I'm Official Now

Well, I did it, I was baptized on Sunday, the church was pretty full, at least it seemed like there were more people there. The service went on as usual, then it was time to get on with the baptism. A good friend was getting baptized the same day, so he went first, it was touching to see, he has had some health problems in the past and chose to be sprinkled instead of the full on dip, it was wonderful to watch.

Then it was my turn, this is my pastor and his wife (you probably understand by now that I don't use names on this blog, at least not without permission), I stood in front of the congregation and spoke a few words, sang Amazing Grace, then we went outside to the stock tank/baptismal. The ambient air temp was warm enough, but the water was cold.

Not too bad, yet...

Yeah, it's cold!

When I stepped into the water and started to sit down, the pastor was trying his best to help me, but it seemed that we were arm wrestling instead, he wanted to hold my hand and arm, I wanted to hold the side of the tank, I knew that tank wouldn't move. The children in the pictures belong to a good friend of ours, they want to be baptized too, it was sweet, they kept asking me questions about being baptized.

After it was over, I went to the bathroom to change into dry clothes, it's not easy peeling wet jeans off, but all in all, everything went pretty smoothly, the weather cooperated, it had been raining all night, we were worried about the condition of the roads, but the morning dawned with full sun and the day was perfect. We didn't hear thunder until well after the service was over.

Once I returned to the congregation, it was time to close the service, Pastor had asked my Dad if he wanted to say something to the congregation, since my Dad used to be a preacher, he jumped at the chance, and wow, I must say that brought back memories, he really enjoyed standing up there, talking to everyone, he prayed, he spoke in tongues, he laughed and cried, I don't know if this church had ever heard anyone speak in tongues before, I'm sure they know about it, but they tend to be a little on the reserved side... I'll find out later what everyone thought, this is a small community and things get around. ;)

Not that I'm really concerned though, I think this church needs a bit of shaking up, I only wish my Dad was here more often, I think he would make a great guest speaker from time to time, and I think the church would love it, I know that Pastor would, I was watching his face while my Dad was speaking, he looked like he was about to burst at the seams, in a good way of course. :)

So now, I feel that I am completely right with the Lord, though I never felt like it was compulsory to be baptized, but still, I knew that some day I would be standing in front of God and would have to answer as to why I hadn't done it when I had the chance many times.

Here is the video of after the baptism, I found the most beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace sung by LeAnn Rimes, I included it in the video.


Sorry, had to temporarily remove the video, it will be back later. :)

Here are some different versions of Amazing Grace, enjoy

	Leann Rimes - Amazing Grace .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	Terry Downs - Amazing Grace .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

	Sissel Kyrkjeb� - Amazing Grace .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, Thanks for visiting!

Updates & Getting Dipped For God

My dad has been here a couple of weeks now, everything has been going great. I can sense the coming changes in the air, the nights are getting cooler, crisp, the days are still pretty warm, we are still in our rainy season, but things are more normal, with the soaking showers and thunder rolling and echoing though the mountains and valleys. PB is down at the creek cutting up wood for firewood this winter. We have ended up with quite a bit of wood because of the floods bringing it to us. It's nice to have such an abundance dropped right on our property.

We still have a lot of things to do, we have to fix the roof, it leaks in several places, we need to continue wrapping the sky castle in soilcrete, decide where (and even if) we want to build another bedroom, we have considered turning the lower floor into a bedroom for the insulation properties, it will be much easier to keep warm in the winter and it definitely stays cooler in the summer. We have discovered that there is moisture/water seeping up though the ground under the house, it's not making a puddle, just a wet place in the dirt, we will have to deal with that before we can consider making that a bedroom.

Another bit of news, I'm getting baptized tomorrow, this is something I have wanted/needed to do for a long time, I decided to wait until my dad came out to visit, I wanted him to witness the baptismal, I have been a Christian for many MANY years, but for personal reasons (mainly having to do with my rebellious nature) I chose not to do it before, now it's time, high time to get it done. I'm going to be dipped into a stock tank, the pastor of the church was worried that I might not like using a stock tank, he offered the services of another church in the area that has a "proper" baptismal, I told him that I would be more than happy to use a stock tank, it fits me better anyhow, goes better with my primitive lifestyle. A good friend of ours is also getting baptized, I am honored to share this day with him. I'll try to have some pix of the baptism to post later.



