Do your stains talk?

I'm sure you have all seen this commercial; but, it is absolutely one of my favorites and makes me smile EVERY time I see it.

Welcome to the Tide Talking Stain Commercial

Sólo cinco meses...

Also, this deserves a post of its own.

5 MONTHS FROM TODAY UNTIL OUR WEDDING!!

Isaiah and his prophetess...I mean, wife

So a few weeks ago I decided to begin reading through Isaiah. Before you breathe that gasp of shock, yes, I know it is 66 chapters long and at even a chapter a day it would take over 2 months to read, but...I plan to take it slow and try to learn. So..if it takes a year, it's ok. I am up to chapter 8 and I love it when I find phrases in the Bible that catch me off guard and make me smile. I didn't understand all of Isaiah 8:1 in my ESV Sproul study Bible so I called Dane to ask what his new ESV study Bible said; however, the infamous, long-awaited ESV study Bible is at his office at church and not with him at home. So I settled for his interpretation from the his closest Bible within reach, the trusty NASB. (Yes, I know now I can just go to biblegateway.com, but I like that I can ask my fiance for help and he can teach me.) Now in the ESV, the verse reads:

Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters, 'Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.'

Ok, see my confusion? Why would God tell Isaiah to take a large tablet and write his second son's name on it? (Maher-.... is the name of Isaiah's 2nd son.) So Dane reads this from his NASB:

"Take for yourself a large tablet and write on it in ordinary letters: Swift is the booty, speedy is the prey.

"Swift is the booty?" What in the world is that? Before you tell me to grab my dictionary, I know that the word "booty" can mean something to be gained/won, but the phrase just caught me off guard at the drastically different translations and made me smile. Picture this, your church youth group now has t-shirts that say "Swift is the booty..." Is. 8:1 NASB. Now what kind of people would that upset? :)

I still don't understand the text very well, but I'll have to wait until I can get to Dane's commentaries. O, I can't wait for us to be married so I can have full, easy access to his library of Bible reference books. He has so many that are so helpful!!

O, and in vs. 3, Isaiah refers to his wife as "the prophetess." I guess that's what you get when you marry a prophet...or maybe she was one too? Hmm...

I'll be 22!

I should have done this yesterday, but I was at home without my computer. I'm going to copy Jamey and publicly declare for all in blogworld that it is my BIRTHDAY WEEK. Yes, you heard me right, blow up the balloons, hang the streamers and get excited because it's a week-long celebration! Tomorrow (Monday) is my birthday!! Woohoo! The big 22!

A quilt like that

So have you noticed the link on the right to "Win this Quilt"? I entered to win it, although I never win any online contests, because it is definitely one of the coolest quilts I have ever seen. I want to make a quilt like that. Yea, I've never quilted anything before and I think I could sit down with LOTS of time and make one. Haha...o, I can dream. Maybe one day. For now, I'll settle on just wanting a cool quilt like that one.

What do you think?

Here are just a few statements I want to throw out there. Disagree if you like, but these are arguments that I really believe.

When have we as a nation become a people who want the government to provide for our every need? Food, health, college, jobs are all important things in our lives; however, do we really want the government providing all of these things for us? If so, we become dependent on the government because we no longer have to function on our own without government help. Is this not what has happened in welfare, social security? Look at what is happening with people on government programs. Are they the happiest people in the world because everything has been handed to them in organized, efficient envelopes and they automatically have the best of everything? No. Their lives often consist of frustration because they have to live below a certain income to maintain their government assistance, yet cannot live "successfully" off of this income. Their every decision depends on the check from the government. If some month that check quit coming, what would they do? This my friends, is what I see as a possible problem for the United States.

Whatever happened to empowering the people to use their money to invest into the market and the "invisible hand" (Adam Smith, founder of modern economics) guiding the economy? I know many will say "well, look at the market now. What about this? Looks like that invisible hand is truly invisible." I say this to that response, there are many factors that play into the market situation now. Most of which I do not even know the half of, but I do know about 10 years ago there was a large push by a government adminstration to lower mortgage costs so people with not so good credit scores could get good mortgages in order to increase home ownership. Well, this did increase home ownership, but now, look what it's done. Fannie Mae is now under a government bailout plan becaues these people with bad credit who got mortgages couldn't pay.

I in no way claim to be an economics expert and cannot give a response for every political debate argument, but I do believe that it is never a good thing for citizens to be dependent on their government for their basic needs.