"I don't care if Monday's blue..."

Monday - wash day. At least it is this week. Clothes and dishes. This sounds mundane, but right now it's comforting. The washer's going, the dishes are drying, and there's four more days to go until the weekend. Not that I'm counting or anything. :) There's something about every day of the week that is special. Particularly this week, Wednesday is special. Ash Wednesday this year comes late. I'm glad it won't happen this late again for another two-and-a-half decades or so. In my head, it should be halfway to Easter right now.

Is anyone giving anything up for Lent? A couple of years ago, my pastor gave a sermon on the importance of not complaining. Hmmm. That would probably be more difficult to give up than a favorite food.

What's good about Monday? Well, it's the first (work) day of the week. A day to start over, or again. A chance to set goals for the rest of the week.

Do I listen to my own rhetoric? Not usually...I'm feeling optimistic today. No idea why. I hope it stays around for awhile. It feels better than walking around feeling like Ziggy.

To end on a high note, the Cards won today! That's good news, no matter WHAT day of the week it is.

A Good Day

This is a good day for getting indoor activities done. March is good for those types of things. I'm going to make cookies later. Which recipe? My favorite, of course!

Coffee Chip Cookies

1 cup of shortening (butter or margarine can be substituted)
2 cups of packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of boiling (hot) water
2 TBSP of coffee (instant)
4 cups of all purpose flour (that's what the original recipe calls for, what other flour is there?)
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
4 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips (24 oz., and do use semi-sweet. I used milk chocolate chips once and they weren't nearly as good)

Cream short and brown sugar in bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Combine water and coffee, set aside.
Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture alternately with coffee. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough on greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
Yields 3 and 1/2 dozen.

These are really good with a fresh cup of coffee, or so I've heard. (Non coffee-drinking blogger here.) For myself, I favor a cup of cold milk. Or just by themselves, with no drink at all.

Mmmm...cookies....

-BR

Nothing in Particular

There's been rain, thunder, lightening, etc. off and on for the last few hours. I had dinner, watched a funny YouTube video (the theme was Sheen or Gaddafi?), blogged, listened to the radio announcers get way too excited about bad weather, blogged, popped in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, worked on my ongoing-should-have-been-done-in-October-but-is-nearly-finished project, and tried to doctor myself. For those of you not on Facebook, I've started to predict the weather. Actually, more specifically, my left knee has started predicting the weather. I'm not too fond of the career change. I liked it better when it was unswollen and less tempermental and, you know, enabled me to walk without feeling like Frankenstein.

Here's a tip: never Google bodily ailments. Ninety percent of the results will list remedies that involve surgery.

Question: Does anyone know of a good substitute for salad dressing? I've tried to eat it dry (like Mom), but I need something else. Suggestions would be helpful.

Oh, and to satisfy you, the power has gone off, and back on again. Twice. So far. Today.

-BR

Perspective

Sometimes I read things that just really hit home. Over at my pastor's blog (over on the left, W's blog) go and read about Noel. I didn't know him. His story shamed me. There are so many lonely, forgotten people in this world. Everyone should have a friend. After reading Noel's story, I thought about how many friends God has put into my life. I deserve none of them. If God were just in His dealings with us, no one would have friends. Who among us deserves them?
In the purest sense, Jesus' teaching to us that we should "love our neighbor as we love ourselves" to me means being a friend to the friendless. After all, He is. He loves people that no one on this earth even knows exists. Like Noel. Is Noel a lesser person because no one came to his funeral, other than his pastor? (And sadly, not all pastors do that.) Absolutely not!

One of the greatest comforts as a Christian is to know, even in my darkest moments, that I am not alone. As Lent approaches, the Church remembers the moment when the Son of God cried aloud: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" (Matthew 26: 46)

In German, the verse reads: "Mein Gott, mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen?"
Verlassen in German means "abandoned".

Noel was not abandoned. He was remembered by his Savior. He is now at home, where there is no loneliness or abandonment.

Remember not only your friends, but those around you who may not have a real friend. It doesn't take much. I don't mean to lecture anyone - I fail in this way constantly. It's the little things that mean something; saying good morning, opening a door for someone, listening to someone talk (even if he or she has a tendency to rattle on).

