I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...

I've really been meaning to post for ages. And somehow there's never time, bah. And I was doing so well, there, at the beginning of the month!!
I haven't posted anything "serious" in a while now. Hmmm. Should probably get on that......

Wow, life has been busy lately!!

Last weekend I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Somnite and Anilee -- it was WOOO HOOO exciting -- for the very first time!!! I have to say, guys, you both are EXACTLY what I pictured. Which is a good thing :)

A crazed week of still trying to finish up intense amounts of schoolwork among other pressing matters (application deadlines.... other commitments...plentiful meetings...lots of cleaning....) filled my last few days and as of right now, I am at an annual church assembly, which is pretty exciting -- I was elected the female delegate for my congregation. Today starts Day 2 (and it started bright and early, UGH!) and I have to say, I am positively fascinated by everything that's going on. We are voting and discussing some really major issues here, and I'm finding that I -- even as a youth -- actually have a voice. I'm being treated as an adult instead of like a silly little teenager and I have to say, it's an incredibly exciting and positively terrifying feeling all at once. I've been feeling very naive compared to most of these people and very unqualified to be voting and making these sorts of decisions. And yet, others are trusting me to do so and that responsibility is a little overwhelming!
Kind of funny, isn't it: I've begged and pleaded for eons to be treated like an adult and now that people are finally doing so and taking me seriously, it scares me out of my wits.

Life is confusing. Sheesh.

Well, we are off ISO Wawa....mmmm, cappucino!!!!!

For all you lexophiles out there....

I got this in an email today....it cracked me up!!!!!!!!

NEOLOGISMS:

(Neologisms are alternate meanings for common words.)

Arbitrator \ar'-bi-tray-ter\: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's.

Avoidable \uh-voy'-duh-buhl\: What a bullfighter tries to do.

Baloney \buh-lo'-nee\: Where some hemlines fall.

Bernadette \burn'-a-det\: The act of torching a mortgage.

Burglarize \bur'-gler-ize\: What a crook sees with.

Control \kon-trol'\: A short, ugly inmate.

Counterfeiters \kown-ter-fit-ers \: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.

Eclipse \i-klips'\: What an English barber does for a living.

Eyedropper \i'-drop-ur\: A clumsy ophthalmologist.

Heroes \hee'-rhos\: What a guy in a boat does.

Left Bank \left' bangk'\: What the robber did when his bag was full of loot.

Misty \mis'-tee\: How golfers create divots.

Paradox \par'-u-doks\: Two physicians.

Parasites \par'-uh-sites\: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Pharmacist \farm'-uh-sist\: A helper on the farm.

Polarize \po'-lur-ize\: What penguins see with.

Primate \pri'-mat\: Removing your spouse from in front of the TV.

Relief \ree-leef'\: What trees do in the spring.

Rubberneck \rub'-er-nek\: What you do to relax your wife.

Seamstress \seem'-stres\: Describes 250 pounds in a size six.

Selfish \sel'-fish\: What the owner of a seafood store does.

Subdued \sub-dood'\: Like, a guy, like, works on one of those, like, submarines, man.

Sudafed \sood'-a-fed\: Bringing litigation against a government official.

Three Things I've Learned Today...

...Which I feel are my responsibility to share with you all, so that you don't have to go through the pain and suffering of making these discoveries yourselves:

1. TV is evil. Ok, so not quite. (But sometimes it is. Spongebob Squarepants is an excellent example.) But really, it would be more fitting to say, TV is distracting. Don't watch it while trying to write. I was watching one of my all time favorite movies today, To Kill A Mockingbird for about the 40 billionth time. For those of who haven't seen the movie (to which I say - GO WATCH IT! It's one of the few movies that does the book it's based on justice), it's set in Alabama. Thus, all the characters have very Southern accents. Well, as I was watching this movie, I had my laptop out and I was also working on a story. At first, I was all excited because I'd been very productive and written a lot. However, I went back to re-read it and found that my main character -- a 15 year old girl who lives on a mountain in India -- was speaking with a Southern accent. Just like Miss Maudie and Scout and Jem. Ooops. I guess have a lot of editing to do *sigh*

2. Those with bad aim should not be trusted to put their own eye drops in. Seriously. Now, I have to put eyedrops in occasionally when my allergies act up, but that's only occasionally, and usually I can get by without making a total fool of myself. But today I woke up with pink eye (pink eyes, technically, since it's both of them) so I now have to put two drops in each eye every 2-4 hours. For the next five days. Which is a lot of drops. Which is a lot of opportunites to totally miss my eye and instead hit my nose, chin, and once (somehow) my ear. Yeah. Don't exactly know how that one happened....

