K's Café: The 30 Second Blog

The Surf of Fellowship

The surf crashing over the volcanic rocks on the southern coast of Tenerife, Canary Islands.

I really enjoyed praying with other ladies from our international church this morning, over the week's scripture readings.

Two of the interesting things that came up:

In Genesis a rhetorical question was asked:

Is anything too hard for the Lord?
(Genesis 18:14)

And later in the week's readings, an definite answer was given, in Matthew:

With God all things are possible.
(Matthew 19:26)

I love seeing the unity of the Bible, written over so many hundred years.

Another cool thing: one lady brought up the fact that in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Jesus' name is mentioned TEN times in the first TEN verses! Wow, I had never noticed that, and indeed it shows just what the central topic is!

1. an apostle of Christ Jesus
2. sanctified in Christ Jesus
3. call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
4. Grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ
5. His grace given you in Christ Jesus
6. our testimony about Christ
7. eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ
8. the day of our Lord Jesus Christ
9. fellowship with His son Jesus Christ our Lord
10. the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

Having recently read The Shack (by William P. Young, currently #1 sales rank on Amazon), this verse stood out as a wonderful thing:

God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
1 Corinthians 1:9

What a fellowship it is!

20 Movie Quotes: Guess the Movie

A bunch of my friends/family on Facebook had fun with this meme of guessing movie titles from quotes from 20 of my favorite movies. So I am posting it again here - but if you already participated on my Facebook note, you're not eligible here. This is for my blog readers who have not seen my note on Facebook about this (and thus seen the answers in the comments).

1. Pick 20 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them on your blog for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly.
5. NO cheating by looking things up, if you don't know any of them then that's just too bad.
6. You don't have to be tagged in this to play - post your guesses in the comments.

1. I feel thin...stretched...like butter spread over too much bread. (Identified by Sherry)

2. Meet the greatest actor in the world! I'd rather kiss a tarantula.

3. Normal? What do *you* know about normal? What does *anyone* in *this* family know about normal?

4. An avalanche is coming, and I do not feel prepared. (identified by David my beloved; quote corrected by Emily, see the Singing Goat

5. What am I doing? She's not in the refrigerator.

6. Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you? (Identified by Sherry)

7. So this is your opinion of me. Thank you for explaining so fully. Perhaps these offences might have be overlooked had not your pride been hurt by my honesty... (Identified by Jennifer)

8. - Why can't we sit down like adults and patch this thing up?
- I'm afraid that might become a habit. Then we'd wind up with a patchwork quilt for a marriage.

9. What are you waiting for? You're faster than this. Don't think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me. (identified by David my beloved)

10. I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm. (Identified by Sherry)

11. Farm boy, polish my horse's saddle. I want to see my face shining in it by morning. (Identified by Sherry)

12. Looking? Found someone, you have, I would say, hmmm? (identified by Sherry on her 2nd guess)

13. - You take care of this car?
- What do you mean?
- Tires felt a little splashy on the way over here. (identified by David my beloved)

14. Hey look, mister - we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast. (Identified by Sherry)

15. - Boris and Doris?
- Go ahead. (identified by David my beloved)

16. Please don't interrupt me when I'm asking rhetorical questions.

17. At least once more, Miss Swann, as always. (identified by David my beloved)

18. But, if I don't call in a 98-mile-an-hour fastball, I'm gonna get fired! I'm just saying there's a chance you might get a call on this. (identified by David my beloved)

19. I think my eyes are getting better. Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big bright blur.

20. Certainty of death; small chance of success; what are we waiting for?

2009 Valentine's Cookies from the Faithful Chef

He did it again, despite having the flu this year on Valentine's Day:

Cocoa Peanut Butter Heart-Shaped Sandwich Cookies with Strawberry Jam inside...

Thank you, my love.

