Bro. -- Monk or fellow Christian?

I tried to research this online but am having problems figuring out how.

When you see Bro. before a name, what do you think? The person is a pastor? He's a monk? He's a fellow believer in Christ? Something else?

Ketchup

I should be writing my final paper for Theology 3, But first I had to decide what I am making tomorrow (when I've got a day off work) and in searching, I found a great article called The Ketchup Conundrum"

It also offers explainations for why MSG is used in so much, and why children stop trying new foods. Looking around the site, there are other great articles there if I just had time to stop and read.

I wonder what this has to say about my liking of switching from sugar water to lemon water and back when at home.

When a 'Miss' gets married

So before I got married I had as good friends a family with younger kids. The children referred to me as Miss Ruth. Then, two years ago, I got married. Now they refer to me as Miss Ruth and my husband as Mr. Boaz. Except -- we recently got together, and its starting to feel weird because, after all, I'm married now, and Miss is for an unmarried lady? On the other hand, it's been two years since I was married.

How have other families handled this with their children when your friends got married. Any ideas of a good way of handling it? It feels like asking the kids to all me Mrs. LastName instead of Miss Ruth is going from informal to more formal -- and I don't want to change the relationship that way. But Mrs. Ruth -- feels weird. It doesn't sound "right" and I REALLY don't like Ms.!

Suggestions?

History repeats itself

"It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public...."

"Religious minorities would have their own colour schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned the colour red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the colour of their zonnar. It is not clear what will happen to followers of other religions, including Hindus, Bahais and Buddhists, not to mention plain agnostics and atheists, whose very existence is denied by the Islamic Republic."

Interesting that this is the same Iran whose president, not tht long ago, was denying the Holocaust ever happened. Denying history certainly makes it easier to repeat it.

Without a Husband

Tomorrow, my husband goes off to his first men's retreat. (Excuse me, I forgot. Men's Advance. Pastor Hutch is that way.)

I went to the ladies' retreat earlier this year. And we were wanting him to go before. So we've certainy slept apart before.

But it still feels different. i've been somewhat dreading it all week. And tonight, knowing it was our last night together for a few days... by the time I get home from work tomorrow he'll be gone :(

Yeah, a job with a lot of traveling probably wouldn't work so well.

My New Dress

I told Like Merchant Ships I'd post my new dress (wish I'd gotten a picture with my arms up. This makes me look fat) Goodwill, $3.99.

My First Hosted Dinner

Next Sunday (Mother's Day) I will have lived in my current state for 12 years.

To celebrate, on Saturday, I have invited over the friends I met the next day, who took me to church bfore I had a car and who have been friend ever since.

Our dinner? (at least as I have it planned. i've never done this before)

Roasted Beef with Carmelized Shallots
Fried Zucchini
Three Bean Salad

--I figure it's too hot for a soup. Is that enough food for 6 people or do I need something else with it?

And I've yet to figure out for sure a dessert (Sugar Cookies? Brownies? Ice Cream?)
Any suggestions?

Catholic Charities get out of adoption in Boston

This article goes further into the consequences of America making racism illegal, and how it is going to affect the coming fight to legalize gay marriage.

It also really scares me.

Reminds me of the part in God's Smuggler, where he went over the border to some countries, and there appeared to be no persecution of religion there -- until he was there a while and started to notice the things people would NOT say, etc. The persecution was not for all religion, but only those that said things the government did not want them to say.

I can easily see the route in America from here to there.

And closely related I can see the Headmistres ha written about The Cost of Tomatoes Where she mentions that wanting free education for everyone, even illegal immigrants, is not nearly so moral and high-minded as one might think when you realize the education is only free for the student it is provided for, and not because of a sacrifice made by the person with the high-sounding ideals. Instead, they want everyone to pay for their own idea of charity.

Carrot Sticks

When I started my diet (did I mention I'd lost 3.5 pounds the first week?), I bought baby carrots to take to work for one of my consistent vegetables. They were slimy though. Since I am using Hillbilly Housewife's budget diet plan, I asked her about why this was and got the recommendation to eat carrot sticks instead. (though baby carrots can be rinsed off) Because they get slimy after their outer, protective "skin" is removed.

So I went looking for a recipe for carrot sticks. Lots of recipes USE carrot sticks. But none tell you how to make them! Though the pictures show beautiful square cross-section sticks. I decided to try cutting myself, and the best I can do is round triangular sticks...

How does one make the SQUARE sticks? I've never cut carrots before except for in rounds for recipes and this is driving me nuts!

Tulip Festival Weekends

For various reasons, although I dearly wanted to go, we had to miss the Chris and Jenni Tulip Brunch this year.

However, happily, Quiet Life reminded me of the Tulip Festival and I told my husband I wanted to go see it and he said "Sure" -- and kept up Sure even when I started having cold feet about traveling that far!

So we went on Sunday.



That last one was me.

It was cloudy, but not raining. So we decided a good day for being outside and went anyway. It was very interesting -- all of the tulip fields were stripped (I should have expected this, it being the end of the season and all) BUT! You could tell where they were. And the fields were cheek-by-jowl with residential houses not much different than the one I grew up in! We went to Tulip Town, which had a field left for viewing purposes and it started to rain as we got there.

Luckily, I keep umbrellas in my car (and it was just sprinkling) so we walked out there. And of course we went all through the touristy inside display, along with Tulips labeled by their proper names. Short -- but a fun time was had by all.

Then it was time to eat. Next to the Tulip Festival museum we had seen this brewery restaurant, and it had scrumptious bar b que smells coming out of it, so we went back to the Skagit River Brewery for lunch. And it was both affordable AND delicious. I ordered a half order of ribs with their salad. Both were delicious (and there were SO many ribs! I don't know how they expect one person to eat all that!) And the lemonade tasted perfect -- just like Chick-Fil-A lemonade that I make it a point to drink whenever I'm back east. I SO wish we were closer so we could eat there more often, but I urge my friends in the area to try it out! (To be fair, my husband did not like his briskit sandwich, but he thought the storganoff soup was yummy too)