Greetings, everybody.
We had our Speak Up public speaking course grand finale last week- it was great! Everybody did very well, we had all improved over the course, and I think we were all wanting to do it again next year (which we will, but only focus on the Apologetic speeches). That was really fun.
So, to explain my title…
Technology hates me. I did the sound system at Church yesterday, and the technology refused to co-operate.
Okay, let me explain. It was a special service this week, where the kids from Sunday School were able to show what they had learned over the year in the service- in fact they led the service- doing the notices, telling their memory verses, and singing up at the front to lead the songs. So we had a whole lot of children’s songs to play from a CD. That was my department; I had to play the CD via the laptop, which was plugged into the sound system and flip through the songs we needed. Okay.
So I checked the CD, played it through the speakers via the laptop, and it all worked. I knew which CDs and which songs to use, and I thought I had it all sorted out. Or not.
You see, the service starts, and its time for the first batch of songs. Only the computer won’t play the CD. So the adult helping me tries to fix the problem, and it takes quite some time but miraculously we salvage a CD player and just put the CD in there. Everybody is looking at me to turn on the jolly sound, and it won’t come. The kids are standing up the front, and erm, asking questions. We spend quite some time on it before resorting to a CD player (a miracle we had one). So the songs can now play…
Except something else goes wrong. Not only does the songs come nearly 5 minutes late, but I get confused with the order of service, and start playing the wrong songs!
Being quickly reminded, I switch onto the right songs, and so we’re off into the worship. Next problem. The kids are all standing up at the front, singing and leading the congregation, and there is supposed to be a powerpoint with the words up on the wall. So I realise that half-way through the song (my mind is still mumbled up with the order of service) and I start to play the powerpoint…
The kids are lined up right in front of the projector and it shines into the kids’ eyes! Quickly turn
that off and let them finish the song unmolested. Okay, what next needs to go wrong?
We go through the first batch of songs, and then the memory verses, which the kids recite from the microphone, and then they sing “Yes, Jesus loves me”. But in all the hustle and bustle with everything going on and everything going wrong I forget to turn on the mics, even for the kid playing the guitar along to the song! Then when we realise the problem and turn on the microphone- oh no! Wrong mic! Quick, switch that over. Song’s over. The poor kid. He practised that guitar playing for weeks. The good news was we could all hear him well enough, because the singers were quiet (because I forgot to turn on their microphones!). Okay.
We are nearing the end of the service. But cruel fate has one more disaster waiting for me… just preparing for the perfect opportunity to lunge…
It’s time for the benediction. The people leading it say
“And we have some words and sound for this, so please say it along with us.” Looking at me to turn on the sound for the benediction.
I haven’t heard anything about the benediction, let alone the music for it. I’ve put the words up on the wall for everybody via the projector, that’s easy enough but the sound? I give them a blank “I haven’t a clue” look, (several of them) because I have no idea about the sound for the benediction. The adult helping me fortunately thinks of turning the laptop’s sound on. Looks like the laptop had been muted before the service. Ah, sound. But the people leading the benediction have already started, so we leave it be.
Moral of the story? Whatever will go wrong- will go wrong. It got kinda funny, after a while, as the list of problems kept growing and growing. So that’s my story for today.
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Hello, everybody.
So, an update on what’s been happening-
For the last several months the older homeschool kids (7 11-15 year-old kids) have been getting together every couple of weeks for Speak Up! Which is a public speaking program.
What we had to do was write up and practise a speech to deliver in front of the whole group. Each speak up meeting we had a different kind of speech to give- whether an impromptu speech (which we weren’t allowed to practice for, as you are supposed to make it up nearly on the spur of the moment), or an apologetics speech, or an interpretative speech, etc. After we gave our speeches, and talked about what we did well and what to work on, my Mum (who led the group) would teach us how to give the next sort of speech we were to deliver next Speak Up. It was really quite fun, and since we were only giving our speeches in front of a small group of close friends, it wasn’t too nerve-wracking.
