We are moving the blog to a new platform tomorrow

So, I'll be blogging at Casting Stones tomorrow if I blog at all.

And now for something completely different....

Yes, I know it's been wall to wall politics around here lately but it's like the Super Bowl to a football fan. What do you guys expect me to do? Ignore it? But I promise something different this weekend like tech and maybe something else (she says with a mysterious smile :-)

So, this is my New Year's Eve celebration...

My husband, daughters, mother and father-in-law are playing Clue and I'm sitting here reading the political blogs with a head cold. Good thing politics doesn't take much deep thought, huh?

This is for my dad

Here it is, Dad.

My dad is on the Internet now and he reads the blog (I think, occasionally :-), so I told him I would leave a link here for Firefox. It's a much better browser than IE.

Dad, once you have it installed put a link to Reformed Chicks on your tool bar by using Booksmarks pull down menu (make sure you click on bookmark toolbar folder).

I finished my exegesis paper today!

Thanks for the prayers! I had a really hard time writing it for some weird reason. Usually when I sit down to write the words just pour out but this time I was struggling to find the right words. Weird! I was able to write 11 pages but unfortunately the max page count was supposed to be 10 pages and I think the professor really wanted us to keep it to 6! I was able to edit it down to 9.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day celebration with your friends and family and that you don't overindulge :-) Thankfully I don't have to cook today, my sister does Thanksgiving and I do Christmas -- it makes it a lot easier on both of us.

I thought I would share with you some of the many blessings for which I'm thankful to God:

I'm thankful that there is a God in heaven who cares about each of us and sent his Son to pay the penalty for our rebellion against him. I'm thankful he is a personal God who cares and watches over me, protects me from harm and has drawn me to him.

I'm thankful I live in a country where I can proclaim that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and that my fidelity is to him.

I'm thankful that I live in a country that acknowledges our right to believe in any god or no god.

I'm thankful for a supportive and loving family, for the love of my husband and my children and the ability to share my love with them.

I'm thankful for my brothers and sisters in Christ who travel this road with me and who share in the comfort we provide each other. I'm thankful for their support.

I'm thankful that the Lord has blessed me with a warm home and the availability of plenty of food.

I'm thankful to live in a country where we can be a blessing to others by providing for their needs when they do not have a warm home or food.

I'm thankful for this blog and the ability to share my opinions with you and to rant about the news of the day or poke fun at the politicians.

I'm thankful for our readers because I can't see investing the time if no one reads it :-) Thank you for reading our blog!

I'm thankful for each of our regular commenters, yes even the liberal commenters. I appreciate each of you taking the time to share your opinion even when you don't agree with me.

I'm thankful to the blogging community who link to our blog and to particular posts. I'm thankful for their support.

I'm thankful I didn't break my nose yesterday!

I'm thankful we can all share in one day a year where we give thanks to the Lord for our many blessings.

Psalm 50:23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!”

Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

Philippians 4:6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

1 Timothy 2:1
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people

Scarred for life!

Literally!

*sniff* *sniff*

OK, I'm 47 and I expect to have wrinkles and sagging skin and all that but I didn't expect to have this! *sniff*

So, what happened? Would you believe me if I told you that I got into an argument at Westminster over the authorship of Hebrews and it turned into a brawl? Well, it wasn't that exciting, it was pretty much your normal everyday klutzy accident. It did happen in my General Epistles and Revelation class but it involved a power cord for a laptop and my natural inclination not to look where I'm going.

I had just finished talking to the professor and turned to rush to the bathroom before class started again, tripped over the power cord, landed on my knees and hit my face on a desk. I thought I broke my nose and I started crying, "My nose, my nose, I think I broke my nose." I'm sitting there with blood spewing out of the gush in my forehead, holding my nose in case it's broken. I'm sure it was not my best moment.

One of the seminarians (who was a blessing from the Lord) who had worked with the sports program of a high school immediately came to my aid and stopped the bleeding and took me to the hospital where I was eventually given seven stitches. When I finally got to see myself in the mirror I cried (one thing in my favor, I didn't even think of scarring until everyone started bringing it up). I looked like Frankenstein's monster.

I keep telling myself that I should be thankful that I didn't break my nose (and believe me I am -- I thanked the Lord that he did let me break it :-) but it only helps a little. Mostly I'm bummed that I have to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas looking like I was in the middle of a knife fight.

It's snowing in November in NJ

I just looked out my window and saw snow! What the heck is it doing snowing in NJ before Thanksgiving? There are still leaves on the tree and we're getting snow? What's up with that? What happened to global warming?

Hey, Susan and Angela!

Could you ever see me making a bet like this? I feel his pain.

What the heck do you people think I owe you?

Please excuse the blunt tone of the title but I'm getting a little tired of the attitude of comments from our lefty readers. Here is a typical comment:

when you make a valid point counter to the group-think, there comes the move that i call "the dodge" or the one i call "the deflection" or the all too familiar "i get it, you don't, and i'm not going to try to explain it to you" excuse. the latter is michele's fav.

hang out long enough and you'll see the pattern. eventually you get used to it.

