Mary, Did You Know?

(Pause my playlist over on the right before playing the video.)

While it is still acceptable and legal to say it on the net, "Jesus IS the reason for the season".

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!

CHANGE IN PLANS (AS IF I HAD ANY)...AKA...That is the title of Jim's newest post

(This is Sue. I am typing up an entry in my blog for Jim. I DO wish he would learn to type...LOL)


Got the word Friday morning. Yep, those dreaded words that most men hate to hear. You guys know the ones. Yep. "When are you going to put the tree up?" Scooby heard them too.



OK! OK! I'm going, I'm going. Off to the basement to dig out the tree. My gosh, where did all this junk come from and how did it get in front of the tree? We need a smaller tree. This box is bigger than I am.

Alright. First things first. This is going to require a lot of good bluegrass music. Today's selection, Del McCoury Band!





8:30 am Started putting the tree up. Going pretty good. I can still tell the color on the color coded parts.

9:30 am


Maybe I ought to put on some bluegrass gospel.

10:20 am


Got Del and the boys playing, "I Can Hear the Angels Sing". It's just me and it's kinda loud. Hey! The mailman is on the front porch patting his foot. He is staying there. I don't know if it's the music or the rain that's keeping him on the porch. He needs to move on. We are both real busy. I'm "MODOC'N" now. Scooby has had enough:



TIDBIT: Connersville has a singing mailman. His name is Stan Howard. He is a good Christian and a wonderful singer. A great voice. He is a city carrier and is even known to stop and sing to the people on his route. His son, Matt Howard, is a star player for the Butler Bulldogs basketball tean. I believe that Matt and Crayton Frost (Jack and Milah's son) played on the same team in high school.

11:30: I'm getting there! Hmmm. Is it just me, or does anyone else want to go fishing?



Sometime later. Voila! Topped out and the sun is still up.



TIDBIT: Did you ever wonder why an evergreen tree is placed on top of a completed steel structure? It was started by the Native American Indians. They used to do most of the steel erecting on high buildings. They had no natural fear of heights and therefore had incredible balance. They would place the evergreen tree on top of the completed structure to signify that no one was lost or hurt during the job.

One thing I have learned in all my years as a journeyman carpenter is that you don't "cross trades". Every one has a job. I'm a "putter-upper" and a "taker-downer". My work here is done.

Sue, take it from here...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

This is Sue, taking it from here.

Here is the top of our Christmas tree:


Here is one of my favorite ornaments:



Our tree has many, many more that are my favorites, but for some reason I only took this one picture. The ones Lauren made me in school with her picture on them, Jim and my first Christmas together, the Hallmark "daughter" one my Dad bought me the first Christmas I was separated from Gary, Lauren's first Christmas...Going through the ornament box is DEFINITELY a trip down memory lane!!!

Here is our finished tree:



Finally got some decorations put up today! Hopefully everything will be ready by Christmas Eve when Lauren gets here!

Hope all your Christmases are blessed!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas! (Pause playlist on right!)

But don't forget the reason for the season! (you may have to pause it again)

Oh, Joy and Rapture...AKA...I PASSED MY TEST!!!!!

Honestly, folks, I had NO IDEA which way this one was gonna go!

I had been checking my AAPC account every evening, knowing the results would be there before the mail notification. Everytime I clicked on it, I felt NAUSEATED. It always said, "Results - pending" and right next to that was a box that you could click on that said, "Schedule retake test". Believe me, the thought of THAT was more than I could even bear to think about!

Well, tonight when I clicked on it (praying before I opened it up, like always...holding my breath, like always), it said simply "Results - PASS". I started crying and screaming for Jim and I think we were both jumping up and down...can't remember too well...was crying and laughing at the same time!

We did remember to:



before celebrating further







Believe me, if we still drank, I would be breaking open the bubbly:



Instead, we will be celebrating with our usual nightly fare. Me enjoying this:



and Jim partaking of this:



(I know, I know...too wild for words, ain't we?)

For anyone who might be interested, this is what it entailed:

We even have our own code of ethics:

I want to thank ALL OF YOU for your prayers during this very stressful time in my life! I feel like I have my life back now. Audra told me I needed to buy a lottery ticket, what with passing my test and the Bengals WIN yesterday...