So, as a kind of grand finale, Mum organized for us to have a final speech night, where we would give one or two of our favourite speeches from over the year, in front of a larger group of friends and family. So all the older homeschool kids are in a frenzy of practising their speeches. I am giving that “Why God is not a God of hate” speech that I wrote up for last Speak Up and posted on here several days ago. So that event should be really good.
Oh yeah, and the speech night is tomorrow. :)
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When a country starts with a belief in Creation, its laws and statutes become very different than the laws of a country that starts with a belief in Evolution. Consider this line of logic in the context of the legal system of a country.
- If God Made Me Then God Owns Me
- If God Owns Me, God Has the Right To Tell Me What To Do
- If God has the right to tell me what to do, then God has the right to punish me if I disobey
Because God owns us (a right He alone has, because He alone made us), then God is our authority, and has the right to tell us what to do. If He has these rights, He must have the right to punish us if we disobey. What God tells us to do is found in the Bible. Everything we do has eternal consequences; these consequences can only be given out by our owner; God.
Alternatively,
· If nobody made me, then nobody owns me
· If nobody owns me, nobody has the right to tell me what to do
· If nobody has the right to tell me what to do, then nobody has the right to punish me
If we evolved, as Evolution teaches, then nobody made us, we are results of random processes. That means that if there is anybody who has the right to boss us around, it must be ourselves. Therefore, we are under no moral obligation to obey the laws of our country. In fact, there is no such thing as a moral obligation, because we are our own boss, and can do whatever we like to make us happy, we make our own morals. It means that we should do anything we like to have fun before our short lives are over and everything becomes meaningless.
Such a belief plays havoc upon the structure and stability of a society. On the other hand, if we take the Creationist, Christian view of the world, laws have value, as they reflect the laws of God, which we want to obey, as to please God. No matter which belief system you believe in, it has a radical affect on your life, and on the society you live in.
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So, here it is! My first What Would Jesus Say article is here! I have been working on some other Creation vs Evolution articles, but they still need editing. So here is another one!
To give some background information, I wrote a post some time ago. Do you realise the power you hold when you have a blog? You can tell anybody who reads your blog about God and about what God says about a certain issue! That is a lot of power. So let’s use it by writing about what God has to say about an issue- any issue, from Abortion or Euthanasia, to just dressing up and hanging around with your friends. Basically- What Would Jesus Say About this? Or WWJS. The concept is to write one such article a month, or more if you want in any length or style you like. Long or short. Whatever. Just tell the world what Jesus would say about something! So here is my first article.
“This is what the LORD Almighty says: “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” Those two verses from 1 Samuel 15 makes it sounds like God hated the Amalekites. It is one of many times God gave an instruction to wipe out and kill everybody from a certain country. But how is this compatible with John 3:16 “For God so loved the world…?” How can God be so full of hate in the Old Testament, but be so full of love in the New Testament?
The answer to the problem is that God never did hate anybody in the Old Testament, but as the people’s creator and their ultimate authority, he had to punish them for their sins. That is not a punishment from hate, but a necessary punishment coming from a need for justice.
If God was full of hate in the Old Testament, as the tales of Noah’s Flood, the Ten Plagues, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah indicates, and then started to love us during the New Testament as John 3:16 testifies, then God appears changed his nature. This is impossible, for “I the LORD do not change” Malachi 6:3. So, either God was the same God in the New Testament and the Old, or he has changed his nature, and become a liar. If the second is true, then all of Christianity crumbles on its foundations. It means that God is a liar, and nothing he tells us, even the offer of salvation in the gospels, can be trusted and accepted.
The decrees of punishment and death God issued in the Old Testament can be seen as signs that God hated us. These punishments were not fuelled by hatred, but by the need of justice. Sin and wrongdoing must be punished, and the only authority with the right to punish us is God. This is because he is not only the person we have wronged, but also our ultimate authority. If we refuse to acknowledge this authority, we see God’s actions as hatred. We can see God’s right to this authority through a simple line of logic.
