JWalking: The Blog

T he desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. --Isaiah 35: 1&2 Isaiah's "Joy of the Redeemed" chapter... And though the prophet provides the vision of things to come, we can celebrate our redemption today with joy...and find God and His splendor in our springtime. * * * We celebrated my father-in-law's 80th birthday recently. The crocuses are blooming in Connecticut! More signs of spring are sprouting all the time--literally! Watch for them...God's presence in His creation.

L ong before we bloggers celebrated our first 100 posts, the psalmists provided us with theirs. In recognition of my 100th, let's celebrate by looking at the Bible's "Post #100" (a.k.a., Psalm 100, A Psalm for Thanksgiving or Thank Offering): Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Surprisingly, there is no direct Hebrew translation for the English word 'joyful' as used in this verse in the King James Version. That leaves things a bit open to interpretation. My study Bible (NASB) says 'joyful' is "a shout of loyalty and homage." The dictionary defines 'joy' with the word rejoicing, meaning "to be made glad again." 'Noise,' however, does come with a Hebrew equivalent, meaning "to split the ears with sound," as in to shout, shout for joy. Lands implies all the earth, the nations, the world. We, those of all nations, are to present to the Lord, out of our loyalty and homage to Him, joyful shouts that...

S ometimes, somebody just sees something in you. It's the Wild Card show on American Idol. Not something the producers do all that often. But, when you start with 36 contestants to begin with, I guess you need something to add some excitement while at the same time whittling down the list. All judges and all live. It was an exciting show. Recognizing that the Top 12 needed more girls, the judges added two. [I think Lil Rounds is still the top gal, and she may go all the way to the top. But, I've said that before too early about folks. You can't feel really confident about your picks until after #4 has been selected.] It came down to the last two guys--two guys I have enjoyed watching since the auditions, though they've received mixed reviews at times. Anoop Desai from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Matt Giraud from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Anoop's a bright college student with a flair for soulful performance. Matt's a dueling piano player whose got a lovely blues ...

T hey gave it their all out there. They flattened the hills and braved the bitter cold to taste the snow (just a few times....). The tobbogan is drying out, soon to be shelved on the garage wall. Gloves may need to hit the dryer. The grass is peeking through. And in 12 hours....it's school again! Bring it on!!!

Did Ya Make-a Bobsled? W hen I was growing up, we used the driveway as our sled hill. It was the obvious choice. It was (and still is) a 55-degree angle of sheer downhill fun! But, we were little kids. Dad always built safety features into "the run." The bottom of the driveway did run right into the street, after all. Though it was quiet most of the time, the street would still have cars occasionally. We were pretty much the first house on the street, so we saw more traffic than the other houses. Dad built a big turn ramp out of snow at the bottom of the driveway, so that instead of heading straight into the street, we would endure some major G-forces making the tight right curve on the run that flattened out to go parallel to the street and with the flow of traffic. One more safety feature.... He taped a sheet of glow-in-the-dark red paper on one side of a snow shovel and glow-in-the-dark green paper on the other side, and planted the stick into the base of the curve at the ...

H ad an unprecedented few minutes to peruse blogs last night. (HA! OK...I'm kidding. But, I really don't spend as much time as my family thinks in the blogosphere. I'm on deadline for the PTA newsletter; I don't have time for that this week!) Anyhow, came across bloggy friend, Linda at 2nd Cup of Coffee who posted on a meme about scarves (thanks to Rachel at Unexpected Blessings for hosting). I have a long history with scarves (and some just plain long scarves). And, since I'm enjoying that awesome Southern snowstorm this morning...still...it seems right to tie up a few minutes of your time with a few photos and yarns about scarves. (I'll stop punning now.) Why stop with just one scarf when you can wear two? I was in the high school color guard for two years. Purple ascot with the brown coat scarf (and the puffiest pom-poms at the end) made for a cool scarfy look (and quite warm as we got into November. Plus, the pom-poms let me cheer with the cheerleader...