Hello!!  How are all of you?  I missed you!!

The Vet and I had a great time on our little getaway.  We went back to Burr Oak, which we visited this past spring.  Here are some photos from the trip:

We totally lucked out with absolutely gorgeous weather.  It was foggy in the mornings, but by 10 am had burned off and was just beautiful. 

We pretty much just relaxed Thursday and Friday.  We had some wonderful meals in the lodge restaurant.  Saturday we went for about a 1/2 mile hike.  It was up and down some steep hills, but I did just fine!!   The workouts are paying off!!

Okay, I am still trying to catch up on everything, so I’m going to get busy.  Hope that all of you are doing well!

40 Weeks Pray for China – week 34

Gansu Province (Capital: Lanzhou)

Population: 26 million

Area:  455,000 sq km

Christians:  1% (260,000)

Let’s pray:

May God equip believers with discerning of spirits and other spiritual gifts to combat heretical activities in the province.

May God bless the churches involved in gospel work through ministries of helping the poor.

May God raise more co-workers for the vast harvest field.

Source: www.rcchk.org

Gansu Province

(Capital: Lanzhou)

Population: 27.4 million

Area:  455,000 sq km

Christian Population:  3.14% (900,000)

 

Let’s pray:

1. May God equip believers with discerning of spirits and other spiritual gifts to combat heretical activities in the province.
2. May God bless the churches involved in gospel work through ministries of helping the poor.
3. May God raise more co-workers for the vast harvest field.

Sources: Hong Kong Revival Christian Church and Asia Harvest.

We just implemented the registration process at Textfyre.Com. If you’re an existing customer, you will be able to access the latest downloads by clicking on the Download link. If you own The Shadow in the Cathedral, you can play online.

We’ve also added a new product called the Online Edition and the Shadow version is available immediately. All online play requires Silverlight and works with Intel Macs and Windows PC’s.

We’re still working through changes to Secret Letter and looking to have 2.0 out soon.

Here’s a update on some Nickelodeon stars that got pretty famous on their own……

eXCESS APPAREL is having a huge Black Friday sale on November, 28! We will be expanding our online store with many more products for one day only! All tees, including limited releases will be on sale for only $10! There will even be some exclusive limited color prints and winter wear available for the sale, so be sure to check it out!
(http://shop.excessapparel.com)

NOTE: Products for the sale will not be available on the online store until Nov. 28!

So it has been awhile since I’ve done an update. I’ve been really busy lately, between writing reviews, trying to get interviews and of course getting back into the workforce. Which means, well Deals Of the Week will be put off for a bit due to me working this week. They will return as soon as I can get back on schedule with everything. Coming soon will be a couple of reviews: Dragon Age Origins, Borderlands, SAW, Obscure: The Aftermath, and the fourth chapter of Tales of Monkey Island. So while those are getting written, enjoy a review I recently did with a really person Lisa Foiles.

[The Facts of My Week]

5 days YWAM (Youth With a Mission) conference at North Carolina.
200+ young adult YWAMers came together from several YWAM bases in the United States.
All these people, including me, are a part of the 2009 DTS (Discipleship Training School).
About 20-30% of these people came from other countries to get their training.
Being a part of the ministry, reaching out to all nations (people).
Laying down our lives to glorify God. Learning more about God and strengthening our faith so that we may carry the Kingdom to others.
Worshiping God with tears, laughs, and all our energy, until we lost our voices bringing praise to Him!

[The Art of Losing Myself]

Let me carry this on until the day of Christ’s return.
At the same time I do not wish for the return of Christ, since half the world never heard the Love of God.
“Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” C.T. Studd. That’s my mission, that’s what I expect, and I will never back down.

When we as Christians talk about death, it should not mean death, but life.
Let us love one another, no matter what the cost is, for I shall not be mastered by earthly things.
To love others is to sacrifice for others, giving up all my rights. My rights belong to God, even to the point of death, the death of my physical body, so that my death may empower others to do greater things.
What else can I lose? I have eternal life.
When we love God, He reveals to us who He is.
Until He reveals to us who He is, we will never know who we are.
We often try to be different, but look exactly the same as others.
The reality is that, we are all different from each other, but we are also the same as others.
Here I am on earth and it’s about God’s purpose for me, not my life’s plan. If we know God’s purpose, we can change our plans to fit His purpose.

