My granddaughter is sleeping over tonight!
Six Word Saturday 9-19-20
Category Archives: For Family & Fun
SHARE YOUR WORLD WITH HARRY POTTER FROM 9-14-20
IT is time to Share My World Harry Potter style with….
MELANIE FROM SPARKS FROM A COMBUSTIBLE MIND
AND….
ROGER SHIPP FROM IT’S ALL IN FINDING THE RIGHT WORDS.
This is the challenge where Roger and Melanie asks several questions for Potterites and Muggles alike, and in answering them we all share our worlds.
Here are the questions and my answers.
You have just been gifted a magic wand that specializes in completing household chores. You can request the completion of only two household chores. Which chores would you assign your wand to complete?
I need a wand for the dusting and the vacuuming. These are chores I never seem to get too. Though, if the truth be told I am not good at keeping up with housework period.
At the local Wizards-R-Us store there was a sale on handshake shockers, instant darkness pellets, and levitation pills. Which of these ‘party thrillers’ are you more likely to purchase?
Instant darkness pellets sound way more fun than the others. Now, if they were instant flying pills I might reconsider.
In the alley behind Wizards-R-Us, there was a tradesman selling a Love Potion. The sales pitch was too much for you and you yielded and purchased one vial. What do you do with it?
I store it away for someone who needs it…somewhere where I will be absolutely safe from it.
You are the Great Clearinghouse Winner of a new ‘good luck’ potion – Felix Felicis. It has to be used within the next thirty days or its potency becomes diminished. Do you use it? Do you give it to a friend in need?
I am pretty sure good luck is not a thing. The pathway is the pathway, and it is what we need it to be. Trying to change the pathway with luck is not only useless but if we manage it, it can be dangerous. So I would dump it out. No one needs it.
Melanie’s Mundane Muggle Questions:
If everyone spoke their mind, would this world be a better or worse place? Why?
We are not called to speak our minds. We are called to speak the truth in love. Those things are usually very different. My mind often wants to say things that are neither loving or things that are only as truthful as the spin of my opinion. Mostly I don’t trust myself to speak my mind. Why would I trust it in others?
Can achieving nothing make a person happy?
Sometimes I think achievement is overrated. Especially in this culture where achievements are made out of cookie cutters. Everyone thinks a person’s achievements should look exactly like their next door neighbors achievements. That is pretty far from the truth. I think the first question is what were we made to achieve? Shooting for that personal goal is a good thing as long as it is not being done to out achieve someone else.
How do you know if you love someone enough to marry them?
Good golly! Do you have a hundred years to listen to my rant on this? I guess if you can honestly speak the covenant oath then you love them enough. Here’s the thing. What if they get sick? What if they get poor? What if they get rich and the dazzle of riches makes them unfaithful to you? What if you get sick? What if you lose everything because of them? What if you get everything you want but keeping all the stuff means second -classing your relationship so you need to give it up? If you can make the oath to stick with them through all of this and not go seeking another then maybe you love them enough.
GRATITUDE SECTION (as always this is optional)
Please feel free to write about or share an image of something you’re grateful for!
Dani my granddaughter is coming to sleep over Oz’ (that’s me) house this weekend! It’s a first for us and her!
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Share Your World 9-7-20
It is time to SHARE MY WORLD ORDER OF THE PHOENIX STYLE.
Today’s questions are a collaboration between Melanie of Spark From A Combustible Mind. AND Roger Shipp of It’s All in Finding the Right Words.
Check out their blogs when you have finished here and give them a shout out from me.
Here are Melanie and Roger’s sharing questions and my answers:
What happened to cause you to discover ‘bullies” were real?
My mother was a working woman as far back as I can remember. Some of the babysitters my sister and I were left with had kids who were less than kind. I remember one little girl who used to hit us with toys when her mother wasn’t looking. I remember another kid teasing us about how our mother didn’t love us because she worked and she was probably never coming back for us….So I learned about bullies early on.
Eavesdropping- When given the chance, how often do you eavesdrop? (this may be a similar question to what some folks said they’d do with an invisibility cloak)
I try really hard not to eavesdrop.I will admit it is a part of human nature I struggle with. I think it is a power thing…knowledge is power and all that.