If nobody made me, then nobody owns me. If nobody owns me, then nobody has the right to tell me what to do. If nobody has the right to tell me what to do, then nobody has the right to punish me. If nobody has the right to punish my wrongdoing, then neither do they have the ability to forgive it. God’s ability to forgive our sins stems from the same authority as His right to punish us- because He owns us.
God is not only a just God who punishes His sinful creation, but also a loving God who has redeemed it. He has been preparing a way for his creation to return to Him from the beginning, for in the Old Testament, in Genesis 3:15, as God curses the serpent we read “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”. This was a promise that Jesus would come and die to forgive the sins of the world. God could have given no greater show of love than that.
God never was a God of Hate. As creator and owner, He must punish us when we go wrong, but He loves us so much that from the very start He planned to die for us and bring us back to Him. He never was a God of hate, but a sovereign God of Justice and Love.
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I was writing a schoolwork article about John Wycliffe and I found this really neat website.
It has the entire John Wycliffe translation of the Bible (finished in 1384 AD) for download!
I haven’t download it yet- but I will.
The entire Bible had been translated by 1384 AD, by John Wycliffe and his friends. Most of the translation of the New Testament was not actually done by Wycliffe, but by his friends, however, the project was definitely under Wycliffe’s leadership, and it was his idea. The translation of the Old Testament was not quite as clear as the New Testament; it was done by Nicholas Hereford, who did a lot of work on the NT.
So, here’s the link for John Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible; the first English translation!-
http://wesley.nnu.edu/biblical_studies/wycliffe/
I thought that was very neat.
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I have a confession to make. I have seen this post several times, but I was too lazy to post it.
So here it is! I found these quite thought provoking.
Why do we ((sleep)) in [[church]],
But stay ((awake)) through a [[2 hour movie]]?
Why is it so ((hard)) to talk about [[God]],
but so ((easy)) to [[Gossip]]?
Why are we so ((bored)) when we look at a [[Christian
magazine]],
but find it ((easy)) to read [[Cosmo]]?
Why is it so easy to ((ignore)) a [[Godly]] post or email,
Yet we ((resend)) the [[nasty]] ones?
Why are ((churches)) getting [[smaller]],
But ((bars and clubs)) are [[growing]]?
Think about it, are you going to repost this?
Or are you going to ignore it, cause you think you'll get laughed at?
Would You Have Opened This if it Said.... Read This In Gods Name or if it said.... Click here for the latest gossip?
80 % of you WON'T repost this.
Jesus Christ said:
"If you deny me in front of your friends,
I will deny you in front of my father."
Don't give God the chance to deny you.
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Okay, I have a lot of tags I need to post here, so here we go! First, from Forestcrazy who knows how long ago!
7 Things I Want To Do Before I Die
1. Publish a ton of books
2. Read two tons of books
3. Learn Latin, Greek, French and other European languages
4. Have a complete collection of Ancient, Medieval and Napoleonic plastic soldiers!
5. Go to university to study history
6. See the museums in
7. Study European history, particularly Ancient and Medieval, even after university
7 Things I CANNOT Do
1. Sing
2. Play musical instruments
3. Do something even slightly dangerous
4. Draw
5. Be very enthusiastic about nearly anything (there’s a few things, not much!)
6. Understand or play the card game Bridge
7. Understand why you should get excited and look forwards to something
7 Things That I Love About My Mum
1. She loves me
2. She feeds me!
3. She teaches us about God
4. She listens to my history babblings
5. She teaches us how to live as God wants us to
6. She is in the process of teaching me how to actually function in the world once I leave home (if!)
7. She helps me do what interests me
7 Things I Say The Most
1. "What?"
2. “You shouldn’t get excited about something!”