3. Rainy days exacerbate procrastination. Seriously. Or maybe it's just me, which is also entirely possible...now, I LOVE rainy days, LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE them; don't get me wrong. And today was one of those perfect rainy days; it was cloudy and foggy and the rain was just cleansing and wonderful and refreshing, not depressing or annoying. But I am sorry to say that rain ALSO makes me lazy. It makes me want to spend the entire day curled up on my bed reading and writing and staring out the window and not accomplishing anything. Add to the fact that the two main things I needed to accomplish today -- Chemistry and cleaning my room -- are two of the most awful, intolerable and traumatic activities I can think of, and, well...it was hard to find the motivation to do either of them. But I tried. I did a little Chemistry, and, well, I DO still have all day tomorrow to clean my room.................

Bad Moods and Why I’m No Longer In One

I’ve been rather grumpy lately, for a variety of reasons. Yesterday I was freakishly crabby for a good portion of the day. Now, sometimes I can get myself out of those funks just by refusing to succomb to them -- “I am NOT going to be in a bad mood today!!!”. But usually I can’t. Yesterday I couldn’t. I spent the majority of the day denying the fact that I was in a bad mood but snapping at everyone who came near me and glaring at everyone who didn’t.
Finally, I admitted to myself that I was in a bad mood and needed to do something about it. So I did one of the two things that nearly always makes me happy.

Running. Yes, I know there are plenty of biological reasons that this works -- endorphins are lovely things, after all, and it’s a great stress-reliever and all that. But I also love running because it gets me out of the house; lets me be alone to mutter and grumble and glare all I want and gives me an opportunity to push myself hard -- and be proud of the results. And it’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re proud of yourself!
As I result, I was back to my insanely perky and happy self last night.

Today, for a bunch of similar reasons, I was back in a bad mood (it’s rather exhausting being a teenager, isn’t it?!) Because I don’t have the time or energy to run again today, much as I’d like to, I turned to the second thing that nearly always makes me happy.

Music.
What’s on my playlist, you ask?

MMSG’s Top Five Songs to Listen To When You’re In A Bad Mood:

1. It’s the End of the World as We Know It -- R.E.M. I was introduced to this song while babysitting one night, actually. I very dramatically announced for some reason, “it’s the end of the world as we know it!!” and all three kids burst into the refrain of this song. By the end of that night, I knew it quite well. It’s one of those wonderfully cynical and pessimistic songs that is great to listen to when you’re mad at the world.

2. Falling Inside the Black -- Skillet. You’ve got to love the loudness, intensity and overly-dramatic ness of this song. Ooh, it’s positively chilling. While we’re on the subject, many of Skillet’s songs fit this description; other favorites include Whispers in the Dark and Rebirthing.

3. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) -- Green Day. I’m not a huge Green Day fan at all, but for some totally inexplicable reason this song appeals to me. I have no idea why, because it’s so monotonous and depressing, and yet, sometimes that’s exactly what I listen to when in the midst of whatever drama I’m going through, and it cheers me up. Don’t know why. But it does. I’m teaching myself to play it on the guitar.

4. Me Against the World -- Superchic[k]. Ok, so this song might not exactly have the same appeal if you’re a guy, but still. How can you argue with the line, “They said don’t try to change the world, you’re just a girl; so it’s me against the world today….”. I love the feeling of determination in this song!

5. Life is Good -- Stellar Kart. As hard as I try, I absolutely cannot be in a bad mood if I hear this song. It’s much too happy and exciting and wonderful; but not in an overly-optimistic gaggy way; more like just in a, “Ok, maybe-the-world’s-really-not-coming-to-an-end-today” kind of way.

