You may remember from my Living Your Strengths post that one of my strengths is Context. It is actually my greatest strength with Input and Intellection being my next highest strengths. I love facts and history. I collect information. All things factual and historical are of great interest and importance to me naturally!!

I read an article about the Crown of Aleppo recently and of course it sparked my interest.

The Crown, known in English as the Aleppo Codex, may not be as famous as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But to many scholars it is even more important, because it is considered the definitive edition of the Bible for Jewry worldwide.

The key to finding the pages is thought to lie with the insular diaspora of Jews originating in Aleppo, Syria, where the manuscript resided in a synagogue's iron chest for centuries.

Read the rest of the story here.

I believe God's perfect timing is the ONLY factor in regards to Biblical artifacts of great historical significance being found. Have there been any great artifacts found that were of interest to you personally? Why?

Sallie

I woke up late this morning; not too bad since it was still before 7 but that is very late for me. The late wakeup isn't really unusual if you take into account that I was up at 4 a.m. yesterday with a backache and had to take Tylenol throughout the day to keep it at bay. I hate medicine so anytime I actually give in to taking it means you can be assured I was in some awful pain. I refused to let it keep me from church but we did take the afternoon easy and rested some small bit. However, that wasn't enough rest I suppose to make up for the early awakening and I'm sure that is why I didn't even hear Mike making noise getting ready for work early this a.m.. I was oblivious to all sound and movement!

The children are all getting a free work day to study anything they've been having problems on, or need to play catch up with. They are reading and just taking it easy... a rather easy homeschool day for them ;-) I somehow think that perhaps their artwork piles might become a little bigger by the time the day is finished.

I am working on my goal of purging our house. We lost several hundred square feet (and half the garage size) when we moved and so our music room/office seems to have become the dumping ground for everything unpacked that has yet to find a permanent home within the house. My stack of mail to shred has also gotten big and so I need to shred it and get it in the trash bin rather than letting it continue to pile up.

Mike and I have been planning and talking strategy over home purchases when we get out of the Marine Corps and so we are needing to definitely downsize by keeping what is really important to us and letting the rest go. I am a HUGE saver and purging is a hard task for me. However, with a long term goal in mind, this has become an easier job to accomplish. Purging has now become a happy desire rather than a feeling of burden for me. That is a feeling I can live with!!

I hope to paint one or two furniture pieces today or tomorrow. We have decided to paint our entertainment armoire black, and at least one of the end tables that has a badly scratched top surface as well. This will also give me the chance to move a few larger pieces of furniture around (but also remembering to take it easy with my back) and see if the flow of the room is better.  I think our current arrangement right now is probably the best layout but I do want to try a few other ways just to be sure.

I had originally tried to do a mistreatment on my living room windows per instructions from the Nester but to be fair, I really didn't have any of the exquisite fabrics that she seems to just have on hand and they did not turn out like I invisioned in my minds eye. Then, our sewing machine broke so I went with plan B: Wal-Mart. Mike and I first went to look together and the ones he liked were at least $30 for each panel. Yeah, he has good taste, even at Wally World! We had just moved and didn't have the extra cash for five panels and so we decided to live with not having anything up except lace panels we already owned (and my poorly made mistreatment) for a while. I went back to Wal-Mart recently and those drapes that Mike originally loved were on clearance for $5!! Yeah!!

So, anyway, now we have some nice drapes in our living room and the other scratched up furniture looks like it is in need of help. We only pay cash for stuff like replacement of furniture and we are broke but paint is cheap. Thus, the painting plans! We chose black because our style tends to be more British Colonial mixed with a bit of French Country and therefore black fits better than white. I would love one day to have a sweet small cottage that is nothing but shabby chic but it doesn't fit for now. Who knows?! Perhaps one day when we are able to finally purchase 20 or so acres,  I will be able to just turn a small outbuilding into a personal office for moi and I can do that up in the shabby chic style :-)

What are your plans for the week? Any painting or renewing facelifts for your tired furniture? Feel free to share pics of what you are doing and give me a few welcome hints, too,  if you'd like!

Sallie

Sallie

My husband was watching a show on BBC this morning and asked me to look up a yorkshire pudding recipe to explain to the boys how it is made. In doing so I found this great website called Harvest Eating. The whole goal of the website is to get people eating healthy, in season foods, and cooking with whole foods/natural ingrediants. It is a social network for foodies and its free! I grew up working in our garden and eating fresh or home preserved foods -- it is the one huge item I miss as a military wife and living in base housing.

I thought I'd post a videoclip here for you, and since I love split pea soup, I thought I'd share that one. It is only one of their many (over 250!!!) videos on youtube:

Sallie

I was feeling a bit creative finally and I really needed to make some cards, so I FORCED myself do it today. I can not understand why scrapbooking is so hard for me... web design was never that difficult. It's basically the same process except on paper, right?! The only bad thing about getting creative? My mess didn't get cleaned up and my husband came home to see it all over the floor in the office/music room.... UH OH!!

Sorry the pic is a bit fuzzy. This new camera is an HD one and some days I get good pics right away and some days I fuss and fuss with 20 shots only to be able and have one look half way decent  :-|

Sallie