In my pre-married life, or my ‘career’ stage of life, one of the jobs I had was working as a software facilitator/instructor at a private vocational college.  I’d help students move through self-paced courses in software instruction – learning how to work with computers and use various software packages to varying levels of proficiency.    It was pretty fun, but towards the end of my days there a new course designed to help students learn IT/networking/computer support skills was introduced and I quickly discovered that when hardware is involved you can pretty much count me out!

I could do SOME limited computer support for user-end software over the phone if past students called me with a glitch, but the types of services offered by a Computer Support company were definitely beyond me.  Thankfully you can find technical computer and IT support nearly everywhere worldwide, including IT support Harrogate UK.

My hats go off to those who are more hardware oriented than I.  Personally, I rely a lot on my husband to figure out those sorts of issues for me!

When you have a house full of little girls, scenes like this aren’t unusual.  I’m so glad that we have all these little girls so they can help each other get all dressed up for exciting princess dance parties like this one.  Kaelynn is a huge help when it comes to helping her little sisters get dressed up for creative play sessions (check out the gloves!)

God definitely gives each of us unique gifts, unique strengths, and unique weaknesses.  Personally, He made me with a strong orientation towards language-based skills.  My spatial and math skills however, aren’t all that strong.  As a result, I won’t be having the engineering recruitment agency Harrogate knocking on my door, calling me up, or sending me an email any time soon!

Engineering jobs just never appealed to me, though I do like certain fields of science, those that are heavily dependent upon math just never made it onto my radar.  I never took any physics courses in high school, struggled through chemistry, but absolutely loved biology.  My husband on the other hand is more the type of guy that an engineering recruitment agency would be interested in, if he’d had the formal educational training.  As it is, he contents himself with building our own systems, devices, and buildings, managing our off-grid home, and various sorts of tasks that could be considered lay-engineering.  He thrives on variety though, so even if he’d had a degree, I think he’d eventually go mad at any sort of engineering Jobs Harrogate.

I can definitely understand why companies looking for engineers in specific fields would hire a firm that specializes in engineering job recruitment would be a huge boon – not everyone has the skills to evaluate a potential engineer, and I am certainly one of them!

When all of the other starlings fell out of the nest and discovered typical starling delights, Calvin instead fell head first into a book.  After that, he was done for – a confirmed bookworm birdie.

While his siblings and many, many cousins spent their time in flight school preparing for life as usual as a birdie, Calvin instead pursued a path he wrought himself.  Striking out on a path of self-education, he spent time at the library, and even more time reading, and reading, and reading.  That explains why Calvin Can’t Fly.

Though he was thought odd, this journey of educational exploration equipped Calvin with knowledge vital to the future safety and well being of his family, and he did eventually learn some of the basic starling skills such as flying as well.

Our family is filled with bookworms, so Calvin’s addiction to the written word seems completely reasonable when I read this whimsical picture book that celebrates literacy to my children.  Keith Bendis’ action filled, and at times comical illustrations add a light-hearted sense of fun to the reading experience as well.

The reassuring message here is that even when faced with misunderstanding and negative peer pressure, pursuing your own dreams (even when they result in a pumped up, book-based vocabulary) is a good thing.

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW AT AMAZON.COM!

Another pregnancy picture for you all .  This one is from our ‘official’ 40 weeks 1 day, so this past Tuesday.  I was having a bit of a struggle getting our camera card into the card reader (we eventually gave up on finding a cord – we discovered it was proprietary to Kodak and NOT so easy to find at all!)

A grandpa-aged fellow came up to me at the Walmart the day I wore this, looked at my belly (which our oldest was cuddling while we waited in line) and said…”Wow!”

Indeed.

In thinking a bit more about payday loans I’ve been wondering about the role of the church in sharing the burdens of others. In the New Testament we read of people selling their belongings so that they could come together as the newborn church was formed after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. These proceeds were shared as needed amongst God’s people so they could spend time together in study, worship, and fellowship.

How different things are today. So often we feel the need to be silent about our financial needs, to shoulder all of our own burdens, to keep the doors of our financial closets closed. This need to go it alone can definitely result in a perceived need for payday loans. But what if we were open to sharing our struggles with the believers around us? What if they were open to listening?