(And! Since I’m now in such a good mood and feeling so incredibly generous, a bonus song!)
6. Bethlehemian Rhapsody -- Apologetix. I LOVE Apologetix’s parodies; they absolutely crack me up!! While all of their songs are ingenious and hysterical, this one happens to be my favorite. I think there are two versions of it out there, though, for some reason. I like the David and Goliath version best, if that makes any sense. And again, it's hard to be crabby when you're laughing hysterically.

Humor and lack thereof

I'm not a funny person.

This depresses me.

I came to this startling realization today while reading an amusing blog. On Edge’s blog she has a link to Gretchen, and I clicked on it out of curiosity and found some incredibly fantastic posts. They just seem to exude humorous vibes -- there’s an underlying tongue-in-cheekness to it all that I love. And envy, I must confess.

I have never been a funny person, sadly. I’ve tried for years now, but humor just eludes me. I’ve finally reached a point where I’ve accepted the fact that I’m hopeless. Humorless. Unfunny. Boring. Humor must be something you’re born with -- you either have it, or you don’t. I, sadly, do not. I must have missed the humor gene. I can’t make great wisecracks. I am terrible when it comes to witty comebacks, because I just can’t think fast enough. Even sarcasm, when coming from me, tends to be misconstrued, misunderstood or simply stupid. And I’ve never had that great slapstick-comedy clownishness that just makes people laugh.

Which isn’t to say that people don’t laugh at me. They do. Quite loudly and quite often. But I think that’s more because I’m STRANGE, rather then because I’m FUNNY. There’s a major difference. I happen to be a very quirky person and this, obviously, causes some smiles, giggles and guffaws. Take the whole mismatched sock thing, for instance…..

But anyway, this severe lack of funniness has more far-reaching effects then just causing me to cross off “stand-up comedian” from my list of potential careers.

It affects my writing, too. Think about it. I can’t create funny, witty, sarcastic, amusing characters -- or, even more importantly, dialogue -- because I myself can’t up with that. How do you write in a character’s sarcastic, acerbic voice if you have no idea what she should be saying?!
And, naturally, lack of funniness makes this blog rather dull.

Can you learn to be funny, I wonder? Or I am doomed to a humorless existence for the rest of my days?

Any advice from the funny folk out there who are reading this would be quite nice.

My itty bitty attention span...

I have absolutely nothing of worth to say today, however I am trying VERY HARD to get in the habit of posting here more frequently. So the quantity will increase...but the quality, eh, might take some time to improve ;) But hey, baby steps :) Speaking of increased posting, did you notice? April happened to be the best month thus far this year, with 7 whole posts. Not exactly great, mind you but at least it's progress! Goal is 8 posts for May :)

As such, I will continue the tradition of many of the blogs I've been reading lately, and post a totally random post that has no relevance to anything :)

I mowed the grass today for the first time all season and I absolutely, positively LOVED it. Mowing the grass is my all time FAVORITE chore; I go out there and hop on the riding mower and plug in my MP3 headphones and spend an hour and a half singing at the top of my lungs and waving to neighbors who came outside to see what was causing all the racket ("Oh, hi, Mrs D! No, there's no dying cat out here...I just looooove this song! Was I dancing? No, of course not, you can't dance while driving a riding mower....! Yes, I'm watching what I'm doing...oh, no, that forsythia bush has always looked lopsided. I didn't shave off the side...").
It's quite amusing, I have to say :)

I have to say, as much as I despise summer (I truly do. Hmmm, I should do a list...Top 10 reasons why I hate summer...), I do love the fact that it means grass-mowing season is here!

And just because it looks like fun, a meme I keep seeing all over the place:

Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4.Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you’ve posted your three sentences.

Tagged by: um, no one. I just felt like doing it :)

Book: well, sadly, my nearest book happens to be my Chemistry textbook. That's no fun. So, the second nearest book is George Orwell's incredible 1984, which I am reading for about the 40 billionth time.

"Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods of time every day in going through back files of the Times and altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night, when crowds of rowdy proles roamed the streets, the town had a curiously febrile air. The rocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in the far distance there were enormous explosions which no one could explain and about which there were wild rumors."

