Homework...

So, I have been pretty vocal about the fact that Oscar and I studied up before getting married. In fact, we had books to read and homework to do every weekend (monitored by myself of course). Just to make sure we were prepared for the plunge.

We've taken the plunge and it has been wonderfully refreshing. But, I think we are almost ready to take the next even bigger even more serious even more life changing plunge. That is expanding our family. Imagine me gasping in excitement, because, I AM excited.

But, there are a few major things we need to have in place before trying to conceive. Including adequate savings. So, us, almost taking the plunge means, we'll probably start trying in a year or two. :)

What does that mean??? HOMEWORK!!!

There is so much to learn, not only about pregnancy, but about raising healthy children, teaching multiple languages, disciplinary techniques, food making, etc. Might as well start collecting and studying information now, so I am more ready in the future.

Book 1: Birth to Five by Brenda Nixon

It's less than $2 minus shipping and supposed to be excellent.

Oh Forgiveness...

Oh Forgiveness..... It is so essential to a happy life, a fulfilling life. A life that God taught us to live.

These verses are good ones to commit to memory.

Although, I haven't memorized them. They have been popping into my mind when Oscar does something I want to judge.

I heard a sermon recently about the saying, "Love the sinner, Hate the sin." He said, he despises that saying. And would much rather it be, "Love the sinner, Hate your OWN sin." Some other passages that show how much Jesus wanted us to examine ourselves before condemning others.

How practical this is to married life. :)

Matthew 6:14-15 (New International Version)

¹⁴For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Luke 6:41-42 (New International Version)

⁴¹"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴²How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

John 8:2-11 (King James Version)

²And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.

³And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

⁴They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

⁵Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

⁶This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

⁷So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

⁸And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

⁹And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

¹⁰When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

¹¹She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

It's Life.......

Oscar wakes me up before the sun rises. I make him his lunch for school and then drive him on over to the University.

On our drive, sometimes we chat, laugh and goof around. Sometimes we talk about dreams we had last night or our dreams for the future. Sometimes the radio is off and Oscar is studying. Sometimes we argue about how I drive. :)

Then I come back to a house full of kitties. On good days, I clean, exercise and do some work on the computer. On bad days, it seems like nothing gets done.

Then I head off to work. I work my 8 hours, pick up Oscar from school and back home we come to eat dinner and go to sleep. Then the day starts all over again.

I have a charming life. Sometimes, I love it. Sometimes, I hate it. Sometimes I am so incredibly proud of Oscar that he is working so hard on his schoolwork. Sometimes, I am absolutely annoyed that I have to work and he just goes to school. Some days he works in the morning before I drop him off. He makes more than 4x as much money as I do per hour. So, if he works just 5 hours a week, he almost makes as much as I do in 40. How is that possible? Taxes, I guess. :) His come out at the end of the year.

It's life. I love it, I despise it. Right now, I love it. Mostly, I love it. Mostly, I make happiness. But, I have those days where I am selfish, materialistic, overwhelmed and unhappy. Today is Monday. I love Monday's. Oscar is already at school. And well, it's time for me to get some stuff done.

Until later,

Black Swans

For thousands of years, it was believed that swans were only white. This was believed because white men had only seen white swans

When the first explorer came to Australia and saw a black swan this belief was debunked.

The Black Swan Theory (in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's version) concerns high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events beyond the realm of normal expectations

Haha. Why is my blog so random?

Pretty much in a nutshell, which I won't even go into. The Black Swan represents proof of miracles.

The Life of a Hermit

How easy it would be to just stay home all the time? I mean, I am practically there. I do things with Oscar and my family, and I work and I go to Oscar's Basketball games and I sometimes go to church on Sunday.

Its not even bad. I mean, I like it. Keeping friends is so difficult. And making new friends.... turns out my social skills are not in tip top condition. For example: I am amazing at talking to people at random places, and even at group adventure type events (that Oscar and I go on), but actually making FRIENDS, oooh, somewhere I kind of failed at that point. Where are all these wonderful people, and should I just carry a card around with my name and number? Occupation: Potential Friend. lol. When you do find someone at the grocery store (or wherever) who is fun and you click with, when do you give them your number? And if you are a complete homebody when do you invite them over?

mmmm. Guess I need a little lesson on friend making. Actually, I think I just need motivation. And then I need to let it be natural and not expect anything. And I need to "Just Do It!" Maybe I will carry a card around, but most likely a pen would be better. Then an invitation to do something with them. I think that's all it takes. Maybe you will start a new friendship, or maybe you'll never see them again. But, who will know if you don't try.

