Congratulations, Stephanie!!!

Hurray for Stephanie and Mike ( David's niece and nephew in law )

who are having a baby in September :) They have been trying for almost 2 decades now and I am sooo happy for them. They just found out yesterday, so everyone's still super excited and thrilled, and Stephanie herself is sort of shocked, but in a good way :)

Genesis 1:30

And to all the beasts of the earth
and all the birds of the air and
all the creatures that move on the ground
—everything that has the breath of life in it—
I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

R.I.P Junior

We already miss you so much

Junior had been ill for many months now, it is so sad, but we are glad he is no longer suffering.

January 29th 2008






Psalm 31:9

Be merciful to me, O LORD,
for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and my body with grief.

Weather Woes and such

The weather today is HORRIBLE

Winds are a-gusting at >40mph from the North and when I peek outside, I see our lawn chairs and even the lawn table strewn all over the place, looking very sad.

Potted plants have fallen and are looking pretty dismal in their sideways position; random trash is all over the place, and the sun is semi blocked out by fine brown dust in the atmosphere.

I try to open the side door, and have to struggle to open it against the wind.

Red Flag warnings are popping up all over the counties around us with raging grass fires going on as we speaketh.

exerpt from BigCountryHomePage.com

"Tuesday, January 29, 2008 @2:30pm

High midday winds in the Big Country have left area firefighters scrambling, toppled trees, and canceled flights. Four major grassfires were raging early this afternoon. The most serious fires were in the Maryneal community in south Nolan County and between Baird and Clyde in Callahan County. There are reports of some structures burned because of the fires, plus firefighters injured while battling these blazes. There's also a report of a major fire in east Stephens County. Another grassfire is rapidly growing in Comanche/Eastland County. It is located between DeLeon and Desdemona on Highway 16. Fire departments from Desdemona, Lingleville, and DeLeon are on the scene. Residents have been evacuated. Winds in Abilene blew over a tree north of downtown, damaging a pick-up truck at a doctor's office when it fell. Abilene Regional Airport also confirms that several flights have been cancelled because of the wind this afternoon."

Meanwhile, the dogs aren't liking it either and are howling up a storm of their own.

Cut to Witchy Music from Wizard of Oz

Also, it's dry and cold and my knuckles don't like it.




On a quirky tangent : Latest Soundtrack Craze : JUNO




Ecclesiastes 1:6

The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

Snap, Crackle & Pop and other mindless things..

It's that time of year again,

when us of the "electrifying personality" types go through the pain and agony of the dreaded static electricity phenomenon.

As if it is not bad enough to be shocked by shopping carts ( I have since begged anyone I go shopping with to PLEASE, for the love of everything good, handle the carts ), refrigerators at the grocery store ( if only there was a way for milk not to have to be in those things ), car door handles ( can't expect everyone to be chivalrous EVERY time and open the door for you ) , OTHER PEOPLE ( poor David ), cats ( they look at me like, WTH? ), etc etc the list goes on...

Recently David and I were shopping at Ross' and I tried on a pretty cute looking black vest with faux fur, and made the horrible mistake of not looking at what it was made of first.

It seemed pretty innocent when I put it on but then I decided when I looked in the mirror that I didn't quite like it on me.

Maybe that's what made it mad, because as I was taking it off, there were these loud SNAP CRACKLE POP sounds and man, I was zapped with every movement I made, on every part of my upper torso and neck. I literally had to scream at David, "GET IT OFF OF ME!!!!" and then just hurl it as far away from me as was humanly possible once the offending vest was off. I'm sure the casual observer could have seen sparks flying in all directions.

And I thought getting zapped by the shopping cart was bad.

2 Samuel 22:13
Out of the brightness of his presence
bolts of lightning blazed forth.

:P

Concert Time

Guess who's having a concert in Abilene, in March?

And guess who's going to have the ticket counter's phone number on speed dial the MOMENT the tickets go on sale?

Okay, now on to hum drum stuff and random photos

We celebrated the birthdays of like, 6 people during Bible class last Friday and Denecia made "Noah's Ark" waffles. Hehehe.

My own culinary exploits? I tried my hand at making "Lou Kai" or Braised Chicken, a chinese dish with 5 spice powder, cinnamon, shitake mushrooms, "black fungus", dark soy sauce etc etc. Didn't turn out quite so bad :)

And to top it all off, a random photo taken of the sun behind some clouds...

Judges 5:3
"Hear this, you kings! Listen, you rulers!
I will sing to [a] the LORD, I will sing;
I will make music to [b] the LORD, the God of Israel.

Agony and Ecstacy

Woe am I

who is plagued with sinus problems.

*sigh*

My sinuses hadn't acted up in a while. Sure, the cold air aggravates it, but for the last 2 days, I've been having this yucky post nasal drip and today, at times, it feels like someone's shoved a red hot chili pepper into my left nostril all the way up into my ethmoidal and frontal sinuses..

ARGGHHHH


On the plus side, my new Gorillapod SLR Zoom arrived today. Yippeeeeee :)

More Asian-Genes propelled photography trigger happiness in the very near future is foreseen :)

Matthew 8:17
This was to fulfill what was spoken
through the prophet Isaiah:
"He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases."

Letti Thursday

I don't bake very much

but on Thursdays, when I cook for the boys, with some encouragement and suggestions from David, I am usually up to trying just about anything.