And now, I tag Somnite

Oh, and one more thought. Oreos. Mmm, they're amazing, aren't they? In all honestly they're probably nothing more then pure sugar and artificial-ness, and yet....mmmmmmm!
I positively love just plain old Oreos. Now, all the other varieties -- mint, coffee, peanut butter, etc -- are fantastic as well, don't get me wrong, but the original Oreos are my all time favorite.
Yes. I like them even more then the beloved double stuff ones.
Quite frankly, I've never been an obsessive Oreo cream lover. You know how most people LOVE the cream and the commercials are always about fighting over the cream side? Not me. I love the cookie part the best; I'm a chocolate freak, not a cream freak.

Anyway, out of curiosity:

Best part of Oreos?

(If you are using a feed reader the above poll may not show up)



P.S. Iced coffee makes me a little hyper :)

Top Ten Reasons Why I Hate Driving

(in no particular order)

1. Headlights. Is it so freaking hard to turn them off, people?! Do you really need them when the street you’re driving on has streetlights every three feet or so? Must you have them on while you’re tailgating me? That’s sort of distracting, you know. And! When you’re coming towards me -- TURN THEM OFF, for pity’s sake! Are you TRYING to blind me?!?! Good grief.
   
   
2. Squirrels. The blasted things must all be on death missions, I tell you. Seriously! Do they posses any common sense? Any at ALL? Shouldn’t they at least have some kind of survival instinct that tells them to RUN when big loud things come towards them? *I* am a big, loud thing coming towards them, and they either a) sit in the middle of the road and stare at me, b) wait until the last second to run away or c) run almost totally across the road, only inches from safety, only to turn around and run IN FRONT OF ME AGAIN to go to the OTHER side of the road.Nincompoops.
   
   
3. Speaking of nincompoops, the squirrels aren‘t the only ones. About ¾ of the other drivers out there on the road seem to be one. See #1 above. Why can't people just be GOOD drivers?!?! It would make the whole experience that much more FUN, you know, instead of stressful!
   
   
4. Drive-thrus. Ugh. It’s not exactly easy to manuever a minivan around all those cement barriers and tight turns and get close enough to the window to hand them your money and get your food without scraping your side view mirror on the building… UGH!
   
   
5. Driveways. The short, curvy, long, windy (that’s WINE-dee, as in, it winds around a lot, not WIN-dee, as it, blowing breezes. Although a windy driveway would probably be unpleasant, too, if the wind was forceful enough…) tight, narrow, hilly or unpaved ones in particular. I absolutely hate 98% of driveways. I don’t like having to turn around. I don’t like having to back out, either, which sort of makes it hard to get out of just about every driveway in America.
   
   
6. Pedestrians. I know, I know, you’re supposed to yield to them. I DO! That’s my problem! You can never tell where people are going (“is that woman going to cross the street? Is she waiting to cross or waiting for a bus? Is she walking down that road or going straight or turning?” etc, etc) so I always end up stopping when I don’t have to because it usually LOOKS like they’re going to cross the street only they don’t, and people behind me get mad.
   
   
7. Speed limits. Or rather, everyone else's inability to GO the speed limit. Apparently I’m the only person who follows them, and the rest of the world feels the need to tailgate me and wuite frankly, people, THAT just makes me go slower, so there! *sticks out tongue*
   
   
8. Toll Booths. Similar to the drive-thru issues, but toll booths also require intense amount of coordination and quick thinking. It’s multitasking while driveway. It’s insane! You’ve got to get in the correct lane (EZ-Pass? Or not? Cash only? Trucks only? Is a van a truck?!?) while avoiding all the other people who are swerving this way and that to get in THEIR correct lane. Then you need to slow down, roll down your window and not hit the car in front of you -- or the cement barriers, the “slow down” sign, or the toll booth itself -- pull up close enough to get the ticket, and then (after the gate raises, of course), accelerate back to a normal ramp speed and get into the correct lane to go where you’re going, all the while rolling up your window and setting the ticket down somewhere where you’ll be able to grab it quickly later. Don’t even ask me about the second half of toll booths, where you have to do all of the above and handle money, too….UGH!!!
   
