12.29.08
SimplyBloom is Simply Beautiful
Karina
My sister-in-law’s friend recently got married and her wedding photos are just gorgeous!! It also helps that Karina is a beautiful girl, but the composition and the creativity in these photos is just amazing!! So, I have another wedding photographer to add to Blogs I Read.
SimplyBloom’s photos are so delicious they make me want to get married all over again!! Or maybe quit my job and be a wedding photographer. Their vision is so apparent, and they use very artistic settings, poses and photo effects. They do non-wedding portraits too; their baby portraits are just precious!
29
29. 29. Today I “become” 29.
I’m OK with 29. I really am. For one, I prefer odd ages over even, so it’s good to be back to an “odd” age. Strange — or odd — I know.
But more than that, I’m starting to live the next decade of my life right now. You turn 1 at the end of your first year. So turning 29 means this is the end of my 29th year. My 20s are over and my 30th year of life starts right now!
Like a lot of people, particularly women maybe, I started dreading “30″ like two years ago! It’s not that 30 is old, but it’s just not 20-something anymore. I heard a woman on a radio show a week or so ago moaning about turning 30 and how depressed she was over it because it was the end of the “carefree 20’s.” The woman felt like she never really got to experience those carefree years because she married young, had kids young, etc., and was now sad because those years were gone.
I could relate to this woman because I too married young and I had kids young, and sometimes people who grow up fast may wonder what they might have missed. At the same time, I think I might have been bored all these years if I didn’t have my husband and my family. As it was, I experienced my 20s with my best friend, and I have two little pieces of us that while often frustrating and stressful are the light of my life! I look around at the 30-something people around me who are just getting married and just starting families and I’m so thankful that I’m through with those steps and can spend my 30s enjoying what I’ve worked for in my 20s.
So that’s what I’m going to do. My 20s sometimes felt like hard work. I was in school, moved (a lot), had two babies, career changes, etc. It was a lot of fun, but definitely work. So I’m looking forward to my third decade because of all the life I plan to experience! My kids aren’t babies anymore, and in the next decade they will grow up and mature and we’ll be able to enjoy that so much! Experiencing the next 10 years with them is going to be such a joy, to watch them learn and experience life as boys and then young men.
We can travel with them because they’ll be old enough for long car rides to the beach and mature enough for flights across country (or even across the ocean maybe!). We can also travel without them as they’ll be easier to leave with our parents for a weekend or stay the night with a friend.
I pray for their health and that we’ll be able to watch them excel in school and sports and art or music, or whatever they are in to. I want to become more involved in a ministry and missions, and I pray that in the next decade I’ll see my sons ask Jesus into their heart and be baptized. I want my husband and I to build on our past 10 years together and grow closer as a couple and as a brother and sister in Christ and find how God wants us to serve Him together.
I can’t promise that the next 10 years will not have its ups and downs — most days I’m a pessimist so I totally expect there to be downs. But I’m hopeful for the things to come, in my 30s — which start today, at 29.
12.27.08
Now All I Need Is a New Camera Bag
I expect to do some serious photography this next year with this! It has the quality of my old Minolta 35mm, with the speed, memory and convenience of digital. It’s amazing how fast it takes a picture! And, it came with the basic 18-70 mm lens, and the 75-300 mm zoom lens! Hubby did good this Christmas!!
End Times
Our pastor has been doing an End Times sermon series for the last month or so, and I’ve been so excited week-to-week as he’s been helping us make sense of Revelation and Old Testament prophecy. Couple that with my One Year Bible which is in Revelation this whole month, and I’ve had the End Times on my mind. There are, of course, lots of areas up for debate — rapture or no rapture? pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, or post-tribulation? Are we close or is it still thousands of years off? and so on. But regardless of your beliefs on those things, these statistics of just how many times the second-coming is discussed in the Bible are pretty interesting:
The second-coming is the second most talked about subject in the Bible, second only to faith.
There are 17 books in the Old Testament dedicated to the second-coming.
The number of verses that talk about the second-coming are 8:1 over verses that talk about the first coming.
In the New Testament, 23 of the 27 books refer to the second-coming over and over again.
One of my favorite End Times passages is the words Jesus, himself, spoke in Matthew 24. The entire chapter really needs to be read altogether and not picked apart where meaning can be misconstrued without context.
Matthew 24 in King James Version
Matthew 24 in New International Version
That said, if I had to pick only a small part, it would be verses 32 and 33:
32Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
33So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
In the first 31 verses, Jesus goes through the signs of the End Times. Here he is saying that just like there are signs that the fig tree is about to bloom (tender branches, new leaves), so are there signs that the End Times are coming. What I take to heart is this: signs are not signs to you unless you know the signs.
Just in case you got lost in the “signs,” let me explain what I mean: A farmer can tell by looking at a field of cotton when the cotton is about to bloom and when it’s ready for pickin’. I’m not a cotton farmer and I haven’t studied up on it, so I wouldn’t recognize the signs like the cotton farmer does. A baseball player knows when to run, slide or stop by looking at the signs from the third-base coach. Unless I knew those signs I wouldn’t recognize what the coach was trying to tell me. Before you can understand the signs you have to know what they are.