All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Just For Fun

If you grew up in the 60's, then this may look familiar to you.



All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

A Request...

I wrote my review of Nick Rosen's book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America, on Amazon.com. While reading the other reviews, I noticed that there seems to be a misconception about this book, some of the readers/reviewers are expecting a "how to" book, a sort of technical manual of how to go off grid. This book is less "how to" and more about the people, the who and the why. The reviewers who gave it a less than stellar review were expecting a "how to" manual, they didn't seem to get the idea once they read on that the book is about the people who are living the life, so because of the fact that they didn't "get it", didn't understand what this book is and what it isn't, they gave it a negative review, this is unfair (IMHO) to Nick and the people in the book.

Here is the link to my review, http://www.amazon.com/review/R2W0HIGF72JURF/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm  I am asking you, my great readers, to go there, read my review and if you would, I would appreciate it if you would vote my review up, where it says "Was this review helpful to you?", I'd love it if you would click on "yes".  If you are a registered Amazon.com user, and you have a copy of this book, how about writing your own review?

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Supplement Updates

A quickie update, I received my package from UPS a day late, the road issue apparently prevented Bobby from delivering out here, oh well, it happens. Here is what I have been taking, first thing in the morning, I take 2-350 mg DMAE tablets, on an empty stomach. After I eat my first meal of the day, I take 1-500 mg turmeric tablet, 1-60 mg ginkgo bilboa tablet,  and 1-250 mg citicoline tablet. If I eat something that contains a lot of sugar, I will also take 1-1000 mg cinnamon tablet. Since I've only done this for a few days, I can't say that is has performed miracles, but I do feel good about it and it may be helping a little, though it's hard to tell if it's just the placebo affect, I'll continue taking these supplements and write more about it after I've been on them for a while.

It's Here!

All righty now, what do you think? It should load faster now and easier, how about it Mayberry, is it working better for you or is it still giving your computer a headache? I will be tweaking it, moving things around, but for the most part, this is what you will be looking at, when on this site, from now on, or at least until I choose another background.

I cringed when blogger recently changed to the new blog designer, I had just gotten pretty good at tweaking the old site, I immediately made a new test blog and checked out the code, it looked nothing like the original code, and it was clear that there was no way to add your own backgrounds, you had to use theirs. I couldn't find the background image, no gif, no jpg, nothing that said "this is the background", so I decided not to change it to the new designer/template.

My old design was heavily edited, so much so that some of the new and old tweaks (from blogger) would not work, such as I couldn't add labels to each post, oh I could add them but they wouldn't show below the message, I also couldn't add the share buttons, it just wouldn't show at all, I wouldn't risk screwing up my blog by going back to the original template, so I just lived without some of those fun items.

I have since found out through trial and error where and what the code is for the background, all you have to do is right click on the side of the page (assuming you are using the new designer), move your cursor off of anything except for the background, and choose the option to view the background, once that is opened, look at the URL, now, copy that URL, go to the edit HTML tab and do a search for that URL, you will see that it's a strange list of characters instead of a gif or jpg, that's why it's so hard to find.

Now that you know what and where it is, all you have to do is create a background image and upload it somewhere, most places that host pictures will allow you to hot link to the picture, now trade the URL of your image with the URL of the original background image in the edit HTML tab, be sure to preview your blog BEFORE you make the edit permanent, you might need to tweak the size of the image, if everything looks the way you want it to, then save your template. I would highly recommend that you make a test blog and try out any changes on that instead of experimenting on your main/live blog, then once you have it the way you like, then before making any changes to your main/live blog, be sure to download your original template, that way if something goes terribly wrong, you can easily upload your original template and then try to figure out what went wrong.