[My Prayer]

Let me die to myself and take up the cross.
Let me take care of my body, and die to my flesh.
Let me give up all things to follow You, and to obey You.
Not tomorrow, not tonight, but every second of my life.
Now I am on the mission You have given me to glorify You.
Let me say “yes” to You, not maybe.
Let me give You all of me, not a little bit at a time.
Let my passion grow like a wild fire, that I am willing to suffer for.
My greatest honor is to receive God’s love and to be obedient.
The closer I get to You, the more amazing my life will become, and the more I look like You.
I can’t be everywhere but You can be. I don’t know everything, but You do.
Let me take the task You have given me, a task that is bigger than I’m used to, so I can grow.
Your glory I have seen, and I can not imaging seeing You face to face.
Your love I have experienced, and I can not stop tearing up and laughing out loud.

Be the Gardener of my life. Be in everything I do.
You are so big and so great.
I will never worship just a picture of You.
You are so much bigger than what I can imaging.
Let me bring glory to You in everything I do, everything I say, and everything I think.
Let me worship You, anywhere, and in every way.

[Highlights of Things I Learned]

God is God, and you are not, neither am I.
He is Uncreated, Triune, and Creator.
As a Christian, meaning I have accepted Christ, I will live forever (eternally).
I am on earth with a purpose. I have chosen to receive the gift and I am created to glorify the Uncreated.
Don’t ever ask God where He is when tragedies happen on earth.
He is at the same place where He was when we killed His Son.
God gave us the world, and we handed it to the devil. It’s time to wake up and take it back.
The world is rightfully God’s.

Galveston, TX

Last night, Adam and I headed out to Galveston, TX for a week at the beach house with his parents, brother, and sister-in-law. Of course, nothing really goes off without a hitch when it comes to Adam and me. We left Montrose at around 9 PM last night, only to end up with a flat tire and in the middle of scary-ghetto-middle-of-nowhere area somewhere off of 288.

Our flat resembled this...only flatter.

We eventually found another gas station, some guy from the other one came up to us there too, I got a police offer to stick around until our flat was changed, and then we were off. A while later, though, the tire was making terrible sounds…so we pulled into another gas station and I got out and had Adam circle the parking lot so I could see what was wrong with the spare. Turns out that it wasn’t bolted in properly. Heh.

Beach house

Look at the pictures. I’m gonna go enjoy the beach. ;]

-Ellie

My overly-girly bedroom

Adam's room

Living room

Kitchen

Dining area

Yes, that IS a hot tub.

Deck

Under the house

Hey guys it’s AC. I’m back from vacation and am exhausted but here is a sweet sneakpeak of Ginormous Ridonculous’ new show! I will write a complete post of all the updates and will be up later tonight or tommorow.

-Agent

Great weekend so far! Friday night we went out for a drink with Amy and Alicia, which is always a good time. Then we came home and gave the dogs a bath to get them ready for their big photoshoot the next day. They weren’t exactly compliant in taking bath. Shayla just stands there shaking because she doesn’t understand what’s going on and Tanner spends the whole time trying to escape the bathtub. By the end of it, there was water everywhere and I think I was cleaner than they were. Then I tried to blow dry them but apparently the sight of a hair dryer is utterly terrifying because they were having no part of that. So they may smell a little better but due to having to air dry, Tanner looks a little like Don King.

So the next morning we get up, gather the dogs along with their Santa hats and white garland for a Christmasy touch, and head out to Seattle for holiday pet pictures. Lets take a minute to check in with everyone as to how they are feeling about the big day….

Awaiting their big moment

I'm super excited!

Bear, not so much

Bear reminded me numerous times that he was doing this for me. You may have noticed that the dogs were waiting in the car for their number to be called. This is because we have the most unsocialized dogs to ever live. When we tried to wait inside with the other pets, they were very scared and we feared for the life of every other pet in the building. Ugh. Not to mention the fact that they liked to “mark their territory” every five steps. This didn’t make Bear any happier to be doing what we were doing. But after an hour and a half it was finally our turn. I think the photographer probably ran out of treats trying to get our dogs to sit still for the photoshoot. We sat them next to each other, draped them in white garland, and the photoshoot began! Basically Bear and I had to hold them in place until the count of three when we would back out of the frame fast enough for her to snap a few shots. We are hoping she got some good shots for all the work we went through. We ordered a 5×7 and some Christmas cards without seeing the prints so say a prayer that we got at least one good picture. The majority of them probably include at least one dog trying to run away or shake the garland off of them. I’ve heard about how hard it is to get little kids to take professional pictures but they got nuthin on us.

After a “fun” day of pet photography, we came home to get ready for the So You Think You Can Dance tour that we’ve had tickets to for months. We were so excited to see the dancers from last season at the show! We left super early so that we could go out to dinner first. We decided to go to Cheesecake Factory because neither of us had ever been.