I am always mindful that because I am a Pastor people will frequently try to listen in on my conversations in church settings. I have actually had people come up behind me and plant themselves in a pew while I am trying to have a conversation with another congregant. A few times I have actually had to tell people kindly of course, “This is a private conversation. If you would like to wait over there for me I will speak with you when I am done.”
Escalators, at one time, were the ‘next big thing’. When was the last time you rode an escalator?
I love escalators. The bigger the better. It has been a while, but I love to ride the escalator down into Alewife Station in Boston. I think that is the last escalator I rode, so that would be over a year ago.
Have you ever ‘let’ someone win in a sports competition or a board game? How did it turn out?
I used to throw board games all the time when I was a kid. I would get sick of playing and do what I had to do to “get out”. It usually worked out well. I could then go and read or watch TV so “win-win” errr…”lose-win”.
Do our fears start with our DNA? (Credit to Rory)
I think most things start with our DNA. That said we have a great deal of say over where our DNA takes us. It is nature/nurture and personal responsibility that determine our course not just one of those things.
If you could have your hair any colour for 24 hours, what colour would you choose? (Credit to Sandmanjazz)
I would be shiny silver.
When do you think a person gets old? (Credit to Rory)
When they decide they are old.
GRATITUDE SECTION (as always this is optional)
Please feel free to write about an uplifting moment in your life this week!
Today has been a wonderful day. I have been able to keep to a very fluid schedule which has helped me to accomplish a lot. This music has been helping me along the path all day. I love Celtic Music. I love a day with no unexpected interruptions and lots of fun music.
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One-Liner Wednesday’s 9-2-20
This post is created in response to LINDA HILL’S ONE-LINER WEDNESDAY CHALLENGE FOR 9-2-20.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please – Mark Twain.
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Share Your World With Harry Potter Week Three
Well it is that time again. For the last several weeks and continuing on through this week and on for a few more, Melanie From “Sparks From A Combustible Mind” will be teaming up with Roger Shipp of “It’s All In Finding the Right Words”, to produce SHARE YOUR WORLD MEETS HARRY POTTER OR HARRY POTTER MEETS SHARE YOUR WORLD depending on which blog you are reading. My suggestion is to read them both when you have finished reading my responses to them.
HERE ARE THIS WEEK’S QUESTIONS AND MY ANSWERS:
Share Your World Meets Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- One of my favorite gifts that Harry Potter received came from the Weasley Twins; and was “Mrs. Mooney’s Marauder’s Map”. This magical document showed every classroom, hallway and secret corner in all of Hogwarts. It also showed you the location- by name- of every person in Hogwarts. If you had such a magical map of your town, what would you use it for? If you would not use it, is there another person to whom you would gift it? I love knowing things so I would definitely use this map, but most likely I would just keep the knowledge to myself until the time came when knowing something would help someone else out of a jam.
- When was the last time you made a snowball? Were in a snowball fight? Oh my! In my world snow is for shoveling and than avoiding. I am not much for snowballs anymore. Now snowmen…. I think it will be fun to build one with the grandkids.
- Many cultures set great value in each child of the family having godparents. Did you have godparents? Are you a godparent yourself? I did have god parents, though they were not really active in my life. I think I met them each a few times, but we were not close. I am not a god parent to anyone.
- You have found a secret tunnel under your house. Where does it go? To the Sage’s Cave.
Muggle Questions (of a more philosophical bent this week):
Is intelligence or wisdom more useful? Intelligence without wisdom is pretty darn useless.
How important is play in living a healthy and fulfilling life? For most people play is absolutely essential to leading a healthy life. It is part of the great balance. That said, play means different things to different people. What is play to me is not much fun for other people and I find what most other people call play a lot of work.
Is happiness just chemicals flowing through your brain or something more? Happiness is chemicals. Joy is a spiritual quality that goes far beyond happy.
GRATITUDE SECTION (Always optional)
Feel free to share some photos, an image, a meme, a story or incident or a poem that helps you feel grateful.
I heard my second grand daughter’s heart beat for the first time yesterday!
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Share Your World Potter Style Week 2 8-17-20
This is week two of the SHARE YOUR WORLD and ROGER SHIPP mash up which we are calling SHARE YOUR WORLD MEETS HARRY POTTER…OR …HARRY POTTER SHARES HIS WORLD…OR HARRY POTTER’S SHARED WORLD…OR…well I guess you can call it whatever you want.
