepares to meet the big man himself on the way to Welcome to Santa’s House.

Guests who have come to love Busch Gardens’ traditional holiday shows will still be able to see Christmas on Ice, Christmas from the Heart and Christmas Celebration during the day. But at Christmas Town, new shows will provide a very special evening of family-friendly entertainment:

  • NEW! Join Elmo, Cookie Monster, Zoe and everyone’s favorite Sesame Street friends in Christmas Town’s all-new show, Elmo’s Christmas Wish. Sing and dance along with Elmo as he makes a Christmas wish to Santa and learns the meaning behind Christmas.
  • NEW! Christmas Time Tree Show brings a larger-than-life Christmas tree alive every fifteen minutes with spectacular dancing lights.
  • NEW! Join the adventure as everyone’s favorite Madagascar friends including Gloria, Alex, King Julien and the penguins go on a vacation with a Christmas twist in Madagascar Live! Operation: Christmas Vacation. Fun and colorful holographic ornaments fill the trees overhead on the plaza pathway leading to this all-new show.
  • World-class skaters will bring to life favorite Christmas songs both traditional and contemporary, in a cool, angel-inspired ice show, Angels of Peace: A Christmas Journey on Ice, produced especially for Christmas Town by the creators of Christmas on Ice and Iceploration.
  • Busch Gardens’ Crown Colony House restaurant sets the stage for a stunning ballet of music and light each night under the stars. The Carol of the Bells features tens of thousands of Christmas lights covering the façade of the stately building set in motion to a choreographed presentation of stirring seasonal songs.
  • Local church choirs, school choruses and professional performance groups from around Florida raise their voices in joy and fill the Marrakesh Theater with song and Christmas cheer in the Hallelujah Showcase. Performance groups will change nightly and feature traditional, classic and new holiday ballads and favorites.

For those who can’t wait to get their night at Christmas Town started, guests are invited to pull up a chair at Mrs. Claus’ Family Feast for a special evening filled with stories, songs, a delicious buffet of traditional holiday fare, plenty of opportunities for holiday hugs and photos with Mrs. Claus and her favorite elves. Space is limited for this exclusive dining experience and reservations must be made in advance at ChristmasTown.com.

“Christmas Town is a unique holiday tradition for Tampa Bay-area families,” says Jim Dean, Busch Gardens Tampa’s park president. “We’ve creating a season-long celebration for family and friends unlike any other event our guests have ever seen – the kind of Christmas fun only Busch Gardens can provide.”

Christmas Town is a separate-ticketed night event, and regular daytime admission is not required or included. General admission for Christmas Town is $60 for adults and $20 for children plus tax. Busch Gardens annual pass members will receive the deepest discounts with advance online pricing starting at $25, and special offers are available for guests wishing to upgrade their paid daily admission to Busch Gardens. Gift cards and tickets are available at Bay area Publix and AAA locations and additional discounts are offered through promotional codes from Coca-Cola® at Dunkin Donuts® and Fantastic Sam’s®. Families with children ages 3 to 9 will enjoy a special advance-purchase price of $10 for their youngest members.

Christmas Town will also offer some magnificent new opportunities for groups looking to book a unique holiday party. For details, call the Busch Gardens Events Team at (813) 987-5523.

For the latest park news, “Like” Busch Gardens Tampa on Facebook. For media inquiries, please contact Busch Gardens Media Relations at 813-987-5401 or Travis.Claytor@buschgardens.com.

Video & Images

Download video (2 FILES - .mp4 & .mov)

# # #


text:
Date and Time Details: The Finding True Self retreat runs from 7:00 pm on the first day, until 11:30 am on the final morning.

  • Classical Private – $605.00
  • Classical Shared – $485.00
  • Redrock Shared – $465.00
  • Redrock Private – $585.00

Finding True Self

May 19 - 21, 2017

At Sedona Mago Retreat, we’ll guide you through an exploration that will help to unravel the mysteries of existence. Our Finding True Self retreat has been mindfully created to provide you with a spiritual gateway to uncovering the authentic ‘you’ – the ‘you’ that’s all-powerful, all-loving, and virtually limitless.

Category :


text:
Body to Body Massage in Bond Street

Our gorgeous masseuses based in Bond Street, Central London.

Bond Street is a popular part of London due to its central location which makes it easy to get to.

We have many masseuses based here, so if you fancy a delightful massage with a sexy woman then going for an incall in Bond Street is a great idea.

A few hours of walking around Bond Street and a relaxing sensual massage is probably exactly what you could with.

