Brasilia, Brazil in Pictures

Americas Area Leaders met in Brasilia this past week and I was there representing Wycliffe USA. I've created a collage and posted it here (and am using it as my wallpaper on the laptop). I've also been posting photos on Facebook (with captions) and will place a link below in case you'd like to see those and read about the trip some. Facebook has a way to make that viewable to you if you don't have an account, so I'll see how that works.



FACEBOOK PHOTO ALBUM OF BRAZIL TRIP 2009.

Link to Wycliffe USA Blog

This is the place (the title above is a link to the Wycliffe USA Blog) to keep current -- currently with the IMC team and others who are traveling in Uganda and Tanzania this week. The first video has been posted and is viewable here.

From this blog you can also find Twitter and Facebook connections for those on the trip if that is something you want to explore.

Undercover Cootie

One of the things that Cootie enjoys is chasing (and tormenting) geckos. Not the Geico kind that talk and wear little suits, the kind who live on the patio and in the bushes EVERYWHERE here. 

She'll dash out onto the patio and nearly fly from one potted plant to the other, under chairs and around the grill in search of her prey.

The thing is, they see her coming and most of them are smart enough to run. Run fast and straight up and out of reach. 

Cootie used a new tactic yesterday -- the disguise. I admit that she may have gotten the idea from something I was watching on television. So, here is Undercover Cootie ready to go out and blend in with the locals. 

I mean no disrespect for the Cootmeister and still fully support the strategy of disguises, but this flat out did not work. They still saw her coming and they still ran. 

Ruth Mosaic - Another Facebook Game

Here you go. Another one of those Facebook Games. This one was going around weeks ago and I'm just getting around to it.

RULES
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search (http://www.flickr.com/).
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. Change rows to 3 and columns to 3 (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php).
d. Save the image and post it on this note!
e. If you're tagged, pass it on.

THE QUESTIONS
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your favorite color?
4. Favorite drink?
5. Dream vacation?
6. Favorite hobby?
7. What you want to be when you grow up?
8. What do you love most in life?
9. One word to describe you?



1. Ruth's Drive In, 2. A Loaf of Bread, 3. An Appointment with Indigo, 4. i love you water. i miss you diet coke., 5. Little Cabin in the woods..., 6. Snowflake Curtain, 7. The devoted secretary, 8. underneath a star, 9. Twilight and Blossoms, Mendocino County

Cootie...er, Half Pint

So, Cootie spent today watching Little House on the Prairie (with Filbert) and now she insists that I call her Half Pint and wants desperately to go fishin' with Mr. Edwards tomorrow. If I knew a Mr. Edwards (or just someone who wanted to take a dog dressed like Laura Ingalls fishing) I'd be happy to oblige. 

I wonder what the two of them will watch tomorrow. I'm hoping it's not Monk. I don't think I can deal with an evening of canine OCD.

WIth Photographers as Friends....

Garden Flower
Originally uploaded by Julie A Green

Julie just made me a "contact" on her Flickr account and that opened a door of extraoridinary opportunity for me to see some of her wonderful photography as well as an easy way to share some of it with you in my blog.

I'm so glad that this all came to my attention as I sat down to eat my lunch and check personal email, etc. so I have time to visually wander through some delightful places.

THANK YOU JULIE!!

Close Encounters of the Third or Fourth Kind

Cootie and Filbert are becoming fast friends. They really do look smart together, especially when Filbert is sitting on Cootie's brown blanket -- don't you think? And it is such a nice demonstration of sharing, too!

They got together this evening and planned out the remainder of their week. While I'm working all day, Filbert has gotten rather enthralled by a few television series and he's bound and determined to get Cootie into the mania. I hear that tomorrow they are watching a Little House on the Prairie marathon. 

I think that Filbert must have gotten some cheese crumbs lodged in his ear earlier today. He'd been complaining about not being able to hear properly. Apparently Cootie helped him with that dilemma. They really are such nice friends. 

Guess Who?

Cootie is back!  She's been here a number of times since the visit when she blogged, actually. I just don't often let her use my computer. I should, though -- she had quite the following when she blogged before. (I'll think about that.)

Cootie is only here for a short week, but I think it will be a good week. She is certainly enjoying playing with...well, that's for another day. 

This post is merely to announce that SHE IS BACK!!!

WAS v. AM BECOMING

My friend Tom Lin pointed me (and others) to this video on his blog (it was at the top of the blog roll when I posted my Deuteronomy post just now) and I have to share it, too. These are students in the InterVarsity chapter at Drake University. I think they have also met the Rock who is perfect and just and right -- and whose mercy is new every morning.

