Loose Ends

Somehow I forgot to post a picture of what the garden looked like when everything was in it! It looks a bit different now because two of the flowers look, um, nearly dead (Monty Python, anyone?). Hopefully they'll make it, but I'm pleased that the pansies and most of the others are doing better. The cooler weather should help a bit!

Also, on the right side of this blog (or following the link), you can see my "101 in 1001" list. I've been working on updating it, and finally went through and cleaned up the look of it. I'm more than 1/3 of the way through the list, with a number of them in the works, and still have a lot of time left. What fun!

Our Nikon camera (Coolpix 5400) stopped working back in November (you may remember pictures with lines and lots of purple) so we looked online to find out if this was a normal problem. Apparently there was something wrong with a component of it, and many cameras (not just Nikons) were affected by it. So gradually the companies were offering recalls to get the problem fixed; we just had to wait for them to decide ours was one of the ones needing the repair.
They finally did this spring, but we wanted to wait until we moved to send it in, so it didn't get sent back to the apartment.
It came back Wednesday! It looks all shiny and new, and the pictures look great again.

I love our other camera (we got a fun one that takes fantastic videos, a must with two young girls!) but it doesn't offer as much for trying to learn the manual settings. Ultimately, I'd like a Rebel or some other SLR camera down the road, but I need to learn how to use manual settings before we fork over the $800 for that!! (of course, earning the $800 could be a part of the holdup too!) so I'm glad to have a camera I can learn on once again.
Here are two of the pictures I took yesterday.

Thoughts on Faith

I've been doing a lot of thinking about faith lately. Want to hear my present conclusions?

I used to think faith meant sitting, waiting for God to drop ____________ in my lap. A job, a husband, a house...didn't doing something mean I wasn't trusting Him to do it?

But if you look at all the miracles Jesus performed, you see that the person being healed had to do something in order for the healing to occur. The paralyzed man had to say he wanted to be healed. The woman "with the issue of blood" chased him to touch his robe.

So why did I expect it to be different for me? Why did I think I had to sit still and wait for Josh to show up at my doorstep? Sure, it could have happened, but it wasn't very likely.

It's very interesting to me that Josh came into my life as soon as I obeyed my mom and signed up on the Christian personals website; when I had tried on another site and looked for Christians, I didn't find anyone remotely close to what I was praying to find. But as soon as mom asked me to try this, I met Josh.

Now that I'm believing God for other things, I'm trying to ask Him what my job is in making it happen. For example, we believe God wants us to be debt-free. So Josh is working extra hours, and I'm trying to encourage him in that and do what I need to at home so that he can do that without burning out.

Cool, huh?

Categorizing

I love to organize. My spices are alphabetical (the only way to find things!), as are our DVDs. The CDs are sorted by category and then alphabetized within the categories. And ACDSee is an awesome way to organize all my scrapbooking stuff.

But one of my favorite things to do is to organize people, specifically me. I love finding out what categories I fit into. I know no one fits perfectly into one category, which is why there are so many tests out there. I figure, if you take into account all the tests out there, everyone has their own, unique result. For example, I'm left-brained, like many, many other people. But then when you add that I'm ISFJ (more on that in a sec), those two together put me in a smaller percentage of the population. When you add in the Career Aptitude Test I took as a freshman in college, as well as all the other fun tests on emode.com (now tickle.com), I would imagine no one else would have identical test results all the way down the line.

My friend Kimberly talked on her blog yesterday about the Meyers-Briggs test, which got me looking into mine again. I was ISTJ before I went to Turkey (Introverted (definitely), Sensing, Thinking, Judging), and when I took it again when Josh and I were engaged, I got the same results. As I read the descriptions of ISTJ personalities, it most definitely fits.

But since the birth of my girls, I've come to rely more and more on feeling, rather than pure reason. So I took a test this morning and it came up with ISFJ instead. And that definitely fits too! Here are some samples of the results:

Like most Is, ISFJs have a few, close friends. They are extremely loyal to these, and are ready to provide emotional and practical support at a moment's notice. (However, like most Fs they hate confrontation; if you get into a fight, don't expect them to jump in after you. You can count on them, however, run and get the nearest authority figure.)

While their work ethic is high on the ISFJ priority list, their families are the centers of their lives. ISFJs are extremely warm and demonstrative within the family circle--and often possessive of their loved ones, as well.