This area, due to the amount of shops, restaurants and bars, can get extremely busy.

The Bond Street Babes

The masseuses we have at our agency who are based here offer a full variety of erotic therapies for you to chose from.

These include nuru, prostate, tantric massage and more. You can browse the services pages to see the full spectrum of sexy treats that must be tried.

All our naughty masseuses operate in luxury apartments which are conveniently located close to underground stations.

To make a booking please contact us.


text:
Category Archives: Beloved

His Nearness

I am joining with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday. The goal is to write for five minutes about a word. No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation. Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Today’s prompt is:

His Nearness

I run around trying to get it all together,
to be more in order, more put together,
more perfect for when You come

The clutter, oh the clutter
Pick it up, put it away, go through it later
The rhythm
Pick it up, put it away, take it back out
and go through it later

Is that what I do for You?
You knock on the door of my heart
You beckon me, “Come”
Yet, somehow I still want to pick up the mess of my heart
and hide it so that we can really enjoy our time together
because somewhere deep down inside
I believe that Your enjoyment of me
depends on me being good

But who are You?
My mother, my older sister, the friend I’m trying to impress
With my external neatness
When inside I’m anything but that

I remember again,
It’s none of those people
Coming for a visit

Rather, it’s the One who loves me most
He loves me despite myself
It’s the one whose love covers my clutter and brokenness
and moment by moment His whisper frees my soul
and I am less afraid to come near

You knock on the door
Desiring to come to me, to visit me
My heart is awake
Your call stirs me

Your love quickens reality within
I get up
I open the door
The clutter remains
You come in
You visit me
You show me how precious I am to You
There is no turning back
Your love frees me
Your love cleanses me

There is nothing more beautiful
than this
The visitation of G-d upon the soul
The nearness of G-d that is my only good

SOS 5:2


text:
The #Blogg100-challenge

I have written a lot concerning the Swedish school, education debate the last years.. and the lack of learning in society as a whole. And the I have completely neglected this blog. I will try to change this since a new challenge of blog-writing has been started. You are supposed to write 100 blogposts – at least one each day for 100 days straight. So here we go.

Topics will be about society (western world) and our dear stupid education system that it so old and outdated that our kids find learning irrelevant and uninteresting. This is a disaster of enormous proportions for individuals and families and… future society.

In fact, if we don’t change our way of thinking around this the problems are going to become worse and worse.

Let’s see where this ends. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s


text:
Sharp Paynes

Never a dull moment…

Archive for the tag “thoughts”

Five Minute Friday: Enough

 It’s Friday and Lisa-Jo has given this writing prompt:

Every Friday we spend five minutes spilling words and we forego editing  and fretting, and just write.  It’s fun, it’s free, and you should click the link above and try it!  Or at least, read what some others write for fun on Fridays.

It’s crowded and that makes me a little uncomfortable.

People and words and lack of air all combine to choke me a little, but it’s Sunday and I love these people.

She stands to update us all on her life, because she’s a part of us and it’s been so long since she’s been ‘in the valley’.  Her voice is so clear and the words hit me between the eyes.

“When I was a teenager I didn’t want to go with my family to Mexico.  My heart wasn’t in being a missionary.  But I finally submitted to God and decided to be satisfied with wherever He had me.”

Because He is enough.

I worry about doing enough and being enough and did I teach them enough.  Did we pray together enough and do they know Him well enough and will they ‘turn-out’?

We all have to turn out  to find our enough.

Worry turns me in but her words remind me.  He is enough for wherever and whatever and nothing shakes a heart submitted to being satisfied.

The Staged Life

I don’t always give my best.

Sometimes ‘my best’ is too much work and I settle for doing ‘just enough’ or even ‘maybe later’.  I’ll go to bed with that sink-full of dishes and toppling pile of laundry, with no idea what’s for breakfast and with a lovely, crumb-crusted floor.

Once or twice, I’ve even fallen into bed fully clothed and with un-brushed teeth.  Sorry, honey.

I just thought a little confession would be good.

Someone called and told how guilty she felt for going back to bed that morning.  She thought about all the things  I had probably already accomplished that day, and what a loser she was for snuggling back in.
Funny thing is, I often have the same thoughts about her.
So many times in my day I think she could have done this faster or better.  She probably always knows where things are, and how embarrassed I ‘d be if she opened this cupboard or looked in this shower.
And it’s not just one person, it’s every other woman out there.
I am forever comparing myself.  But I always seem to compare my worst  with their best.
If only I could take the best of everyone and combine them into one, like some Suzy Homemaker on steroids.

