Prayer Request.

Would you please pray for my cousin's wife? She just gave birth to a 3 1/2 pound baby girl on Friday evening. She wasn't due until November 26th, so the baby is early but is doing ok. But my cousin's wife, Laura, is having some problems. I don't know what, but please pray for her! She and my cousin are both saved, which is a blessing.


Updated: I just found out the situation on Laura. What she has is something called HELLP - Hemolytic anemia Elevated Liver enzymes and Low Platelet count. Laura is in very critical condition. Please lift their entire family up to the Lord in prayer, especially Chad and Laura.

Tag, You're It! Take Two:).

Since I'm in the mood for tags, I'm going to share another one with you! Rachel tagged me for sharing 6 random things about myself. I've already shared about my ability of having goofy pictures taken so the rest of what I share will be less random:o).

Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you. Check
2. Post the rules on your blog. Check
3. List 6 unspectacular quirks you have. Getting there!
4. Tag 6 bloggers by linking them. I'm thinking of them right now
5. Leave a comment on each taggee's blog to let them know they've been tagged. Hold on! Hold on! Gotta think of the bloggers first!!

Unspectacular Quirk #1: I love, love, love to organize!!! Give me a messy room and I will be formulating a plan in my mind as to how I should go about conquering the mess! That got me in trouble one time though. Years ago Tiffany came over to my house and we started organizing a huge room on our second floor. My parents came home and my dad wasn't too happy about me cleaning everything so we had to put it. all. back. No fun.

Unspectacular Quirk #2: I like to cook by myself. I don't like other people helping me out. I guess it's kinda like that phrase, "too many cooks in the kitchen." I'm learning to be gracious though!

Unspectacular Quirk #3: I prefer to work with junior/senior high teens rather than elementary kids. In fact, elementary kids (*hushed whisper*) scare me! I love babies and junior church kids but after five, it's all down hill for me until about 12:o).

Unspectacular Quirk #4: To go along with my love of organization, everything absolutely has to be in the right place! I don't like to leave the pillows on our sofa and chairs askew when we leave the house. Shoes must be side by side. Computer put away. Dishes cleared from the table. Curtains drawn. I could go on and on:o).

Unspectacular Quirk #5: I have a fetish (an abnormally obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation) with conserving electricity. I will go out of my way to turn off a light in a room that no one is in, or to turn off fans and air cons. I can't stand the thought that electricity is being wasted, although electricity is much cheaper here in Thailand (to the tune of $40.00).

Unspectacular Quirk #6: I have been told several times that I walk very fast. And it's true - I do! When I was a senior in high school, my Principal and his wife took the juniors and seniors on a Civics trip to Washington D.C. My Principal's wife was 7 1/2 months pregnant on that trip and as we charged up a hill in Arlington National Cemetery, she had to stop half-way up to rest. Of course the three of us in the front didn't realize that because we were so far ahead of the group:o).

I'm going to tag... oh let's see! Hmm, decisions, decisions!!! This is like trying to choose teams to play volleyball. Who do I pick??? Oh right, back to deciding:o). I tag:

Ashley

Tori

Rachel with the cute niece Raine:o)

Tiffany (do you remember organizing the upstairs at my house?!?)

Sara Nicole

Rebecca

No Vacancy!

Dear Mosquitoes Inhabiting the Land of Thighs (I mean Thais),

I realize that my skin is a lot more fair than those native to Thailand. Pookie and I often do a skin comparison, and last time I checked, I'm still whiter. Please do not assume that this means I am looking forward to red marks all over my heels. Quite the contrary. In fact, it was with great pleasure I killed a bunch of your fellow pals and cohorts last Saturday. The response you gave was quite unnecessary. 11 red marks are a bit much, if you ask me (which you didn't... but that's besides the point). Add to that 6 blisters and my little tootsie-wootsies are not happy campers. They are basking in Aloe Vera now... no thanks to your vicious attacks that must occur at night or something. Kindly refrain from taking a part of me and we shall remain friends from a distance.

~Anne~

P.S. ~ I've called in reinforcements from PA... they'll be here at midnight on Tuesday. Have at them all you want!!!

Keeping It *Very* Real.

Abbi tagged me for this "keeping it real" post... you're supposed to go take pictures of these things around your house without altering or moving anything. So, here goes!

1. My fridge - This is what it looks like when we're in desperate need of some grocery shopping! And the two pots were thrown in there after Thursday night Bible study - when we also have a time of food and fellowship. This week there were two extra guys, so that meant more food to make:).


2. A closet - There are no actual "closets" in Thailand. Everyone has a wardrobe, just like this one. Some are bigger and most are this color. I've only ever seen one that is not brownish in nature. And yes, those are my suitcases on top of my wardrobe:).


3. My kitchen sink - I'm doing this post in the morning; hence the lack of any dishes in the sink! My kitchen is an "outdoor" kitchen and it's separated from the rest of the downstairs with a wall and a screen door.

4. A toilet - Hey, at least it's not a squat toilet! When I was in the Kuala Lumpur airport, I went to use the restroom and found stall after stall of squat toilets. Welcome to Asia!!!