Here are this week’s questions from Roger and Melanie respectively. Use the underlined portkeys above to get to their sites after you have read my answers.
Share Your World Meets Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter can speak to snakes. If you were able to have conversations with any one animal, what animal would you like to speak to? What would be the topic of your first conversation? I would really like to be able to speak to the bigger animals like bears and lions and wolves and what not. I would talk with them about life in the forest
- The portraits in Hogwart’s dormitories can talk. If your graduation portrait could speak to people passing it by, what would it tell them? I really wish he had done something different with his hair. The eighties were not good to anyone’s hair. We all looked like Hermes, Elvira or like someone had fried us in an electric light socket.
- Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger use the Pollyjuice Potion for finding new clues for the happenings at Hogwarts. (The Pollyjuice Potion is a magic potion that allows your body to form into that of another and live their life for a few hours.) If you could transform into another being, who would you chose to be? What would you hope to learn? I would like to transform into some lowly worker in the President’s surround but whose job took them into Congressional offices as well. I would want to be someone beneath everyone’s notice, someone invited in and then treated like I was invisible so that I could hear the truth….something I am sure none of us is hearing from the powers on high.
- There was a flooding in the girl’s bathroom where Moaning Myrtle resides. What has been the most dangerous (or comical) ‘flooding’ where you reside? Our cellar routinely floods in the Sprinter (that season between winter and spring). It’s neither dangerous nor comical just a pain. I am going to have to do something about it this winter.
Mundane or “Muggle” Questions:
(Serious one which is rather creepy): How do you think you’ll die? IF you do think about it? I really have no idea. Maybe I won’t. Maybe Jesus will come and “rapture” me home before I drop.
What’s the best on-line screen name you’ve seen? “Best might mean the oddest. I really like SPARKS FROM A COMBUSTIBLE MIND.
What’s invisible that you wish people could see?
GOD. I do believe this will happen eventually.
If over time you replace parts on a car, at what point does it stop being the same car you bought? How many parts do you need to replace to make it a new car?
This is like that tootsie roll question right? The answer of course is the same…Three.
….errr I mean 9,000.
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A Share Your World Twister 8-10-20
So it is time for SHARE YOUR WORLD again. This week and for the next few Melanie is joining forces with Roger Shipp and helping us share our world’s HARRY POTTER STYLE.
Each week for the next few Roger will ask questions 1-4 and then Melanie will ask us questions 4- through 8ish. In answering them we will Share Our Worlds Harry Potter Style.
Each week I will link this whole post to both Melanie and Roger’s posts. When you have finished here. Go to their respective posts to see how their other contributors have answered.
Here are the questions and my answers:
ROGER’S QUESTIONS:
- Because of the state-wide quarantines many of the local SPCA’s are having an influx of animals. You have decided that you would love to have a new pet. Would you go the normal wizardry route and pick an owl, a cat, or a toad? Or would you become a more eccentric wizard (like Hagrid, the games keeper) and seek out a three-headed dog, a dragon, or a unicorn? Please explain your answer. I am definitely going to adopt a hippogriff.
Or maybe a hippocampus
- Neville Longbottom was gifted a Remembrall. This was a glass ball that would assist you in maintaining memories of things that you often forget. What would you want your Remembrall to help you remember? Birthdays and anniversaries for sure. That would be very handy.
- Professor Dumbledore gave Harry Potter an invisibility cloak that Dumbledore said was from Harry’s father. Now, you have inherited a cloak with similar powers. Would you use it? When? Every day for three hours. That seems like a perfect amount of time to vanish.
- While cleaning your attic, you have discovered the Mirror of Erised. (“Erised” is “desire” spelled backwards, as if reflected in a mirror) The Mirror of Erised is a magical mirror, which, according to Professor Dumbledore, when you gaze into it, it shows the “deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts.” You have chosen to look in the mirror. What do you see? Heaven.
AND NOW MELANIE’S QUESTIONS:
Would You Rather Live 120 Years That Are Comfortable But Boring, Or Live Half As Long, But Have An Exciting Adventure Packed Life?
I choose eternal life with the perfect mix of both. Sorry I had to cheat.
What’s Something That Overwhelms You?
People. I love them but have found I to be careful to pray real good between doses.
What Do or DID You Take For Granted?