In North America our culture of self-sufficiency so often leads us to be afraid of charges of poor stewardship or of condemnation from others in the body. What if our Christian communities were open to being financially vulnerable with each other? Would we see less debting? Fewer payday loans? I think we would.

I’m not advocating pooling church resources for foolish expenditures, for funding addictions, for spending outside of one’s means, but I think when emergencies arise, we are certainly called to help bear the burdens of those around us – both emotionally, spiritually, and financially.

Like I mentioned yesterday, we’ve been and ARE blessed, our heads are staying above water. We have also been blessed with the opportunity to give to and support those who are in need, but I’m sure that if we are willing to look with eyes that have been opened to need, I’m sure that we’ll find many more opportunities to minister to those struggling.  When we do so we are ministering to the Lord himself.

“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.” – Matthew 25:40

Congratulations to Lori, the winner of our contest for a Mend Mark bracelet!  I’ve just sent you an email, please respond within 72 hours and let me know your mailing address. We are in the city right now waiting for our baby to be born, but I will get this out to you once we are back home again .

I think that instant payday loans must be very popular. In every major metropolitan center you can find loan shops sprinkled liberally across the city, you can also find a large number of payday loans online.

I’m so thankful that God has supplied our needs without having to use payday loans no faxing or faxing – either way. He has been so faithful to our family, there have been some tight months since our move with our renovation expenses, but each time God has seen us through, and we’ve been able to pay our bills without debting.

That hasn’t always been the case, and our family certainly made some foolish financial choices before becoming believers, but for the past four years we’ve been keeping our heads above water without incurring any further debt, either short or long term.  Of course, there are sometimes emergency situations that can come up for families, and I hope this post doesn’t reek of condemnation.  I just wanted to express my appreciation for a Father that provides for our needs so richly and so abundantly; I don’t think that we can ever be thankful enough for all of the gifts that He gives us.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” - James 1:17

Does anyone else find due dates frustrating?  It is so easy to be off in your estimation of when baby is going to arrive!  Larry and I were looking at our numbers again, and really – ANY uncertainty as far as your date of last menstrual period, time of ovulation, or length of cycle can throw you off by a week…or worse yet, maybe even a week and a half!

We’ve mentally adjusted our due date up a week in any case to the 12th, and I do hope that baby will come sometime around then!  It’s only a couple of days away in any case.  Going into labor prayers are greatly appreciated!

Before reading Flight of Shadows I was unfamiliar with fellow Albertan and Christian author Sigmund Brouwer’s work.  Although Flight of Shadows is the sequel to Broken Angel, I couldn’t resist the chance to review it, and I’m not disappointed at all.  With few Christian authors delving into the edgier realms of dystopian futurism and genetic engineering, I couldn’t wait to read Brouwer’s take.

Our heroine Caitlyn has escaped from a life of sheltered stigmatism, marked by the hump on her back, her childhood in a tightly controlled religious community has ended (read Broken Angel for more detail than I can provide.)  She now finds herself struggling for survival in a world bent upon capturing her.  Whether for government experiments, or personal vendetta’s, Caitlyn finds herself on the run as she navigates a world still largely unfamiliar to her.

Brouwer has created a realistic near-future world with entirely plausible outcomes of many events and situations that we find in today’s society.  His writing is filled with action and suspense and manages to fill in first time readers on the back-story without lumping it all together in a single chunk of expository back story.  Rather these facts are subtly, and skillfully woven throughout the novel itself, making for a smooth reading experience.

The only area that suffers somewhat from jumping in mid-story is that there is some character development missing.  The new characters are very well drawn, as well as a surprisingly likeable government agent in pursuit of Caitlyn, but the existing characters aren’t entirely fleshed out – a risk that potential readers should be aware of taking with most sequels.

Flight of Shadows is darker than a lot of Christian fiction, there are some dark themes including violence, and the internal motivations and desires of some of the antagonists, many are deviant, and as such, this is a title best reserved for adult readers.  Few of the characters are ostensibly believers, with only a couple expressing a personal faith.  Others clearly have knowledge of God but do not seem (based upon this book taken as a read alone) to be engaged in a personal relationship with Him.

Now, that being said, I thought that Flight of Shadows was a great read.  I could barely put it down!  The premise is interesting, and the story incredibly engaging.  I’m not sure if another title is planned for the series, but I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for another installment!

CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW AT CHRISTIANBOOK.COM OR AMAZON.COM!