Beginning Wordless Wednesday Early

Think Red for Recycle

Today I donated my first pint of blood. It was not as bad as I thought. Actually the process before donating was more painful. The questions, reading the pamphlet, redoing the questions, the health history, you get the picture. The girls wanted to come with because they wanted to watch mommy get a marfay (shot) but were unable to wait as long as it took for mommy to get a marfay (I'm sure the spelling is not correct, but oh well). So the whole process took about 40-45 minutes and the actual blood donation took about 10-15 minutes. I didn't feel dizzy, unstable, or anything. I am going to make a date to do this every 8 weeks. It's definitely a way for me to love my neighbor as well as be an example to my girls about helping people you don't know and doing good in the world. So next time you are looking to volunteer to help someone, donate blood, you actually are helping three of your neighbors!

so it's sunday

and I attempted to take a sabbath day. a real sabbath day, no cooking, no cleaning, etc. this is the most work i've done all day, writing this post. i feel kind of guilty, but in some sense, a real sense, it's nice to let your brain and body have a break! the girls freaked out a bit when i announced that i was not cooking dinner :-). of course kidist says, "daddy can cook" with daddy answering, "________________". that would be no answer. . . .the girls didn't want sandwiches, that is boring. so they scrounged around the fridge and came up with some pretty healthy left overs and they actually heated up food with supervision of course. so one successful sabbath day has been had at my house today! we'll have to try that again real soon.

didn't know what to write today so . . .

i decided to post pictures instead. One of Bayat holding veggies from our garden, both girls at the Mehaber in MN july 2010 and the girls attempting to sleep in the tent up north. I ended up being summoned about 10:30 because of the noises. Oh well. . . Enjoy

contemplations

Not going to write a whole lot tonight. . . been reading and thinking and wondering and pondering. . . what does it mean to love your neighbor?? Your next door neighbor, your neighbor across the street, the neighbor down the road, across town, in another city, state, country? A different land from which you reside? What does it mean to love your neighbor? I get something, mixed feelings, confused, etc. when I see some of what I see on the internet. (Don't really want to expand on that at the moment). I live in the land of the free, free to do, for the most part, what ever I want to do. Does that mean I should just do foolishly with the gifts that God has given me? Probably not! But does it mean that I should also shout out about what I do? Probably not! But what about bringing about awareness to those who don't know what is going on in the neighborhood! I think it very important to expose the nature of all things, especially those things that WE can CHANGE! So my ponderings, How can I love my neighbors near and far and do it in Christian love? Thanks for reading and pondering with me, because if you've read this far you might be asking yourself the same questions. Peace to all and to all a peaceful night~

Green Jalapenos make good salsa~

Today the girls and I did some canning. We made 5 pints of hot salsa with 7 jalapenos (my fingers are still burning) from the garden and 3 pints & 3-1/2 pints of strawberry jam! Overall, it was a great day with some bumpy beginnings! I've included a picture of the lovelies standing by their green garden creations :-)

Already late. . . .

For posting each day this month. oh well. . . here's a shortened summary version for August 1-4th. We were on vacation away from technology well. . . until yesterday. . . and enjoying every minute of being away from technology. So I am not going to let that 'technological' glitch deter me from the days that I am one with technology. So August's theme is GREEN! There are so many things to talk about for the GREEN theme, like the environment, recycling, the many things that are GREEN, how to live more GREEN, etc.

So I'll start by talking about how we try to save energy and resources in our house. If you read my last post, I highly encourage my girls to use ice cubes to make cold water instead of running the water for 10 minutes to get cold tap water! There are many other ways we attempt to be "greener" too! We have a composter and are teaching the girls that food waste can actually be made into energy for our new garden. I believe this fall we'll have enough to mix into our garden soil for a great spring planting next year! Then there are the usual, turn off the lights before leaving a room, close doors behind you, wearing certain clothing items more than once, using the same glass/cup for the entire day, etc. These are sometimes hard things for all of us to do, especially when we are not used to doing some of these things! So green, is the theme for August. We'll see how many green topics I can write about! So happy blogging and reading~