3. “Silence is golden”
4. "You could hurt yourself” (or something like that)
5. “Let me think” (to myself)
6. "Oh, shucks”
7. "Good Grief”
7 Movies I Could Watch Over And Over
1. The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World (seven documentaries)
2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
3. Veggie Tales
4. The Chronicles of Narnia (I’ve only watched No. 1)
5. I don’t really watch much TV
6. Read lame excuse No. 1 above
7. History documentaries
7 Books I Love To Read
1. Sherlock Holmes
2. Any History Book!
3. Biggles
4. James Herriot
5. Lord Of The Rings
6. Redwall
7. The Bible
I tag JessicaLetchford
The second is from Rachsters AND Storyteller (does this mean I have to post it twice?)
1. Where is your cell phone? I don't have one.
2. Where is your significant other? My books are in the lounge room.
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? somewhere.
5. Your father? at work
6. Your favorite thing? Wargaming (playing with model soldiers)
7. Your dream last night? Hard to remember
8. Your dream/goal? To study and then work at a university (history), become involved in the Political/ethics debate and write lots of books on both subjects.
9. The room you're in? Office
10. Your hobby? Wargaming (playing with model soldiers) and a model railroad
11. Your fear? That I’ll do something really silly in public
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? University
13. Where were you last night? Bed.
14. What you're not? A singer
15. One of your wish-list items? History books, lots and lots of history books
16. Where you grew up? In the town I am in now
17. The last thing you did? Matters of importance.
18. What are you wearing? Cloth.
19. Your TV? I don’t have one personally, we have a family one.
20. Your pet? A half-breed Dalmatian, who is also deaf.
21. Your computer? I don’t have one personally either (another Christmas present!)
22. Your mood? Good. Mostly.
23. Missing someone? Not very much.
24. Your car? A little economic and cheap scooter
25. Something you're not wearing? A hat.
26. Favorite store? A hobby shop
27. Your summer? Still to come, as I live in the southern hemisphere
28. Love someone? God and Family, though aren’t we supposed to love EVERYBODY? Even Robert Mugabe? There’s a hard test of faith!
29. Your favorite color? Grey.
30. When is the last time you laughed? I don’t laugh heartily very much.
31. Last time you cried? I can’t remember
I don't think I'll tag anybody on this one...
I have some other tags logged up somewhere, but that's enough for now.I have also been awarded several times, (Thanks guys!), but I'll get back to that when my technological-savvy sibling (JessicaLetchford) gets them onto my blog. So see you later!
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I’ve had several comments recently talking about the power and effectiveness of having a blog and telling the world what Jesus has to say on the important issues of today. So I came up with an idea.
What Would Jesus Say? And more importantly, are we prepared to say it?
The WWJS idea is this… just to write one post on any issue you feel God has something to say about once a month, or more if you want to. The goal is to create awareness, even with a few people, of the importance of a Godly, Christian worldview in all of the issues and questions facing our world today, from video-games to foreign aid.
A post can be anything from a thoughtful couple of sentences to a conclusive essay, about any issue, and what God has to say about it. Write a post on the same issue as your friends, or choose something of your own. If you would like to participate, just comment me and we’ll send you the link for the blog button to put on your blog. You can also, if you’d like, put the banner on your blog as well. Of course, you are all free to take part in the challenge without using the banner, or just taking part sporadically.
But what to talk about? I have a short list here; if any body has any other ideas, please tell me.
Another good idea (and a huge time saver) is to use schoolwork you have already written. You could also share links to other people with the same ideal; to tell the world what Jesus has to say. Because He has a lot to tell us.
Abortion
Evolution vs. Creation
A part of Scripture
A Quote you disagree with
An idea you read in a book
An idea about God
A social issue such as poverty, spending money, the environment
A quote you do agree with
A thought you had
A common conception in society
The expectations people have of you (or lack of them!)
Political issues
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Do you realise how much power you have? If you are reading this, you probably already have a blog. Do you realise how much power that gives you?
When you write a blog post, you are writing to just about anybody who goes onto your site. That could be someone next door, next state, or overseas. Anybody who clicks on your blog will get to hear what you have to say. So what do we tell them? We tell them what’s happening in our lives and in our families. That is important. But we could tell them something even more important.