ISFJs are often unappreciated, at work, home, and play. Ironically, because they prove over and over that they can be relied on for their loyalty and unstinting, high-quality work, those around them often take them for granted--even take advantage of them. Admittedly, the problem is sometimes aggravated by the ISFJs themselves; for instance, they are notoriously bad at delegating ("If you want it done right, do it yourself"). And although they're hurt by being treated like doormats, they are often unwilling to toot their own horns about their accomplishments because they feel that although they deserve more credit than they're getting, it's somehow wrong to want any sort of reward for doing work (which is supposed to be a virtue in itself). (And as low-profile Is, their actions don't call attention to themselves as with charismatic Es.)

This is most definitely true. I worked in the supermarket bakery for 3 1/2 years before getting Employee of the Month. I asked the manager twice what I could do to improve so I could get that honor, and she was shocked both times that I hadn't already received it. I've always been the one to do the right thing (or very nearly always), but because I don't toot my own horn, it usually gets looked past.

(that being said, Josh is amazing at recognizing my work. He has never taken me for granted!)

So what's your result? Here's the test I took today. A nice quick one, in spite of all the questions :)

Garden!

I have wanted my own "bit of dirt" for awhile now. Working on the immense, beautiful gardens when we were housesitting was nice, but it wasn't my garden. So now that we live in a house we own (or are paying mortage on...I think at this point we own one of the roof shingles, if even that much!) I wanted to start a garden.
The front yard has simple landscaping done. Nothing too exciting, but it looks nice, so I'm not in a huge rush to change it. There is a row of bushes on the side of the yard with some gaping holes, so we started talking about filling in the gaps (but the local nursery doesn't carry Japanese Holly) or replacing it, which would cost even more.

But most of all, I wanted an English Cottage-style garden. It would look silly in our small front yard, but the fence on the left side of the yard looks like the perfect backdrop for my dream garden. So I started looking at putting a garden all along that fence. There's still tons of room for Jasmine (and Rebekah, next summer) to run and play.

So we went out during our date on Wednesday and got the first flowers. Daisies because they're "the friendliest flower" (I love them!), zinnias because they're fun and easy to care for, and a few that were mentioned as being easy and standards in an English garden on this site.

Last night Josh cut up the section, I pulled out the weeds and grass while he ran out for mulch and topsoil, (Jasmine helped)
and we planted them! I'm so excited! It's not big yet, and I know it will take awhile before it fills in and looks "English garden-y" but it's a start.

The week's to-do lists

I've started taking part in a "challenge"/game on thedigichick.com where we get points for various cleaning/decluttering/housecleaning things. One of those things is to make daily to-do lists, and another one (more related to scrapping) is to make a layout about cleaning. I decided it would be fun to document my successes, failures and procrastinations of this week's to-do lists.
I don't have much written yet for Friday because it is only Thursday right now! And I haven't given up hope for finishing today's list, either. But I was ready to have the page finished!

The Two-year old in me

Jasmine likes to build with her Duplo-style blocks, and she enjoys having company while she does it.
But that brings out the two-year old in me. And no, I don't mean the ultra-creative, not-afraid-to-try-unusual-things two-year old. I mean the "I want to do it my way" side.

I like neatness and order. If I had my way, I'd sort out all the pieces by size and color, and then work methodically so that the colors balanced, everything was well-constructed, and it was neat.

But Jasmine doesn't want that! She likes to pick up a piece and put it wherever she feels like it. Just the way she should at this age.

But I can't do it my way then!! So I get a little frustrated (and then remind myself that she's the two-year old, not me) and dream of a day when she's playing with something else and I can build something my way. Someday. :)

Charlene's turn again

Jasmine's been doing a dance, she calls it "walking walking walking." It seems to be the "chim chimerie" dance from Mary Poppins because she has to have something over her shoulder (like Bert's brooms) in order to do it.
I thought you might enjoy it (it takes a few seconds to get there. I haven't learned how to edit videos yet).

Walking Walking Walking

The Zenith of Irony

Hi there. Josh again.

So...Did anyone actually try to click on that link I posted a few days ago? And did it work? Yeah. It didn't work for me either. I finally actually tried clicking on it for the first time today.

Boy do I feel like an idiot. Especially given the fact that one of my professional titles is "Webmaster".

So let's try this again. And this time I'll even make it easier for you by posting the picture here. But if you have a second, please go check out the website too. We're pretty proud of it! :-)

http://www.cwgministries.org/pst/#pst

Guess what Rebekah started doing??