As though someone really does have it all  together, all the time.

You know that those pictures are staged, right?
We take pictures because we want to remember that one time, we did make a beautiful meal for our family and everyone liked it.  Or we want to remember that we do sometimes have fun together and everyone laughs.
Someone said jokingly, “It’s not about having fun.  It’s about the pictures!”.

But having it all together in real life is more illusive, more of a special occasion.

There are those days where everything clicks along, every meal is planned, the house is clean and I even see the bottom of the laundry baskets.  School happens peacefully and the kids play a game together.  My husband walks in to the smell of his favorite dinner, sits down to eat it with his favorite people, and we all have a lovely discussion that is relevant and fruitful.

The trouble is that I expect  the days to always be that way.  And what do expectations get me?

More often, those events don’t all line up on the same day.  Monday I might have all our meals planned.  Tuesday school might go peacefully and the kids might play a game.  Wednesday may be a marathon laundry day, and Thursday we might have a really good discussion at dinner with no bathroom noises, no 5th grade humor, and no fighting over who-sits-where.

But rarely does it all happen in one day.  That would either be exhausting, or a waste of time, or The Cleavers.  Surely there are better things to do than live in a photo shoot.  Is a picture really worth a thousand words?
We live in the real world with real mess-ups and do-overs every morning, and I’m so thankful for that.
My heart’s desire is to honor God and my husband, and that needs to be the driving force behind all I do or don’t do in a day.  They both know my weaknesses and love me anyway.
… walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; – {Col 1:10 NKJV}

Are you stuck comparing yourself with others?  How do you guage your accomplishments – what makes you feel like you’ve done enough for the day?
Counting all the gifts this week, some of them numbered here:
298. The full moon
299. The fog clearing away in the morning
300. Motivation!
301.  Bailey, thanking me for making her do hard things
302. Bible discussions
303. good friends at the river
304. 3 things that were broken or lost, that are now found or fixed

Five Minute Friday: Risk

I’ve set my watch for 5 minutes.  I’m supposed to be leaving right now, on my way to Portland with my beautiful daughter for a couple days of book choosing and lattes.  But it’s Friday and Lisa-Jo has given this writing prompt:

It’s much easier just to stay home, and when I’m out it’s easier to tuck inside the shell.

There is so much risk associated with being in public.  What if I say something stupid?  What if I say something irrelevant?  What if I don’t know what to say at all and I pull a Peter-on-the-mount?

I still remember the first time my dad made me order for myself at a restaurant.  I was Piglet-p-p-p-petrified, certain that the waitress would…I don’t know, laugh at me?  Give me the wrong food?  Not understand me?  I remember that I was scared, just not what I was scared of.

Something irrational, I’m sure.

And I remember many many foot-in-mouth times.

But risk is what I need.

My husband actually tells me to talk more.   Crazy.  He thinks I have something profound to say.

I’ve stood in front of large groups and sat with small ones, said lots of dumb, silly, laughable and forgettable things, and I’m always scared of the risk.

But a few weeks ago this came to mind (I hesitate to say the Lord told me…so take it for what it’s worth to you):  I, you, we all who follow Christ, need to meet lots and lots of people.

Scary.  That means lots and lots of risk.

But I, you, we all, have something worth risking ourselves for, and something worth saying.

Raising Ebenezer {When Worry Steals Your Moment}

I smile and enjoy the moment.  Everything is right with the world and I am happy as a clam.  The day was perfect, the conversations edifying,  a little work happened and a little play and rest.  Now the children are tucked in and it’s just me and the man of my dreams.

Some days everything just lays out perfectly.

But what if…

What if something happens to one of us under this roof and our bliss is taken?  What if there comes a day when my husband gets up and there is no job for him to go to?  What about fires, earthquakes, floods, and cancer?

But what if…

What if I reach 80 and have bitter regrets?  Or I realize that I chased the wrong dream, loved the wrong things, and sacrificed for what perishes?

They flood into my moment and steal my joy.  Those thoughts play on the unknown and they mock me because truly, everything could change in the blink of an eye.

But what if I just always enjoy this moment, because it’s the only one outside of eternity that I’m sure of?  Can’t I be happy with this?

 Thus far the LORD has helped us. (1 Samuel 7:12)

I have no reason to doubt His goodness, and if all else fails, then my default is eternity.  If all else fails then this life was just a blip on the screen and the good and bad all wrap up in Forever, where there is no ‘what if’.

 Worry can take a hike.

