Bible Mondays: What any fool can do

While looking through my dad’s Bible a few weeks ago I came across a tract with the title “What Any Fool Can Do”.  I wish I had a scanner so I could put it up here on my blog, but there was only 1 picture, and it was of a stick man with a triangle hat (like the “Dunce” hat in cartoons).  The rest of the tract had the following words that I thought I would share:

 

What Any Fool Can Do

1. Any fool can take a drink of liquor.
2. Any fool can smoke a cigarette.
3. Any fool can take drugs that are harmful.
4. Any fool can indulge in improper conduct

It doesn’t require any brains to do these things, and it isn’t very smart to copy what any fool can do.  But it does require moral courage to resist temptation, to flee from evil, to say “NO” and then to stand your ground in spite of ridicule.

 

Years ago, as he neared the end of his days, King Saul said, “I have played the fool”. He had failed in the high purpose to which God had called him.

 

As you grow older will you, too, someday say with sad regret, “I have played the fool”?

 

Sunday News: Movies Galore

My friend came to visit on Monday and we has such a lovely day together.  We played on the Nintendo Wii for a bit, then we went out for lunch.

It was rather amusing at lunch time when the waiter arrived at my table and he turned out to be one of my students from 2009.  He said he was working for the holidays to earn some spending money.  The thing about knowing the waiter's personally is that you feel you HAVE to give them a good tip.

In the afternoon my friend and I watched The Princess and the Frog, and then Hoodwinked.

Nothing exceptional happened during Tuesday and Wednesday, but on Thursday I did a little shopping for the last of the Christmas presents.  I also bought a few more DVD’s for my collection: Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, A Christmas Carol, Overcome, The Karate Kid (with Jaden Smith) and Shrek: The Final Chapter.  I have a great fondness for movies, especially Disney movies.

William arrived back home on Friday afternoon.  We watched movies during the afternoon, then he took me out for supper, finally we came back home and watched another movie.  We watched The Karate Kid and Shrek: The Final Chapter.

Yesterday (Saturday), William and I did all the errands we needed to do… Got my spare tyre on the car fixed, bought a diesel cap for my car (William lost mine), stopped by at his grandparents, and went to the farmers market.  In the evening we went to watch a 3D movie at the movie theatre, we watched Megamind.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was the first movie William and I have ever seen in 3D.  My eyes felt funny afterwards, but I’m definitely going to watch another one at a later date.

Today we have been rather quiet, William is playing Starcraft on my computer and I am watching “Sense and Sensibility” while typing this.  I am about to make sandwiches for lunch.

Tomorrow we will be driving to my hometown to spend some time with my mother.  William didn’t want me to travel alone so he is coming with me.  We will spend Christmas with my mother and family.

That is all that has been happening in my life lately!

Sunday News: Sick Week

My Week:

This week has been a rather shaky one for me.  I cannot really remember what happened on Monday.  I know that on Tuesday I did some Christmas shopping at a shopping mall.  I bought myself a few nice hats and Guitar Hero for my Nintendo Wii along with a few gifts for other people.

Wednesday is when the week stopped for me.  At around lunchtime I got a horrible fever and was in bed.  I assumed it was a 24-hour flu and stayed in bed.  I took an aspirin and got take-away food for supper, then went back to bed.  It was a horrible night.

Thursday I still had the fever as well as a few other symptoms.  I was able to sit at the computer long enough to do a search for the symptoms.  They fit perfectly with Stomach Flu or Gastroenteritis.  I did what the websites suggested and my fever broke at around 8am Friday morning.

Friday, I stayed in bed another day, since I still felt nauseous whenever I stood up for too long, and finished reading a book.  I drank plenty of fluids, the aim is to get better now.

Saturday, I got my first really good look at the kitchen – WHAT A MESS!!!! (ok, now I thought of that little Afghan dog from children’s stories).  I washed the dishes, then lay on the sofa drinking teas and watching movies.  I still felt weak, but I assume that is because of the lack of food.

Sunday,  I still feel weak, and slightly dehydrated.  I’m going to take it slow today, but I am going to do some serious cleaning.

 

In other news:

My yellow budgie, Leya, seemed really worried about me while I was sick.  I usually let her loose in the house during the day for exercise.  She kept flying into my bedroom and onto my bed to “look” at me, then she would fly out the room again. Cute pet – I didn’t know she cared!

William and my mom also kept phoning to find out how I was.  My mom is still going to be working until the 15th and so is William.  William might even have to work right up until Christmas, and that means we won’t see each other until New Years Eve.

As the plans stand, we are going to visit William’s dad at the coast for a few days from the 18th, then travel inland and spend Christmas with my family in my hometown, then travel back here around the 27th and spend New Years Eve with William’s grandparents.  This may have to change if William has to work until Christmas.  If he does I’ll be leaving on the 15th or 16th to go to my hometown and spend time with my mom and other family coming back for New Years Eve.

 

Now to get to the cleaning!

Wednesday Review: “Witches Abroad” by Terry Pratchett

Genre: Humorous Fantasy

Warnings:  Contains witches (duh), the Grim Reaper and a zombie, however the story is no worse than a Brothers Grimm tale.  If you watched Shrek or read Brother’s Grimm, then this book raises no more alarms.

 

Story:  This book takes place in Terry Pratchett’s fantasy world called The Discworld.  An elderly witch (and fairy-godmother) dies and leaves her wand to Magrat, a young and up-and-coming witch, with strict instructions to prevent a certain young servant girl from being forced to marry the Duke.  Magrat, and two other witches, then travel to a far-away kingdom to fulfil this quest having many adventures along the way.