As people, and as Christians, we have opinions on real issues. We do have opinions on politics, economics, Africa, abortion, Evolution, laws and God. We all have opinions. We all express them in our actions and in what we tell our friends. Our opinions are important. We live in a democracy, where decisions are made by the weight of the majority. We have a right to speak, and tell anybody what we think about an issue. We often exercise that right with our friends, but have you ever thought about doing something much more than that?
We can do this by sharing our opinions on our blog.
Have you ever heard the saying “Don’t die with the music still in you”? What I am trying to tell you is “Don’t die with the Word still in you!” Let’s tell the world what God has to say. People all over the world can read your blog and see what you think. Let’s tell the world what we do think. Not just about our life, but about our world. We can make a difference.
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Now, I need to make a disclaimer. I do not feel like this towards my sisters! I love them a lot, and they're not really mad. They like listening to silly (as in funny) music, and I like saying that I don't like it! So please take my post below as something tongue in cheek, about the opposite of a brother-sister relationship!
Found in the last page of the personnal diary of Joshua Letchford, HST
"Dear Diary-
I am surrounded by mad, ranting sisters. I have barricaded my position as best I could; it holds for now. At the moment they are singing along to some insane song of their own making. I am slowly being driven mad by crazy lyrics, high whistles and a mix-match collection of quotes and sayings from popular culture. This siege cannot last long. Before they will crank up the volume, quote any movie lines that enter their heads and start up a insane adaptation of some out of the world song. This will be my last entry. I expect I will be overrun by crazy singing girls by morning. "
P.S. The title is an adaption of a famous line from the movie "Zulu" (which I haven't seen yet.), when the Zulus in South Africa attack a vastly outnumbered British force. One of the British soldiers yells out "Here they come, thick as grass and as black as thunder!".
HST stands for Homeschooled Teenager.
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Hello everybody.
I am doing a Bible study and one of the projects is to interview kids about what they admire in their Dads, and why. If anybody reading this would like too, they could answer the questions too. Just leave a private message or a comment, saying what you admire in your Dad and why. Adults could answer too if they want. It’s simply for my private research, so I won’t be quoting anybody’s answers!
I am trying to get back into a good school routine, like I did last week. That will have to start by going to bed early, so that I can wake up at sunrise, do all my jobs and start my school. My schoolwork is normally about 5 hours or a bit less, and then I have 2 hours of productive time, where, you guessed it- I need to be productive. That includes playing with Daniel (little brother, his blog is God’s Creation, check it out!), free history study, etc. If I wake up at sunrise, I can have all seven hours of work done just after lunch. But that requires waking up early and really getting into my day. So, I hope I can!
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This is a history notebook page I wrote for “school” about Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal and the beginning of the Age of Exploration. I'd say more, but that's the job of the notebook page!
Prince Henry and The Age of Exploration
Before Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, Europeans had an extremely limited understanding of the world outside
During his 21st year, Henry and his two brothers managed to successfully capture the Moroccan city of
Henry’s expeditions opened the eyes of Europe to the riches and potential of the world beyond, not just
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Silly humans. Look at them scatter. They’re literally running to their white thing in an almighty rush. They remind me of those snack foods- I mean those chickens they keep in that shed over there. Can I come with you? No? What a surprise. I’ll just see you off then! Good bye! See you later! Have a nice time! Ta Ta! Remember your seatbelts! Safe travels! That beast they travel in is backing up… no, it’s moving forwards now. Picking up speed! It’s zooming along! And they’re off into the sunset! Leaving me in the dust, watching them leave for the great wide world without me. I’d say that it shows a complete disrespect for my feelings! I’d say it shows their conceit, and I’d say it leaves the dog food completely unguarded!
And there’s no other way I’d rather have it!
ZOOM!
