Little Brown Mice
 
Jessi, here's another interesting story for you...
Alright so, we've been having a bit of a mouse problem at the youth centre that I'm working at. The little jerks entirely ate a package of oriental noodles, and ruined a perfectly bag of chips, besides leaving their excrements all over the place (disgusting!). I set out traps with cheese and they were talented enough to eat the cheese without setting off the trap (and were probably thanking me to be gracious enought to leave food out for them).
Anyhow I was sitting in the office with two girls chatting it up, this little brown mouse came crawling out from behind a door! Of course I chased the rodent and it ran behind a whiteboard propped up against the wall and got pinched there. So I took a glass, and got the girls to bang on the wall on the other side of the mouse so as to scare it my way and managed to catch this little mouse.
Of course once I had caught the mouse I wasn't sure exactly what to do with it, so while we were getting expert advice we watched the mouse clamber around in my large A&W mug and despite it's annoying habits, it struck me as quite cute.  So I realeased my prisoner outside into the wilderness that is a town. I actually let him go in some think grass and bushes... maybe he won't find his way back to my office...
 

Hey all,
so I haven't written in awhile, but I am setting up another blog for the famous Soap Opera, Port Caron... ok so it's famous to my friends and I, because we created it. Anyhow I started it, a link should show up soon over on the side there... although the cast was originally created to be a parody of people I know and at one point had the name of who the character was supposed to be based upon, I've omitted those names for the online posting...
And besides it creates an extra challenge, see if you can figure out who the character is supposed to be a parody of!
Anyhow enjoy!

The Almighty 'R' Word
That's right I said it, I said the R word, Religion. The word that has (in our society) become a word that resounds of stuffiness; not to mention it draws an image of people (Religious people) who are uptight and holier-than-thou. A word created by humans to be able to put boxes around our differing beliefs, not only to separate one opinion from another, but also to separate all that church (or monastery, or temple, etc.) stuff from real life.
Religion as defined by the visual thesaurus (www.visualthesuarus.com) is "a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny." Oxford Dictionary describes it as "A state of life bound by monastic (meaning simple or basic) vows; the condition of one who is a member of a religious order or rule." Or "Action or conduct indicating a belief in, reverence for, and a desire to please, a divine ruling power" So why look into the definition of a word that humans attempt to use to define what happens in our lives? Hopefully to realize that Christians really shouldn't live in the textbox, or column, that we have defined ourselves into.
What is religion? The definitions above speak nothing of the stuffiness that surrounds the word today; today it resembles an institution filled with people holding onto nothing but tradition. People who go there because it's the right thing to do, because it's what they've always done, or maybe as part of their social agenda to keep up an appearance of having the proper amount of religion in their lives; I pray that those people are not as empty as their reasons to be there, or the buildings they occupy. Religion, according to its root definitions above, is a belief that ties a life to living out what it knows to be true. Religion is described as a life changing experience. Now religion is a word with so much bad karma (bad joke I know) that some Christians refuse to use it or let others use in connection to what they believe.
So where did religion change from life encompassing to Sunday and special occasions? How did the described action and conduct disappear leaving behind traditional rituals and written doctrine? Why did we lose the heart of the law? I don't know exactly, that would involve research and deep thought; this is merely a blog rant. However, something I can see is it that it's happened before, it's happening now, and maybe it's never stopped happening in some senses, but if we aren't afraid to admit that we're on the wrong track than maybe we can make a change for the better.
Now please don't presuppose things that I haven't said, traditional rituals and written doctrines are not things that have replaced a Christ centered life, they are things that have come along with it to keep the passionate heart somewhat structured. We need the stability of those things to keep ourselves from following every heart-felt fancy that may be permissible (then again maybe not) but not necessarily beneficial. We need the structure of the law just as much as we need the heart behind it. (when I say this I don't mean that we all need to abide to a legalistic set of rules...that is a rant for another post)
But lets not get sidetracked; the point of pointing out a problem is in hopes of pointing to a solution. Some may think that it is too difficult to try and change what a majority of people may think (such as attempting to convince the world to consider a Bible College as a high standing educational institution that rivals with universities) and so have just dropped using the word instead of restoring a proper meaning to it. They give up without giving a fight, allowing the world to believe what it considers to be truth and also to pass on its misunderstood knowledge to generations to come. I don't think we should go up in arms every time someone uses the word religion in a negative sense, but we should live a life that fits the description, maybe then others will think twice about scoffing when they use the word. We need to live the religion that points to God, such as James explained, "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself form being polluted by the world." (James 1:26-27 NIV)

ok it's summer, and I start my second job in a weekish (like working both at the same time) so I have little time left to be bored... this is me being bored... I am Morpheus... yay summertime