We got there at 4:45 thinking that we would beat the dinner rush but since the restaurant is right by the mall, we weren’t so lucky. We finally got a table and ordered. About twenty minutes after we ordered, our waitress came by and said “I’m sorry it’s taking so long on your food, we have a lot of large parties tonight.” I used to work in a restaurant and this is what I would tell people if I had forgotten to put in their order. haha. So I saw right through that one. Anywho, we finally got our food, ate, and left for the show. Since we had not factored in an extra hour at the restaurant or allowed for random unexplained Seattle traffic, we got there a few minutes late. But we made it and our seats were really good. It was an awesome show and we got to see many of the best routines from last season. Here are some pictures from the show….

The Bollywood number with Caitlin and Jason

Top three girls: Jeanine, Kayla, and Melissa

Hip hop with Janette and Ade

Kupono's solo

Kayla's solo

Randi's solo

Mia Michael's addictions piece. My favorite dance of the season

Contemporary with Jeanine and Jason, choreographed by Travis Wall

Cha Cha with Janette and Brandon

Jeanine - winner of Season 5!

Tribute to breast cancer

The top twelve dancers!

It was such a fun show! Seeing the dancing live was really awesome. So after the show, Bear and I were pretty energized. Going to the show ignited a mutual passion for dance that led to a decision to become professional dancers. We will begin our journey by training to audition for season seven of So You Think You Can Dance. We got to training as soon as we returned home last night. We decided to take some pictures of our moves so that we could better track our progress. We also must decide which genre of dance we will specialize in. Here are Bear’s initial training photos…

Look at that natural flexibility

Contemporary dance

Or maybe hip hop

I, too, began my quest to becoming America’s Favorite Dancer by working on my contemporary moves.

Mia Michaels, eat your heart out

The next star of contemporary dance

Nevermind the sweat stains. Perhaps I need to work on my endurance….and maybe the costuming….

Get ready to vote. Season seven, here we come.

Much love – Lauren

Haven’t written much of the stories, but I just updated the Bios page for the Characters, not quite done yet, but it got pretty boring. Getting there, trying to figure out how to write the different characters stories, but I am not quite as focused on this project as I am on another one I started while at work. But enjoy the bios so far!

So The Real Atlanta published my first article. Check it out here.

After spending all day Saturday in Athens, I’m finally back here getting started on my piece about Teddy and the Bears.

That’s them in the picture. Also: I’ve got an interview with a tutoring service tomorrow. It’d be nice to have something else to do part-time that’s really solid, so keep your fingers, pigtails, nipple piercings, etc. crossed for me.

loving this shoot from some time ago, the bg is of Tokyo. haha. now i miss those ridiculous vending machines Tokyo has and the feeling you get when you walk down a street full of girls in winter boots. and the best of it all, observing everything from above while eating hotpot.

we were all feeling rich today i guess. we walked into Chanel at Ngee Ann City and mum bought her classic at $4800. my sis was eyeing another bag. the salesgirl said it cost $5000+ though. i saw a belt though…

[ this could buy me 80 copies of limited edition Big Bang CDs at HMV.]

[ as promised, a pic of megan.]

only one cos it takes a long time to upload the pics. she doesn’t remind me of TOP, she reminds me of GD. okay, maybe i’m still crazed from yesterday yesterday night.

wanna know a secret?

my shoe size is US Ladies 7.
that’s like freaken big!

okay it’s 4.30AM now. better sleep before they wake up.
nights!~

oh my gosh ive neglected this blog so much. i have no time for anything and yet its all worth it. liv is adorable and great. i dont have this blog to get readers or feedback, its really more of a place for me to store memories. i have physical copies of photos and notes but i also like to have a digital copy…
anyway, livi is 2 months old now, actually this past friday she made 10 weeks. i already am forgetting just how tiny she was at birth and it makes me sad. so happy to see her grow and change though. she’s sleeping on me right now, hopefully i’ll be able to type all this out before she wakes up.
things she did in her 2nd month:
-ate at buzz’s steakhouse in pearl city…got totally barfy and poopy the next day because i ate broccoli and ice cream :/
-she is so much more social now, follows you when you walk away, follows her toys when you move them back and forth, and smiles!
-sleeps a lot longer at night, the 1st sleep of the night is usually about 6 hours long now, but she wakes up early, like 530am sometimes.
-we went to target for the 1st time.
-shes pretty much outgrown her newborn sized onesies, its so sad :[ 3 month clothes are still a little big..shes definitely between sizes.
-the day after she made 2 months she had her checkup – 10lbs 8oz and 23 inches long! she also got the rotavirus vaccine and a shot for pneumococcal conjugate. poor baby. gave her infant tylenol and she was a sleepy sad baby all day.