Some Food

Found this picture for an article I am writing. It's entitled 'Some Food'

And its description says, "eating of that food of life."

Its posted on Flickr by Rushay


The second one is called "My Source"

Morning Miracle

Have you ever gone to sleep in a foul mood and woke up feel amazing?

It is the weirdest sensation ever and all I can do is THANK GOD. Last night. I couldn't sleep I was so grumpy. But, I finally did fall asleep..............

And I have woken up refreshed, optimistic and happy with THIS song in my head. More than feeling loved, I felt love for those around me. Wonderful.

Aging Beautifully

Why does our culture assume old is ugly? I've been watching some old movies lately and most of these vivacious young men and women prancing about on screen have passed away. In fact Katharine Hepburn died at 96 in 1993. We all get old, and we will all die. Yet, we live in such denial of it. In fact, we are already getting old. One of my friends posted on Facebook, "Today is the youngest you will ever be." (Although, I'm sure she was not thinking of eternity). 100% of people die. I have 21 year old friends saying they are old. My mom turned gray in her early 30's - my sister will turn 27 next year, I will turn 24. We can never turn back time on this earth. I think the way to age beautifully is not through skin care or makeup, but about attitude. I also tend to think elderly is beautiful. If I live long enough, I will try to embrace wrinkles, sun spots and graying hairs as battle scars, marks of experience and evidence of life lived. Shame on this culture for refusing to respect elders and for idolizing youth. Life goes by like a blink of an eye. Surprisingly, the year is on its way out and its almost 2010. As much as it shocks us, lets do our best to love, trust and embrace life.









Katharine Hepburn










Cary Grant










Audrey Hepburn










Spencer Tracy

How Great is Our God!

haha, as my blog is becoming more personal, it is getting more and more boring. :)

HOWEVER, that's ok. :) And Cheski, girl, you know if you start getting bored, just move on to another blog. I definitely don't do this for hits.
I have been memorizing scripture the last, mmm, almost week!! It is truly amazing how much potential we truly have to do this if we put our minds to it. And I think I want to start memorizing some FACTS as well.

What! Francine, how did you get from scripture to facts? Ok, I mean Bible Facts that relate to scripture. For example:

- The Bible is the best preserved literary work of all antiquity.
- There are nearly 25,000 ancient manuscripts of the New Testament Bible discovered and archived so far.
- At least 5600 are in the original Greek.
- The time between the original autographs and our earliest existing fragment is a remarkably short 40-60 years!!

HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!! That he preserved this work for us. I am looking forward to committing this to memory, in order to effectively defend the Bible from common questions about reliability and just to know for myself. Here's more things I'll try to memorize today

Now, let's compare this to other ancient works:
PLATO - 7 manuscripts, 1300 years elapsed after initial autograph
JULIUS CAESAR'S THE GALLIC WARS - 10 manuscripts, 1000 years elapsed
HERODTOUS' HISTORY - 8 Manuscripts remain, 1,350 years elapsed

- The second most preserved work is Homer's Iliad - it has 643 copies and 743 disputed lines of text.
- The New Testament has only 40 disputed lines and none concerning doctrine.

**Also, I'd like to memorize a few different versions of translations to show the minimal differences. Here is a verse of doctrinal importance:Mark 12:25, I'd also like to do one about love or something that requires less understanding of the Bible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
King James Version: For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

New International Version (NIV): When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

New American Standard Bible (NAS): For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.


OLD TESTAMENT/RELIABILITY
- The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 and were approx. a thousand years older than our then earliest manuscript of the Old Testament. The fact that there were only very minimal errors is a testament to the way God has preserved His Word down through the centuries, protecting it from extinction and guarding it against significant error.

¹ Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999, 71-73.
² Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol.1, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1979, 58-59.
³ Ibid. 56-57.
⁴ McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, 34-36.
⁵ John Ryland's Gospel of John fragment, John Ryland's Library of Manchester, England. See also, Ibid., 38.
⁶ McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol.1, 42.
⁷ F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments: How We Got Our English Bible, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1950, 178.
⁸ Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody, Chicago, Revised and Expanded 1986, 366-67.
⁹ http://shakespeare.com/faq/, Dana Spradley, Publisher, 2002.
¹⁰ McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, 50-51.
¹¹ Ravi K. Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God? Word Publishing, 1994, 162.

http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/bible-manuscripts.htm