Remembering Columbine

On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.

They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness. The following is a portion of the transcript:

"Since the dawn of creation there has been both good & evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out f or answers.

"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.

"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent.

"I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America, and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!

My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"

Do what the media did not ~ let the nation hear this man's speech.

The Finished Cake

After the ceremony, Kathy and I and our kids hurried across the valley to retrieve the cake. We were able to get into the reception location 2 hours early. Since we've never done a cake before we had no idea we would need almost that entire time.

After we got the cake assembled, we then put ribbon around the bases of the top and bottom layers. Then, Kathy began the task of the scrollwork.



I think it took almost an hour to do all that scroll work. There were a couple of incidents where the black dripped or landed where it shouldn't have. So, the "accidents" were worked into the design. Hence the scrollwork coming down onto the base layer.



Kathy is quite talented with flowers, so she also made little "boutonniers" to go on the cake.


(You can click on these photos to make them larger if you'd like.)

True confession. A panel in the back of my car actually fell on the cake as we were driving to the reception location. One corner of the bottom layer got scrunched. Hence the roses on two corners of the bottom of the cake. Thankfully it ended up looking nice.



This is Nicole's favorite photo of Pedro.

I Have a Code in My Node and Other Whimpering

This is what I've been doing for the last 3 days. Ugh. I hate colds. I need to buy stock in Kleenex, Advil Cold & Sinus, Zicam and Cold-Eeze. I can't begin to imagine how miserable I would be without the assitance of drugs. Legal drugs, I might add, even if I had to show photo id to get the Advil.

Oh, and to throw in some more fun. My DVR died. Let me explain why this is so traumatic. I am a TV viewing addict. Junkie. Can't get enough. To make matters worse, there were about 9 episodes from last week that I hadn't watched yet. Waaaah! AND I had to haul my sick and tired fanny out of bed this afternoon to go to Comcast and give them my D.E.A.D. DVR and trade it for a new one. Granted it only took about 3 minutes at the counter. So, I exposed a very nice staffer to my germs. I told her to go and immediately wash her hands so that she wouldn't get my nastey cold.

Now I have to get the DVR all reprogrammed. Then, I need to get on the internet and search out all my missing shows and see if I can watch them on-line. It's kinda hard to surf while blowing, coughing and sneezing. Please feel sorry for me.

The Wedding

Thankfully the weather was beautiful on Monday. John and Linda's backyard was lovely. John has quite the green thumb and it showed.

However, there was an unfortunate incident involving the 3 year-old flower girl before the ceremony go started. She found the fish pond and fell in. Lets just say that it's still spring and pond has gone unattended all winter so it's a bit slimy. Needless to say she was traumatized and her dress was ruined. Luckily Kathy's daughter, Becca, was dressed appropriately and was able to quickly step in to the roll of flower girl.

Shaylin looked lovely as her dad walked her down the aisle.



I have never seen a red wedding dress before. I got a close up look at it during the reception and it had some incredible bead work. Really pretty.

It was the largest wedding party I had ever seen. Nine groomsmen and eight bridesmaids. They didn't quite fit into the tent that was set up. I don't have good photos of the group because of where I was sitting.



Mr. & Mrs. Joshua Elieson



This is Pedro. He's a good friend of the bride.



Oh, Pedro is the one on the left, not he right. I must say he was the most poised bridesmaid in the group.

More of the Adventure tomorrow...

Have a Blessed Easter

I just wanted to share this video to help us all remember the true meaning of Easter.

Adventures in Wedding Cake Baking

Several weeks ago, my Ultimate BFF, Kathy, was asked by her nephew to make his wedding cake. He then asked me to help her. I'm sure it's because I was nearby during conversation. Both of us enjoy baking cakes, but neither of us has made a wedding cake before. Anyway, the fun began last Saturday and was a 3-day adventure.

On Saturday we baked the 3 layers of the 14" chocolate cake. Then on Sunday we baked 3 layers of a 10" coconut cake and 3 layers of a 6" chocolate cake. Fun, fun, fun. These cakes were totally made from scratch and used LOTS of butter and eggs.

Here's the 14" chocolate cake with the chocolate mousse filling.



This is the 6" chocolate cake it had coconut cream filling.



Here's the 10" coconut cake with coconut cream filling.



I had no idea how heavy fondant is. Wow. You have to knead the stuff A LOT and then roll it out and pray that it doesn't stick to the counter. Which of course it does. When you're trying to cover a 14" cake you have to roll out the fondant to about 24" inches square. Try getting that onto the cake. After several failed attempts because it was sticking to the counter it eventually took four of us to lift it up and lay it on the cake. The two smaller layers were a bit easier to work with.



After you get the fondant onto the cake you have to smooth it out and, mold the corners and trim it to fit.

Tomorrow the Wedding Adventure will continue.

Waaa!

I've been a fan of Adam Lambert on American Idol from early on. I know, some people thought his version of Ring of Fire was garbage. I thought the arrangement was unusual, but his vocals were hawt! After seeing it a couple more times, it grew on me. Now I actually like it.

So, last night I was hanging with my Stampin' Up! sistas. The DVR was set to record American Idol, as usual. I hate commercials with a passion. I also recorded The Biggest Loser. I watched most of TBL last night and finished up this morning knowing that there would be a lot of chatter at work about it. All was well until I get home today and watch Idol. Um, apparently the show ran long last night and I did not have Adams performance recorded. If Paula Abdul would just shut her yap make her comments a bit more concise, this never would have happened.

