Les Célébrations!

Today has been odd. Some confusing & disappointing news at church. Can't talk about it here, sorry. Pray, because I have the feeling that it's not over yet. There has been so much good going on that I'm hoping that this attack will not hurt the group.

But there is always something good among the bad. One of the girls was very encouraging to me, and she probably doesn't even know it. I think I'll have to call her. A couple at the church is also hoping to start volunteering soon...there are one or two things that have to be taken care of first, but I know that if this is something God wants then He will bless it and everything will be taken care of. He is so gooood!

We're going to have a party over here soon. Just a few friends & some siblings coming over to spend time together, visit, play games, & enjoy some Creekbend champagne from Oliver Winery. (Haven't tried it yet, very excited!) Although I still have to find a website that will have the ball dropping on a live feed. I just don't think PBS will have it. Just a feeling.

In other news, I'm almost at 1,000 hits!! Whoo hoo!!! I'm very excited. Really hoping it happens tonight before midnight. I can't believe I'm already near 1,000 hits when I've only had this blog for 6 months. Thanks to all who read, comment, and give feedback. (If you don't do any of those things, just visit often, you're appreciated, too.) Hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Go spend it w/ someone you love. ^.^

Stir Fry "Made Easy"?

I've heard it, you've heard it, we all have. Question is: is it true? I love Chinese food. Thai, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, they're all ranked high on the list of food Petite never gets tired of. Honest!

What I miss is its easily accessibility. When I was in Taiwan, all you had to do was walk about 3 blocks and you were surrounded by street vendors selling just about any sort of food you could crave. And the best part was you could fee yourself & 3 friends for CHEAP!! I think we often feed (more like stuffed) 4 of us for about 5-8$ US. Good times. Times I've looked to recreate and mostly failed here in the States.

Well, enough reminiscing. Truth is I'm determined to learn how to stir-fry. Yes, this is a challenge. I understand intuitively the combinations & pairings of European spices, but just cannot figure out Asian ones. I know it's mostly from inexperience, but I'm tentative while learning, afraid to try new variety/combinations since I don't know the flavors & consequences as well, and I'm afraid of not being quite sure how supper will come out.

Last night we tried out our new Wok (brand: Taylor & Ng) that Mari found at a local foods store. (I love where we live - we have at least 4 specialty cooking stores all within 15 miles of each other!! ^.^ ) It has a natural non-stick surface...I think that involves some sort of special pre-seasoning. We visitied one of the locally owend Asain food stores here, Saraga, to pick up a few items I consider to be essentials to any Asian dish. Supper was stir-fried chicken, fresh ginger (sliced thinly, for more flavor), bok-choy (two heads for 0.47¢!), some lemon peel, and sesame seeds. Of course, spice to taste - while cooking or in your own bowl - with some red pepper paste (found about anywhere). Mari liked it. I thought I should have used pork instead of the chicken! lol I can't help it, all the wonderful flavored pork I had in Taiwan makes me, in some wierd sense of the word, "homesick".

Can one be homesick for food from a country you've never lived in?? lol I think so!

If anyone has any ideas or family secrets for fun, tasty, & easy to make Chinese food, please share!! So often the recipies I find in cook books just don't seem "authentic" enough...and I'm dying for some real, hard core, authentic Chinese!!

Cadeaux Favoris

So, as promised, here is some more "seasonal" material. Christmas was a blast here. Mari just couldn't wait to get to open his gifts (literally; started asking last Friday!!) But it was worth the wait.

What was his favorite? Good question. He liked them all so well, it was a hard choice for him, really. He honestly made out like a bandit this year. His silly gift from me was this Hallmark penguin ornament. Yes, penguins. Mari has been obsessed w/ penguins ever since we saw March of the Penguins in theaters. It's adorable....see? And it moves, too!! You pull on this little ice burg on the side and they all move like they're really having a snowball fight. I can tell it's going to be one of our best ornaments ever.

His other gifts were a Hershey's chocolate fondue & Smore's maker (no kidding, you'll see pics for New Year's, I'm sure) and a set of patio Grape Lights. (Remember that post from our anniversary trip? Well, they're not quite like those, but they're close & they look great!) Yes, they were hard to find. Yes, he loves them. They're going to be hung in our kitchen tomorrow. (He actually has the day off work! yea!!)











Me?? Well, besides seeing the look on Mari's face when he met his new penguin pals, my favorite gift was probably the photo frame he put together of some of our best wedding pics. It, I might add, is already hung. A close tie was the Korean wall hanging that mon beau-frère gave us. It's gorgeous, don't you think??