Cindy tells me she usually would only serve others dishes that are tried and true, but I guess I'm the kind that goes, "well, what the hey."

Anyway, thanks to Food & Family magazine ( a quarterly magazine from Kraft Foods ), this is what I attempted today.

Letti's version of Luscious Cream Puffs

Here's the recipe ( borrowed from the kraft food website )

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (1/2 of 17.3-oz. pkg.), thawed
1 cup cold milk
1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1/2 cup thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping
1 square BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted


PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Unfold pastry on lightly floured surface; roll pastry out to 10-inch square. Cut into nine circles with 3-inch cookie cutter or rim of glass. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 min. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

MEANWHILE, pour milk into large bowl. Add dry pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk 2 min. or until well blended. Gently stir in whipped topping. Cover. Refrigerate 15 min.

CUT pastry circles horizontally in half. Spoon pudding mixture evenly into bottom halves of pastry; cover with tops. Drizzle with chocolate. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

And I made Turkey Pot Pie as the en tree.. :)

with Mango Jello

Each of you has received a gift to use to serve others.
Be good servants of God’s various gifts of grace.
Anyone who speaks should speak words from God.
Anyone who serves should serve with the strength
God gives so that in everything
God will be praised through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 4: 10-11 NCV

Moving Day

The Sanctuary/ Auditorium of our church

is undergoing renovation, and last Sunday was the last time we were going to have worship services there, until the renovations are done. First to go were the rows of chairs. ( They are going to be replaced with pews... cushioned pews, one hopes . I have plenty of er, cushioning around the mid section, but I can honestly say that I have a "bony a$$ " , which doesn't like sitting on hard wood seats for very long.. )

Everyone was encouraged to bring tools, flat bed trucks; anything they could think of to help with the removal and transporting of the chairs to a designated warehouse. The chairs are going to be sent by container to Ghana, where they will be utilized in the/a church(es) there

Here's what it said in the bulletin :

FAMILY SERVICE PROJECT-FOR ALL AGES!

As part of the month, we will have a special service project for families of all ages TODAY, immediately after the potluck meal. Bring your 7/16 inch wrench. We will be pulling up the chairs in the auditorium and loading them in containers for Ghana! Don’t miss this great opportunity to share in a special time of service together.

heave ho, guys.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention there was a Pot Luck Lunch. I still have to wrap my mind around "lunch" being called "dinner" in these parts. And "dinner" being called "supper". In Malaysia, supper was something you ate when you were hungry AFTER dinner.

Acts 9:31(NIV)

"Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee
and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace.
It was strengthened; and encouraged
by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers,
living in the fear of the Lord."

Another Auction

I had never been to an auction

until I was here in the US. I had never even been on Ebay before that!

Anyhow, the latest auction David and I went to was one where the stuff up for auction were the fixtures in a recently closed-down Albertson's store. We're always up for a bargain, so we found ourselves there early Saturday morning, among small and mid-sized business owners, as well as regular folks like us, looking to see if there would be anything useful for the home which could be gotten at a bargain basement price.

Even the wall fixtures were torn out/down

Rows upon Rows of Empty Shelves and Display Racks







Huge Compressors





Giant Props







( not to us, anyway . LOL )



Saw this written on one of the shelves for sale.
I swear I have no idea what it means.

Do I even want to know?!




Psalm 24:1
The earth is the LORD's,
and everything in it, the world,
and all who live in it;

Food Glorious Food

Here was the menu

for last Thursday's Letti Thursday with da Boyz

Grilled Chicken with Black Eyed Peas,
Toasted Garlic Sour Dough Bread
and Balled Cantaloupe

On Friday Girls' Day Out, Cindy and I ate at George's restaurant, A Taste of Asia, and Cindy had the truly awesome Beef Noodle Soup and I ordered the Luot Cha ( or something to that effect ) which was basically a very tasty version of the Malaysian Char Kuay Teow.

Beef Noodle Soup,
Char Kuay Teow
and Soupiness







Yummy Yummy Yummers...

Romans 14:17-18 (New International Version)

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking,
but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,
because anyone who serves Christ in this way
is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Christmas presents

Yay! We received Christmas presents in the mail

a few days ago. We had planned on meeting my family in California for the holidays, but a bunch of different things cropped up and we were unable to do so. So my sister rounded up all the gifts, and sent a package our way. Anyway, it was fabulous to get all the fun things in the package..

Now I have to get my rear in gear and send OURS off to them.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that
he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.

Happiness is..

It doesn't take that much to make me delighted ( I hope ! )

Television

We received our replacement lamp for the DLP TV yesterday after ordering it on the phone on Monday.

Hurray for promptness and tracking information on Circuit City's part.

David and I followed the instructions, took the back off, and replaced the lamp ourselves. David got to watch football today on the big screen. LOL

Sushi

Part of the purchases we made at Costco while at the vet's was sushi.. a party tray-full of sushi, to be exact. Hurray

Chinese Food

I always gripe about the majority of Chinese restaurants in this part of the world not being authentic enough, having tweaked their recipes to cater to local tastes. But that didn't stop Cindy and I from going to Szechuan Restaurant for lunch on Friday. The restaurant had closed its doors for over a year for renovations, and was back bigger and better. They've even made it to the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the USA list!

Happy is he…whose hope is in the Lord his God.

Psalm 146:5 KJV