"Phasers set to stun."

Captain's Log. Stardate 64513.1

This past year David and I embarked upon an adventure; an adventure in television and film. We vowed to watch every Star Trek movie made and watch them in order. It took about three weeks for us to get through all eleven movies, and afterwards we found ourselves wanting more Star Trek. We decided then and there to watch all the television series as well, and once again we figured we'd best watch them in the order they aired.

After a little searching on Netflix we discovered that The Original Series (the first series) was available on DVD. So for the past few months we've navigated through almost the entire first season. Along the way we've uncovered some universal truths regarding the show:

1. Almost every episode includes a trip down to a planet. Why? Because where else can the extras die so conveniently?
2. Red shirt = death. Unless your name is Uhura.
3. Every planet has a number in it's name. Apparently the future suffers from a lack of originality, and with a great name like "Omicron Ceti" you don't want to waste that on just one planet; you better use that on at least three.
4. Spock will pronounce that something is "fascinating". This is so that we, the viewers, know that he has solved the mystery in his mind.
5. The female crew's uniforms invite inter-ship romance. The ladies wear dresses, and the dresses are so short that the women are forced to wear bloomers underneath. No female above the age of 2 ought to be wearing a dress with bloomers.
6. Despite the immodest attire there is surprisingly little romance amongst the crew. If there is romance between crew members it won't last. In one episode two crew members were going to get married, and 10 minutes into the show the man died!
7. That pretty blond wearing the dress that has no sides to it? You can be assured that she's Kirk's love interest for that episode. Most of the female extras are scantily clad. Even if they aren't important characters they'll be wearing 1/2 a dress and full makeup. Did this show cater to men or what? I know I often prepare dinner wearing pin curls and with smoky eyes. ;-)
8. If Kirk gets into a scuffle he'll rip his shirt. The Federation probably had to employ an ensign simply to darn Kirk's clothing.
9. The stunt doubles don't look like the actors they are replacing. And the director didn't seem to mind if the audience could see the obvious change.
10. All the information you need is on a 3x2" cartridge. Want to read the ship's log? Here:  take this red rectangle.
11. The stardates don't make sense. One episode it's stardate 3025.3, and the next episode is #2124.5. Scotty must have kept the Delorean down in engineering.
12. Every episode features a recap/reflection time around Kirk's captain's chair. You can be assured that Bones and Spock will be there, standing around Kirk while he reposes, and their banter will include a reference to Spock's robot-like persona.

Is it "illogical" to love this show?! I think not! ☺

♫ Here comes the bride. ♪

My dear friend Sarah is getting married this weekend. Yay! ☺ Last Saturday we went to an area amusement center and celebrated her upcoming wedding. One of the other bridesmaids had an "interesting" outfit for Sarah to wear for the afternoon. Even though she doesn't care for pink Sarah wore her fluffy hat proudly and bowled, golfed, played laser tag and arcade games all while wearing her "bling". ☺ Congratulations, Sarah!!! (Ben, too.) ;-)

As seen around New Ulm

I've seen some odd things around our town; things that, as my old History teacher used to say, "make you go 'Hmmm...'".
Seen around town while it was raining:

• A boat being washed at the car wash
• Sprinklers watering the soccer fields
• A garden being watered with a sprinkler
• Me carrying a pathetic-looking broken umbrella ☺
• Clothes on my neighbor's clothesline. This happens so often that I felt compelled to write about it. Does the rainwater help their clothing? I guess they think so because if it starts to rain they won't take their clothes off the line; they leave them out to get soaked.

Seen around town when it was 75° at 10 in the morning:

• A lady mowing her lawn wearing denim jeans and tennis shoes. Okay, not so odd. But she was also wearing 2 shirts -- a sweatshirt over a turtleneck. (The daytime high was going to be over 80°.)