Oh, I also got a new Hello Kitty ornament. My hubby is so good to me. ^.^

Erin, thanks for the idea. :) Hopefully I'll get pics up tomorow. (Once the adventure of hanging grape clusters in the kitchen is over!! lol Who knows how that'll go??)

15 min of Fame!

I just had to write this. :)

Got home after much holiday celebrating, doing the end of day "see what's been happening on my blog" routine. Saw that someone had been referred here by the Fanatic Cook. Now, I refer to Bix all the time, but I've never been referred to by her. Had to check this out.
Sure enough, there I am! ^.^ (Of course, to understand this post, you'll have to read her previous one on that topic, as well as my comment.)

Thanks, Bix, for all the fun and for my 15 minutes of fame!

Ok, more holiday & other news tomorrow...

I love Christmas

It's not the gifts. It's not the decorations. It's the family. Of course, I love all of the other things, too (& the time spent remembering the Gift God gave), but the time together is what I cherish the most. Family who lives away comes together, and food, fun, and laughter are abundant.

At the moment Mari & my beau-frère are playing the old school Mario game on Mari's original Nintendo. I'm amused just sitting and watching...very funny. They're both over 30, but they're still kids at heart.

Don't worry, more fun & stories to come...I'm sure! ^_^

Lazy Holiday Weekend

Well, you can tell the holidays have arrived. People are obviously having more time to surf! Just have to say that before noon today I had hits from these places (no, this is not including those cities whose residents I know personally):

• Villers-ls-Nancy, Lorraine, France
• Cheam, Bromley, UK
• Chiu-lung-ku-ch'eng, Hong Kong
• Baku, Baki, Azerbaijan
• Elmsford, New York
• Hillside, New Jersey

I was amused. Thought you all might be, too. No, I didn't know where Azerbaijan is, but apparently it's somewhere between the Mid East and the Caspian Sea. Yes, I'm very excited about this!! :D

To all those out there, thanks for the visit!

Whoa - response

Y'know, I've been thinking about this post for a long time. First, thank you to all who gave input and comments. It means a lot to me to know I'm not the only one who asks these sorts of questions and seeks answers from my Father.

Anyway, I've tried and tried to think of what to say, and a lot of prayer has centered around this topic. So, I'd like to respond to a few things concerning the previous' posts' video. Please understand that this is what God has taught me so far, but my lessons will never be over until I am Home and sitting at the feet of my Daddy. Then & only then will I have that true and perfect understanding of God and His ways that I so long for here. This is written in love, and not meant to offend any. If you are offended, then please pray and ask God why He would not let me get away with not responding in this manner. Here is what I feel I must say:

It's so true that Christians forget that others have at least some understanding or perception of who or what God is, & perhaps more of them are closer than we think. Christians do get caught up in all our terminology and knowledge that we forget our whole goal: to be a witness for Him whom we love.

However, I personally am not convinced about seeing this young man in heaven solely based on the information we have in this video. There are a few verses that I'd like to share concerning what evidence I have here.

"You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder."

-James 2:19

"For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."

-Mark 8:38

"My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples."

-John 15:8

I don't know about you, but some of those words scare me. Acknowledging that God exists is not enough - He wants our lives, He wants our love, He wants a commitment from us. If we say we love another human being, but never do anything to show that love, no one would ever believe our love. If I told Mari every day I loved him but never did anything to prove it (never talked to him, never spent time w/ him, never listened to what he said, never shared any part of my life with him other than the token "I love you"), do you think Mari would be able to keep up this relationship by himself? Of course not!

It seems to me that God kind of expects the same thing out of us. Being a Christian has everything to do with our commitment and our lifestyle, it has actually little to do with the words we say at any point in our lives. (Of course words mean a lot, too, but they're not everything.) I told Mari on our wedding day that I would love him until death do us part. However, if one day I renig on that commitment, the question people should be asking is not "Why don't you love him that much now?" but "Was the commitment you made with him a real one?"

Please understand that I am not attempting to judge him; I hope as much as everyone that somewhere, somehow God will or has touched his life and he will know the love and hope I do. But I am not the one to make the decision of this man's heart - that is God's:

"For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

-Hebrews 4:12

"But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as mans sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

-I Samuel 16:7

God loves you. He loves everyone. And He knows your heart. He "is not willing that any should perish, but that all might come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)" He doesn't just want your head to be filled with knowledge of Him - Faith and love are what He is all about, those conditions of the heart that last forever.

