My Brother's Birthday

My brother, Gabriel, just turned 22 on Friday and we went out to the Farm Table restaurant for dinner. It was nice. I got stuffed as always. This picture was taken last year of the restaurant.. no recent photos of it. But you get the idea. This is a particial picture of a wall mural from inside the restaurant. Here's a picture of my brother and me This is a picture I took in the back part of the restaurant. It's set up kind of 60s style. This is a cool picture of an Elvis picture on the wall with his singles. The following are some pictures taken at my grandmother's house after we got done eating dinner. These are of the cake, and some of his birthday cards and gifts. This is a picture of the new go phone he got This is the sketchbook journal I gave him, since he likes to draw. I also gave him a 3 pack of pocket-sized blank books as well. Here he's holding the card I gave him And, here is a picture of the cake.

New Found Freedom by Taylor Hicks

I found this on YouTube. This was taken at the Workplay Theater in Birmingham, Alabama on 9/27/09 with the UAB Gospel Choir. I would love to have been there to see this live. This is so cool. I really think he needs to do a gospel album. I believe he could pull it off nicely. Enjoy!!

TSMS: More Beautiful You

² Your husbands will see the pure lives you live with your respect for God.³ It is not fancy hair, gold jewelry, or fine clothes that should make you beautiful.⁴ No, your beauty should come from within you—the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit that will never be destroyed and is very precious to God. (1 Peter 3:2-4, New Century Version) I really love this song by Jonny Diaz. It really stirs something in my soul everytime I hear it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. More Beautiful You Little girl fourteen flipping through a magazine Says she wants to look that way But her hair isn’t straight her body isn’t fake And she’s always felt overweight Well little girl fourteen I wish that you could see That beauty is within your heart And you were made with such care your skin your body and your hair Are perfect just the way they are There could never be a more beautiful you Don’t buy the lies disguises and hoops they make you jump through You were made to fill a purpose that only you could do So there could never be a more beautiful you Little girl twenty-one the things that you’ve already done Anything to get ahead And you say you’ve got a man but he’s got another plan Only wants what you will do instead Well little girl twenty-one you never thought that this would come You starve yourself to play the part But I can promise you there’s a man whose love is true And he’ll treat you like the jewel you are So turn around you’re not too far To back away be who you are To change your path go another way It’s not too late you can be saved If you feel depressed with past regrets The shameful nights hope to forget Can disappear they can all be washed away By the one who’s strong can right your wrongs Can rid your fears dry all your tears And change the way you look at this big world He will take your dark distorted view And with His light He will show you truth And again you’ll see through the eyes of a little girl

Cleaning Poem

I received this in an email today and thought it was cute. Cleaning Poem I asked the Lord to tell me Why my house is such a mess. He asked if I'd been 'computering', And I had to answer 'yes.' He told me to get off my fanny And tidy up the house. And so I started cleaning up... The smudges off my mouse. I wiped and shined the topside. That really did the trick... I was just admiring my work. I didn't mean to 'click.' But click, I did, and oops I found A real absorbing site. That I got SO way into it. I was into it all night. Nothing's changed except my mouse It's very, very shiny. I guess my house will stay a mess... While I sit here on my hiney.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Your Blogging Type is Unique and Avant-Garde

You're a bit ... unusual. And so is your blog. You're impulsive, and you'll often post the first thing that pops in your head. Completely uncensored, you blog tends to shock... even though that's not your intent. You tend to change your blog often, experimenting with new designs and content.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Blogthings: We'll Tell You The Truth... Someone Has To!

It's been a while...

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, but not a whole lot has been happening that's really worth mentioning. I do find it kind of funny because it seemed before when I didn't have this blog, a lot of stuff was happening, but now I can't find anything interesting to talk about. But, hopefully, I will get better at this. So, please bear with me, as I will try to update this more frequently. Thanks.

What Kind of Blogger are you?

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And you make it as entertaining as possible. You may be guilty of over-sharing a bit on your blog, but you can't help it. Your life is truly an open book. Or in this case, an open blog!

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes

Otis Williams pays a compliment to Taylor Hicks :)

The following was taken from the USA Today website under Tuesday Tidbits. -- Otis Williams, the last surviving original Temptations member, paid Taylor Hicks a compliment in a recent interview posted on turkGEEK: "I really like Taylor Hicks," Williams said when asked about American Idol. "I like his deliverance, and he can sing."

So God Agreed

I got this in an email and wanted to share! On the first day, God created the dog and said: 'Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.' The dog said: 'That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?' So God agreed. On the second day, God created the monkey and said: 'Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span.' The monkey said: 'Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?' And God agreed. On the third day, God created the cow and said: 'You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.' The cow said: 'That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years... How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?' And God agreed again. On the fourth day, God created humans and said: 'Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years.' But the human said: 'Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?'' Okay,' said God, 'You asked for it.' So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone. Life has now been explained to you.