Now, if all of this is clear as mud to you, don't worry, the fine folks at blogger know that some bloggers are partial to their own backgrounds, even though they offer a mega-assortment of backgrounds, they will be making it an option in the future to upload your own background, it's even available to do if you use the draft version of blogger now, to use that, when in your dashboard, replace "www"with "draft" (without the quotes)  and you will be in the draft version and get to see all the fun stuff that you didn't get to see before, one warning though, just like anything beta, it may be unstable, I couldn't get it to work for me right now, that will probably change soon.

They also have a way you can edit or add to the CSS (including how to alter the background), go here to learn more about that
http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175740

OK, I'm tired now, it's been a loooong day, my Dad is here for a visit, he will be staying for a month,  I got up fairly early today, early for me, I'm ready to go to bed. Hope you enjoy the new look, let me know what you think, please leave a comment and answer anything you want below:

do you like new the look
does it load any faster than it did before
does everything fit well on your screen
what size is your monitor
do you use a desktop or laptop
is your computer newer or older
what is your screen resolution
what is your internet/connection speed
what browser do you use

Thanks!

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Doing It Now...

Please excuse the dust! Construction zone...

Alright everyone, I'm starting the change now, no not that! LOL, though I wouldn't mind that happening too... I'm changing the look of the blog, so anyone who is visiting in the next little bit, may have some surprises until I can get everything tweaked and looking right.

Hope everything works as smoothly as it did on the test blog. :) I think everyone will like the new look, and it should load lots faster too.



All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Major Changes Just Around The Corner

Hopefully in the next few days, there will be a big surprise coming, so stay tuned, check back, I hope everyone likes it.



All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Life In The Monsoon Season

Ahhhh, the fun time of summer, and the monsoon season. I sit here waiting for a delivery from UPS, our delivery angel is named Bobby, he is such a trooper, he goes all over this place, on non-existent roads in that big brown delivery van, places where I would be afraid to go in the Bug. He really cares about his job and the people whom he delivers to. I do not know exactly where he will deliver this time, the Country Store is not open during the week any more, that used to be the place where Bobby would deliver my stuff, he can also take it to the main headquarters of the community, but that is typically pretty far for me to go, he has been known to drive by my place and honk, an act of faith as our place is not really marked in any way, we have no street numbers posted, so I keep hitting refresh on the UPS tracking page and listening for Bobby in his thunder truck, you can hear him coming for quite a ways before he gets here.

What is in this alleged package you ask? Brain pills. Potential smart pills, whatever you want to call it. I like 5 Hour Energy drinks, but don't always have them around, I wanted to know what ingredient(s) were responsible for my alert, good feelings I have when ingesting this drink. I know it's not the caffeine, (gasp you say!), I have taken other supplements that contained caffeine, and it had little to no effect on me, I know it's not the mega-vitamins, I can get that from my Emergencee packets, nope that wasn't it. After reading the ingredient list, I discovered something I have not taken (alone) before, it's called Citicoline. Wiki says:

Citicoline (INN), also known as cytidine diphosphate-choline (CDP-Choline) and cytidine 5'-diphosphocholine is a psychostimulant/nootropic. It is an intermediate in the generation of phosphatidylcholine from choline.

Studies suggest that CDP-choline supplements increase dopamine receptor densities, and suggest that CDP-choline supplementation can ameliorate memory impairment caused by environmental conditions. Preliminary research at Harvard found that citicoline supplements help improve focus and mental energy and may possibly be useful in the treatment of attention deficit disorder. Citicoline has also been shown to elevate ACTH independent of CRH levels and to amplify the release of other HPA axis hormones such as LH, FSH, GH and TSH in response to hypothalamic releasing factors. These effects on HPA hormone levels may be beneficial for some individuals but, may have undesirable effects in those with medical conditions featuring ACTH or cortisol hypersecretion including, but not limited to, PCOS, type II diabetes and major depressive disorder.