Oh! So many things and it cost me quite a lot. It’s what comes from trying to please everyone. You end up pleasing no one. It’s better to put your energy into the ones who should be most important in your life and putting everyone else in a box that says “If I have the time.” That might sound horrible, but I wish I had chosen that path when I was twenty five….but then if I had done that I would not be who I am today…..there is this thing about needing our pain to be fully formed, but that’s another post.
Gratitude: Please feel free to share some gratitude moments or thoughts you’ve had recently. This section is entirely optional.
Tis week I am very grateful for focus music. This stuff has been keeping me centered all week.
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SHARE YOUR WORKLD FROM 8-3-20
It is time to SHARE MY WORLD AGAIN!
This is the challenge where the hostess, Melanie, asks 5 questions and in answering them we all get to share our worlds.
Here are Melanie’s weekly questions and my answers. When you have finished reading my responses, please click on the underlined link above to see how Melanie’s other contributors answered.
What will finally break the Internet? Do you believe it can be broken at all?
I do believe the internet can and will be broken. The final nail in the internet’s coffin will be the lack of need for it. This will bring the internet to an end. A deeper more effective connection created between the people of the human race will be forged.
we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Cor. 13: 9-12
What are some ‘red flags’ to watch out for in daily life? (take it as you want)
The red flags I watch for in my life are when I begin to fill my schedule back to back with meetings and group or people events leaving no time for prayer or solitude in my life. Such a schedule almost always leads to a melt down of one sort or another.
What’s the silliest thing someone has argued with you about?
The position of the communion table in the sanctuary ( they actually listed it as one of their reasons for leaving the church).
What’s the strangest thing you’ve found lying on the ground / side of the road?
A person. Actually it was my daughter whom found him. Our neighbor had been out raking leaves and had a heart attack. It was horrible.
Gratitude Section (optional as always)
Please feel free to share your photos, stories, poetry, or memes that promote gratitude!
I am so grateful I got to see this little lady and her Mom last night. We had pizza or as she says “pizzi”.
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Share Your World From July 27th
This post is created in response to MELANIE’S SHARE YOUR WORLD CHALLENGE FOR JULY 27TH 2020. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHALLENGE OR TO READ MELANIE’S CONTRIBUTOR’S WORK.
Are you a clean or messy person?
I am a fairly well ordered slob who is trying to clean up his act. I am learning to be at peace with any progress in this arena at all.
If I asked you to describe yourself in five words – what would they be?
Christ-follower. Father. Pastor. Prophetic.Artistic.
Do you enjoy being out in nature?
Yes. This pandemic has given me an opportunity to spend a lot more time enjoying things like gardening and bird watching. These are activities I have not participated in, in many years. I did not realize until I started doing them again how much I missed them.
What could you spend all day talking about?
The Bible…. Art. …..The Coming Kingdom Of God. Actually through my blogs I am doing that. Thank you all for reading and giving a guy an outlet for his voice.
Attitude of Gratitude:(OPTIONAL)
I am grateful for the final word.
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Share Your World 7-20-20
It’s time for SHARE YOUR WORLD AGAIN! This is the weekly challenge where Melanie from “Sparks From A Combustible Mind” posts five questions and in answering them, we her contributors all share our worlds…at least a little bit.
The weekly questions and my answers are below. Please check out Melanie’s blog (by clicking the capitalized link above) when you have finished here. See how her other contributors have answered.
THE QUESTIONS:
Where Do You Not Mind Waiting?
I generally don’t mind waiting as long as I have a comfortable place to sit and something to occupy my mind. I do struggle waiting sometimes when the wait interferes with a busy schedule. That said, I try to leave plenty of space in my life now for the waiting which is becoming more and more common in our culture.
What Is In Your Fridge Right Now? (you’re not required to give a comprehensive list)
We are two days from grocery shopping so not much. Macaroni salad…kool aid…milk…soda. And eggs we have plenty of eggs.
If You Could Only Speak One Word Today, What Would It Be?
Jesus.
Would You Rather Be Trapped In An Elevator Full Of Men With BO Or Three Soaked Dogs? (this is with the codicil that C-19 doesn’t exist)
Am I one of the men with BO?…..The dogs definitely.
Please feel free to share something good about last week. This is NOT mandatory, it is just if you’d like to.
The berries are coming in now. I picked a pint of currants today and I have about a quart of black rasberries. I also harvested seven purple turnips and two tomatoes.
Lillie-Put 