   
9. Merging. Lots of cars going fast, me trying to get in the midst of them before the lane ends…need I say more?
   
   
10. Passengers. They talk to you, whistle, gasp, fiddle with the radio, make obnoxious comments, open their windows when you really don’t want to be blasted by air, make noise, ask you questions and certain people that I’m related to have a nasty habit of shrieking and bracing themselves on the dashboard in front of them everytime I slow down, as though they think they’re going to die. This is, as you can imagine, rather distracting as well.

And people wonder why I’d rather walk places!!!! SHEESH!

Blinded by the light...

My brother has been walking around the house for the past two days, randomly bursting into choruses of the song, "Blinded by the Light". I'm really not sure why, quite frankly. I didn't even know he liked that song. In fact, I didn't even know he knew that song existed, let alone knew the words to it.

Actually, I don't think he does honestly know the words to it. Because he just keeps singing the same line, over and over and over and over again, getting progressively louder at each repetition. "Blinded by the light...Blinded by the light! BLINDED BY THE LIGHT!! BLIIIIINDED BY THE LIIIIIIGHT!!!!!"

(Have I mentioned that the singing gene just doesn't seem to exist in our family? Apparently it wasn't just me it skipped. My dear brother didn't have any luck in that category, either. *sigh*)

And when this chorus met my ears for about the 7,402nd time, I realized that maybe, just maybe, this was something bloggable ( < new word. How much fun is that to say? Bloggable bloggable bloggable!)...that maybe there was a way to tie it in to today's post. It's worth a try, right?

While listening to the radio the other day, I heard a story...hopefully I can remember it:

A hurricane ripped across the coastline, pouring intense amounts of rain down on the inhabitants. Cities were flooding, the water was rising and people were crying out for help. One man climbed on to his rooftop to avoid the rapidly rising water in his house. He looked up to heaven and called out, "God, save me!"

The man had loved God all his life, and truly believed that God would reach down and save him from this disasterous situation. He watched for God's hand to come down from heaven; he listened carefully so he wouldn't miss God's voice when it told him what to do.

As he was listening so intently, a rowboat floated by with a neighbor in.
"Do you need some help?" shouted the neighbor. "Climb in my boat!"
The man on the rooftop shook his head. "No, thanks!" he yelled back. "God's going to save me!"
Rowboat man shrugged and rowed away.

Well, the flood waters continued to rise and rooftop man was growing impatient. He thought maybe God hadn't heard him the first time, so he called out again, even louder, "God! Save me!!"
He stared up at the heavens, watching and waiting for the moment when God would come and save him from the floodwaters.

While he waited, another boat came by; this one even bigger then the last. Half a dozen people sat in this boat, but there was still plenty of room inside. One passenger held out a life vest.
"Hey there!" called out the passenger. "You need some help? Here! Take this!"

But rooftop man shook his head and held out his hand. "No, thanks!" he shouted back. "God's going to save me, you'll see!" The people in the boat shrugged and headed off to another rooftop.

Now, the rain had started up again and the situation wasn't exactly getting any better. Rooftop man realized that God better hurry up and do something here. He was getting pretty nervous. "God!" he called out again. "Please, God, please save me!!"

The waters had almost reached the top of his roof. The man danced around anxiously, on his tiptoes, knowing that his miraculous rescue would come any second and not wanting to miss it.
Unfortunately, he was interrupted by the sound of a helicopter.

The helicopter came closer and the man heard a voice coming through a bull horn say, "You there! Hang on! We're sending you a ladder!"
"No!" the man shouted back as loudly as he could. He shook his head again to prove his point. "No, that's OK! God's going to save me!"

Looking rather surprised, the helicopter folks nodded and shrugged and moved off to go find another person in need of rescue.
Well, a few moments later the flood waters had risen so high that they swept the man off his roof. He tried his best to swim away, but in the end, the current was too deep and he drowned.

When the man got to heaven, he said to God, "God!! I've loved you and served you all my life. I've been a faithful follower of your Word. I trusted you to save me! I cried out to you and you didn't do anything! You ignored my prayer, God! Why didn't you save me??"

God raised his eyebrows and looked at the man. "Are you kidding me?!" he said, surprised. "I tried! I sent you two boats and a helicopter! What more did you want?!"

