peroxide

my new favorite liquid...

here are some things you can do with it (read - "useful email forward"):

This is what Oxi clean is.... 3% peroxide!!!!

"I would like to tell you of the benefits of that plain little old bottle of 3% peroxide you can get for under $1.00 at any drug store. My husband has been in the medical field for over 36 years, and most doctors don't tell you about peroxide, or they would lose thousands of dollars."

1. Take one capful (the little white cap that comes with the bottle) and hold in your mouth for 10 minutes daily, then spit it out. (I do it when I bathe) No more canker sores and your teeth will be whiter without expensive pastes Use it instead of mouthwash. (Small print says mouth wash and gargle right on the bottle)
2. Let your too thbrushes soak in a cup of "Peroxide" to keep them free of germs.
3. Clean your counters, table tops with peroxide to kill germs and leave a fresh smell. Simply put a little on your dishrag when you wipe, or spray it on the counters.
4. After rinsing off your wooden cutting board, pour peroxide on it to kill salmonella and other bacteria.
5. I had fungus on my feet for years - until I sprayed a 50/50 mixture of peroxide and water on them (especially the toes) every night and let dry.
6. Soak any infections or cuts in 3% peroxide for five to ten minutes several times a day. My husband has seen gangrene that would not heal with any medicine, but was healed by soaking in peroxide.
7. Fill a spray bottle with a 50/50 mixture of peroxide and water and keep it in every bathroom to disinfect without harming your septic system like bleach or most other disinfectants will.
8. Tilt your head back and spray into nostrils with your 50/50 mixture whe never you have a cold, or plugged sinuses. It will bubble and help to kill the bacteria Hold for a few minutes then blow your nose into a tissue.
9. If you have a terrible toothache and cannot get to a dentist right away, put a capful of 3% peroxide into your mouth and hold it for ten minutes several times a day. The pain will lessen greatly.
10. And of course, if you like a natural look to your hair, spray the 50/50 solution on your wet hair after a shower and comb it through. You will not have the peroxide burnt blonde hair like the hair dye packages, but more natural highlights if your hair is a light brown, reddish, or dirty blonde. It also lightens gradually so it's not a drastic change.
11. Put half a bottle of peroxide in your bath to help rid boils, fungus, or other skin infections.
12. You can also add a cup of peroxide instead of bleach to a load of whites in your laundry to whiten them. If there is blood on clothing, pour directly on the so iled spot. Let it sit for a minute, then rub it and rinse with col d water. Repeat if necessary.
13. I use peroxide to clean my mirrors with, and there is no smearing which is why I love it so much for this. I could go on and on. It is a little brown bottle no home should be without! With prices of most necessities rising, I'm glad there's a way to save tons of money in such a simple, healthy manner.

monkey kisses

no computers at publix...

we received this recently in a counselor's email update:

Can I just tell you that I am getting pretty upset with my local grocery store?! For weeks now I have needed a new computer and for weeks now I have gone into that store everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, looking for the computer section and I have not been able to find what I need. I have been getting so frustrated! So a week or so ago I started asking the baggers and checkers where the computers are and they kept saying they did not have computers, that this was a grocery store. But I knew they either simply did not know where to look or were just too lazy to show me where they kept the computers. A few days ago I finally asked for the manager; he told me the same thing. So I left and came back the next day and the next....and he kept telling me the same thing. NO computers.....but would I want to look at their fresh vegetables or fruit, perhaps some newly baked bread or barbecued chicken, even chips or ice cream? Absolutely not, I said, it is a computer that I need. So this morning he informs me I am creating a disturbance in his store and tells me I can never come back again. I guess he doesn't like pastors or retired sailors or something. He probably just doesn't like me. Fine. I will look somewhere else for my computer....right after lunch. Man, I wonder where you can get some food around here?

Alright, the truth is there is nothing wrong with my local grocery store; in fact, my wife is shopping at that store even as I type. But this is the type of word picture that the Lord gave one of my clients recently to illustrate the truth He was giving her about a situation in her life. And here is the principle....we often experience tremendous relational turmoil when we ask or demand that other individuals give us what they do not have; and furthermore, we can subsequently be so upset with the perception that they simply are choosing not to give us what we desire that we totally miss out on all that they do have available for us.

I have seen folks get angry and leave a church because "the pastor does not have time for me." There have been adults that cannot seem to let positive relationships birth and grow because they are locked in on trying to get one or both of their parents (or children) to affirm them. Marriages and friendship sometime languish as wonderful and fulfilling aspects of the relationship are overlooked because one person is giving relentless attention to the inability of the other person to "understand me." Sadly I even have worked with individuals who miss out on all the amazing items in the "ultimate superstore" of God because He appears to not carry the one item they most think they need most.

Over the years I have done many sessions of premarital counseling. One of the critical aspects of those sessions is getting past the warm fuzzy of romantic love and actually identifying the deepest needs and desires of each of the individuals....and then not guessing or assuming but actually determining the ability of other person to meet those. Failure to do this often leads to disappointment and frustration down the road when they discover that "my grocery store does not carry computers" and it can create such turmoil that they can no longer see all the great and life sustaining products their "grocery store" does have.