Seen around town when it was only 40° (and it wasn't going to get any warmer):

• Clothes on both my neighbors' clotheslines. I think my two neighbors have a competition going to see who can be the first person to hang their clothes outside in the Spring. Why does this bother me? Because then I feel like I too ought to be hanging out MY clothes. *snarl* I want to be lazy and use my dryer! ☺

ZZZZ....*snore*....ZZZZ...What? Oh! Sorry. *embarassed look* I dozed off for a second.

Have you ever read a story and come across the following sentence: "...and he/she fell into a dreamless sleep..."? When I see that in a book it always causes me to stop and think to myself That never happens to me!

I know that everyone dreams, and I realize that we don't remember the vast majority of them. I don't know about you though, but me, I always dream in the morning, too, and I always remember those. And they are so vivid that when I wake up in the morning I don't feel like I've slept. Instead it seems as if I've been watching a movie for hours only with my eyes closed. Plus the dreams are so bizarre and random that lately this has started to wear on me. I wake up thinking What was that all about?!

Sometimes I wish I had my own personal Joseph. You know, like Pharaoh had. ☺ Someone who could interpret my dreams. It could go something like this: "Eh, Joe. Can you come here? I gotta question for ya." He walks over. "Yeah, see last night I had this dream that my husband was having a football party at our house only it wasn't 'our' house; it was my old house that I grew up in. And I didn't know what to wear because all of our clothes were dirty. I decided to go look in the basement to see if I could find some clothing. Only, it wasn't our basement; it was someone else's. It didn't matter though as I didn't find anything suitable. Then the dream morphed into me swimming with my family, and I think it was still part of that football party. Then things switched again, and now my husband was filming a LEGO Star Wars video to post onto Youtube. And in one of the scenes he and a friend were smashing some of the pieces to bits instead of using the LEGO minifigs (the LEGO people, you know) to do it. And I was concerned about that and wondering if the video would look good with grown men smashing the pieces...And then I woke up. What do you suppose that dream meant?" ☺

That's the second dream I've had within two weeks that has been about Star Wars. In the other dream I was part of the Rebel Alliance, and I was fighting alongside the central characters. We were blasting away battleships, and then the dream started to morph into me having lunch with an actor, and so I was throwing chicken bites at the ships instead. There were even droids in my dream.

I have reoccurring dreams, too. For years I used to dream that I was at my grandparents' farm, and all of a sudden we spot a tornado. We have to rush to the basement, and I start to get frightened. But for some reason not everyone decides to stay in the basement. Instead they want to watch the tornado or film it. I always end up either outside or in the living room, staring out the picture window watching the tornado pass through the yard instead of safely riding out the storm underground.

The last few years though my reoccurring dream has been this: I am back in high school, and it's either the first day of class, or maybe I have been absent from school for awhile for some unknown reason. I get to my locker, and then I stop and stare at the lock because I have forgotten my combination! I frantically try different patterns of numbers, but none of them work. I get frustrated because I know the bell is going to ring soon, and I need to get to class. I don't want to be late! I can't stand being late!! Oh the horror of walking in AFTER the bell has wrung!!! Or this happens, too: I finally get my locker open, and then...I CAN'T FIND MY SCHEDULE! I don't know which class to go to! I search through my backpack, and it's not there. So now I have to go to the office, much to my chagrin. I have to admit that I need the receptionist to print out my schedule. She gives me a new class list, and when I look at it my mouth hangs open because now I don't know where any of these classes are! Either way I end up walking into the classroom late or maybe even the wrong class. Just recounting that dream fills me with anxiety. I've been graduated for over 10 years now. Why do I still dream about high school?

*sigh* I suppose we aren't meant to know what our dreams mean. Someone has said that "...our dreams are our minds' way of settling problems that we didn't solve during our waking hours." Hmm...I'll buy that I guess. I can see how the locker-combination-dream could be another variation on a problem in someone's life that has been left unresolved. But the Star Wars dreams? I think those are just indicators of how much of a nerd I am. ☺

Aww. I missed it.

