Resoultion position mid January

Can you handle another post on courage? It's My word of the month. It's the target I'm aiming at, the action that would change me and challenge me. Indeed it does!

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. (Charles Dubois)

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do. (eleanor roosevelt)

Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience (james freeman clarke)

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. (theodore roosevelt)

Snow Days

We had a snow day here yesterday. As in, everyone suddenly has to go to the library and get books and movies because they can't get out to go to school. I'm usually glad to go home early on those kind of days, but it wasn't to be yesterday. It was extra cold, too. It all got me to thinking about how much I normally enjoy being outdoors. When I was a bit younger I insisted on being outside all the time! Indoors was pretty boring. Those were days long before interesting things like BLOGs and computers, Ipods and I tunes. So, because I had a horse, I had freedom to roam around the Illinois countryside even in the coldest of weather. My parents got me a ski mask before the start of winter season and that was enough to keep me out riding my horse every single day even when it was 20 below zero. My girlfriend and I would ride our horses for miles. Racing and walking, talking and dreaming, watching the sky turn from a bright blue afternoon to the dark of a winter night. It was always lovely even when it was cold. My dad told me I would come to hate the winter at some point, but I know I didn't believe him! Occasionally I would try new things with the horses. I thought it would be fun to have the horse pull me along on a sled over the snow. That's when I found out that Stormy had some sort of phobia about ropes. Run a rope behind him and he went wild. Really wild. Bucking and kicking. Snorting and rearing. A person can get seriously hurt that way. Sleds, when they hit you, are dangerous weapons. Hitting snow from the height of a horse's back can still be quite hard and actually knock the wind out of you.

Cousins and brothers

My wild and wooly weekend is over. They usually fly by, and when I am looking at things in retrospect, they have really flown by! Ha. I woke up unusually sore this morning. Aching shoulders and legs. Then I remembered that I'd been trying to keep up with Phinehas for a couple of hours, i.e. keep him from falling down the basement steps or sticking something into a light socket, and I knew what the aches and pains were from. Sweet! But our house was full. That's the main thing. We ate and laughed and stayed out of the cold. Perfect time to do that.

Family Daze

I've been looking forward to having my mom here for a few weeks. She got up here from AZ on her birthday no less. Greeting her was the -10 degree temps and the biting wind and ice underfoot. Sorry about that Mom! Now you remember why you moved to Sunny AZ in the first place. I only had 2 days and was bound to make the most of it! My two brothers arrived and we shared meals and games, TV and talk. And of course to top it all off there was the grandkids. They only got here for a couple of hours but they are so full of energy! I have trouble keeping up. What a riot. Isaiah told us about his visit to his Spencer grandparents, church and meals. He is not shy when it comes to talking! I got some great pictures that I will be posting after the Green Bay game tonight. But it's been too long since my last BLOG and now that things are quiet again, I thought I'd catch up.

Dare to Do:

Wow this was a challenge for me. There are lots of things, believe it or not, that scare me. High places. The unknown,Talking to strangers,Speaking publicly,being offensive,medical conditions that may or may not affect me in later life.... so this challenge that came last night gave me some pause. What would I "Dare"? I generally analyze risks before I take them, so I'm speaking pretty broadly here. It's hard to get me out of my comfort zone. Whenever we've moved this has always been my biggest challenge, to step outside of myself, take a risk and see if I can integrate into the 'system'. If you've never moved or changed jobs or done something out of the ordinary, you might scratch your head about what i'm talking about here, but believe me, finding yourself in a new spot can create quite a dissonance. It takes me several years to get comfortable again, to stop feeling like the biggest oddball in the bunch, not to mention being the German among the Dutch. Yikes!! So now that we've been in OC for nearly 5 years I have made it back to the 'very comfortable' level again. I need to be shooken up, as it were. Out of the comfort zone again. Dare it. Find the stranger, do something out of the ordinary. Any suggestions out there?

"I will make him draw near, and he shall approach me,for who would dare of himself to approach me?declares the LORD."Jeremiah 30:20-22

walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.Acts 9:30-32

Picture taking.

I love this picture. This was taken on the fly, before I really knew anything about photography. (like I know anything now. Ha!) I was still taking things from far away. I preferred the "big" picture as it were. (I have pictures of all three of my kids on their first day of school and they are standing a football field length away from me as I get the shot. I really got the whole kid. Bother.) Anyway, back to this shot. It was taken in South Dakota on trip to the Black Hills. This truly gives you the impression of the vastness and openness of the prairie. Rarely is there anything out there to take a picture of, but there is plenty to see in this one. You can almost see the heat shimmering up too, because as I remember it was a very long hot ride! It was also taken on a a little cannon 'sure-shot' 35 mm camera. I have lots of pictures from that trip and very few of them turned out this well. Like the one of my kids, again, in front of MT. Rushmore. Well, at least I got a nice view of ALL of Mt. Rushmore. But you need a magnifying glass to figure out who those 3 people are standing in front of it!

Fun toys

A friend showed me these new widgets at adaptiveblue.com and Now I'm hooked. "What's a widget?" you ask. Well, it's the little box over on the side there that roles through lists... I really love lists. Anyway, I put up this recipe widget to start with. If you see this page becoming all widgety you'll know why! Enjoy the recipes and watch for more fun stuff!