5. My favorite shoes - Since this is Asia, flip flops are the footwear of choice for most people. I did bring a few other pairs of shoes with me (sneakers, white slip-ons, and brown sandals), but most days I'm wearing these.

6. A favorite room - Most of my time at home (waking hours!) is spent in the living room. Reading, blogging, watching DVDs, e-mailing, etc. all takes place here. Oh, the reason why the bulletin board is half-sided is because Pookie hasn't put any of her pictures up yet:).

7. What my kids are doing right now - no kids for me and I didn't think Pookie would appreciate me taking a picture of her getting ready for the day:).

8. The laundry pile - The reason the wardrobe was kinda empty is because I have to do laundry tomorrow:).

9. A self-portrait - :).

10. My dream vacation - Hmm, can't really say I have one. Oh, wait I do! But since I haven't been there yet, I have no pictures:).

I'm tagging Jendi and Kristi since Abbi near about tagged everyone else :).

Thank You News Media (Specifically Yahoo!)

In reading the news this fine Thursday morning, I smiled when I read this sentence:

"Mates said the rocks fell across an area that used to be traversed by a trail no longer maintained because of heavy rock falls."

Hmm, I wonder why they don't use that trail anymore?!?! I'm sure the next step they're going to take is to put up a sign saying, "Falling Rock."

:)

One Of The Few Times I'll Do This.

There's been an interesting discussion on Facebook regarding the upcoming election. I'm not going to get into all the nitty-gritty details, but I will say this: if you are an American and a Christian, you should vote! I don't think anything more needs to be said about that:).

In light of the Facebook discussion, I decided out of curiosity to see who is running (not just the two main-party nominees). I was surprised to see that there are 6 major candidates. Even if you already know who you are going to vote for, I think that Project Vote Smart - The Voter's Self Defense System is a worthy site to check out. I was rather disappointed at some of the information I found out about the various candidates. If you click on the candidate's name, there will be a link on the right that says "Issue Position" (Political Courage Test). I challenge you to read over the list of your candidate.

There.. I feel better sharing that information with you!

This blog will now return to it's normal stress-free environment:).

They Just Keep Dying!

I have a history and reputation of being a plant killer. Many a blossoming leafy plant has met an early demise at my hands, so it's no surprise that I tend to stay away from anything that bears my being responsible for something to stay alive.

So guess where I found myself last evening?

Pookie, Theresa Lange, her kids, and I went to a market to go buy some fish and some turtles. Not to eat mind you! The reason why we were fish shopping is because all of our fish mysteriously died the day we came home from our trip. So we cleaned out the huge fish bowl and that's when Pookie decided to get some turtles.

So we got the fish. And the marbles. And the plant. And the turtle. And the food. Theresa also got an aquarium for Jon's turtle and fish. We all came home and went right to work at making our new friends feel at home. (By the way, Jon named his fish: Josh, Jonathan, Joshua, and Flight Simulator, who we fully expect to go flying through the air:D.)

This morning I woke up and decided to take a quick peek at the fish bowl.

Two fish were laying on their side, and I'm pretty sure they weren't sleeping.

So after my morning walk with Theresa I came back in and looked again. One fish decided swimming on the side was so much better than being upright.

I came home from work - three more had gone to fishy heaven. I'm almost afraid to look in the bowl again. I think pretty soon our fishbowl is going to wind up being a fancy holder for a plant.

We still have three left, but I'm not holding my breath on their survival abilities! The turtles *whispering cautiously* are still alive... no thanks to me.

So now I'm a plant and fish killer. My resume keeps getting bigger!

But if it's any consolation, Theresa had two fish die on her too. Apparently I'm rubbing off on her:o).

Give Away! Give Away!

Not here gals... over there at Chryll's Corner!

Hurry up and enter... it closes out today at 11:30 AM.

:)

The Ladies On The Mission Field.

This past week has been very interesting, to say the least. Between a broken air conditioner -(which really isn't funny since it is in the 90s!) - to printing problems, the devil has definitely been fighting us! So in light of that, this week I'm going to share a couple of missionary blogs that I read and hope that this will serve as a small reminder to pray for missionaries around the world. And as a side note, I'm going to stick this in: when God wakes you up in the middle of the night, He usually is doing that so you can start interceding for some missionaries. If He brings one to mind, PRAY for them! This past week I woke up a couple of times around 6 AM and started praying for my church. Why? Because this week was a special week of meetings every night. 6 AM my time is 7 PM their time, which also happens to be the start of the nightly service. Now isn't that a "coincidence"?!? :)

Here are a couple of missionary blogs I read, and if you have any links to share, I would love to read other missionary blogs!

• A Bunch of Burts
• A Home Away From Home
• Thoughts of a Mad Missionary

Enjoy!

Only In Thailand.

After English service tonight, Steve was playing planes with the Langes' son Jon when Steve noticed written on the one wing of the plane was the word "flrme". On the other side was the word "flame." I'll let you take a wild stab as to which one is correct:).

That reminded me of a shirt I saw last year in Big C (kind of an all-in-one store). I wish I had my camera with me, but I didn't. The shirt had an outline of Florida on it and across the top was the word -

MONTANA.

You know, it's all within the same country. Close enough, right?

:o)