If I want a computer then the best place to go would be Best Buy, not Publix. If a person needs a place that they can come to share their hurts, fears, feelings and pain without being rejected or condemned; a place where there are compassionate, caring people who have time to journey at a slower pace then perhaps they might consider coming to JMCF. After all, we carry that product. It is very possible that the people with whom they are most frustrated at the moment simply do not have that product in their store. We would sure hate for them, in their frustration, to miss all the wonderful items that special person does have for them.

Pastor Jim GrovesJourney Ministries of Central Florida, Inc."A safe place to heal"www.journeyministriesorlando.com407-737-8730

from an email forward....

A nurse on the pediatric ward, before listening to the little ones chests, would plug the stethoscope into their ears and let them listen to their own hearts. Their eyes would always light up with awe, but she never got a response equal to four-year old David's comment.

Gently she tucked the stethoscope into his ears and placed the disk over his heart. 'Listen', she said...........'What do you suppose that is?' He drew his eyebrows together in a puzzled line and looked up as if lost in the mystery of the strange tap - tap - tapping deep in his chest. Then his face broke out in a wondrous grin and he asked, 'Is that Jesus knocking?'

Revelation 3:20

for mom

this is from an email forward i recently received ... author unknown.

I'm Invisible

It all began to make sense,the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm onthe phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it? 'I'm a satellite guide to answer,'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, and she’s gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package,and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on theinside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by there of? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees. I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make everyday, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become. 'At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.' As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

laughing with pappy

love the johnny jump up

sorry -- you have to crank your head sideways for this one.

what happens when you don't screen your babysitters....

actually, we are extremely thankful for our babysitters....
despite this photo that showed up in mike's inbox after some of our sweet neighbors took Hudson for a while so we could get some packing done... thanks Carters!

halloween

here we are... super baby, mama the princess, & dad (you can't see his kilt, but he's a very striking scot).

faintest traces

Man is so great that his greatness appears even in knowing himself to be miserable. A tree has no sense of its misery. It is true that to know we are miserable is to be miserable; but to know we are miserable is also to be great. Thus all the miseries of man prove his grandeur; they are the miseries of a dignified personage, the miseries of a dethroned monarch…What can this incessant craving, and this impotence of attainment mean, unless there was once a happiness belonging to man, of which only the faintest traces remain, in that void which he attempts to fill with everything within his reach?

-Pascal

these days...

mike called the other night absolutely ecstatic..."we got to put on some roofs & even hand over keys!!!"

since before we moved here, he has been wanting to go down south to help with tsunami relief work done by our ministry... something always came up - recording trips, visitors, pollution crisis (when he didn't want to leave me alone at the guest house in hua hin)... so this trip came up, & we were both really excited for him to go.

Campus Crusade is one of the last groups to be doing work in areas devastated by this disaster.... most organizations have pulled out, but small groups from Crusade continue to go down to help rebuild what the waves destroyed... as Mike was saying, they are still finishing up homes in some areas & able to give house keys to displaced people who will finally have a permanent place to live so many months later.

so tonight mike is on some little island with a few other guys from the ministry, sleeping in a wooden structure on stilts that they hope "doesn't fall down"... i hope so, too!

meanwhile, i'm sorting through 18 months of accumulated life things, trying to decide what comes home, and what to give away... kind of sad when i think about how little so many people have... really close to nothing... and i am worried about fitting all our things into 4 large suitcases.

glad we can do a little something to help, though.

predictions, etc...

"i will tell you right now, it's a boy... i have 50% accuracy."
-OBGYN in Bangkok (trying to be a comedian after we told him we did NOT want to know)

"girl."
-2 thai girlfriends

"I think it's a boy you've got in there!!! ...boys kick harder and earlier than girls do."
-kristine in CA

"it may be hard to avoid 'the area'... but i will keep my word and not tell you."
-Ultrasound reader in Chiang Mai

we really don't want to know, but it's still fun to guess!
what do you think baby B will be? i know there are some experts out there....

thoughts on crutches

When I was a little girl, I remember finding a pair of crutches (left over from some family member's unfortunate incedent) and being completely entertained the rest of the day leaping across the house with them. a few thoughts on this:
1. when you are not injured, crutches are great.
2. if you lose your balance while on said crutches, you have two good feet to land on.
3. when you get tired or your armpits hurt or the crutches are no longer convenient, you can lean them against a wall and continue regular mobility.

