Religion Quiz

How much do you know about religion?

And how do you compare with the average American? 

Here's your chance to find out.

"Take our short, 15-question quiz, and see how you do in comparison with 3,412 randomly sampled adults who were asked these and other questions in the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey.

This national poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life from May 19 through June 6, 2010, on landlines and cell phones, in English and Spanish.

When you finish the quiz, you will be able to compare your knowledge of religion with participants in the national telephone poll. You can see how you compare with the overall population as well as with people of various religious traditions, people who attend worship services frequently or less often, men and women, and college graduates as well as those who did not attend college."

~ as found on The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life website

Good luck!  

Be sure and come back to share your score and what questions you missed.

Hockey...full gear!

Thought you might like to see JMonster in full gear.  It's adorable!

 

The pants are huge, but they are padded and better than nothing.

It's hard to find a junior EXTRA SMALL!

If you find some, send em our way...

Blog award!

Thanks Baloney!

Here are the rules:

• Reveal 7 truths about myself
• Select 7 blogs I would like to share this award with.

 
 Seven truths:
1.  I am an introvert.  Sometimes that comes across as shy, sometimes as stuck up.  I love to talk, it is just draining to me to do "small" talk.  I don't do it well, and I end up frustrated.
2.  I am a reader!  I absolutely LOVE to read.  Mostly mysteries, but other good fiction as well.  Give me a good book and I'm a goner!
3.  I am an organizer at heart.  I love things to be organized and in their place.  I will organize other people's homes, when invited to, as well as their purses, cars, etc...
4.  I hate to clean!  While I love to organize, I'd rather someone else clean the floors, scrub the toilets, and make sure there isn't any dust in the house.  I especially dislike doing laundry.
5.  Going hand in hand with numbers 3 & 4...if I feel overwhelmed in a situation (cleaning, mostly) I get frozen.  If I feel out of control I tend to just shut down and do nothing.
6.  And that stems from the fact that I am a CONTROL FREAK!   I have a deep seated need to be in control.  Not of you, necessarily, but of my situation.  Though if you make stupid mistakes, I might feel the need to control your life as well.
7.  And finally, I am emotional.  I feel EVERYTHING very strongly.  EVERYTHING.  I have to shelter myself much of the time so I don't take on other people's problems...I'd end up crying all the time!  Or screaming.  I would make a horrible therapist. ;O)






Seven blogs:
1.  Patterico...he'll never do it, but it would be fun to see my brother's answers!
2.  Shades of Blue and Green
3.  Who Put Me in Charge of These People?
4.  Lyme is Crazy!
5.  What if... (She's just getting started and it's so much fun to get an award as a newbie!)
6.  YOURS!
7.  ????? (Okay, I don't know people!  I don't follow that many blogs!)

If you do this, please link back so I'll know!  I'd love to read YOUR answers.

 

Recession Ends and ????

I heard the news!

The recession has officially ended, according to our fearless leader.

What I want to know is...will my house now sell for what I want it to sell for?

Or are we going to have to lease it again?

Until the recession is REALLY over.

What do you think?

Is it over?

Quick update

Life has been crazy lately.

Not bad.  Just busy!

We went to Dallas for a week...

spent lots of time in museums!

The Museum of Science and History in Fort Worth has changed since I was a child.

Some of the change good, most of it bad.

Lots of hands on entertainment for the kids.

NONE of the interesting rooms...you know, with the dioramas?  Like in Night at the Museum.

Always loved those!

Gone, now.

The Dallas museum was nice.  Done in two buildings.

One pretty much like the new FW museum, the other like the FW museum of old.

We had a blast!

We've been to hockey again.  Even got JMonster the rest of his equipment!

We've been homeschooling...

Learning to read.

Count.

Doing the calendar and singing.

Bible Study is up and running.  Love that group of women!

Totally enjoying myself!

Exhausted.

JMonster starts ICE HOCKEY!

Today was JMonster's first day of Mighty Mites ice hockey lessons.  Here is the story, in pictures:

He had a great time, but "my tushy hurts Momma!".  

We'll have to get a pad for that!

And the picture I DIDN'T capture...JMonster sound asleep in the car on the way home.

Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?

It makes me ill even to think about that day...that week...