It's anonymous, of course. What this commenter fails to realize is that he isn't paying me to respond to him, there's really no incentive for me to do so. Replying to comments takes time away from other things I have to do. Since I have limited time, I will only respond to one or two iterations of an argument. If I see that it will take too long for me to respond, I won't. If I see that we are going over the same arguments, I get bored and stop responding. Sometimes I just don't have the time to continue the argument even when I really would like to do so. So, it really isn't me saying, "I understand it you don't" so there! It's more like, "I have a reason but I don't have the time to get into it because I have to study for a Greek quiz or I have to work on my exegesis paper or read the stack of books that I need to read for the final or have to use my limited time to write posts before I take my daughters to school." Or it could be, "Man! I've explained my position twice, I'm outta here." Or "There is no way I'm going to explain why I said that because it will take me three pages of explanation and I won't get a thoughtful response to it."

I have nothing to prove on this blog, I'm not your educator, nor your mom and it's not my job to help you to see my point. I don't care if you do. When I started this blog, all I wanted to do was share interesting links and have a place to vent. I'm happy to give you a place to respond and have a little dialogue but I'm not here to defend my point of view. I don't have to because I don't want to convince anyone of my point of view. It's just not that important to me.

There are probably other bloggers out there who may be interested in convincing you of supply-side economics, the reason we went into Iraq (it wasn't just about WMDs -- and don't even bother trying to engage me on that one), why we may need to do precision bombing in Iran, why the Democrat nominee will probably lose the election next year (and given my terrible track record predicting what the voters will do, it's a good thing I won't defend it :-), why Thompson would make a good president (yeah, even that -- his campaign isn't paying me to do PR), why universal healthcare would be the worst thing to happen to this nation, why an isolationist like Ron Paul is the wrong candidate to nominate during a time of global conflict, etc.

Now, as you may have notice I've only listed political positions. I'm more than happy to engage in a dialogue about religion and Christianity and I really do want to convince you of my position on that :-) But my time is limited and I probably won't keep up my side of the argument in a timely manner.

So, I'm sorry but I'm not the type of blogger who will engage in long, heated debates. I have a reason for my position on issues and I know that there are many of you who don't get it and think I'm an idiot. That's OK. I'm secure in the knowledge of my ability to understand complex issues and don't need your validation.

PMS is NOT an excuse...

for bad behavior I keep saying to my daughters.

Here's the situation at my home. Please hear me out if you are a man because it does have something for you too if you happen to be the father of a daughter.

My husband Mike and I have three girls. Two of them, Sara and Lauren, are teenage girls now and things have changed around here since they started, a-hem, menstruating.

I actually feel sorry for my husband because last month for the first time, all three of us "had the red flag flying" (our family moniker for it) at the same time! It was tough on him. Don't you just feel his pain?

We felt it necessary to lay down some grounds rules for behavior during the "time of the month".

Here they are:
1. Just because you are PMSing does not give you the right to behave badly. (I'm included in that too). Ladies, you know what I'm talking about. We sometimes use PMS as an excuse to talk nasty or snippy. We are trying, hear that, trying not to let our hormones influence our behavior.
2. Recognize the signs. They are there. Sometimes my girls don't know why they feel the way they do until we look at the calendar and see that it is almost "time". Maybe they could just lock themselves in their rooms until whatever "drama" has passed? That way nothing stupid is said. Helps keep the peace.
3. Give Dad some consideration. It's tough living with all women. Let me clue you in. On our last family vacation we went to Florida. All our girls wanted to do was shop and he wanted to fish. Sara and I actually like to fish and we were going to go but then it rained. So he never had a chance because it was time for us to go home. He left really missing the testosterone. If the girls remember that, they will hopefully be better wives.

The Lord had a purpose in giving my husband three daughters. Don't yet know why except to say it has made my husband more sensitive. And for some reason he will have to wait for son-in laws and grandsons instead.

Incidentally, this is the only other boy in our house, besides Mike:


My boy Chip. Isn't he so cute?

8 Random Facts

Anna Venger tagged me many weeks ago and I've finally come up with 8 random facts about me that I haven't blogged about yet (it took me a really long time to think of something of interest, I live a very boring life):

1. I met my husband in a bar (in my defense I went there to dance).
2 I became a Christian soon after the birth of my first daughter because I knew that she was a gift from God and he wanted me to raise her in the church.
3. I have a bachelors in Computer Science.
4. I worked in the defense field until I left work to be a full time stay-at-home mom.
5. I have no memory of most of my childhood (just vague memories of random events).
6. I hate music from the 50's and country music (my father tortured me as a child by making us listen to country music).
7. I sometimes like to listen to rap music.
8. I hate to cook and so I jumped on the chance to let Sarah (my 15 year-old) cook two days a week.