I forgot to mention this at the milestone of 100, and then I didn't see it at milestone 150. And then I didn't notice it AGAIN at number 200. But I just wanted to do a quick blurb stating that this is my 202nd post. ☺ ☺ ☺ Phew! I suppose that's not very many compared to people who blog every day.

I began my blog as a way to express my thoughts and prayers and to share a little of my life. I've enjoyed my run so far, and I hope you'll continue to visit my blog. ☺

Instead of Painting my bedroom I did this...

Last summer while shoppping at garage sales I found Paige's name as framed art. We had to get it for her, and we hung it on the wall next to her bed. ☺ Since then Emma has wanted one next to her bed, too. Well thanks to my brother-in-law's great talent with graphic arts she now has one. He created it for her, and I printed it off and matted and framed it. Of course when Paige saw that Emma was going to get her name in a fancy frame she wanted to match. I think they turned out pretty decent. Now I have to convince Dan to make one for Abby... *wink*The pictures are about 13" long. Emma picked out purple paper for around her name.

Paige's old picture

Paige's new picture ~~ original name plate but red paper for matting and the new frame.

Brown County Fair

On Saturday my mom took the girls and I to the county fair. We had lots of fun. The girls rode on about 5 rides, they played some carnival games, rode a camel, fed the animals in the petting zoo, toured a one-room school house and a log cabin, visited a fish pond with all the varieties of fish found in the Minnesota River (which runs along-side our town), and ate lots of fair food. It rained on us for about a half an hour, but it was a light rain so it didn't bother us too much. Pictures will follow.
*Note to Dave: If you are reading this I really need those pictures off your phone. ☺

A Morning at Home

Two things I have learned about Abigail:

1. Abigail is attached to me; seemingly more than the other children were. If I put her down and walk out of the room I immediately hear a "shrieking of eels" coming from her mouth. She wants to be held and carried around the house or at least be crawling by me.
2. When you want her to fall asleep in the car while driving somewhere you can be assured that she won't. This is most cumbersome on Sunday mornings. We leave for church at exactly the same time as she would normally be going down for her morning nap. Each time we leave I am hoping that she'll fall asleep on the drive over to church (20 minutes drive), but she never does. We make it to church, and by that time she is very tired but wide awake. I proceed to try many ways of getting her to sleep to no avail.

Because of those two things I usually end up missing almost all of Sunday morning service. I am hesitant to put her in the nursery for fear of her crying incessantly, and the crying would be magnified by how tired she is. I try to keep her in the pew with me, but she likes to talk loudly, or she will start to fuss so out we go.

This morning then when Abby started getting fussy by 9:30 I told myself to just forget going. There wouldn't be enough time for her to nap before we left, and I already knew what would happen at church. So now I am at home with all my girlies, and Abby is sleeping peacefully. ☺

A conversation with Paige

The girls and I were on our way to water flowers at Luke's grave when the following conversation occurred:

Paige asked me, "Why do we have to go water flowers?"
"Because it hasn't rained in awhile." I replied.
"Yes it has. I remember."
"No, it hasn't...well, okay it rained the other day, but not enough. It only rained a little." I said.
She retorted, "Yes, it did. It rained a lot. It rained 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 days in a row!"
"When did it do that?!" I quickly asked.
"The other day. You don't remember. You have a bad memory. I have a great memory. I have the best memory in the entire world. I have a better memory than Daddy even. I was grounded one day, and he let me go outside. And I was still grounded though, and I remembered that I was grounded, but I didn't tell him because I didn't want him to remember so I could go outside."

Outsmarted once again by a 7 year-old. ☺

My rant for today

Isn't it annoying when you really like a product, and you have used it for a long time, and then one day you go to the store to purchase it, and THEY NO LONGER SELL IT?!? Ooh that frustrates me.