I dare you to watch this and not be encouraged.

from Deuteronomy 32 (a song of Moses)

 1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; 
       hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

 ² Let my teaching fall like rain 
       and my words descend like dew, 
       like showers on new grass, 
       like abundant rain on tender plants.

 ³ I will proclaim the name of the LORD. 
       Oh, praise the greatness of our God!

 ⁴ He is the Rock, his works are perfect, 
       and all his ways are just. 
       A faithful God who does no wrong, 
       upright and just is he.

Moses -- 120 years old and all of his peers are dead. He knows that Joshua is going to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land soon. He has seen this land from the mountain top but will not be entering it himself because of his own faithlessness (see the end of Deut. 32 for a brief description of that). And this is his last song to the nation he has lead for four decades. It is a song that God taught him and instructed him to sing. He has preached some extraordinary sermons over the past days (recorded as the book of Deuteronomy) recounting the Law and the journey to this place and he is about to die.

I love this introduction -- and Moses' confidence in who God is. I see this as key to all that is right about Moses. Key to his humility and his confidence. Moses was intimately engaged with the God of all creation, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the Eternal One. 

Over the past months we've been studying the life of Moses in BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) and I've grown to love and respect Moses like never before. One of the strengths of BSF is the consistent reminder (usually through questions) that a study of God's Word is intended to impact every aspect of our lives -- our minds and hearts and souls -- and to play out in our words and actions and relationships. 

Today I ask myself how I will live differently because I know the Rock whose works are perfect and whose ways are just and right? How will that show in my attitudes and choices on a Monday in May?

-----<     >-----

When I am doing a Bible study where I need to jump from one passage to another for various questions, I love Bible Gateway. I've created a hyperlink to Bible Gateway @ Deuteronomy 32 in case you want to see this passage in context or just check out this internet tool. The other Bible tool I love is YouVerion. If you have not signed up there, you might want to at least check it out. I have an idea of how I want to use that tool over the summer (starting over the summer, anyhow) -- I'll get back to you on how that goes.

Produce Market & Ratatouille

Dad and i went to the produce market this morning and I got inspired.

That inspiration worked itself out in the kitchen today -- I made lunch and supper and used a lot of produce.

Late in the afternoon I started the easy but multi-stepped process of making ratatouille. The recipe I use as a foundation for this adds chicken and makes it a meal.

I really do love it.

I chopped and chopped.

There was lots of chopping.

I got to use my BIG bamboo cutting board and various ones of my kitchen knives. (You know, having the right knives can make all the difference in the kitchen.)

I also got to go out to the flower garden where I've added a few of my favorite herbs and picked fresh basil (some sweet and some spicy) and rosemary to add to the pot.

(My rosemary is currently growing in a pot on the patio -- it is rather small. I love the way this evergreen smells when it is brushed or crushed.)

And then, while dad chose to have some bread and pepper jack cheese with his, I chose to sprinkle goat cheese on mine. Oh, that was a very good addition.

It Takes a Thief

Six or eight weeks ago I found a bird feeder on clearance at Target for less than $3 and grabbed it. I still had a stash of birdseed from my last "urge" to feed the birds, so I came home and filled it up and hung it in my Bottle Brush tree out back. It took the birds a few weeks to find it.

I enjoyed sitting on my patio watching the birds come to the feeder and then flit around the yard from bush to tree to tree and back.

Fast forward through a bit of traveling and less time to sit around on the patio and you get to last weekend when I filled the feeder up again and rehung it.

On Wednesday I wandered out back to check on things and figured I'd see if there was evidence that the birds had been back. I was surprised to find the feeder almost empty. Really hungry birds? That didn't seem likely, but no other reasonable cause came to mind.

Less than an hour later I glanced out of my bedroom window and saw him. Nervy. Bold. A thief who I'm sure things of  himself as a clever thing. In fact, I'm sure  he thinks  he is totally innocent.

See, it has only been the last year or less that we've had squirrels in the neighborhood and I've only seen one in my yard one time before. 

Now I know. Fill the bird feeder -- feed the squirrel. So, do I just let him eat the rest of the stash and then call it an end to that phase or do I start playing the game where the human tries to outsmart the critter?

The thing is, after I took the first couple of photos, the screen door slammed shut and he jumped down from the feeder and dashed to the Live Oak... hiding behind the trunk and peeking around the side to see if I was still there or had given up. Like he knew I'd eventually go back in the house and he could finish his dinner in peace.

Silly squirrel.