So this verse encourages me to study the second-most talked about subject in God’s Word. Why would He focus on a subject so much and include entire books about it if we weren’t to study it and be excited about it! Does this mean our Christian walk should only focus on Revelation and End Times prophecy? No. But I don’t think we can dismiss Revelation altogether just because we don’t understand it. Nor can we rationalize (like some do) that because He’s coming like a thief in the night anyway, and He tells us we won’t know when, that we shouldn’t study what He does tell us. I do not know if or when I burglar my break into my home, but I lock my doors every night and am thus prepared every night.
12.24.08
Luke 2
“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
“When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
“The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”
How Much Are You Willing to Pay for News?
Columnist Brian Till says the salvation of newspapers is that people stop free-loading news and pay for it. I tend to agree. Newspapers spend money to produce the news; why should the news be free?
On a little bit of a tangent but one I think is relevant, let me explain my opinion that newspapers do not have an obligation to provide news nor to provide equal opportunity access to news. Newspapers are their own entity and can do whatever they want to do, public interest notwithstanding. Now before you journalist folks get all defensive, please note that I acknowledge that many newspapers (and writers and editors and publishers) subscribe to the higher calling of informing the people and being the government watch-dog, and some even go so far as to be an advocate for community issues (for me the latter is going too far and a possible misuse of “power,” but that is a discussion for another day.) I wanted to — and did — write for newspapers because I was so excited to tell people about the stuff going on around them that they otherwise may not know. Reading the newspaper had that affect on me and I wanted to pass that on to others.
But the newspaper industry is just like any other industry — it’s a business with expenses and revenue that must be balanced, and at the end of the day it has to make a business decision about what moves are best for its business. Certainly this must be balanced with its’ goal to inform and educate and make a difference, etc. but you can’t do one without the other. If your business dies (i.e. you can’t afford writers and newsprint) then how can you inform or educate or make a difference?
A decade ago newspaper Web sites required subscriptions, and I was right there with people who thought it should be free because I have a “right” to know the news. How can you charge me money to exercise one of my rights. But I was wrong. It is no one’s obligation to provide people with news except the organization that decides it wants to do so. Sure, the government has certain obligations to inform the people about what it is doing, and it may use a newspaper or television station or web site to do so. But a newspaper itself does not have that obligation unless it chooses to.
So if news isn’t a God-given right and it shouldn’t be free, how much should we pay for news? And how high a price would turn people away rather than lure them in? In the column referenced above, Till says “I’ve yet to find a member of my generation — as enthusiastic as many are about blogs and “new media” — who’d rather see the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times fail than cough up $100 for a subscription.” So $100? Well, as it turns out I currently pay $150 a year for a daily annual subscription to my local newspaper, so I’ve already met his $100 and raised him $50.
The big issue here is online news. One big newspaper can’t just decide today that it’s going to start charging for online access and successfully transform the entire industry. Readers will just go to another web site and get their news. As Till says, it would take collusion — newspapers plotting together in a great conspiracy to band together and take back their industry!
Till writes, “The news industry is in collapse; a critical piece of successful democracy is in jeopardy.” Are we willing to pay for what we consume and save this industry that (most of the time) serves us so well?
12.20.08
Sidebar Changes
I changed up my sidebar a little with no more favorite movies/books/music (it had gotten stale, will bring it back again some time) and added a “In the News” list where I’ll post news stories of interest to me.
Dear Santa
Finn writing last year's Santa letter
Finn’s Dear Santa letter from school:
Dear Santa,
I want Star Wars Legos. How do his nose light up?
Awww. How sweet. He only asked for one toy and it’s the same one he’s consistently asked every Santa in town for. His second comment though, which I assume is about Rudolph’s nose (not Santa’s nose), is interesting because it’s so him. He is so logically-minded and wants to make sense of things. And he’s good at making sense of things, and I’m often amazed by his ability to reason things out in his head and then explain them to others. He could be wrong because he just doesn’t have enough information to really get it all right, but his rationalizations are very well thought-out and make sense given his age and life experience. He’s so unique and such a joy!
So some of the other Santa letters from his kindergarten class and my responses:
I want an Ipod, a Wii and an Alabama helmet.
An iPod for a 5-year-old? C’mon. Finn would love to have an iPod Touch — he loves the games on my iPhone and actually likes it for music too. But to give a child who can’t even keep up with shoes from day to day a $200 high-tech doodad? Not to mention it’s fragility and the likelihood it would be dropped? I don’t think so.
I want a Wii and Legos. I’ve been feeling good.
See, there’s a difference in feeling good and being good.
I want a DS and I want a Barbie doll. I want a play pony. How are the reindeer? How is Mrs. Claus? Are you okay Santa? I’m going to leave you some cookies.
This one is obviously from a girl; she wants girl toys — a Barbie and a pony. But that’s not what makes it obvious. It’s her chattiness. How is this, how is that, etc. And “are you OK Santa?” Does she know something we don’t know about the Big Guy? Why would Santa not be OK?