A couple of lazy, tasty, indulgent hours later…
Those human pets are back now. Of course I’m happy see them. Especially on a full stomach. Oh, so we’re walking to the chicken cage first are we? Not to me? Well, if that’s how you feel about me then I”ll just… okay, okay, I’ll come too. First the big, boss human walks into the chicken pen. Huh, well don’t blame me if they peck him to death! He picks up the bossy white chicken by it’s legs and carries it out. Would you like me to just eat him for you? No such luck. The human grabs him by the neck, and starts to twist…
A few gory minutes afterwards…
Oh the temptation! They’re plucking all the feathers off the chicken. Does this mean they’re going to let me eat it? Wahooo! Alright, hurry up! Hurry up! Let’s go, let’s go! Oh, I can barely stand it, so close and yet so far to FOOD! Glorious food! Alright I can’t stand it, just look at that, pure intestine, no artificial coloring! And it’s all mine! Mine! It’s Christmas in the middle of July! I can barely sit, I’m so excited! Give it, give it! Ohhh, yummmmm! Gizzard a la mode! Thank you humans!
That night, a cold and miserable dog sits at the dining room door, watching the family eat.
I am so disappointed. All that planning, all that plotting, all that scheming to rid the world of that abdominal chicken, and it come to this. All that food down the drain! Eaten, by pets! Such a tasty meal, and what do they do with it? Turn it into pet food for their dinner table! Such waste!
Ah well, I’ll just go back and eat my dog food, while reading my copy of Barker’s Digest.
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The local homeschoolers have just had their yearly homeschool camp, which was really good. The theme was about the pioneers of the region (the Durack family), who came here about 120 years ago as cattlemen. The camp was very busy and lasted 3 days. We set up camp for the first half of the first day, did activities for most of Saturday and did nothing but hang around, pack up and leave on the third. Although the activities kept us busy, they were really good and enjoyable. The kids were divided into a little kids group, a middle kids group and the older kids (12-15yr olds). Many Dads were also able to come, which was good. On the last day a very keen and knowledgeable fisherman took Daniel and I fishing, which was really good. We came back on Sunday and crashed, but unpacked all the camping stuff on Monday.
One of the activities was to make a movie about pioneering up here- Jakeonmars and I did a clip about the stockmen, while the girls in our group (yep, Jakeonmars and I are the only older boys homeschooling in the whole area!) focused more on what the women had to do. The camp wasn’t too cold, unlike our trip to the bungle bungles, which was good. But it was windy at night! That may have been because we were on a hill, near a very large man-made lake, but it was windy. We went bird watching, all the groups fished on Friday, we saw the Duracks’ homestead (now we know the story it was worth it really) and we made a pioneer dinner with Damper (bush-bread), beef stew and fish.
Now we are home again. I have had a really good schoolday today. I’ve had a good start, got all my work done early and basically had as close to a perfect day as a homeschooler can hope for. I awoke really early and so did my chores (that’s the rubbish, chickens and scraps), devotions, breakfast and gave Zoom-dog (her real name is Domino) a bike ride. Then I started my school. I did my science and finally finished the last module in the book (I just need to do the test), and did an hour on my reading list book about the Duracks which I picked up out of interest. I also did my math. I was really struggling with dividing large fractions, and so was printing out math worksheets from Superkids.com until I had it mastered. Normally I was achieving scores of 75% or so, but today, 95%! 19 out of 20 right! If I was the emotional kind, I’d whoop some more, but I’m not. So besides my math, science and reading I did my history (Prince Henry the Navigator) and my Latin, as I am learning the language. After that I sorted out my orders I mentioned above and now I’m writing up this post!
Finished blogging now.
Onto lunch. :)
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Rachsters awarded me the “One Blog To Rule Them All” award. THANKYOU! So, I thought I’d award a few bloggers of my own! So, drum roll please…
To Fingolfin! To a great friend!
To Storyteller! Great story you’ve got there!
To Forest Crazy! A soon-to-be-offically-published homeschooler!
I hope you understand HTML a little to move the award onto your blog, because I had to set my sister (JessciaLetchford) onto it for me! I don’t really know how you copy it into the right format, but you can PM my computer-talented sibling and ask her. She’ll give you the details and instructions!
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Hello Everybody! I’m back to the blogging world! The family went on a half-week camping trip several weeks ago (no internet) so I intended to first post about that, with some photos of the trip. However, there’s been some difficulty in putting the photos onto the right format, so I’ll post that entry when the photos are ready.