"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?" Matthew 5:46-47, NKJV

May He grant us His love to love others. Amen.

-BR

Waiting For The Storm

Literally. Just heard some thunder in the distance. The rearview mirror view coming home was solid dark blue. The radio's on, and so far, so is the electricity. Please, please stay on. Severe thunderstorms in the area and I'm under a tornado watch. And the siren just went off. But no worries...yet. It's six o'clock and the siren always goes off now. Hopefully this will blow through before late night.

Updating and Downloading

Just finished downloading music on my Ipod Touch. By the way, if you like music, Itunes has single songs for 69...cents. Really. Right now. I mean, I didn't know anyone sold anything for 69 cents anymore. Other than used plates at garage/church rummage sales.

To be fair, the song selection isn't great. But there are some good ones in there. For instance, some of my new downloaded songs are Keith Urban's "Somebody Like You", Heart's "Alone" and The Tokens' "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". That's just a sample. So check it out if you're so inclined. Also, under the "Classics" section, don't get excited if you think there are selections by Handel or Bach there. Itunes' understanding of "Classics" is...classic pop/rock songs. Some of them are, admittedly, classics in a sense, but I was disappointed. I wanted Handel's "Watermusic".

Mom (who has her OWN blog now! Yay!) showed me how to post links on MY blog to other people's blogs. So that's something I've been meaning to show ever since I started this thing, and now it's there. Look to the left. I also wanted to use a sentence with the word "blog" in it three times. Heh.

In other news, Brother Who Shall Not Be Named also reportedly started his own blog. He didn't tell me this directly. If he hadn't posted something from it on FB I would never have known. Congrats, bro! Looking forward to reading your stuff...as soon as I figure out how to link to your blog. It's called Pandemonium, right? No. Pandora's Box. Or am I thinking Kung Fu Panda?

Love you, BWSNBN. (I'm calling you that from now on, as you value your privacy highly.)

-BR

Washington's Birthday Weekend

Even though a lot of people call this almost-over long weekend "Presidents' Day" weekend, according to the fedall gubmint, today is officially known as Washington's Birthday. I spent it with my boyfriend. What? There's another holiday weekend in February? For the shortest month, it sure gets more than its fair share of holidays, but I digress.

The ironic thing is that so many of my experiences this weekend had nothing to do with presidents (past or present), American history*, or even democracy.

Saturday night: attended a joust. Yes, really. The event that involves horses, knights in armor, and semi-fake royalty. There was a king and princess hosting the tournament, and its accompanying feast. Several hundred spectators, wearing paper crowns that would make the Burger King proud, cheered on their knights and booed the green knight (the necessary bad guy). One of my favorite details was the fact that during the feast, no utensils were provided. Soup (described as dragon's blood soup) was drunk out of bowls, and the meat (described as dragon), bread and potatoes were eaten...using nothing but my fingers. Numerous napkins were provided. I don't think those were provided in the medieval era. Also part of the entertainment was a trained falcon who flew around the arena in a synchronized pattern. The jousting was pretty impressive - the venue was big enough that the horses (trained Andalusians)

Sunday afternoon after church and an excellent brunch was spent in a local Borders. Unfortunately, due to the recent filing by said company of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a large number of their stores are being closed, including the one closest to, and frequented by, my boyfriend. Book-lovers, teachers, students, parents, children, nearby small coffee shops and former First Ladies advocating literacy hardest hit.
There was a line that stretched all the way to the back of the store. Since everything was marked down and "had to go", and because CJ (my BF - I don't actually call him that, but it is a family nickname) has a google-plex worth of gift cards, we felt it would be worth grabbing stuff we wanted and enduring the long line. He got Lord of the Flies. I got three books - The Boys of Winter, about the 1980 American Olympic hockey team; a book by Bill Bryson about how English evolved; and a book about Napoleon (Bonaparte, not Dynamite).

Other activities this weekend involved watching more episodes of Firefly and the movie Bringing Up Baby, which BF enjoyed.

Unfortunately, the wonderful spring-like weather that came around last week did not stay through the weekend. But winter is on its way out.

I hope you all had a good weekend, too!

-BR

*The only direct American history had to do with the book about the hockey team.