Newly inspired...

Well, it took a few blog posts like Karen's to get me back to writing.

So, what has kept me away for so long...you may ask? One of the main draws has been Facebook...it's easy "like" button or quick comment -- who has time to think a matter through, and then construct a note or story?

Lest you think FB is an addiction....I have also been spending this fall enjoying daily, outdoor exercise -- and am enjoying the health and fitness aspects that walking, raking leaves or biking brings.

I've also been doing many landlady duties/calls regarding repairs and improvements...meeting new neighbors....serving friends who are moving in or moving out of new homes...fun Saturday coffee time with family...

This past summer brough several weddings and vacation travel -- a new car that I am thoroughly enjoying via the Cash for Clunkers program ---

and updates/connections from friends, family and coworkers who have travelled to or lived in Uganda, Tanzania, Malaysia, Phillipines, Bangladesh for a season or time...

This is what we do....

I couldn't pass on this great news article that features the ministry I work with. I love the clear way that it is written, and the information it provides will hopefully prompt many more people in conflict to take this avenue....


(hat tip: our ministry president ;)

Let's Hear It For C-Span

Last evening, I began watching the lead-in for the President's address to Congress -- on CBS. Yes, that would be lovely Katie Couric in the news chair.

Less than an hour before her coverage of the President's speech, on the CBS Nighly News, Katie's questions for David Axelrod and House Minority Leader John Boehner began grating on my nerves, but I wanted to hear each of their responses to her (poor) questions. The bad taste in my mouth was beginning to form...

I am still searching for her actual comments during the lead-in to the speech, but suffice it to say she made one-too-many nasty/caustic comments, and I chose to bail from the CBS coverage...so I had no idea that Katie continued with her weird comments and behavior after I changed channels.

"In the CBS introductory coverage of President Obama's first address to Congress, Katie Couric poked fun at Vice President and white male Joe Biden. "Nice to see a little diversity, with an African-American President, a female Speaker of the House, and there's the white guy," she said." (HT: Huffington Post)

Maybe this can be chalked up to my after-work mood, or the fact that I'd love to watch ABC coverage, only that station is fuzzy and hard on the eyes.

But, once more, I tuned into the wonderful C-Span network, where I could take in all the wonderful sights and sounds, minus the annoying commentators -- and actually use my own mind to determine what was happening in the Capitol that evening. I'll admit that immediately after the speech, I opted to watch my newest Netflix pick over Governor Jindal's response to the speech.

I'm sure CBS will not miss this one Montanan's absence during the evening news (oh, if only I could count on many more Harry Smith or Russ Mitchell nights); and I will miss Steve Hartman's Assignment America stories, but I'm definitely not watching Ms. Couric in the future.

BTW, Katie was not the only commentator to make a spectacle of themself - Chris Matthews also scored high in that category ;)

Book Meme

So, dear Anne, of Palm Tree Pundit fame....voracious reader that she is, challenged her blogging friends to complete the books they've read, and would like to read.

Apparently, my best reading was done throughout my school days, according to this list...although if films or plays were included, my bold list would be much longer ;)

There are several of my unread books that I may get to one of these days...but who wants that stress -- what with the six or so I'm travelling through now

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read (films don't count).
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Tag somebody if you like (Rebel that I am, I'm not going to do that. If you play along, leave a comment so I can check out your list.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (I just have no interest in these.)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (Will read this soon in Omnibus III)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

...There are also more than a few here that are unknown to me...so I may have to google them -- then check out my local library (or a close friend's :) as I have at least a year's moratorium on any new books.

Inauguration Parade

Thanks to C-Span, I was able to watch portions of the Inauguration festivities yesterday while I worked. I had printed out a list of the parade entrants, so I was able to watch those I was most interested in -- like the representatives from the Crow Tribe, who live near my home in Montana. Obama had visited their tribe during his campaign, and was adopted into the tribe with the name "One who helps people throughout the land." The picture above shows the group practicing for the parade -- note the snow and the not-Washington DC-background...

Although separated from the Crow representatives, our Montana delegation (Senators Baucus and Tester; Representative Rehberg; and Governor Schweitzer also rode horseback and carried our state flag.

I especially enjoyed the Obama's smiles and waves to the delegation, as they appeared before the viewing stand about halfway through a l-o-n-g parade. Here is a link to that portion of the parade...

Welcome 2009!!!

Well, my blogging hiatus is officially over. I have enjoyed seeing others take a break from their blogs over the Thanksgiving and Christmas season -- to know that I'm not alone. Saying that, I really enjoy those friends who regularly blog and look forward to what they share. My muse was defitinitely quiet for awhile ;)

This time has been contemplative and prayerful for me. My blog may reflect some of those 'aha' moments for just a time, or may be a lasting change for my life.

One example of this thought, is that I've felt that my blog writing follows my photographs, so there must be an event or I must take photos before I write. It has felt great to release that order -- saying the first of many good 'nays' to routine things.

Another example, is, although I live a pretty simple life by today's standard, I've noticed that I no longer cope with even regular stress well lately -- and have found continuing peace and contentment important to maintain - again saying 'nay' to invitations to events, people's requests for help, etc....it became clearer that I am more of a 'people pleaser' than I admitted to myself or others, which always puts additional pressure to perform.

One blogger friend says that for the past two years, she has begun the new year with a word or phrase - e.g. 'God is faithful' her first year, and 'purposeful' for this year; and then, to be mindful of those terms and their life impact throughout her year.

So, for 2009, my hope is that I will 'Wait upon God's grace'....through the years I have learned a lot about the blessings of obedience to 'wait', but I would like to be able to be mindful of those instances or happenings, and then to rejoice -- even through the waiting time...Thanks, Karen! You are an inspiration to me.