So the Philistines were subdued, and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel. (1 Samuel 7:13)

 Have you had moments stolen by the ‘what ifs’ this week?  Maybe you, like me, need to remember that thus far the LORD has helped us and we have no need to fear that He would suddenly stop.  His faithfulness is to all generations.

So the reminder for us is in everything give thanksThe only thing to come, the only future we need to dwell on, is the certain one bought for us by our Redeemer.

Be thankful for, and live in, the now.

Some things I’m thankful for now, added to the slow-growing list:

250.  starting over again, with new mercy for every morning

251.  friends and family that stop by

252. my handy-dandy, new-to-me computer hutch, given by a friend

253.  un-prompted apologies

Small Things

Help me to do great things as though they were small, because I do them with Your power; and small things as though they were great, because I do them in Your name. ~ Blaise Pascal

Doing small things today and praying this prayer.

Why I Need to Lose My Mind

Sometimes I think I already have.  If being forgetful means I’ve lost my mind, then I am so there.  Sometimes I forget if I’ve forgot something…you know, that feeling that you have when you think you’ve forgotten something important but aren’t sure if it really was important, or if you really did forget it in the first place.  Whatever ‘it’ is?

Am I the only one?

Am I the only one who can’t remember when child #3 learned to walk, or how much each child weighed at birth, or who it was that said that cute thing about such-and-such?

Am I the only one who has to ask her kids questions like who was it that used to say “hot lemons” because they thought that’s what we said when something was ‘off limits’?  Who got stung by the bald face hornets?  Who had their tooth pulled, and have any of you had chicken pox?

I’m not the only one, am I?

Alas, I’ve let it go.  My mind, that is.  I have just given in to the gaps in memory, and I always carry paper with me.  If it’s not written down, it probably doesn’t happen.  I have pictures, and now I blog, so it’s there till everything crashes, right?

Of course, there are things I can’t forget, hard as I try.  Why is that?  Why do I remember all the ungodly things I’ve seen, heard, read or said, but can’t remember important things like the name of the sweet lady I met at church last Sunday?

My kids used a phrase the other day that was completely harmless, yet reminded me of a phrase that was not so harmless, from a movie I’d watched probably 20 years ago.  I asked them not to use the phrase and told them why…told them how what we choose to put in our minds can stay with us and affect us for years.

Maybe all they got from that talk was that mom used to watch bad movies.  And now she’s a little hyper-sensitive.

But God is a Redeemer, even of minds.

He actually wants me to lose my mind.  And He offers a brand new one in its place.

…be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. ~ Eph 4:23-24

Because my old man was growing corrupt, rotting, wasting away.  My thoughts were futile.  Like “the rest of the Gentiles” (vs. 17), I used to live by those futile thoughts and vain imaginings, justifying my actions with an “it will all balance out in the end” attitude.

Why do I still have futile thoughts sometimes?  Putting off and putting on, continually being sanctified, and living out this righteousness and holiness He’s given.  It’s a process till the end, and His grace is sufficient.

Chapter 4 of Ephesians has some good mind-cleansing remedies.  If you are doing x, stop and do y instead.  Put off this, put on this.  Not just dos and don’ts, but life-giving, life-saving clothing to wear everyday.

I won’t quote the whole chapter here, in hopes you’ll open it up for yourself.

I am renewing my mind with scripture.  Writing, speaking, thinking, reading, and typing it here.  I am on and off with this, but I need it.  This week it’s Ephesians 4:23-24.

I believe He’ll even redeem my memory (or lack thereof) and generate new brain cells, because that’s what it is to be re-newed.  Like new again.

Would you like to hold me accountable?  And do you have suggestions, ways that you renew your mind and crowd out the old and rotting with the new He gives?  I’d love help along the way.

Post Navigation


text:
Arsene’s Arsenal, from 4-4-2 to Tika Taka

For many, it is the traditional and best way to set up a football team. To others, it’s too rigid and not adaptable enough for the modern game. However, whilst playing the 4-4-2 system, Arsene Wenger won the Premier League three times. Since changing his philosophy, he hasn’t won it and has only rarely looked like doing so. This article will try to understand the reasoning behind the change from 4-4-2 to the modern 4-3-3.

My background as a community and to a lesser extent academy football coach, has enabled me to come across people at a decent level in the game. When coaching in Boston in the summer of 2014, I got talking to a coach who had recently left the Arsenal academy after 10 years. More than anything else, I’m a fan, so I was desperate to find out what I could from this bloke, who had worked with Wilshere, Akpom, and more interestingly, Cesc Fabgregas. “Why was it mate? Why did he change the whole philosophy of the club, from having a side full of power, speed, physical presence, to these shorter, technically better players and move to a 4-3-3?” I asked, expecting some insight from someone involved in the club. The answer summed up the feeling of most Gooners, he simply sniffed and replied “don’t know mate”.