In this story, the man was so sure that God was going to save him. He had this expectation that God would do something totally, incredibly, earth-shatteringly amazing in order to complete the rescue mission. The man was expecting a huge-scale miracle! He was waiting for the hand of God Himself to reach down and save him; he was waiting for God's voice to command the waters to recede. The man cried out, "God, save me!" and trusted God to do so. The only problem was that he was so focused on the powerfulness and miraculousness of God, that he missed the smaller miracle right in front of him.

He was blinded by the light, so to speak. This man believed so strongly that God could and would make unbelievable, inconceivable miracles happen (the "light") that he was unable to see that sometimes, God delights in using the ordinary to do extraordinary things.

The point is that sometimes, we get blinded by the light, too. We get so caught up in reading Bible stories about manna falling from heaven or angels saving people from fiery furnances or the mouths of lions being closed that we forget about the everyday miracles, too.
The thing is, God provides for our every need. If we need it, he's already got it taken care of. He hears every single one of our prayers. And he answers them -- often in ways that we wouldn't expect.

We need to make sure that our expectations don't interfere with our vision. It's great to believe that God does amazing things -- He certainly does! But don't let yourself get so caught up in the extraordinary that you miss all the incredible things he does on a smaller scale.

The most amazing thing God's done in my life? Bringing my best friend into it. There were no lions, fiery furnances, voices from Heaven or manna falling from the sky. In fact, the very first time I met my best friend, I hardly even talked to her. It wasn't an extraordinary day by any means; it was a picnic. But it was the start of the most amazing and important and incredible and yes, miraculous friendship I've ever experienced.

Is there something in your life right now that you are praying for? Are you waiting for God to answer a prayer? Be careful that your expectations of HOW he is going to answer don't interfere with your realization that he HAS answered it.

Don't be so busy waiting to hear God's voice that you miss the rowboat and the helicopter right in front of you. Sometimes God might give you an incredibly obvious answer to an incredibly complicated situation. It's easy to overlook the everyday answers to prayers -- the best friend who called to say Hi when you were feeling low, the brother who started singing obnoxiously when all you wanted to do was focus on writing a blog post, the dog who barked continously for you to take him for a walk so you could enjoy a gorgeous day...

Be ready and waiting for the ordinary AND the extraordinary. If you EXPECT God to do great things, He will. But beyond that, you've also got to be looking for these BIG things -- sometimes in the smallest of places. Don't be blinded by the light of God's greatness -- let his light illuminate things you might have otherwise missed.

The Dinner Party -- a short story

I've read this story a million times and I love it. Just recently I stumbled upon it again, and thought I'd share it with you guys....For now, just enjoy the story :) I have some musings on this story, and a "lesson" to take from it, but I'm not posting that yet; I might rewrite that post first....

The Dinner Party
by Mona Gardner

The country is India. A large dinner party is being given in an up-country station by a colonial official and his wife. The guests are army officers and government officials and their wives, and an American naturalist.
At one side of the long table a spirited discussion springs up between a young girl and a colonel. The girl insists that women have long outgrown the jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era, that they are not as fluttery as their grandmothers. The colonel says they are, explaining that women haven't the actual nerve control of men. The other men at the table agree with him.
"A women's unfailing reaction to any crisis," says the colonel, "is to scream. And while a man may feel like it, yet he has that ounce more of courage than a woman has. And that last ounce is what counts !"
The American scientist does not join in the argument, but sits watching the faces of the other guests. As he looks, he sees a strange expression come over the face of the hostess. She is staring straight ahead, the muscles of her face contracting slightly. With a small gesture she summons the native boy standing behind her chair. She whispers to him. The boy's eyes widen: he turns quickly and leaves the room. No one else sees this, nor the boy when he puts a bowl of milk on the verandah outside the glass doors.
The American comes to with a start. In India, milk in a bowl means only one thing. It is bait for a snake. He realizes a cobra is in the room.
He looks up at the rafters - the most likely place - and sees they are bare. Three corners of the room, which he can see by shifting slightly, are empty. In the fourth corner a group of servants stand, waiting until the next course can be served. The American realizes there is only one place left - under the table.
His first impulse is to jump back and warn the others. But he knows that the commotion will frighten the cobra and it will strike. He speaks quickly, the quality of he voice so arresting that it sobers everyone.
"I want to know just what control everyone at this table has. I will count to three hundred - that's five minutes - and not one of you is to move a single muscle. The person who moves will forfeit 50 rupees. Now ! Ready!"
The 20 people sit like stone images while he counts. He is saying ".... two- hundred and eighty...." when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the cobra emerge and make for the bowl of milk. Four or five screams ring out as he jumps up and slams shut the verandah doors.
"You certainly were right, Colonel !" the host says. "A man has just shown us an example of real control."
"Just a minute," the American says, turning to the hostess, "there's one thing I'd like to know. Mrs. Wynnes, how did you know that the cobra was in the room?"
A faint smile lights up the woman's face as she replies: "Because it was lying across my foot."