Morpheus


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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Lettuce Wine:
To make lettuce wine you first need to obtain a full crop of lettuce (approx 3000 heads of lettuce will do).
Preferably Sleger's Premium Hydroponic Boston Lettuce, but I'm not trying to endorse any one company or anything... right so, take your crop of lettuce, harvest it and let sit in a cooler for anywhere from 3 days to a week.
Then toss the whole lot in a large bin, you could use something similar to what those french people make regular grape wine from, but out at Sleger's Greenhouses we like to use what we call a manure spreader; honestly anything with a capacity to hold large amounts of lettuce and allows the fluid to flow out of the bottom will work.
Here is the key part once the large bin is close to overflowing with lettuce have two fair maidens jump into the container and trop around in the lettuce, squishing and stomping the lettuce into oblivion.
well that was today's adventure!
Once the lettuce is properly pulverized, the juice should start flowing and you will reap the wonderful juices from the lettuce heads, bottle and store until you enjoy!

so... my four day weekend was cut suddenly short by a call from my boss, and I ended up working a full day. For the most part of the morning we ended up throwing out the crop of lettuce we just harvested this week because we didn't have any buyers for the lettuce. Although I looked far from a fair maiden in my sweatshirt, old grubby modrobes and filthy sneakers, it was quite interesting to tromp around in piles of lettuce.

The ground! It speaks to me!
alright, so... due to the superfluous amounts of rain Southwestern Ontario has been getting, my back yard in recent days has become a bog. Every time I walk out to the trampoline or to the garden it slurps, and slooshes, and gurgles all around me. Imagine it's like walking through a very green bowl of very lazy bowl rice krispies (so instead of a nice crisp pop, it's a half hearted gurgle).
Well due to the fact that I have a four day weekend (the lettuce business is kind of slow) I have all the time in the world to sleep and dream down right crazy dreams. Last night I had a dream that I was checking into the Ramada Inn (which had an Old Navy store in it's foyer). Why was I checking into the Ramada? For my honey moon of course... but there was one problem with that, I was checking in all on my own! It's kind of hard to go on a honey moon if there's only one of you! ok... the dream doesn't end there (aren't you excited?) So I check into my hotel room and browse the wonderful accomodations, started to unpack and jump on the beds... (yes there were two beds in my hotel room on my honey moon, a queen size and a twin for some reason) So the bedroom was nice... not exactly what I would hope as my honey moon suite, but as I'm unpacking I think to myself that I didn't actually remember going through the normal checkin process, in fact I'm pretty sure I didn't have a room key, the door was already open when I came to it... So I'm standing in this hotel room on my honeymoon all by myself thinking "crap I'm in the wrong room!" And sure enough as always happens when you're in the wrong room on a honeymoon by yourself, the people who are really supposed to be staying in my room come along.
I frantically attempted to pack up my stuff and neatly remake the bed, all the while fighting to keep my eyes open (I guess I was super tired in my dream) and once I had vacated the room for it's real oocupants, I made my way down to the lobby (luggage and all) to really check in. I went down to the desk and explained to the clerk that I had reservations and that I was on my honeymoon (why is it they call it that anyhow?) Of course I felt the need to explain why it was that I was by myself and told the lady behind the counter that I had been married earlier that day and my husband was coming a little later... and then I thought myself "... wait a second... I'm not married!..." but I didn't say anything else, and the lady really didn't do anything to help me get to my room, so I started to wander around and some bell boy, who looked not quite unlike a very snobby version of Christopher Loyd, helped me. But the weird part is he didn't check the data base, or look me up somewhere in the records. Just looked at me pulled a fancy envelope (they seemed to use that for all their room keys) from his jacket pocket , and told me to follow him to my room. So my dream ended with me chasing after him asking how he knew where my room was without knowing who I was... I'd like to say it's something I ate, but all my dreams are this odd... usually weirder and less structured.

I found out yesterday that my brother is in the hospital, he has heart palpitations, but the doctors aren't sure why and cannot run any tests until Tuesday... on top of that they discovered that two of his vertebrae are fused together in his neck. So all in all he is having a lot of physical difficulties, if I could have y'all pray for him, I would really appreciate itpray for healing and for God to strengthen him through this.
My brother had just started going back to church, he hadn't been going, or praying, in a long time, and knew in his heart that it wasn't right. He is trying to restore his relationship with God... feels kind of like the devil is attacking my brother in his righteous attempt
His wife isn't exactly open to the idea of going to church, feels quite opposed to it in fact. Also, my family doesn't really have a lot of deep spiritual discussions... I mean I have discussed on occasion with my siblings topics of Biblical principles, sometimes they have questions about how to interpret some difficult passages, but it's not exactly an open topic. When I talked to my brother on the phone today he kept bringing up passages that he didn't understand, while my Father and I did our best to explain what they meant. And my Father and Mother were openly going to both of our Pastors to talk to Nick and to ask for prayer... so prayer is also needed that God could use this to draw my family (including my sister-in-law) to himself. That God could use this situation for His good in any way he can.
Alright I had better go, thank you everyone for your prayers!

well, today is the end of an incredibly short work week, especially compared to what I had worked the past couple of weeks, and now as I'm sitting on at the computer at home it is now storming. The rain is sputtering down upon the house the thunder is rumbling loud enough to almost cause the floor shake (and it has rumbled that loud before) with a few sparks of lightning here and there. It's almost as if Ontario is trying to make up for all the rainstorms I missed while out west within the first month that I'm home... it's rained that much lately.