Resisting Discouragement - Tools @ PurposeDriven.com

I receive a daily devotional from the Purpose Driven website. Today's devotion was on Resisting Disouragement. The key verse was: “So don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time” (Galatians 6:9 NLT) In the devotion he says: Ask yourself these questions: • How do I handle failure? • When things don’t go my way, do I get grumpy? • When things don’t go my way, do I get frustrated? • When things don’t go my way, do I start complaining? • Do I finish what I start? • How would I rate on persistence? If you’re discouraged, don’t give up without a fight. Nothing worthwhile ever happens without endurance and energy. I wanted to share this because I know there are many times when I am grumpy, especially first thing in the morning. Either I'll be running late, I can't find something, or I've forgotten something. So, by the time I get ready to head out the door, I just want to give up and start the day over. Usually, for me, it seems that if I've already had a bad morning, it makes for a really bad day. I also tend to complain or get frustrated easily, which is what happend to me yesterday because I couldn't get my work done. It was so noisy and I couldn't concentrate. Finally, when it finally calmed down & I could concentrate on my work, I'd got upset because someone would want to talk or ask me a question. I wasn't mean or angry with them, but I'm sure they noticed, by the tone of my voice, that I was a little upset and frustrated. I eventually had to take a break so I could calm my nerves. There have also been many times that I've tried starting a specific project and would easily get frustrated when things aren't going the way I want them to. I've wanted to give up many times, but I've noticed from past experience that things don't always go as planned, but as long I don't give up and keep trying, things will usually work itself out. Sometimes even better than I had first planned. If you'd like to read the full devotional, I've shared the link below. http://www.purposedriven.com/article.do?method=articlePage&contentId=201822 Shared via AddThis

Bible Shopping

This evening after work, I went to Books-A-Million and picked up the paperback version of the NKJV Women's Study bible. I've been looking for a good one for quite some time now, but just really haven't found on that caught my eye. They're so expensive and I really didn't want a great big one. However, yesterday, I went to this website called Christianbook.com - a great website, btw, to get discounted Christian books, movies, music, etc) because I wanted to pre-order Lysa TerKeurst's new book, Becoming More than a Good Bible Study Girl (very ironic, don't ya think?), which will be shipped out this Friday. I thought since it's still pending, I could probably add on to my order. So, before I left work this evening, I decided to do a search for some study bibles. It's nice because they are similar to Amazon in that they have previews of the books before you decide whether you want to order it or not and I really liked what I saw. So, since I decided I wanted to head over the Books-A-Million this evening, I thought I'd look it up to compare prices. Techncally, it was cheaper online, but after figuring in taxes and shipping prices, it basically came out the same, or a little cheaper. Plus, I have a discount card through the store, so that did help me out some. Now, I can't wait to start using it. I also picked up this devotional by Max Lucado called Grace for the Moment. This particular one that I bought combines both volume 1 & 2 into morning and evening devotions for each day. I really liked it because it offers a question and some empty lines to write down your thoughts. Of course, I prefer using a seperate notebook or journal because they never leave enough space for me. :) I really like Max Lucado's books, so I thought this would be a nice daily devotional. Plus, with both volumes combined into one, I didn't have to decide which one I wanted. :)

Cleaning

I spent the majority of last week cleaning my apartment. After recently visiting my friend, 2 weeks ago, I was impressed with what she had done with hers. I told her that I wanted her to come and help me do something with mine. Back at the end of April, my friend and her mom moved from a 2 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment - not her choice. So, she had to seriously downgrade and get rid of a lot of stuff - mainly 8 boxes of books (she loves to read). It took her a really long time to get it done because she works 8-10 hours/5-6 days a week and her mom has back problems, so she was unable to help her as much as she'd like to. The only time she was able to do anything was on the days she had off and sometimes in the evening when she wasn't tired. She finally got her apartment done the week of 8/16, so that following weekend (the 22nd) I finally got to see the finished project. It looked really good. Her new place is approximately the same size as mine - and I live alone. But, somehow in the past 5 years that I've been single, I have accumulated so much stuff that it was everywhere. It wasn't really messy, just very disorganized. I used my spare bedroom as a storage area for all the stuff I'm currently not using and before this past week, it looked like a tornado hit it. So, I decided to start getting stuff organized and throw stuff away. It's starting to look a lot better now, but I not completely done yet. I have a lot of stuff that I stuck in boxes to go through at a later date to decide what I need to get rid of and what I want to keep. I also have to work on my kitchen. I don't have much counter space, so I've set up a little table to put stuff on and now it's covered. I bought some storage shelves that are easy to put together and I can use it temporarily until I can find something else to use. It's a slow process when you live alone and no one to help or offer tips. So, that's basically what I've been doing. It really didn't leave much time for my internet activities or anything else, especially when working 8 hours a day. At least I do get weekends off which is nice... more time to do stuff.