last weekend in bangkok, mike & i were walking back to the guesthouse from the hospital (we had our annual check ups & we are very healthy!), when i stepped onto an uneven section of sidewalk (these are plentiful throughout the kingdom)... my foot rolled outward, and i heard a loud snap. i was able to walk for a bit until the pain got too bad & mike got us a taxi for the the last 1/2 mile or so (a very well-spent dollar). i got out of the taxi & hopped into the guesthouse... then i hopped up the stairs and down the hall to our room. The next day, I hopped some more getting ready for the airport, where mike wheeled me on the luggage cart (fun!) to the airport "hospital" where a well-dressed staff person told us they did not have crutches, but could order some from a nearby hospital. After a smiling doctor examined my foot & said it was probably ligaments (only "10% chance" it's broken), my crutches arrived 30 minutes later in a flashing ambulence. Even though I gave my height in cm (165, if anyone is curious) to the hospital, and 6 well-dressed staff people attempted to make adjustments (mike ended up having to do it), as hard as everyone tried, the crutches were still too short for this giant farang (the thais call all foreigners that... it literally means "french.".. mike LOVES it). so they ordered some more crutches in a bigger size which arrived another half-hour later... they would have to do as is, because we needed to proceed to the gate. I was then escorted to my plane in a wheel chair, which was a very nice experience until i had to get out of the chair & make it down to my seat on the crutches (which were still too short). a few more thoughts on this:
1. it's hard to get around on crutches when your "good leg" is extremely sore because you've spent the last 24 hours hopping around on it.
2. it's harder to get around on crutches when one foot hurts so badly that you can't touch your toes to the ground.
3. the aisle of an airplane is not the best place to test-drive crutches, in general.
so, now i am home... resting and trying to perform the basic functions of life one must do even while "resting". it's amazing how we take for granted that our feet work & our hands don't have to contribute to the process of "getting around". more thoughts:
1. crutches are hard to get around on, and easy to lose your balance with.
2. crutches make a bad substitute for legs, but a good substitute for hands in limited situations (ex. they are good for pushing things around on the floor, but bad for carrying bowls of soup).
3. ginger seems confused, but happy in a strange way, that i now, too, have 4 legs.

it must be cold where you are....

i woke up to what felt like a chill in the air, thought i was delusional, then looked at my weather underground thingy & saw it was in fact 63 degrees... in Thailand! sure, it will probably be 90 before 4pm, but i'll enjoy it while it lasts.

The local temperature is updated every half-hour or so, in case you ever want to know just HOW warm it is here... it's always on our blog.... at the top of the column on the right.

i've decided blogging is an excellent alternative...

...to loading up people's email boxes with forwards they don't really have time to read. so, here's a blog entry you may not have time to read... your choice :):


Absolute Truths from the Movies
1. Large, loft-style apartments in New York are within the price range of most people, whether they are employed or not.
2. At least one out of every pair of identical twins is born evil.
3. Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut.
4. During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
5. If you are blonde and pretty, it's possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at age 22.
6. Radiation causes interesting mutations, not to your future children, but to you, right then and there.
7. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.
8. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
9. If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will soon be thrown through it.
10. Most dogs are immortal.
11. Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
12. Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say "Enter password now".
13. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
14. You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
15. All grocery bags contain at least one loaf of French bread.
16. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
17. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
18. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
19. Honest and hardworking policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before retirement.
20. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts; your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
21. If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
22. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone else on the street will know all the steps.
23. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
24. The White House can be seen from any window in D.C.
25. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their arch-enemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
26. Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their opposite.
27. Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment.

i found it on the internet, so it must be true....

i can honestly say that i have never been mistaken for any of these women.... i know you're shocked.



mike, on the other hand is constantly being asked for his autograph over here... now we know why...

happy dog

an inside look at when ginger got her bone & was very happy.

create

"problems are nothing but wake-up calls for creativity."
-unknown

the above is from a lovely website with free printable paper creations you "make" yourself... they've done all the beautiful work.. all you need are glue & scissors.
http://www.thetoymaker.com/2Toys.html

here are some other websites & blogs that have been inspiring me lately:
http://www.papress.com/designityourself/index.html great tips if you want to "design" anything... business cards, t-shirts, etc.
http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/ fun times on the farm... yummy recipes
http://www.maizehutton.com/ check out the "diy" & "blog" sections
http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=learn-cat&id=cat242&navLevel=2&rsc=mslnav you don't have to like her to appreciate her genious :)

enjoy!

picasa

my darling husband downloaded picasa & started the arduous task of organizing all the pics we've taken since we got married... almost 4 years ago... very few of which i've organized & almost none of which i've printed out...bad.
anyway, he came across some amazing pictures like this one... from our drive across utah, on our way to colorado from the northwestern rim of the grand canyon. gorgeous.

back from blog darkness

since i last wrote, we've finished 5 awesome projects for work, & caryn went to ireland with a friend (she had a free plane ticket -- yes, our family seems to have more than their fair share of free tickets to ireland)...

mike gives his hellos... he's out climbing a wall (literally), as now that we are back in the office, our jobs are lacking in physical & artistic challenges (other than keeping our eyes open in front of the computer as we work on admin & fill orders)... we are looking for every opportunity to chop wood & do some serious fingerpainting, as our birkman personality assessments would have us do (i'll let you figure out who's doing what).

more pics & updates later, but just wanted to let you know we're home safely & slowly catching up on paperwork, emails, and life....

thanks for all your comments, by the way! i've responded to a few of them, so if you're really interested, you can hunt through the comments :)....

oh -- any creative ideas for celebrating the 4th of july in asia?