She's been trying for awhile now, but today she was much more successful at it. I'm pretty impressed (and shocked. When did my tiny 7-pound baby get so big??)

Ku-plink, ku-plank, ku-plunk

I don't have time to really write...time to get some strawberries going for shortcake tonight. But I thought you'd like to see the story and pictures :)

Newest Venture

I have an online friend who has been talking about excitotoxins for awhile now, and I finally looked into it for myself. After some serious discussion, Josh and I have decided to begin leaving them out of our diet as well.
What is an excitotoxin? And why do we care? Wikipedia has a long definition: Excitotoxicity is the process by which cell death is produced in neurons by the overactivation of excitatory neurotransmitter receptors such as the NMDA receptor.Excitotoxins like NMDA and kainic acid which bind to these receptors can cause excitotoxicity, as can pathologically high levels of glutamate. Excitotoxicity may be involved in stroke.

Basically, the thing we're attempting to cut out of our diet is MSG and anything else it is called. You can see a list of that here. (click on "hidden names of MSG"). Glutamates are also found in hard cheeses, tomato paste, and some other things, but MSG is the biggest culprit. It's not just in Chinese food, either; almost anything processed has it in it, in some form!

I'm hoping it will eliminate Josh's headaches. I don't think I have anything specific to see an improvement on (because I'm perfect ;) ) but I'm excited that it means we'll be eating more natural, healthy foods from here on out. To do this, we've started eating a lot more foods from scratch, and having a lot more fruits and vegetables.

In case you're at all interested, and for my own sake so I can look back at this later, I'm going to start a list of "normal" foods that we can still enjoy.

Life Cereal (just the normal one, not the variations)
Puffed Wheat, Puffed Rice cereals
Shredded Wheat, Shr. Wheat with Cinnamon
Coffee
Reece's Peanut Butter Cups
Turkey Hill "Natural" Ice Cream (I don't know how local this brand is)
pasta
chicken
turkey
eggs
milk
mozzarella
co-jack cheese
rice
bread (the more natural, healthy ones; I haven't looked at Wonderbread because we don't eat that anyways!)

...

I'll add more as I find them. We've been eating more and more organic and "natural" food anyways; this just pushes us more quickly in that direction.

This isn't intended as a lecture; just thought I'd share what we've been reading/learning about for the past few weeks.

Finally figured this out.

My turn (Charlene).
I finally took 3 minutes to look and figure out how to use my own email address and name...so now I'm writing as me, and Josh can write as him.
Only problem: all previous posts are now identified as being written by Josh. Sorry! He's not the one who's been scrapping ;)

A post from Josh. Really!

Well, this is joshandcharlene.blogspot.com, and so technically it is our blog. So maybe I'll start posting once a year or something, just so no-one forgets that I can actually put words together too.

The point of this particular post is to toot Charlene's horn.

We just announced a new program at Communion With God Ministries, and Charlene was the model we used for the logo! She also helped design said logo, though that was more of a collaborative effort. (Actually, I took the picture of her, so that was a collaboration too!)

Anyway, please jump on over to www.cwgministries.org/pst/ to see what I'm talking about.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

"Take Your Child To Work Day" gone bad

You know, it's funny to me that people would think of "take your child to work day" as a good thing to try, after watching Mary Poppins and seeing how horribly it can turn out.

Jasmine has been watching Mary Poppins (or "Poppins," as she calls it. She has one-word titles for every single one of her movies, which occasionally change!) a lot lately. She would have it on all day, every day, if I let her, but obviously I don't. Hopefully I'll get a video soon of her doing a dance. She says "step" when she does it, or "Chim Chim," so it's Bert's dance, not Mary Poppins', like I originally thought. (she puts something, used to be her little umbrella until it died, now whatever she can find) on her shoulder, and steps and kicks. It's really, really cute)

What a sweet movie. There are some fantastic lines!

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

"Never judge things by their appearances, even carpetbags. I'm sure I never do."

"Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid." (don't necessarily agree, but it's pretty funny)

"A group of colonists, dressed as red indians, threw the tea overboard, making it unsuitable for drinking, even for Americans."

Have a fantastic weekend!

Josh's turn to shine!

I'm so proud. Josh read an article online a couple weeks ago and knew he couldn't keep quiet about it. So he wrote a letter to the editor, which was published today. Here is a link to the original article, and here's a link to Josh's response, which I'll post here as well because I don't think the link will stay connected to his response.