Its 2004. Arsenal have just gone unbeaten, playing some of the most impressive football ever seen, combining attacking flair with defensive strength. The average height of the team is just over six feet. Vieria and Gilberto made up two in the midfield, and they lined up with two inverted wingers (usually Pires and Freddie but Reyes would begin to play more). They were based behind two strikers, more often than not, Henry Bergkamp. Like anyone, it hurts having to type these names because as good as Sanchez and Ozil are, I struggle to find a place in the team ahead of these players. Interestingly enough, that all conquering side of 2004, like 2002 and the 1998 team before lined up 4-4-2.

In any of those (4-4-2) title winning teams, Wenger had similar players, and if two players were to define the two systems, and even more so define Wenger’s Arsenal career into two parts, I would say it is Patrick Vieria and Cesc Fabregas. More on Cesc later. Patrick Vieria was 6’4 and was the first major signing by Wenger, whose instruction to his backline was simply “when you get the ball, pass is to Patrick”. He didn’t care how many men were around him, he would receive the ball, turn and pass forwards, usually to Dennis Bergkamp (The most completed pass 1997/1998 season). It also helped that he had a partner that was as big and as strong as him next to him, first Petit, then Gilberto Silva, and sometimes Edu. Arsenal could go into games knowing they had the technical quality, but also had the physical power should they need it (something clearly lacking in later years).

In 2004 though, something else happened. Jose Mourinho moved to West London and brought his “park the bus” style with him, and with the help of around £150 million from the Russian, transformed Chelsea into winners. He used a 4-3-3 system that was relatively unknown in England, the main advantage being when you are defending, 4-3-3 becomes 4-5-1. Teams began to use this style, particularly lower down the Premier League, while Arsene persisted with his tested 4-4-2. However, the emergence of Cesc Fabregas would have negative affect on the team in certain away games of the 04/05 season, I seem to remember Palace away, and the all too common physical batterings in the North West as teams began to pack the midfield and physically over run Arsenal, who continued to play with 2 in the middle. An FA cup win over Man United in 2005 marked the end of the Vieria era, the start of the Fabregas era and the start of a 9 year trophy drought.

In the following years, Wenger continued with 4-4-2 with the same stubbornness he is accused of today, partnering a two of Fabregas with first Gilberto, before the likeable Brazilian was shipped out, and this was followed by Flamini (In 08, where had it not been for awful luck, they would’ve won the title), Diarra (remember him?) and then Denilson. It was only in 2009/2010 the idea changed and we would play 4-3-3, with Fabregas quite rightly the focal point of a brilliant footballing team. Another reason Wenger may’ve been influenced was that this is around the same time Spain were winning everything and Pep’s Barca were recreating the right way to play football.

Of course, you can’t blame a trophy drought on tactics alone, and perhaps if signings had been different, or Gallas hadn’t been appointed captain etc, we may be talking differently now. But it remained obvious that in big games, against big teams (both figuratively and literally), Arsenal struggled. The average height had dropped significantly, we no longer had that midfielder that would shove 3 players off the ball and take on another 3.

As great a footballer as he was for us, Cesc was never able to do this (this is demonstrated now at Chelsea, where you see him line up, often protected throughout by Matic and Ramires). My argument with Wenger is that he was so convinced that he had found this new way of playing, he’d persist with it. When Cesc left in 2011, I wonder what would’ve happened if he’d gone out and bought two brick walls to play central midfield. Possibly would’ve slowed down Jack and Aaron’s development (although I personally feel both can play in a midfield two, just not together), but we may have a league title to be parading round the Emirates. Another crazy though, imagine having these technically gifted players being allowed to do their thing, knowing that a Matic type is behind them,

Four years on from Cesc’s departure from Arsenal, and it’s fair to say we’re in better shape than when he left. Consecutive cups and shields have lifted mood somewhat, but we as fans are crying out for a league title. Under Wenger, Arsenal will always score goals, whoever is up top, but what really disappointed me in the last window was the lack of a holding midfielder. I like Coquelin a lot, but the best way I can describe him is he is a number 16, not a number 4 (basically, we need someone bigger and stronger to play that role, or for the tough away games, play two). Arteta and Flamini I dont like criticising, because they clearly care about Arsenal and put in a shift, despite being not good enough. But why, with £100 million in the bank, has Wenger decided against Kondogbia, Krychowiak, or even Scheneiderlin?