It was a morning I will never forget.  The Rev and I had been married for just under 2 years.  I had been working for a consulting firm and one of the VP's had done a few illegal and shady deals.  I was getting dressed to go to court (I was scheduled to testify), with the TV on in the background, when I walked in the living room and saw the first tower on fire.  They were saying a plane had flown into the tower and you could definitely see the hole where it had gone in.

Hmmmm...wonder how a little cessna wasn't able to miss that great big building.

I went and woke up The Rev so he could see what was happening.  Don't know quite why I did, it just seemed like something he should see.

He sat in front of the TV while I went in the kitchen to fix my breakfast.

"OH SH-T!" he yelled from the living room.

"What?!?  What?!?"

"Another plane just flew into the tower.  Oh My God.  We are under attack."

I don't know how he knew so definitively what was happening.  All I knew was how panicked I felt.

Just then, the attorney called and she was downstairs to pick me up.

Off to court...

The rest of the morning in court was a blur.

The judge's clerk stayed in the back and kept coming out to update the judge.

The Pentagon has been hit.

Another plane went down somewhere.

A tower fell.

The other tower fell.

Court adjourned...downtown Houston is being evacuated.

That afternoon I went to the medical center and gave blood.  It is the only time in my life I've donated.  I am right on the border of weighing enough...one day yes, the next no.  That day I made it by a half pound.

I cried for the next week knowing that there really were no survivors who needed that blood.  You either made it, or you didn't.  And almost 3,000 didn't.

I will always remember...

Unique thoughts (on Politics)

Just like there are no new books written (you've heard that before, right?)...


There are no unique thoughts on politics.


We may THINK we have a unique and different idea

but in the end someone will already have thought of it.


So the idea I'm about to share is, of course, not new.  It has been thought of.  It has probably been debated and discarded.  But in my stuck in the sand little mind, it's new to me.  And...I can honestly say I've never seen it written about.  Not even once!


My, oh so not unique thought is this: 

Although I do NOT agree with the idea of government healthcare, I am a realist.  I understand that there are things which are outside of my control.

If we MUST have a government run healthcare system, and if we eventually are to go to a single payer system (GOD FORBID!!!)...I will go along with this, and not have great tantrums, IF:

We adopt the Fair Tax.

AND

We make it a level which will fully support the healthcare initiative.

AND

The healthcare system is governed by NON-POLITICIANS who are physicians...an equal make-up of liberals and conservatives.

AND

An individual's physician, in conjunction with a team of physicians, has FINAL SAY on an individual's care.  The team gets involved if and only if there is a questionable outcome.

Okay.  I think that is it.


My un-original political thought.


Now discuss.

Curriculum ORDERED!

Today has been a BIG day of ordering curriculum.

First I ordered our Bible Study curriculum:

There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth as the website was backordered until the end of the month.  OUR STUDY STARTS NEXT MONDAY!

Went to the phone and called local bookstores.  Same story...backordered.

Went to Amazon.com.  Too expensive.

Searched the internet.

Went BACK to Amazon.com.  Ordered.  Got free shipping AND an unexpected discount.  Ended up a little cheaper than the first site.  I gotta say...God is SO good.  I was worried.  He took care of it.

Then I ordered our homeschooling curriculum.  A friend had let us borrow theirs...water was spilled on it, we now need to replace it.  Plus we really want our own copy to mess up. :O)

We ordered the K4 parent kit, which includes everything you need, really.  Not the student version, but we can do without that.

It's definitely WAY less expensive to homeschool, but it still isn't free. 

Perfect Pairings

Phytoplankton Bloom in the Barents Sea

The variations in color are caused by different species and concentrations of phytoplankton. The bright blue colors are probably from coccolithophores, a type of phytoplankton that is coated in a chalky shell that reflects light, turning the ocean a milky turquoise. Coccolithophores dominate the Barents Sea in August. Shades of green are likely from diatoms, another type of phytoplankton. Diatoms usually dominate the Barents Sea earlier in the year, giving way to coccolithophores in the late summer. However, field measurements of previous August blooms have also turned up high concentrations of diatoms.  ~Nasa.gov

"How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-living things both large and small. (Psalm 104:24-25)

Isn't this incredible?  

God's artistry is an amazing thing to behold.