So, the question still remains: Do you believe?

And if you claim to be a Christian, then the question is even more difficult to answer: Are you living a life that your Lord can look at and declare "Well done"? Life is a hard journey, and the expectations are high. Where is your trust and hope? Who's strength are you turning to to accomplish the race?

So sad...

yep, that's me. Sad. Sad & busy. Why? Well, we finally got our Christmas tree on Wed and decorated yesterday. Why not before? Well, that would be the busy part. We won't go there, it's too much. Shopping has also been a small issue to do lack of time to actually browse through stores.

Not only have I been too busy for gifts, I've been too busy this week to blog! I'm dying to get the time. This is all I really have time for the moment (I should really be in bed, tomorrow could be emotional for some of the teens still b/c of no more Big T). But I hope to finally do something tomorrow. I'm actually becoming determined as we speak...and you know what that means.

Also hope to finally respond to all of your comment on "Whoa". I've been giving it thought when possible (usually in the car driving), and I think I have an answer to my own questions...and maybe some of yours.

9 days and counting!!!

American English

Found this online. So of course I'm gonna post it - hello! Languages!! :D And it's so much fun to laugh at American English! tee hee!

What do you think? Did it peg me? I couldn't decide what to put for Q#7, and apparently it does affect my results. Do I call the topping on a cake icing or frosting or both? I put "both".

Yeah, I'll get around to posting serious stuff again soon. Just couldn't resist this one. ^.^

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

10% Midwestern

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Dixie

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Fini!

Yep, that's right! J'ai fini mon course! ^.^

I turned in my portfoilo at 18h00 tonight, which included all the work I'd done in the class and one last 6 pg paper. You should see the thing - all that work completely fills up a 1" 3-ring binder! Dang. Who knew Grad school included so much work? Shawn, you lied, man. "No homework" my butt! ;) Just the "extra" readings (aka not from the actual text book) filled up a 2" binder!

Not that I'm complaining in the least. First of all, the reading could have been horribly boring. I loved the class. I will actually miss it. And that's a first for an Ed class! ;) lol

Whoa

Found this on a friend's site. I'm still digesting the content; it took me by surprise, so I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to think. You'll have to watch it to see what I mean.

Oh, and please listen carefully to everything said, and wait out till the end.

Wondered what you all might think about it?

Crazy Day - Again!

Yes, and I mean it. I'm just hoping it'll end now and not go into a crazy weekend!! :(
Don't need it. Don't.

Wake up. Realize I need to get some anti-biotics for a minor infection. It's not biggie, but that means one more thing to add to this crazy week. I got ready for school this morning all the while listening to the wind howling outside. It was loud! I have no idea just how strong the gusts are, but when I was walking up to the building from the lot, I about got blown over! This awful wind is still going on. It's part of a strong front moving through making things really cold. I hate being cold. :( I so wanted to stay at home with a cup of tea and a blanket today.

At school today, the power goes out just after 10:00am. 2nd period was almost over, so that meant that those kids had to just sit and stare at me for a while. Actually, several of them found ingenious ways of entertaining themselves. "Monkey in the Middle" in a dark and somewhat abandoned school hallway is apparently rather amusing. (No, I don't usually let kids do things like this, but they're good kids and it was one of those "unusual" circumstances which demand flexibility. What else was I to do??) We had to wait for an announcement from the admin to either got the power on again or made the big decision to send everyone home. Sadly, the latter didn't happen. We ended up waiting for an hour before we heard anything (I so wanted my tea and blankie by this point!), but it wasn't what we expected. They were dismissing students for an early lunch. Yeah, so you'd think that would mean they'd given up and were gonna send us home, but nope! They got the power on again at the end of that first wave of lunch. So, now, what do they decide to do with the messed-up schedule? Well, "go to your regular lunch" - I got two lunches today!! lol

Needless to say, the afternoon wasn't exactly a success. Plus, the students I had in my afternoon classes were involved in a project going on during all the lunches, involving cleanup afterwards. Translation: more than half of the students were missing from both my p.m. classes. Now isn't that fun?? I had to adapt the lesson plans for this, too! lol Busy, busy!! But things went well, and the kids that were there are good kids and I hope they enjoyed the class as much as I did talking and working with them.

Ok, that's enough of that. I'm home now, going to cook soon. Not sure if I want to brave the elements tonight for a free dance, but maybe....maybe.

p.s. I forgot something yesterday, so I've added it to yesterday's post.