Editor: I just finished reading Alan Caruba's article entitled "The War on American Lawns". Now please understand right off the bat, that I believe Greens represent possibly the most dangerous threat to humanity long-term. They hate humans fundamentally, and want us all to die so that the other wild beasts can roam the planet freely. However, the arguments that Alan uses in attacking them don't stand up to even a cursory examination of what the opposition is actually saying.The foundation of his argument is that SafeLawns Foundation wants you to have an ugly, weedy, unhealthy lawn, as opposed to a chemically-drenched, and thus pretty and "healthy", lawn. Simply going to www.safelawns.org presents a slideshow of gorgeous lawns that have been maintained without the use of chemicals. This completely obliterates the lion's share of the article, showing that he has set up a false dichotomy! His second basic point is embodied in the rhetorical question "Do you know anyone who has ever died from having a healthy, green lawn?" Again, if you actually listen to what that SafeLawns is saying, you will see that there is a growing body of scientific literature supporting the idea that yes, your "healthy, green lawn" can kill you, as well as harm you in many other ways. I'm just concerned that we in the conservative movement must maintain the strictest possible standards for truth, accuracy and integrity in our reporting on, and debating of, liberals. If we sink to their level, and do nothing but demagogue and rip straw men to shreds, it can only hurt our cause. Thank you for your time. God bless, Josh Virkler

Alan Caruba responds: Aside from distorting what I asserted in my commentary, this letter then repeats essentially what the Safe Lawns folks want people to believe concerning the use of any chemical utilized to maintain a healthy lawn. This kind of chemophobia is rampant thanks to an unrelenting propaganda campaign by various self-appointed environmental groups and those who prefer to believe that all lawn care chemicals, used according to the label and property applied, pose a hazard no matter what other benefits they may impart to our lives.

Excelling

I was always a fast test-taker. In high school I couldn't leave when I was done, but it didn't slow me down. I wouldn't have done as well if I'd tried to go slowly...I wasn't racing; it was just my pace.

In college we could leave when we were finished, which was perfect for me. I was always the first one out.

Until my psychology class, my junior year. Someone else had a faster pace than me.

And when he left, I would panic, thinking I was doing something wrong, trying too hard. (appropriate class to have this realization, non?)

It took me about half the semester to finally realize that he was just a faster test-taker than me. It didn't mean I was going too slowly. I was getting fine grades...I just had to ignore the fact that he left the room before I did.


Why am I telling this random story? The same is happening to me again, this time about Jasmine.
She has been so early for everything. Walking at 7 1/2 months. First teeth at 4 1/2 months. But with talking, she's at more of an "average" level. It doesn't mean she's not bright (she is!), but that she's not in as much of a hurry to make complete sentences as she was to roll over/crawl/cruise/walk/run/jump/....

She does have an immense vocabulary and is starting to put words together ("Bekah fun!") and I know there is no reason to worry. It's just one of those things, like my test-taking speed in school.

Page, and baseball thoughts

I didn't see this when it happened (you don't have to read the link to understand what I'm talking about; it's just in case you want the whole story), but I read about it this morning. I know he's a Yankee, but I also know I'd feel this way if he'd been playing for Boston. (when A-Rod hit a home run during his "hot streak" and Coco Crisp fell over the wall into the bullpen, I gasped and didn't cheer on Alex until I saw that Coco was fine. And anyone who knows me, knows how much I like the Red Sox).

A few years ago, Jorge Posada was hit on the ear with a bat. He went down. The pitcher didn't see, and threw the ball to him to try to stop someone from running home. Not only did Georgie not catch the ball, but the run that happened because of that injury counted.
And last night two runs scored because Doug suffered a concussion...and Jeter was given an error!! Add insult to injury, why don't you?
I'm not talking about the fact that those runs could have changed the outcome of the game. There's a bigger problem here.
Baseball is supposedly a "gentlemen's sport." How is it gentlemanly to score a run when your opponent is hurt? I think it's time to add a new rule to the books. The batter should have gone back and continued as if it had never happened, like you could erase time back to before the pitch that started the problems. (after bringing in a replacement, of course).

I always took the saying "it's all fun and games until someone's eye gets poked out" and added "...and then it's a sport." But I didn't mean there were suddenly no penalties for that!!

Okay. Enough about that. I made a page this afternoon while the girls slept in my arms. My favorite picture is the one where she's wearing the life jacket, a ring, and sitting on the boat :) Talk about not taking any chances!!