...she is pretty sure this is my LUCKY week! LOL

One last thing. Shannon, my friend at work who took her certification test about 3 years ago, told me that when she got her notification through the mail (it wasn't available online back then) that she didn't realize until after she had opened the envelope containing her certificate that it was addressed to her with the initals CPC afterwards. Tonight, after looking more closely at my online account, I noticed that it said, "Linda Sue Sebree, CPC". I FINALLY (after all these years) have some initials after my name! LOL

Just remember,



and then remember to

"Our Mutual Joy"...AKA Does anybody REALLY care what they are trying to do to the Word of God?

Here are some excerpts from the cover story of Newsweek magazine, December 15, 2008

{Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so...

...Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument). Common prayers and rituals reflect our common practice: the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer describes the participants in a marriage as "the man and the woman." But common practice changes—and for the better, as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." The Bible endorses slavery, a practice that Americans now universally consider shameful and barbaric. It recommends the death penalty for adulterers (and in Leviticus, for men who have sex with men, for that matter). It provides conceptual shelter for anti-Semites. A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism. The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it's impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours.}

Read the entire article here:

I don't know about you, but I choose not to take the Bible out of context and to take it literally...unlike President Bush who considers himself "probably not a literalist" when it comes to the Word of God...but that is another post...you can see it for yourself here.

I know I probably won't get any comments on this post with the possible exception of Milah, but that doesn't deter me from stating my opinion on what is becoming the new hot button PC topic. (Like the media is asking, "Is Gay becoming the new Black?" HUH???) Anyway, I realize discussions like this are not comfortable. Sometimes I feel like I am pretty much alone in my opinions and that God's people would rather just ignore what God's Word is being twisted into because it makes them uncomfortable. After all, God IS love , isn't He? God loves the sinner, doesn't He? Would God REALLY send someone to hell over what maybe IS just a gray area?

You can't have it both ways...either God's Word is true or it is false. In my opinion, remaining silent is just condoning the heresy. If I am wrong, then God and everybody else forgive me!

Trying to play "catch up"...

Now that my test is finally over (at least until I find out if I passed it or not) I realized that it is only a few short weeks until Christmas. Just thinking about everthing there is to do makes me very tired...

Here are some 'toons I found (while I should have been doing something constructive!)












Getting ready to watch, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on ABC in 8 minutes. I am suprised they are "allowed" to show this anymore!

My favorite part: (PAUSE PLAYLIST ON THE RIGHT FIRST)

A Christmas Song...AKA Are there any old Jethro Tull fans out there?

First of all...be sure to pause my playlist over on the right before listening to this song.

This song has always been one of my favorites...not your TYPICAL Christmas carol, however! Here are the lyrics, for those of you who maybe can't understand an old hippie's British accent. LOL You HAD to be there...

"Christmas Song"

Once in Royal David's City stood a lonely cattle shed,
where a mother held her baby.
You'd do well to remember the things He later said.
When you're stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties,
you'll just laugh when I tell you to take a running jump.
You're missing the point I'm sure does not need making
that Christmas spirit is not what you drink.

So how can you laugh when your own mother's hungry,
and how can you smile when the reasons for smiling are wrong?
And if I just messed up your thoughtless pleasures,
remember, if you wish, this is just a Christmas song.

(Hey! Santa! Pass us that bottle, will you?)

Tomorrow is the day...AKA If I don't know it by now...I will never, ever, never know it!

Tomorrow morning I take my test. Finally. Prayers STILL appreciated, however!

As I was taking a break from studying (uh, more like cramming at this point!), Jim told me what he had seen on CNN today. Well, here is the full video, in all its 'glory'...

The devil sure has "them" blinded. (Isn't that what the devil always does...take the Word of God out of context? He doesn't have anything new!) The video says, "Doesn't the bible say these people are an abomination?" We all know the bible says the sin is evil, not the people! Heaven help us and "them". (At least that is what this video portrays...us and them. Say, isn't that an old Pink Floyd song?)

Sorry if this offends anyone...

PAUSE PLAYLIST ON RIGHT FIRST (hmmm...the first song on my playlist is an old Elton John tune...what a coincidence. I love Elton John. I love Ellen. I love all gay people. God does too. But he CANNOT and WILL NOT "wink" at their sin. They need salvation. And that's a fact, Jack Black!)

Proposition 8 - the Musical