See some previous years' cookie editions:

2007

2006

Buds, Canary Islands and Health Issues

There are little green shoots prodding through the cold soil outside the front door - strong hope in coming change
The kids were sick
David was sick
They got better
We went to the Canary Islands
It had a cool volcano and pretty tropical flowers

But the temperatures were not tropical
Shorts and T-Shirts were a bit optimistic
Emily made new friends in the pool that the rest of us found too chilly
We read books
Jason got his first taste of scuba diving and saw cool fish
We marvelled at the harsh volcanic landscape at higher elevations on the island
We used some Spanish and kept having to suppress the German that popped up in our minds
The island kept Emily's suitcase for an extra 36 hours but then gave it up
I came home sick
David prayed for me at 3AM (I always say marry someone who will do that for you)
I'm getting better, but still coughing a bit
The kids had a good orthodontic check-up
We're getting our routine third dose of the TBE vaccine this week (Tick-Borne Encephalitis, since we live in a hot zone for it)
The buds on the trees are burgeoning despite the freezing temps and snow on the ground.
The stars were brilliant through the skylight at 1am last night (I was up coughing after a nightmare)

God Knew What to give me for Valentine's Day

More snow.

An oh-so-friendly and soft kitty cat who hangs out with us but we don't have to take care of or let in the house.

A back yard.

Saturday.

Mix together and you get: playtime with kitty in the snow. Seriously, she likes it. She's very social and her owners appear to be away for the week. So she's full-time at our place. Napping in the winter garden, being patted, eating, drinking, playing in the snow with us. She's ever so well-behaved.

Where is My Actual Human Valentine during all this, you might ask? Baking me his traditional, multi-step, complicated (but worth it, indeedy) cookies in between battling the flu with naps and Tylenol. Aw. We'll see if the flu lets him get to the last step of a final product today or not. I brought him up some freshly blended banana-strawberry-blueberry-vanilla yogurt smoothie this morning; hopefully pumping him full of vitamins to fight with.

Happy Valentine's Day to you - may you know that you are loved with an enormous love today, by the one who fashioned you in the womb before anyone else knew you. Hopefully by some other people too, but that's a good start anyway. :-)

Some favorite music today, from the Windham Hill Windows album:

In Flight - by Michael Allen Harrison
Children's Song - by Øystein Sevåg
A Morning with the Roses - by Richard Dworsky
If you Believe - by Jim Brickman

I shoveled the driveway for the third day running today - and it's been lightly snowing all day. Have I mentioned that I love snow? I love shoveling it, looking at it, playing in in, sledding and skiing on it, touching it, noticing it, living where it can occur... yesterday I measured the snow in the back yard with a firm ruler and found 18cm / 7" !

And for my last comment: watch Kit Kittredge - it's a lovely movie for kids, with
- Julia Ormond (of the 1995 Sabrina with Harrison Ford)
- Abigail Breslin (from Nim's Island and The Ultimate Gift)
- Stanley Tucci (of The Terminal)
- Joan Cusack
- an actor from the Princess Bride whom you will recognize before you see him.

Some other fun surprises. Don't read too much about it.

 
P.S. Photo credit of the close-up kitty shot goes to Jason. Thanks, J!

Little King of the Snow Mount

This bird was singing in the February snow yesterday as I walked past.Inspiration for joy in tough circumstances, and looking ahead to the good that is coming.

The snow in the back yard was light, fluffy stuff, no good for snowmen. I wanted to build one in solidarity with my big brother's great snowman 3 hours from here (he even got snow arms to stay on and put a photo on Facebook to prove it) , so I managed to pack together a hill and make a tiny Snow King to rule the top of the mountain.

Snow, Heart and Cat

Shoveled the snow again today
Shoveled a path for a cat
The cat's not even a cat of mine
How tender a heart is that?

Yesterday I trudged a heart in the snow
A heart with a 'K' and a 'D'
Today I find there are prints in the heart
Paws of a cat do I see

Mike Waters' Joyful Toons

Encouraging and funny Christian cartoons based on scripture - you can subscribe to receive them in your email weekly. Looks like there are 110 of them so far.
 
A couple of examples:

The Quotidian Mysteries

A quote from Kathleen Norris, pp. 77-78 of The Quotidian Mysteries:

The Christian religion asks us to place our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and who desires to be present to us in our everyday circumstances. And because we are human, it is in the realm of the daily and the mundane that we must find our way to God.

Primula in Coop

Primroses are a special flower to me - they evoke early childhood memories from Geneva. I remember seeing many happy ones, a welcome spring brightness after the grey of winter.

Apparently primroses are one of the genus primula. So I'm not too sure if these that I saw today in the local Coop are actually primroses or another kind of primula.  I suppose they are primula cultivars.

Today it hailed. And inside the house, Jason had a temperature of 103°F and Emily of 102°F. I'm working at staying a very normal temperature, right between hail and fever.