A few weeks ago David got a hole in one of his favorite shirts. I had previously bought this Champion® t-shirt in a package of two from Target several years ago. He liked them so much that I went out and bought him a second package right away. Admittedly he's had these shirts for at least 3 years. Anyways, I went last night out to Target to buy him another package to replace the shirt with the hole, and of course I couldn't find them. I was dejected. Where were they? I scoured the men's department, but I saw nothing that even vaguely resembled this t-shirt. Needless to say I came home empty-handed (except for all the other items I purchased *wink*). I vowed that I WOULD find these shirts.

So today I went onto Champion's website, and I looked at their selection of shirts. Guess what? They didn't sell the one I was looking for. *Sigh* I wasn't about to give up, though. I checked a different section: Underwear. "It could be there...I guess? I mean, people could wear this UNDER another shirt." I thought to myself. And low and behold there it was! *Ding Ding Ding* I was so happy! Now comes the waiting for them to arrive. *sigh again*

The Quality of Our Local Newspaper

Our hometown newspaper is lovingly known for its errors. We joke a lot in our family, "Well, what did they mess up today?" It has become a game for us to search for the bungle that will inevitably be printed; usually a grammatical error, a misspelled word, an article cut off before the end, etc. For example, my mom's name was misspelled in David's and my wedding announcement. An entire poem was left off of a memorial that my aunt had placed in the paper in memory of my grandmother.

Several years ago though David found one of the funniest blunders I have ever seen in our newspaper. He saved the clipping, and I rediscovered it this week.

Since my scanner won't work, here is the posting as it appeared in the Classifieds between section #28 WANTED TO BUY and section #30 PETS & SUPPLIES:

#29 FIREWOOD

2 Hand-raised house kittens. Free to good home. 507-359-5721

I guess maybe someone ran out of trees in their grove but had a plethora of farm cats? *wink* The editor is WAY overpaid.

My naughty kitty

Last night I emptied the contents of my pockets onto the bathroom counter. This amounted to a $5 bill and a $10 bill. I turned away from the counter for a couple seconds, and when I turned back around my cat, Ali, had jumped up onto the counter, grabbed the $10 bill in her mouth, and immediately ran away with it! Finally, an explanation as to why I am often broke. *wink*

Gadgets

I removed my Swag Bucks swidget off of my blog because I only put it on there to be able to find out the daily Swag Bucks code. It didn't work! I would try several times a day to find that code, and it always said, "There is no code available right now. Try again later." If you are reading this and you use Swag Bucks please let me know how you find the codes.

Along the gadget line, I was wondering what kind of gadgets are fun to have on your blog. Does anyone have a recommendation? I feel like I need to spice up my blog a bit, but I am loathe to change the background as I'm afraid it will mess with all the headings and fonts and colors of my blog. Are there any good background sites?

Thanks for your input! ☺

If only the rest of the house looked like this

Yay! The toy room is organized! I threw out two garbage bags of toys and junk and garbage. AND I found the bag of the girls' hair clips that I was looking for which was the sole reason I decided to clean the toy room to begin with. Thanks be to God for allowing me to find them and have ample time today to finish what I started. ☺

Did you get a wrinkle today?

There used to be a commercial on a popular children's channel in which a celebrity told us "When you learn something new your brain gets a wrinkle." (That isn't exactly true, but our brains do store information in the wrinkles.) We are all familiar with that old adage "you learn something new every day". Normally I wouldn't agree with that phrase, but guess what? Today I actually DID learn something that I had not previously known.

Every Friday, Lord willing, I gather with my local home school group: New Ulm Area Scholars At Home (NUASH). Among the various families of our group are two who live on farms. Having grown up in the big "city" of New Ulm, I admit that I don't know much about farm life. So any time these two ladies talk about farm-related topics I am just fascinated.

Today they were conversing about hatching chickens. Did you know that chicks have a special "growth" on their beaks called an egg tooth that allows them to peck their way out of their shell?? I had no idea! After a few days this special tooth goes away, so it's sole purpose is to aid the chick in its life cycle. How awesome to think that God gave even the little insignificant fowl of the earth a special trait to allow them to do this one specific job!