And the winner is...

TraciHux!!! Congratulations Traci for knowing this week's line was from John Cougar Mellencamp's "R-O-C-K in the USA". Read the lyrics for the whole song here.

It's Back - 80's Mystery Song Lyric

Back by popular demand, the mystery song lyric of the week! Read the line(s) below and be the first to correctly identify the which 80's song and artist it's from! Email your answer to me and I'll post the correct answer and winner later on!

They come from the cities
And they come from the smaller towns

Hungry-Israelite Thinking

Shortly after God led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, they started complaining that life was better back in slavery than on their way to the promised land. Every time I read this I think how ridiculous these people are. They just witnessed God instantaneously starting and stopping all these plagues in response to Pharoah's actions. They just saw Him hold back tons of water so they could cross a sea only to see the waters suddenly released to swallow up their pursuers. And at that time they praised God for doing these things. But a few weeks later we find them grumbling in hunger: "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt!". How fickle! Where's their faith? Don't they remember what God did? Don't they know what God is doing?

Those are my usual thoughts about the Israelites. Today I'm not quite as harsh on them. The last couple of weeks, anyone who cared (and some who didn't) listened to me go on about how excited I am to be leading worship for my Bible study and how God has been using that to strengthen my faith, to trust Him more, to pray more, and on and on. He has made Himself so evident to me in so many little ways, it has been amazing. And, the worship times have been going amazingly great. Well, today's worship time was a little off--nothing went wrong, it just wasn't amazing, like the last few weeks have been. That's all it took for me, like the Israelites wanting to go back to Egypt to die because of a little hunger, all day I've been battling these thoughts about how terrible today went (it wasn't terrible) and how ridiculous it is for me to be doing this (I know this is where God wants me). Occasionally I remember my excitement from just yesterday. That helps. Then I realized that I was acting like the Israelites in the desert. How fickle! Where's my faith? Don't I remember what God did? Don't I know what God is doing? No, I don't always know what God is doing, but I do remember what He did. And I'm going to have to operate on that, not on my irrational hungry-Israelite thinking.

My Husband's Poetry

Usually I reserve this blog for my own writing but tonight I make an exception. My dear husband who gave me my shiny new iPod (on which I'm currently listening to Relient K "For the Moments I Feel Faint"--great song) accompanied the gift with a card with a cute inscription that I publish here with his permission. I hope you get as good a chuckle from it as I did!

If you wish the sun to stop its shining, and this would bring you delight, then I shall take hold of it, and fight with all my strength 'till it succumbs to my might. If a single flower should curl but the corner of thy mouth into a smile then I shall search to the ends of the earth and give you enough to strethch a mile. If this gift should be what you desire and it will bring you joy, then I shall go to Amazon.com and click buttons as they have never been clicked before and choose super saver shipping to have it delivered to thy door.

Long Time, No Blog

I thought I was going to start posting more often once I got into a normal routine with all sorts of stuff starting up for the fall. I actually did pretty well for about a week... and then dropped the ball. Well, let's try again. Here's a sampling of what I've been up to:

• It's football season and that means one thing: Fantasy Football! Watching football is just more interesting to me if I have some personal stake in it. This is my family's second year of having our own little Fantasy League (through Yahoo! Sports). I'm ranked 4 of 8 right now but should be moving up after tonight's game!
• I've been leading worship for the Women's Bible study I attend. Between picking out songs, practicing guitar, practicing with my team (one on piano plus two more vocalists), and then other setup type of things, this has been keeping me pretty busy--but I am having an absolute blast doing it!
• I've been keeping up on house-cleaning a little better than usual--though there's always more to be done!!!
• New to my small but growing collection of electronic gadgets: a black iPod nano. I've been loading music on there and, of course, listening as well!

5 Words

I've been tagged again! I love this stuff. This one's a word association thing. Here are the five words I was given (by April) and the first words that came to my mind:

Guitar - strum
Paper - shred
Laundry - basket
Shoe - repair (though I've never had a shoe repaired!)
Slap - face

I'll tag Pat, Jules, and Cheri. Here are your five words:
Pear
Beyond
Blue
Calculator
Shrub

WWII Correspondence

Here's something you'll want to read. I can say that confidently because I'm about the least likely to enjoy this sort of thing, and, yet, I can't get enough. Carl Schaad of Blog Hero has been posting a set of letters from WWII one by one. Each personal letter is written to a man named Charles and signed Margaret. You can read all about how he found the letters here. Then catch up by reading the first few here. (Scroll to the bottom to read the first one first!) He's posting one a day and there are 31. I've never cared for "history", but it is beyond interesting to me to read about individual people who lived in the past.

Number Fun

Over at Math Trek I read about this Number Gossip site. You can enter your favorite number(you do have a favorite number, don't you?), up to 10000, and find out all the properties about that number. There are all these properties that I'd never heard of before tonight, most of them with names that peak your curiosity: happy, hungry, lazy caterer, and apocolyptic powers to name a few. Fortunately, they are all defined so you can figure out how to calculate the properties of all your favorite numbers greater than 10000 on your own!

Ask A Ninja - "Summer Jobs"

Upon occasion, I visit askaninja.com. I love this stuff. If you haven't seen any of them before check this one out. I can't get enough of this--it's hilarious!

It's a Party!

Yesterday we had a construction-themed birthday party for my now-three-year-old. It was first shot at planning a kids' party where the birthday boy and guests actually understand what's going on. I'm really against the whole invite-every-kid-your-child-knows, impress-the-kids'-parents, rent-a-bounce-house-clown-ice-cream-truck-marching-band kind of party for a three year old child. I loved the simple birthday parties I had growing up and want to make the same kind of memories for my children. So I decided on making it a construction party since my boy loves tools, and my husband and I had a great time coming up with names for the food and decoration ideas. We went to more effort than I had planned on, but not overboard. Everyone there had a great time including me. Here are some pics:

Three three-year-olds. (Birthday boy on right.)

Tool "tattoos"

Build-your-own hotdogs

Dirt cake (which is neither dirt, nor cake)

And the winner is...

April again!!! I also give an honorable mention to my sister Cheri who, in the past, has commented that she never gets any of the lyrics but would if I posted a line from this song. Both girls recognized the mystery line was from "We Built This City" by Starship, once voted the worst song of all time.

80's Mystery Song Lyric

Okay, I can't miss two weeks in a row. So here's this week's lyric, as late as it may be...

Say you don't know me or recognize my face

Email your answer (title and artist) here. I'll post the answer and winner later!