So we will see what happens after I receive my bottle of citicoline, I'm hoping that is the magic ingredient in 5-Hour Energy that gets my brain going, makes me more focused and upbeat. I order citicoline capsules as well as Health Dropz Formula, this not only contains citicoline, it also contains vitamin B6 plus four scientifically tested brain support nutrients: Rhodiola rosea DMAE Huperzine A (an extract from Chinese club moss). I also ordered Ginkgo Biloba and DMAE by itself, I will try each thing separately to see which one gives me the biggest effect, I already know what Ginkgo does for me, my father takes it religiously, his doctors have told him that he has the cleanest arteries in spite of the fact that (at the time) he had high cholesterol, he now that under control with his diet, but he credits the Ginkgo for keeping his arteries clean, can't argue with success. DMAE is also good for brains, and I just read that it has to potential for life extension. It seems that Ginkgo is often paired with DMAE, so it should work together just fine, that combined with the citicoline, should make me a super brain.

Why not just continue taking 5-Hour Energy if it works so well you ask? It's simple, remember the thing that 5-Hour Energy advertises so heavily, the part about no crash later because it contains no sugar, well they have to sweeten it with something, and that something is sucralose, aka Splenda. Now it is just 2 ounces total for one 5-Hour Energy drink, but the fact that it contains this poison, and they still do not know the long term consequences of ingesting this poison, plus the fact that they have found that it causes all sorts of problems, including brain/thinking problems, (the very thing I am trying to stop!), it's high time to re-evaluate what I am taking. I do not knowingly consume artificially sweetened anything, with the exception of this one thing, and that is not a daily thing, maybe once or twice a week at most, so if I can cut out this toxin, I will be all the better for it. I did contact the 5-Hour Energy company, I praised their product, but asked if they would consider carrying a less toxic version made with Zylotol or one of the other less toxic sweeteners. They replied and said they were coming out with a version that contains stevia as the sweetener. YEAH! But until then, I will be cutting back on the 5-Hour Energy drinks, not that I take all that many to begin with. If it turns out that citicoline is the magic ingredient, I may be able to bypass the energy drink all together.

Now to the story of the monsoon season, a few days ago, we had a very localized, very hard rain/hail storm. It appears to have only affected our valley, and affect it, it did! I was gone at the time, I was across the neighborhood and could see the storm. I knew I would have to come home on the alternate, higher, rougher road, the one that bypasses the slimy, car-eating muck pit of an S-curve just before my place. On the way over the alternate road, I noticed a couple of seemingly abandoned vehicles, one car and one truck on the side of the road. That is not a good thing to see out here, it usually means a long walk over not so friendly roads for someone. I found out that they got a ride home, which is a good thing, they wouldn't have made it in their vehicle. The road had been completely washed out, past my place there is essentially no road.

When I got home, I found that our neighbor's bridge had been damaged by a couple of trees and lots of debris that jammed into the bridge. It took out one of the rails completely, left a couple of inches of mud on the top of the bridge. It was quite a mess, and made the bridge impassable. PB got to work right away and had that mess all but cleared away by the time the sun went down. I went around with the video camera and documented the mess. Watch and enjoy, enjoy the fact that this isn't your mess LOL! There are 12 short videos, they will play one after another



BTW, Shay, I am supposed to be going into town on Friday, unless everything falls apart, I should be able to get your book in the mail, thanks for being so patient!


All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

We have a winner!

Congrats to Shay from http://shay-offthebeatenpath.blogspot.com/, you are the winner of Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America book.


I want to thank everyone who entered, here they are, give 'em a visit:
http://the-mama-crow.blogspot.com/
http://mylifewelcometoit1.blogspot.com/
http://frannbro.blogspot.com/
http://hermitjim.blogspot.com/
http://patriotsagainstthenwo.blogspot.com/
http://musingsbythecreekside.blogspot.com/
http://craftycountrymomma.blogspot.com/
http://huskersynthetics.blogspot.com/
http://npolenews.blogspot.com/
http://bitmaps-misc.blogspot.com/
http://urbanprairieliving-gracie.blogspot.com/
http://acupofhot.blogspot.com/
http://baconandeggs-scifichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.survival-training.info/
http://shay-offthebeatenpath.blogspot.com/




All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Contest Ends

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest, please give me a few days to pick the winner, I have had internet problems, going to get some new equipment on Monday, I hope. and that should end the internet blackout (for me). I also have some family members visiting this week, my sister, her husband and their daughter.

I'll pick out a winner from all those who entered asap.



All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!