Well my life hasn't really been that exciting but just for Jessi I will attempt to tell you some anecdotes of my life here for what I hope, and honestly believe to be my last summer at my parents house. I think it has become imperative now, I realized within the these past few weeks that my parents still percieve me as their little baby... Seeing as I'm the youngest child, and my oldest sister still lives at home, I can somewhat understand how this misunderstanding of me still being a child can happen.

Right anyhow, an anecdote for Jessi... ok right so I have to shower in the downstairs bathroom(something about the upstairs one is leaking throught the caulking). But in the Bathroom downstairs is this giangantious print of a photo of John Lennon's head (it's a half metre wide and 3/4 of a metre tall...) right outside of the shower stall. Not only is this mans giant head outside of the shower but the way his face is posed his eyes look directly into it.... so the point is, everytime I get out of the shower there is a man staring at me.

ok so! thanks to my dear friend Sarah I have found a website that has allowed me to upload and link this loverly backdrop to my blog... so also thanks to photobucket (write that down incase you ever need to create a link for a photo... www.photobucket.com)
alrighty, many things to do so must be going...

well it seems that the new photo I put on my site isn't uploading... and hp photo no longer allows you to make links to photos (jerks!) sooo, I'll try to figure that out soon

So instead of going to bed like I should of last night, after I pulled myself away from this computer, I went outside. I sat outside watching the stars for the first time in the fortnight that I've been home. That's one thing I love about this place the still clear nights. I used to lie in the cool damp grass, which was a great way to cool off when the hot humid air sits in the air. Last night I actually sat down on a trampoline (it's not that hot yet, don't need to cool off) The wind softly brushed though the leaves on the popular trees, causing a sound similar to the ocean; the water swishing and crashing around. To add to that the frogs were singing beautifully, loud and clear their sweet harmonics filled the air... who could ever imagine green slimy creatures making such a pleasant sound. As I laid down on the trampoline and stared into the sky, the sky that I always remember wherever I go, the stars burned are burned into my memory. There weren't as many as I have sometimes seen, sometimes they litter the sky so thick there isn't any breathing room for them... Still it was clear and bright, and more than you see any city. As a sigh escaped from my lungs, a sigh from being relaxed and peaceful, off in the sky a star shooting star fell through the black backdrop.
hmph, on the other side working in a hot greenhouse on very little sleep is not a fun time... oh well, it was worth it.

hi everyone,
it's been a few days and I haven't written anything of depth lately but, here is the short story I promised, it's there under the links (At Chains End)... and I'm having a difficult time writing this post seeing as I have a bunch of people on msn that I haven't talked to in a while... and it's getting late. Anyhow, I also chose a winner for my new blogskin, which is also over there. It wasn't up with the others, sdez just showed it to me tonight... I liked it immediately, she always has good taste. Righto it may be awhile before I get around to changing all this, but hopefully soon. Arg my contacts have been sticking to my eyes for an hour now... (which means my eyes are tired and want the peices of plastic I shoved on them, for copious hours and through all kinds of conditions, off) Ok so before I go, I want to share with a deep learned lesson I discovered the hard way while i was gardening today.
I discovered that the best way to not have mint take over your garden is to not plant it at all. Even if you planted it on the other side of the lawn I'm pretty sure given a few years it could make its way back to inhabiting your garden... wait, that gives me an idea... i wonder what a lawn of mint would be like, your feet would always be minty fresh!
ok time for bed, gnite folks

to keep it short and sweet, disqualified #7 and put up #8... I like it I think because I like butterflies... hmmm

mmkay, so #2 has been kicked off the list, and yes Michelle frames do suck... but I really like 6 and 7 which both have frames... well I'll keep my eyes open maybe something better will come along, or maybe I'll go with #1. I promise I'll write something deeper than the athestics of my blog in awhile. I'm actually working on posting a short story which will up in about a week, it will be a link over on the side there as 'At Chain's End'... I'm thinking about starting another blog just for poetry.... it's a thought.

ok well the race is on, I've already decided to disqualify competitors 3 and 5... three, I've realized is much too simple. And five, well five is much too wide.... don't know why he made it so wide... maybe it was meant for larger screens... i don't know... any how, I'm sorry for those of you who didn't get to see them, but it really doesn't matter seeing as I will have the ultimate decision in the end; I just really like know what you think! Righto I added two new ones to replace the ones that were disqualfied.
Oh and dez... were you referring to the yellow one with the stars? I just really like yellow...