#18 on my list, Put together 30 new Sunday school lessons (#1)

This one has taken me a while to decide how I'd like to write these particular entries. I have a tendancy to get on a soapbox, and lecturing is not something that I'd like to do with these entries. Not to mention that these lessons contain only what the Lord has showed me, and there are many times that he uses the same pieces of scripture to show people different lessons in life, and in their walk with him. Also because I want to protect my girls anonymity as they are all well under age. So what I've decided to do is to just simply give the title of the lesson that I prepared, the scriptures that I prepared it from, a brief synopsis of the lesson, and one thing that the Lord showed me while preparing the lesson. Because if I re-wrote my whole lesson it would take me another week, and I just don't have that kind of time.

Lesson #1

Topic: Showing our love through our service
This particularly concerns showing our love for Christ through our service to other (family, friends, our church). Which goes with my churches theme for this month, which is, Looking beyond ourselves to the needs of our family.

Scriptures: John 13:1-17, 34-35 & Luke 22:1-2, 7-13 (The story of Jesus serving the disciples as he washes their feet at the Passover supper, prior to his crucifiction)

Synopsis: By serving one another and giving of our time selflessly, we (Christians) are able to show others the same love that Christ showed to us.

What the Lord revealed to me: Even though we may have "important" responsibilities, if we can't, or choose not to, sacrifice our own time to serve someone who is in need, then the service and effort that Christ gave to us is in vain. For it states clearly in his second commandment that we are to "love our neighbor as ourself". And this is found in all 4 of the gospels. So I think it would be kinda important, right?

Mark 12:30,31
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

#3 on my list, Decorate my room

Finally, Finally, Finally after nearly 3 weeks I received my bedding set. It was a little small for being a king size, but since I have a pillow top mattress it doesn't look odd. It was also in good condition when I received it (which was a relief since I just finished watching an expose on internet fraud over eBay), and the sheets were actually more green than turquoise (unlike the picture), but that's fine with me since turquoise isn't one of my favorite colors anyway. So before and after pictures soon to come (at least after I have my bedroom looking the way that I want it to).

#7 on my list, Have 30 girls nights (#4)

YAY for Jane Austen!!! The 4th installment of girls night's (which included me, Kali, Maggie, Nicki, Anna, Deborah, and Sharon) had us watching the PBS adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and it was outstanding! The evening didn't really start out as a girls night since Josh and Chris decided to "watch" it with us, which really amounted to then trying to distract us from our enjoyment of watching it. So it was a lot of turning up the volume, and rewinding the TV (you gotta love DVR) until the boys realized that their attempts to thwart our fun were finally becoming futile and so the retired to Josh's room to watch a movie as well. After they left we were finally able to enjoy a wonderful re-telling of a classic romantic tale of two sisters who, in their own ways, want nothing more than to be loved and to find a husband. What's to like about it you ask? Well of course I'm going to tell you.

First of all I think the casting was much more age appropriate than Emma Thompson's version. Of course she told a beautiful story, but because she wanted to play the part of Elinor Dashwood, the casting of the mother and sister had to altered in order to fit the age requirements. In actuality the mother in the book was only in her 40's, and in the big screen rendition they had her in her 60's. The casting I thought was excellent. In the previous version, you know that Whilloughby is a scoundrel, but he's so good looking that sometimes I almost want the story to change and have Marrianne end up with him, but in this version he still plays a cad, and you can understand why Marrianne likes him so much, but you also get to see how despicable he really is, and so I'm happy that Marrianne didn't end up with him. Edward Farrows is also, much better looking in this adaptation. The actor still maintains the quiet charm of the character, but without half of the bumbling that Hugh Grant brought to the role (which quite frankly I've had enough of). The Colonel (Brandon) as well was excellently cast. He's got much more of the brooding sense of charm than the other version, and unlike the big screen adaptation he never lets you pity him, or the state of his loneliness. He just does the right thing. Don't get me wrong I love Alan Rickman's interpretation of the character, but I liked this Colonel even more (plus I think he's just hands down my favorite Jane Austen character period, so I'm not an impartial judge). I also liked the fact that we got to know more about and see more of the Farrows family, as well as the fact that the characters, especially the more ostentatious ones were not quite as comical, even though they did add comedy to the story, they didn't steal the scenes. Fanny, the Dashwood's sister in law, is deliciously spiteful, and we love to hate her.

Secondly, I liked the setting. The lighting and scenery were all set up to look more realistic than the big screen version. The lighting set a tone that was much more moody than then the other version as well, it helped to add to the sadness of the family and the precarious existence that they lived in. I always find that it including the scenery and atmosphere as a character in any movie adds to the depth of a story.

Once again it was another wonderful night with the girls. I'm so blessed to have their friendship!

Cute pic of the day

This was just so cute I had to share

#7 on my list, Have 30 girls nights (#3)

Yesterday was April 1, and there was an impromptu girls night at Kali's!!! I had told her sister Maggie that I would probably be over since it was my first night of school, hence my last night of freedom for the next 90 days. Anyway, I got over there just in time to watch her mom make cupcakes:(, but it was a fun impromptu night anyway. Kali's mom Sharon shared this extremely moving web video with me. I'm placing a link to it on my blog. It's titled "99 balloons". If you enjoy moving stories about children, the obstacles that they over come, and how merciful God truly is, then this should be up your ally. I issue this disclaimer though, it will make you cry. If you don't cry watching this you seriously need to grow a heart. Anyway, after that was all done Kali got back home and me , her, and Maggie watched this show on the food network. I guess it's about a bakery and all of the cakes that they make, which from what I saw were fantastic. However, the best part of the show was when they were making a cake in the shape of an ear, for an ear Dr. I was joking when I said it, but I looked at the girls and I said "How funny would that be when they cut it open if there was a yellow cake for the ear. You'd be eating 'ear wax'". Well we watched it until the end and sure enough they cut it open and there was yellow cake inside! It was hilarious!!! I left soon after that, but I just had to share that. Mmm, I'm sure the cake was moist! Ha Ha Ha!!!

P.S. I'm totally trying to find a pic so you all can see. It was really something