Anyway, the REAl reason I’m posting…
We went to the dentists today and he gave us our elastic bands for the first time. So we have dinner (Narchos!) and then Jessica realises…
She swallowed one of her bands!
I run into the office to share in the merriment and as Jessica leaves I realises…
That I had swallowed one of mine too!
LOL!
So we both have replaced them, and are coughing trying to bring the lost bands up again! Very funny! Evidently we are going to have to be careful…
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Now, I wrote this a long time ago so now it's on my second page and people probably won't see it any more. I'm going to make a link for them, once I figure out how to do it (or find out how to bribe my sister into doing it!) So here it is, The Adventures of Zoomdog! Part One.
P.S. I'll be posting the second part above this one too.
Here it is then!:
Our dog would have to enter the competition for the dumbest dog on the planet. She’s half Dalmatian spots and all. She loves barking at shadows. She loves carrying fallen palm branches, whether miniature ones on a bike ride or huge ones that we’re trying to carry to our branch pile. She is an over-excited bundle of mis-directed brainless energy. And she is also deaf. Stone deaf. She can’t hear a thing (but she can feel vibrations). This is what today’s morning, slightly abridged and altered, would look from her view.
The Morning: A dog’s eye view
Or
The Adventures of Zoom-dog!
Oh, hello, that goofy human’s back again. It’s about time he let me out of this cage. I’ve been awake for hours. Well, at least five minutes. Same thing. I’ve got places to go, places to be. Hurry up. Good, you’ve opened it. Can I take my bone? Ummmm. No, I’ll just leave it. Funny how no one seems to make a sound around me. Very funny. I mean, it’s not as if I’m super-sensitive about noise! Okay, never mind, I’m out, I’m free and lets go!
ZOOM!
About one hour later…
Sitting next to the door here is very nice really. I mean, what better place to see my favourite humans (Even if they don’t have much intelligence, but then again, you can’t have everything; loyal and intelligent pets.)? Ah, that big mother human’s coming out to see me. How absolutely nice of her! She’s actually gone out of her way to see me! Oh, I’m touched.
Oi! Whatcha slap me for? I was only coming close to you so we could have a good talk. So what if you can’t put on your shoes when I’m this close, you’ve come out to lavish attention on me like those other girls do. Come on, girl to girl, let’s talk and sniff! Oi! You slapped me again! For some one who just went out to visit her dog you don’t have many manners. Oooo! The i-pod! And you’ve put on your shoes! I know what this means! A walk! A walk! Yippee! Oh, woman, how I love you. You have never wronged me, never! Nor ignored me. A walk! A walk! Come on, let’s go!
Another half hour later…
Hey, where’s that puny human that plays with me gone? Ahh, he’s back now. And he’s on his bike. He’s off on a bike ride. Maybe he doesn’t want me to come. Oh, never mind, he’s never bothered before. Can I take my part of a palm branch too? It’s customary for me, a sacred tradition. Or maybe he doesn’t want me to come. Oh, but I really wanna. I’ll just stay here and see. He’ll be back.
He’s signalling for me! HE WANTS ME TO GO ON A BIKE RIDE! I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO GO OUT WITH HIM!!! Ooooo, goody, goody, I can’t wait. Come on let’s go.
ZOOM!