Thank goodness for the internet. However, it took a lot of digging around to find a video that hadn't been yanked by Fox. One that had been legally uploaded. One that wasn't just posted by some adoring fan trying to save my sanity.

So, I present to you the UBER HAWT performance by Adam Lambert on last nights show of American Idol...



(In case you're not a fan of the show, last nights songs were from the year the contestants were born. Hence the baby photo of Adam.)

I am now a happy and contented Fan! Go Adam!!!

Adventures in Furnace Repairs

This is what I woke up to on Thursday. Um, I tend to like the house a little cooler than Sprout does. She accuses me of trying to freeze her to death on occasion. The thermostat is one of those programmable ones that you can have adjust your temperature multiple times throughout the day. I generally keep it at 64 during the night and have it adjust up to 70 for wakey wakey time. When I threw back the covers I knew immediately that there was a problem - the air was to cold. So, while quite cold I dutifully did all the things I could think of to get the heater going.

New batteries in thermostat (the battery light was flashing)

New filter in furnace (the filter light was flashing -- ooops)

Maybe due to all the wind the pilot light has gone out. Search through house trying to find one of the long handled lighters. We have two of them, you'd think it would be easy to find at least one. Sprout LOVES candles and always obsconds with the lighter. Wake up Sprout in search of the lighter. Go down into family room and dig around. Bingo. Why the lighter is in the box of 'gaming paraphenalia' I will never know.

Open up furnace cover and try to read instructions (clear down by the floor) on how to light the furnace. Wowie, it has en electric ignition. (I've only had it for 3 years, without incident, so no smart remarks on not knowing this already.) Cool, no lighter needed after all. Turn off gas, wait 5 minutes. Hmm, what to do to kill 5 minutes? Pack my lunch, yep that works. Go back downstairs. Turn the gas on. Put the cover back on. Flip on the power to the thermostat. Nothing.

Hmmm, maybe there's no gas coming into house? Pull apart base of water heater. Hmm, there's a pilot light glowing so gas is not the issue. Double-check thermostat, it appears to be fine.

Call Sandy to get a recommendation on a service company as they had their furnace worked on just a couple of weeks ago. Sandy goes to work at 5:00am so don't think I was crazy to give her a jingle that early in the AM.

Resign myself to showering - at least we have hot water - and getting ready for work. Once at work call and schedule a repair technician and realize that I have left my cell phone on the charger at home. They said that they would have the technician call my work number before they came to the house. I only work 10 minutes from home so I could quickly leave the office and meet him there. He should call between 10 and noon. Great.

Fill up my water, go potty, sit at desk dutifully waiting for phone to ring. 12:01pm and no phone call. 12:05 and still no phone call. I call the company and they check into it. Um, the technician went to the house and no one was home. Great. I explain the whole need to call me at work and I'll drive home thing - again. They promise it will be before 2pm. 20 minutes later - we're a go. Gather up my stuff and hurry home.

The technician spends about 20 minutes and says, it's your thermostat. Your fuse was blown, I put a new one in and when the furnace tried to kick on the fuse blew again. When I bypass the thermostat the fuse doesn't blow. This visit is $138.50 and you can go buy a thermostat from Lowes and install it yourself. So, just out of curiosity, if I have you supply and install a thermostat how much will that set me back? $250.00. Um, not on top of the $138 right? Right. Yeeee, that's a little steep for my budget. Write out a check. Send him packing. Drive to Lowes. Look at various and assundry models of thermostats. I can't justify spending $90 so that that cuts out a few models. Settle on a $35 unit. Grab some more filters to have on hand - maybe I'll change them more frequently. Maybe. Head home.

Take old thermostat apart. Study wiring connections. Open new thermostat. Houston, we have a problem. Old thermostat has 4 wiring connections, new thermostat has spots for 5. Hmmm. A little head-scratching and studying. I'm feeling really good about where to put 3 of the 4 wires. Got a 50/50 shot with the fourth. Go with my first guess. Go downstairs, flip on the power. Nothing happens. Nadda. Go back up move the one wire to the other possible location. Back downstairs, turn on power. The furnace clicks a little but doesn't really turn on. Hmmm. Pull the cover off only to discover the technician had turned the gas off. Grrrrrr. Turn it on, put the cover on, flip the switch. Hallelujia!!!!

Strut through house like a proud peacock. I battled the thermostat and won!!!

It's currently 70 degrees and it feels doubley good.

I Had Noooo Idea...

Am I the last person on earth to learn about this great service that Google offers? What great service you ask? Well you can dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (for those of you with a Blackberry and can't dial 'letters', GOOG = 4664) from any phone, for free and get 'directory assistance'. It will ask you the city and state first, then the company name and then connect you directly to the number you were seeking. How cool is that? AND it's free!



Add it to your speed dial, you won't regret it!

I'm Back - No Foolin'!

So, I took some time off from blogging. Not exactly sure why. Maybe because I felt pressured (by my own self) to come up with something clever and/or interesting to post about all the time? Maybe because I was trying to do Project 365 and I just didn't have anything interesting to photograph every single day? Okay. Both.

Yes, I am the queen of starting all kinds of things, losing interest and leaving them in the dust. ADD? Lazy? Committmentphobic? All of the above? Who knows for sure, but I've decided to resume blogging. I am making no guarantees about how frequently I'll post or whether you'll actually find my posts interesting. But, in the immortal words of Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

I'm Ba-ack!

P.S. I was going to change the photo in my blog header but since we do keep getting snow, granted not as much as in the photo, I'm going to leave it up a little longer. When Sprinter actually starts leaning more towards Spring watch for a newer photo. Hee hee