I said earlier that you could almost split Wenger’s time at Arsenal into two. Many would call it Highbury and Emirates. I would call it Vieira and Cesc. And speaking as a football coach, but more so a fan, I think it’s time Wenger returned to the Vieira ideology, to help, if not completely change, his philosophy on how a title should be won.

Up the Arsenal.

One thought on “Arsene’s Arsenal, from 4-4-2 to Tika Taka

  1. Josh

    Great read! Totally agree with you..I recently had an argument with a fellow Gooner on Twitter who stated 4-4-2 can not win anything in the modern game..Like yourself I know my football and played at a high level. Correct me if I’m wrong but Didn’t Athletico Madrid do pretty well deploying a 4-4-2. I still cant work out why Wenger abandoned this philosophy and something which clearly worked. We are missing a destroyer in our Midfield and as much as I like Coquelin when it comes down to the big games when it really matters (latter stages of Champions League) he will be found wanting.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s


text:
Shield of God.

Using the pearls of His wisdom and the light of His truth to protect us in this world. Glory to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Archive for the tag “Michael Rood”

Let No Pagan Judge You

A “Rood” Awakening

Fellow blogger Pete Rambo, from natsab, recommended  some videos in one of his comments on this site.  The videos are a series of presentations by Michael Rood. They are absolutely fantastic – biblical history, Jewish history and Rood also brings the “gentile” Christian into the true Jewish perspective and foundation of Christianity.

This video is about Sodom and Gomorrah. A compelling and fascinating journey to the ruins of the brimstone.

Michael Rood also created a wonderful presentation about the Temple of Solomon.  This was truly an eye opener…I never realized how immersed in a pagan infrastructure we (modern-day Christians) are.  Please watch! They are extremely informative, presenting many extremely important facts and intricacies about the foundations of the apostles and the followers of Christ, the very first Christians, that are not normally “available” to the  Western “Gentile” believers that are unfortunately and unknowingly caught in the “Christian system” that has established itself in the west.

Post Navigation

%d bloggers like this:


text:
Custom to Order

Screen Printing & Embroidery

At Shirt Circuit no job is too big or too small for our silk screen technique. Jobs have ranged from a single T shirt to over 10,000 garments in a single order. We look forward to working with you on your next custom screen printing project.

follow us on instagram
just give us a call at 541.752.8380

We Offer a Wide Range of Services

Your business is too important to rely on beginner design. Whether you're looking to promote a product or advertise a service, we can help you design a layout that will reach your audience and get your message across.

Shop Info

Our Office 1411-A Northwest 9th Street, Corvallis, OR 97330
Phone 541.752.8380


text:
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
  • Thursday, Mar. 3, 2016
'Son of Saul' director says Oscar could be 'poisoned gift'
Hungarian director of “Son of Saul” Laszlo Nemes attends a news conference in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, March 2, 2016. (Tamas Kovacs/MTI via AP)
  • BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP)
  • --

Winning an Oscar could be a "poisoned gift" and it will take a great effort to avoid being crushed by the honor, the director of the Hungarian film that won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, said Wednesday.

"Son of Saul" director Laszlo Nemes said he would put the Oscar in a display case "and hopefully I won't see it every day."

"It can be a poisoned gift but if we handle it with skill it won't crush us," Nemes said after returning to Budapest from Los Angeles. "Wisdom and luck are needed for this but maybe I'll never make a normal film again."

Nemes said that concentrating on one person, a Jewish prisoner forced to dispose of victims in a Nazi death camp, was important to him to "understand the individual." The film follows Saul Auslander as he tries to give a religious burial to a boy who may have been his son.

Steven Spielberg told him that "Son of Saul" greatly contributed to the collective memory of the Holocaust and that he hadn't expected that it would take so long after his 1993 "Schindler's List" to make such a film.

Geza Rohrig, who has received much praise for his portrayal of Auslander, said the Oscar ceremony "was a near clinical case of idiocy."

"It's not my world," said Rohrig, adding the volunteer "seat fillers" used to ensure there are never any empty seats during the ceremony "looked like a long line at the Lenin Mausoleum."

Nemes said his next film, "Sunset," set in Budapest in the 1910s, would be in Hungarian but he was planning to develop several projects at once, including films in other languages.