I could live with the moonlight
and pleasant rivers
made of noise
wrapped up in
streaks of fire
that waver with the water
moving closer to the waterfront
thinking of twenty years ago

I removed BCX-4208 from the phase 1 list because there is no indication that they are testing on MS patients right now and it is being tested on people with gout, which suggests to me it won’t be helpful in MS, since low uric acid is seen in some MS patients, whereas gout is a problem with high uric acid levels.

http://investor.shareholder.com/biocryst/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=332229

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/BCRX/779574691×0x320382/7557d3a9-d828-45f0-bb1c-9f3e91293164/bio%20UBS%20conf%20BCRX%2021Sept09%20FINAL.pdf

A yellow cosmos from the Urban Eagle Herb farm in Youngsville New Mexico

The first yarns that I ever dipped into dye baths, were immersed in madder root, weld, and Indigo—India, Central America and Europe were the landscapes of origin for my dye stuffs.  So much importing for a natural dye seemed paradoxical.  I read, I researched, and eventually, over the years I figured out new ways of localizing my process.  I grow many of my own colors now, and am always looking for a more local source when I do need to purchase a dye stuff.  I was so excited when I discovered Katy Blanchard, and her natural dye and herb farm– Urban Eagle Herb Co., in Youngsville, New Mexico.

Madder Root at the Urban Eagle Farm can yield strong reds

Blanchard was apart of a collaborative project between New Mexico State University, Becky Thorp of Sunstar Herb Farm, and Luz Hernandez of Las Cruces. In 2006 the project was awarded a Western SARE grant to explore the viability of raising dye crops.  They were required to grow cota, Hopi dye sunflower, tansy and weld, plus four other species of their own choice for the particular growing conditions of their area.  Blanchard introduced madder–other plants being grown included woad, coreopsis, cosmos, yellow yarrow, holly hocks, black-eyed Susans, safflower, marigold, alkanet and Mexican sunflower.  Blanchard’s excitement for this project was in part due to her knowledge of the overlapping uses of many of these species–cota for instance is known as Navajo tea (on the Navajo reservation), and is a wonderful digestive aid, and immune system tonic, as well as creating a brilliant yellow and sometimes orange in the dye vat.

Tansy at Urban Eagle Farm- yields yellows

If you go to Blanchard’s Urban Eagle Herb Farm  Website, you can see more pictures of the farm, and the list of available dye materials.  Currently listed dye stuffs are, cota, coreopsis, cosmos, tansy, and madder root.  This year Blanchard sold out of many of her dyes already, so email her directly at info@urbaneagle.com to see what she has available.  She also sells her dyes at the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center, in Espanola, New Mexico

Cota at Urban Eagle Farm

I am grateful to Katy Blanchard’s pioneering spirit– and that she is able to offer both her local and greater Western United States community some wonderful home grown dye stuffs.  I hope to see more kindred-dye-growing souls like her in the future.  All these lovely pictures were taken by Blanchard, among her many talents she is also an experienced weaver and knitter.

Mullen- common species that can yield soft greens

Blanchard's mullen dyed skeins

]]> http://vampychronicles.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/a-few-extra-things/ Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:19:19 +0000 vampychronicles http://vampychronicles.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/a-few-extra-things/

So, did anyone go see “New Moon” yet? We haven’t, fortunately, but we do plan to soon so we can review it. Next weekend, perhaps.

We spent this weekend making a few little updates aound the site.

We added a “New Moon” movie page, which currently includes a few of our early complaints about the movie, and links to some great (read: “snarky and brilliantly evil”) reviews of the new film.

Also added a new page to the For Further Reading section — a guest blog post we did for professorbeej.com for “Anti-Twilight Week”: Edward Doesn’t Dazzle Us.

And, if you like the Robert is Bothered series, there’s a new one up — Robert is bothered by “New Moon.” Go figure! 

Look out for more chapter reviews this coming week!

Ja ihr lest richtig.

Unsere erste YouBlaarg Show ist seit Samstag. dem 21.11.2009 online auf Youtube zu sehen! (Was übrigens gestern war xD)

Naja auf jeden Fall wird es sehr bald mehr von uns zu sehen geben!

Viel Spaß

xxx Anne

I usually post new peices of the story on Saturday, but I have been a little under the weather this week. It’s uploaded now however.

In this week’s post, we meet Cole for the first time. He’s going to be a main character in the overall story, and was incidentally named after my cat. Most authors wouldn’t tell you stuff like that, but since I am posting this story publicly, why not. Authors usually name characters after people they know. I will do that only a little bit though. Val is actually named after Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

Enjoy!