-------------------------------------

How God Is Like Ice Cream

Ok. Now bare (bear?) with me.

Today I had ice cream -- real, actual, honest-to-goodness ice cream, packed full of sugar and calories and a million other unhealthy and therefore positively scrumptious things -- for the first time in months. Perhaps longer.

It was, in a word, AMAZING!!!!

How was I surviving without ice cream, you might ask? The creation known as “frozen yogurt” (which is a strange name, really; it doesn’t taste anything LIKE yogurt. But whatever. The inappropriate nomenclature of desserts is an entirely different rant) Well, in my house, we eat “healthy”. Or at least, we try to. Which means that the only kind of ice cream we ever have is fat free, sugar free stuff..."frozen yogurt"...which is usually not...great; quite frankly. Yeah, it’s better then nothing. And at the time, it seems to hit the spot and quench your craving for that cold yumminess and it’s OK, really.

But it’s not great. It’s not the best. It’s not authentic. It’s not REAL.

And while you’re eating the fake stuff, you might almost be able to convince yourself that you like it. That it’s good enough. That it’s kind of like ice cream, really, just…not…
Frozen yogurt is a trap, you see. Eat only frozen yogurt for a long enough time and you'll find yourself thinking, "Huh...so maybe this isn't so bad." You might try to convince yourself, "This is good enough. I don't really need real ice cream anyway. Hmph.". You might start getting used to it; you might find yourself lowering your expectations and accepting something that's less then what you desire.

But in the end it leaves you feeling empty.
It doesn’t satisfy you.
It’s not what you crave; not what you desire.
It just doesn’t measure up.
No matter what you tell yourself, fat-free sugar-free frozen yogurt is nothing compared to true Hershey’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup ICE CREAM. There’s no comparison, really
And when you finally taste Hershey’s, you realize what you’ve been missing out on! You realize how much more there is to life! And you won’t ever want to go back.

So…go with this for a minute… there’s an awful lot of ‘gods’ out there. People “worship” and idolize celebrities, or money, or popularity or their own self-image. That’s the fat-free sugar-free frozen yogurt stuff. That’s the stuff that might seem nice at the time, but really, isn’t all that satisfying. That’s the stuff that you fill your life with because you THINK it’s good enough, but really, it’s not. It doesn’t fill you up.

God is the Hershey’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream. God is the real deal. In a world full of frozen yogurts that try to convince you that they’re just as good, God is the one who stands strong. God is the only one who can satisfy your heart’s desires and really “fill you up”. When everything else that you’ve invested your time and money into fails or falls short of your needs, only God will be there… true and real… and ready to supply everything you’ve ever needed; ready to give your life purpose and make you whole.

How sweet is that???

So...why settle for something that's fake? Why spend all that time trying to convince yourself that something's "right" when clearly, you crave more?
Wouldn't you rather have the best? Wouldn't you rather have the real deal??

Isaiah 55: 2-3 discusses this thought:

"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. "

In essense, he's really saying, "Why are you wasting your time with things that clearly don't satisfy your heart's desires? You crave more in life; you crave meaning! Come to God and your SOUL WILL LIVE." (Note that Isaiah also tells us to "eat what is good".....maybe he's telling us to skip the fro yo and get some good ol' ice cream, huh?!)

Paul reminds us that God is the only one who can supply us with all that we need:

"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."

In other words, He'll fill us up the way nothing else can. No subsitutes. No almost-as-good.

The real thing.

"Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. " -- John 17:3