"My secret plan is to make a world famous actress out of a young Hungarian woman," Nemes said. "But let's not tell anyone."


text:
Walls Of Jericho "The Bound Feed The Gagged" CD

There are few bands than can write a two minute song that incorporates every element of metal/hardcore that we all love... but Walls Of Jericho do just that. Speed, crunch, anger, emotion, melodies, sing-a-longs, and spine-tingling aggression consolidate to form Detroit

More from this collection


text:
Crochet Headband Roundup

I have been busy making Crochet headbands recently. I own reborn dolls and elastic headbands are just not ‘hair’ friendly so I decided a batch of soft headbands would be great!

Here’s what I made and the links I used to create them.

Heart bow.

I used DK yarn then chained to circumference of the head twice and attach it to the bow with slip stitches. This is an easy make but you do need to concentrate and a few stitch markers may make it even easier.

Big flower

I used the flower from a hat pattern and again I used DK yarn and made a simple DC (US) band. I then put a bead in the middle of the flower to neaten it up.

Big bow

This turned out huge using DK yarn so using thinner yarn, smaller hook or even reducing your rows will all change the sizing of this bow.

image image

Baby Headband

I call this the garter headband because it really does look like one but don’t be put off this is a really nice headband and although looks wide when make it’s a great fit on small heads. I threaded a contrast ribbon through and secured then placed a bow that I layer lace over to hide the join.

I also made a few bands to put existing bows on. This is a great option for a gentler band but when you want material or ribbon decoration. For children I wouldn’t recommend this but for adults who collect reborns you can pop safety pins on the bottom of bows and interchange your bow using the same band

Four Strand Plaited Band

You need to chain 4 strands a little longer than will fit round head. As you plait it will shorten.

I started off with a short sc row and attached my chains to that to keep them together and to provide myself with a flat section to join at the end.

Start by plaiting your first 3 strands as you normally would. Then place the fourth strand (right side) under the strand next to it.

Strand 1 over strand 2, strand 3 over strand 1 (in number 2 position) then bring strand 4 under strand 1 (now in number 3 position) and repeat.

The photo does it no justice but you end up with a plait that looks like a middle strand running through it.image

Daisy headband

Every baby called Daisy needs a daisy headband. I used this Daisy pattern for the flower and this dreamweaver headband for the base. You will need to download the base direct on ravelry.

Easy Lace Headband

This was a great quick project and looks great.

Mini Skein Projects

I made a few using 5-10g balls of hand dyed yarn. From Left to right: Butterfly (with simple chain band), Chevron, Heart and Simple flower (bottom- download on ravlery)

Flowery Headband

I sed this Pearly Girl ravelry download as the base

I then used a variety of flower and lead patterns found for free online to complete as I didn’t like the flowers that came as part of the original pattern.

Sealife Headband

I used a ripple pattern to make a headband to represent the waves. I then used various parts of patterns to complete the rest: Fish and Seagrass

The Shell was my own pattern and isn’t written up.

Little Bow Baby Headband

Super fast make and you could use any yarn to make various sizes. Would look great as a layered bow also and is perfect for newborns as only small.

Ladybird Headband

For this band I used the applique from these shoes, and the Headband for the Office pattern.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s


text:
“The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared” (Novel) by Jonas Jonasson

“The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”, by Jonas Jonasson, may have a rather complicated title, but it is not a complicated novel. The story follows Allan Karlsson, who is – you guessed it – a hundred year old man who escapes from his centennial birthday party via a window. We then follow his story as he finds himself involved with thieves, incompetent police, a suitcase filled with cash and a series of murders, some of which are more accidental than others. Along side the tale we learn that Karlsson had spent his earlier life involved with some of the 20th century’s most significant people and important events – everything from the creation of the atom bomb, to having dinner with Stalin himself.

I have heard many novels and films described as “charming” but I’ve never strictly understood its true meaning. Jonasson’s debut novel, however, can only be described as such. An endless stream of witty dialogue and engaging an engaging story keeps you entertained from cover to cover. There are moments where it gets so funny you may find yourself laughing enough to make an elderly woman come and ask if you are okay (I may or may not be speaking from experience).

It isn’t a novel that you will regret.

If you are looking for a heart-warming tale with sweet love story and a happy ending, I’m afraid you needn’t read this review any further. I first came across Calvary during my perusing through the weekly email I receive from Dendy Cinemas, and in all honesty, it didn’t seem very interesting at all. However, after I saw the trailer for it (it was forced upon me during a Youtube advertisement) I was far more intrigued.

The film follows Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson), a good natured and well-loved priest in a small rural Irish town, after he is threatened with his murder during confessional. He is told that he has until the following Sunday to get his affairs in order before he finally commits the act.