 

Personal Opinion:  I enjoy fantasy stories, and I love Terry Pratchett’s sense of humour.  What I like about his Discworld books is that it is a completely made-up world, where anything he imagines can happen.  Even though some things are similar to the real world (for example one of the drinks in this book is a Banana Daiquiri), the entire universe is definitely 100% fictional.  He has a marvellous imagination and sense of humour.  I found myself giggling the whole way through the book, and by the time I got to the last 100 pages, I simply had to finish it.

 

Verdict:  It is a good read for anyone who enjoys fantasy stories.  The characters are detailed, and personally the book makes me feel like a child reading a fantastic fairy-tale.  It is a nice break from reality. I would compare the feel of the book to the movie “Shrek”.  I advise it for people older than 16 though, simply because of the above mentioned warnings.  The reader needs to be able to distinguish reality from fantasy.  Also, a certain level of intelligence is needed to fully appreciate the humour.

Tuesday Crafts: Gift Wrapping

 

Recently I wrapped gifts for my work colleagues.  I was feeling rather creative so I made an effort with the wrapping of these gifts.  To do this you will need:

 

Red and/or green paper ribbon

Christmas tree ornaments (I used silver balls, gold bells, and little red presents)

Wrapping paper

Gift Tags

Scissors

Sticky tape

1. Simply wrap the present with the wrapping paper, using sticky tape to hold it together.
2. Wrap the ribbon around the present and secure with a double knot, be generous with the amount of ribbon used, make sure you have at least 20cm (about 8 inches) of each end after tying the knot.
3. Tie the ornaments around the bow over the knot using the string meant to hang them on the tree.
4. Take the scissors and cut the ends of the ribbon down the middle so you now have 4 strips of ribbon.
5. Hold the scissor blade against the rough side of the ribbon with your thumb.
6. Pull the scissor blade along the ribbon.  You should hear a “shredding” sound, and the ribbon will curl.  Do this with all four strands.
7. Attach the gift tag with sticky tape so that it is under the ribbon, but the name is still visible.

Bible Mondays: Head Covering

Even though I have not said anything about this to any of my friends or family.  This topic was brought to my attention around this time last year.  After reading other blogs and forum posts on it, I decided that I would deal with 1 Corinthians 11 when I got there.

For those who do not know, I have been attempting to read the entire bible in 52 weeks… following the reading plan I found here: http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.html

Yesterday I started week 14. I saw the week ahead’s reading plan and thought “Oh my, 1 Corinthians 11 already? Well, I knew I had to deal with it sometime, here goes…”

First I read the chapter, actually the first section of the chapter (verses 2-16), then I reread it looking for a way to play the words so that “head” didn’t mean a person’s literal head, or that covering didn’t mean literally covering ones head.  Nothing I could come up with would hold in a court of law, it was written in black and white.

Next I went and looked up the Greek meanings of certain key words, trying to find a way to prove that the translation could be off.  That didn’t work out either.

Finally, I resorted to searching online for commentaries.  All the commentaries I found told me what I already knew at this point.  Here is the one that made me give up and accept what is written…

http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/4611.htm

So that’s it.  God has revealed the truth to me about head coverings.  It took some time, and a lot of head-butting, but He has made it blatantly clear, and I am going to do as He asks, in obedience to Him.  At this stage I will only be covering during my prayer time and for church, I’m testing the waters on this, one little baby step at a time.

One more thing:
I'm adding this in after the post, about a day after all my research.  It was mentioned to me (I am assuming the person would like to stay anonymous) that a woman's hair is meant to be her covering... 1 Corinthians 11:15.  That verse was the only one I had to back up that we no longer needed to cover.  Personally, I would rather be safe than sorry on this matter.  It was only around the time that feminism took it's grip on the world that women stopped wearing hats to church. Therefore I remaining with my original decision for the time being - I will cover during my prayer time, and for church at the moment.  The other thing is that I decided that I won't be covering with a cloth for church, but rather just wearing a hat, like was done in my great grandparents time.  If God speaks to me and tells me differently then so be it.

I strongly believe that each person should listen to their own heart on this matter.  Whichever way God convicts you, that is the way you should go.  I'm not saying I am right, in actual fact, I think that whether we cover our heads or not is a rather petty matter, and it should not be something that divides the church.  You, as an individual, need to decide this for yourself.

Playing House

Remember the days when we were little girls playing house?  I remember dressing my dolls, cooking food, doing the ironing, sweeping the floors, washing dishes and enjoying it.  Of course all this was make-believe with plastic toy food, a plastic toy iron and a miniature broom, but it was fun.

Somewhere between 5 and 25 all these fun things became work.  At 5 years old the concept of work doesn’t exist, except maybe the thought that daddy goes to work each day.  Somewhere around 7 years old we get introduced to homework.  At first it is fun because you are in “Big School” and you are learning new things each day.  Then we begin to realise that it is something we have to do.  And as soon as it becomes something we have to do, it stops being something we want to do.  That is when the whole system falls apart.  We start procrastinating, we begin to leave things to the last minute so that we can play now and avoid our chore as long as possible.

I thought about all of this while packing the dishes away from the drying rack.  The 5 year old version of myself would have loved this “huge” doll-house I’m living in.  (For those of you who don’t know, my home is the size of a double garage).  My 5 year old self would jump at the opportunity to get to “play house” in here.  Why has my housework become a chore?  Perhaps it is time to see the world through different eyes… the eyes of the 5 year old me.

As I continued packing the dishes away, I actually started enjoying the task.  I thought to myself “This is what I’ve always wanted.  I’ve always wanted my own home and now I have it.” My 5 year old dreams are real. Okay, I’m not married and there are no children yet, so they are almost real.

Sometimes happiness is just a change of attitude.