About Blogging

I wouldn't blame you if you just glanced at my post yesterday and decided not to read it. Who wants to read a big long block of text with no spaces?!

Here's the thing: I did finish elementary school (college, too), where I learned how to punctuate and put spaces between paragraphs.

Maybe someone can help me figure this out: when I type my post it looks one way, but when I publish a post, it sometimes looks completely different. I lose my spaces and indentations and my bullets become flowers. I like flowers, don't get me wrong, but I've never been one to add flowers and smiley faces and hearted dots to my writing.

I can assume this is a user error, so someone please tell me where I've erred.

Public Speaking

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."

I'm currently taking a Seminary Wives Institute course called Public Speaking for Ministry Wives. We've given four speeches so far, including our personal faith story, an introduction to a keynote speaker, and a devotional message. Yesterday's assignment was a topical speech. Since I was addressing other ministry wives, people who may move many times in their lives, I presented Map Book 101: finding your way around a new city. You can see that my own trusty map book was my visual aide (A thank you to our friend Richard F. for getting me hooked on map books in the first place!) ~

Our class meets in one of the seminary's preaching practicum classrooms...so that we can be videotaped. Ugh! Watching myself on video is painful.

I've learned some valuable lessons from this class. Most notably, when preparing to speak at an event, START EARLY! Granted, we were only given one week to prepare each speech. But , for the past two weeks, Tuesday nights have been miserable for me (and probably my whole family), as I've tried to "cram" my preparation in at the last minute.

I've also learned some things that sound obvious, but are helpful to remember:

1. Use descriptive language. Word pictures are powerful.

2. Good illustrations are all around me if I'm looking for them.

3. Reading and personal Bible study are the best sources of speaking material.

4. Choose a theme for the speech and stick with it to the very last statement.

5. Know your audience.

6. It's okay to intensify a story, but not to exaggerate. There is a difference.

7. End with a challenge.

8. Pause.

The assigned reading is a book by Carol Kent called Speak up With Confidence. It's filled with concrete examples and step by step instructions for public speaking in Christian ministry.

I have one more week of speech class. The last class will be an extemporaneous speaking exercise where we will each be interviewed by an SWI faculty panel.

Fun, challenging, intimidating, and great experience.

Josiah Scrolls

Two nights ago, for family Bible time, we read about King Josiah. During his reign over Judah, the scriptures were found in the temple.

I don't have too many creative ideas, but as we read and talked about the story, I thought, we could make scrolls!

This is how a 1-yr-old and a 3-yr-old make scrolls:

1. Mom collects art supplies
2. Mom gives the boys a piece of paper each
3. 1-yr-old and 3-yr-old ball up the paper over and over again to make it look old
4. Mom writes scripture on the scrolls
5. Mom staples popsicle sticks to the ends of the scrolls
6. Mom rolls up the scrolls
7. Mom takes a picture of the scrolls before...
8. 1-yr-old and a 3-yr-old tear the scrolls to bits while playing

(I did preserve some of the scrolls, and we read our memory verse from them at dinner time.)

A nice surprise

Last evening I was delivering food to one of my tables, and I noticed a beautiful woman with two of the most handsome boys walk into the restaurant. I love it when Kimberly and the boys visit me at work. The whole place lights up when they show up. All of the workers scramble to visit with Kimberly and Calvin and hold Teddy Dean.

When they leave Calvin will say something to make them laugh. Last night he said, "Goodbye Mr. Angry!" (a nickname I gave to one of my co-workers that likes to make people think he is an angry man, but actually, he is a teddy bear) and "Goodbye Ryanne, work hard."

Kimberly is quite a hit, too. She will bring in treats periodically, so everyone knows and loves her. I am always asked, "Is your wife going to send cake or marble squares or quesidillas (sp?) again soon?"

A Lost Theory

This is for my Lost friends:

Why doesn't Jack Shepherd want to see Claire/Kate's son, Aaron?

Here's my theory:

Jack and Claire have the same father (This much has already been revealed. Remember when Jack's father goes to visit Claire and her mom in Australia?). While still on the island, Jack and Claire discover that they are half siblings. Jack, already disillusioned and bitter at his father, finds his bitterness resurrected. He can't get past the fact that his father was unfaithful to his mother and secretly had a family with another woman. He doesn't see Aaron as his nephew, but as his father's illegitimate offspring.

How's that for a theory? Any thoughts?

Sports nuts

My boys are turning into real sports fans. Well, to be more specific, they love football. Yesterday I (Ken) bought Calvin and Teddy Dean their very first football. They love the green and gold Green Bay Packers Nerf football. They also show that they are real sports fans by their choice in headgear

Visitors!

My sister and her two children visited us for the week!

We were all somewhat limited in what we could do during the week. We had sick kids, conflicting nap schedules, and rough weather. Even so, we managed to have some simple fun together. We walked to Target and played in the toy aisles. Always a hit with the kids. Ty and Cal camped out by the children's book section, happily paging through books on the floor ~


I had a chance to get reacquainted with sweet little Katherine. She was less than three months old when we moved away, so it was a joy to see her walking and talking and full of personality ~

We had some fun at the mall ~

Ann directed the older boys in making Valentine cookies. That lasted until the "don't eat the cookie dough" rule was broken one too many times.

Our biggest adventure of the week was venturing out during an ice storm to get treats at Dairy Queen.

And we spent a lot of time just playing (and surviving!) at home ~

Thanks for coming Ann! It was a blessing to see you and your family!