The film tackles some fairly heavy issues, particularly the history of covering up incidents of sexual assault from within the clergy. We are also hit with an overarching theme of death and suicide throughout the story, with many characters facing some grave issues with which Father James attempts to help. As grim as that sounds, though, it has a certain class and sense to it that forces you to see the small town in the eyes of the Father. If there’s nothing I love in a film more, it’s one that makes you feel. Despite all this seemingly doom and gloom, there is a comedic element to it all. Truth be told, the whole this is quite funny – not in an obvious slap stick way, but rather a sophisticated European way.

The good pacing, excellent acting and direction is helped with a rather stellar cast – along with Gleeson, there are the likes of Chris O’Dowd, Dylan Moran and even Aiden Gillan (of Game of Thrones fame). In a year where there really has been very little to jump around about at the cinema, Calvary is surely a masterpiece.

I’m a big fan of the Iron Man movies, so in turn I became a big fan of Jon Favreau. Those films are a perfect balance of action and story with a touch of humour on the side. When I heard that Favreau would be releasing a new film away from the superhero genre, I was expectedly excited.

Chef follows Carl Casper (Jon Favreau), a chef at a high-end restaurant, who quits his job when he receives a poor review after not being allowed enough creative license by his controlling restaurant owner (Dustin Hoffman). He then decides to open up a food truck specialising in traditional Cuban food with the help of his son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), ex-wife (Sofia Vergara) and chef-friend, Martin (John Leguizamo). They tour the country as their popularity increases with the help of an ever-growing social media presence.

The film is a foodies delight with delicious cuisine being served up at ever corner. This, and a mildly funny script were the only things that won me over in the two hours I spent in the theatre. A very clichéd storyline, along with average grade acting and some pacing issues made me continuously look at my watch throughout. The fact that two big named stars in Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr were used so sparingly gave the impression that they were included only to draw in a crowd. The ending was cheesy and really countered the little development we saw in the characters. The constant push of Twitter and other social media gave it the impression that Favreau was trying just too hard to be cool.

It’s a feel good film, I’ll give you that – but a chocolate bar costs $2 and makes you feel pretty good too.

Directed by Wally Pfister

Ever since Ross mentioned the concept of living on as an AI after we die in that episode of Friends, I’ve been kind of fascinated with the idea. When I saw the trailer for Transcendence a couple of months ago, I sat prepared, waiting in eager anticipation.

The story surrounds Dr Will Caster (Johnny Depp), a highly renowned researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, who is targeted by technology-resistant terrorists. After he is tactically taken down, his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and close friend Max (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, manage to upload his consciousness to a highly powerful super-computer.  This artificial Dr Caster, however, develops a seemingly endless thirst for power and knowledge, sending the whole world into craze.

I was really hoping to like it.

Reeaaallly hoping.

Whilst the concept was entertaining enough, there were endless problems with the writing. Huge pacing issues, minimal character development and rather confusing story arcs left me asking myself “wait, what?” far too many times. Also, anyone with a minimal scientific grounding could poke holes in story left, right and centre. The acting was sub-par, which was disappointing considering the talent on display. Only the mildly entertaining special effects – which were kind of ridiculous in itself – made it an acceptable two hours to sit through.

In truth, Transcendence is like fitting a Ferrari without an engine. It’s flashy and pretty, but with nothing to power it home.


text:
, ,

Kreativ Blogger Award

 https://sinemkarisir.wordpress.com/ has been nominated for Kreativ Blogger Award

Thank you  www.ivafruhling.com , for the nomination. ❤

 The rules of the Kreativ Blogger Award:

  1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
  2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
  3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
  4. Name 7 things about yourself that people may not know.
  5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
  6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
  7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they’ve been

1)   Originally from Istanbul where I went to American High School and left for Ny to study Fashion Design and somehow ended up in Italy both to work and live, to design childrenwear for D&G and Gucci.

2)    I Live in Milan and really enjoy being here. It inspires & stimulates me l lot… To inspire is to be inspired.

3)    I like to remain elegant even in difficult situations, no matter what.

4)    Got anchor tattoo on my left hand. It is a symbol that connects me to my family,  to my grandfather, a world-traveller captain.

5)    A former perfectionist, now I try to do my best. I have a hobby called Fashion and a passion called Love.

6)   I love music, men,loving friends, traveling, good clothes, good wine, beautiful photography, good movies. I take my time to enjoy each.

7)   I am quite stubborn & proud of it. I value what is iconic, eccentric and fun.

My 7 Nominations for the Kreativ Blogger Award are:

❤Thanx to everyone who stays sincerely curious and passionate..about so many things.