It’s wonderful going out into the sun together, just him and me, together. Lovely. Hey, never smelt that before. Yol, wait for me human! Hmm, maybe I should just smell that too. Is that a shadow over there?!! OH, that’s right, the human! Wait for me, I’m comin’! Yahoo! Mud! I LOVE mud! Let’s walk though that! Wonderful. I’m all dirty. The perfect state of mind and body. Ahh. Let’s go home. Lalalala. Just walking gaily though the carefree world. Just walk right in front of the moving bicycle, no danger there…
A little later, back at home…
That human wants to lock me up in that cage again! It’s nowhere near night time. There’s some stranger-dogs out the back in the ute and I want to talk to them. That brainless human is just waiting for me to walk into the cage and giggling like a silly thing. “Oh hello human, how are you going? You’re not wanting me for anything are you? Wanting me to do something? Oh, of course not. You want just to stand there and look at me? Oh okay, I’ll just sit here and do nothing. You know, I have absolutely no idea what you want me to do. Not at all.” He’s pointing into the cage. He’s telling me to actually go in the cage. I am under orders! Ummm… “What on earth do you mean by that outlandish sign? You may as well go and speak Swedish, ‘cus I have no idea what you mean. No, really”. Alright, alright I’ll go. Hey he hasn’t closed the door, just taken the water bowl. Can I come out? No? Oh, what a surprise. I’ll just wait here.
A while later…
Finally you’re back! It’s about jolly time you let me out. Come on, let’s go and bark at those shadows together, just you and me, a dog and his loyal human.
ZOOM!
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Today was very busy. We first did our daily chores (I’m in the kitchen for this week!) and then cleaned up the house a bit until Dad was ready to take us kids into town to buy me a lawnmower, Jessica a bicycle tube and to take our rubbish to the dump. So now I have a new lawnmower! But I’ll get back to that later…
After we had done our running around town we had lunch (chips; crash-food is probably a better name, as we always crash afterwards) and came home. Dad fixed the kids’ bikes while I had some free time. After the bikes were fixed we carted trailer-loads of palm-branches and even a smallish palm tree which had toppled over to our big bonfire we’ll lit some time. I then had more free time until I had to mow the lawn…
The lawn took me 65 minutes for a HUGE job since I hadn’t done it for weeks because the lawnmower was broken and I was waiting for Dad to come home (he’s away a lot working on the cattle stations as a vet) so he could buy a new mower. It did the job well. I just have to see if it takes quicker over the shorter stuff or if it handles it all pretty much the same (that’s how good it is).
I will be writing up a new Zoom-dog article soon (as well as republishing the old ones so they’re where people can see them). It’s topic: True love and rattraps! I can see where this is going!! :)
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You know you’ve being doing math for too long recently when you start writing the date as:
9
- of 08
6
I went to a bookshop/restaurant/internet cafe on Saturday to do some downloading both for me and for Mum. She wanted some Cindy Rushton audios, I wanted to download some history websites for my own study and some wargame rules.
Well, it went great! I found a wonderful website called http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html which had all these medieval books for free. Not modern historians’ writings, actual sources written in the middle ages! There was one book called the Alexiad, which was about the Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople, etc.) emperor at the time of the First Crusade written by his daughter! This emperor, Alexius (hence the name of the book) was one of the greatest later Byzantine emperors and now I have a book, written by his daughter, about his life and reign! There was another book by Julius Caesar about his conquest of Gaul (France), another on the Hundred Years War between France and England, a list of testaments (I think that’s like a charter for a monastery) for medieval Orthodox Greek monasteries, instead of the European Catholic monasteries and a load of other goodies. I was like a child in a candy factory! It was an amateur historian’s dream!
I also downloaded some wargames for the Crusading Era in the middle east at http://www.perfectcaptain.50megs.com/captain.html but that was also large downloads and requires a lot of printing. I also downloaded some Wargaming magazines and files. Oh yeah, I also downloaded stuff for Mum too! J
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The silly things I do…
- Last Year: Start a load of washing in the washing machine but forget to put in the washing powder.
- Several Weeks Ago: Go to a concert. Forget to bring all 6 chairs (bring 5) and give Mum the fifth seat. Spend half of the concert asleep on the floor.
- Around the Same Time: Go to a church service in the park. The kids tidy up the rubbish left behind. The pastor then tells us to pick up the leaves as well. I start to get working on it before I realize the joke…
- Saturday Night: Forget to lock up the dog; it wakes Mum up at 2:30 at night, she doesn’t go back to sleep.
- Didn’t know what a body scrubber was for (How would I, never seen anybody use one…)
- Admit to all these things on the world-wide web…
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