In chess, the pawn is, gen­er­ally speak­ing, the least pow­er­ful of the pieces on the board. The pawn is used as a “foot sol­dier” by the player. They are an inte­gral and vital part of the game, but are read­ily sac­ri­ficed by a player to achieve objec­tives. Look­ing at the pawn in this light reduces the pawn to the level of an instru­ment or a tool to be manip­u­lated by the player. Now for the anal­ogy.
A per­son who feels like a pawn in a chess match is feel­ing used or treated as expend­able to the pur­pose of some­one else’s ends. He’s just a tool to be applied for another’s gain, and no thought is given to his own worth by the indi­vid­ual mak­ing the deci­sions. The per­son who is a pawn is just a foot sol­dier in a big war, and the dan­gers he con­fronts and the per­sonal risks to which he is exposed are lost to the shot callers who decide what moves, where it moves to, and when it moves.
This sums it up for me, some days I feel like a pawn…well almost every­day lately!
With bills that have to get paid…children going this way and that…pressure of every­day life and not feel­ing as what you have to say really mat­ters.
Guess I can just be happy I am still on the board!

Bridal Broach Bou­quets
I saw these online and thought they are so cool by Hollee Mollee designs…something you can hold on to for­ever and so pretty at the same time.

To order the gor­geous broaches you see here go to
Lion­s­gat­eDesigns — Etsy Shop!

Let’s Go Fly a Kite! Although fly­ing a kite wasn’t some­thing I did often as a child, it is still a fun child­hood mem­ory. Work­ing on a project for my pho­tog­ra­phy class and fig­ured that Sat­ur­day was a great day to fly a kite and our back­yard was a per­fect place for it! The boys had so much fun. Their Uncle Josh and Uncle Bear helped them fly their kites. Josh thought his wasn’t high enough so he con­vinced Luke to let him use some fish­ing line. It was so high in the sky, we couldn’t even see it. It took him at least an hour to reel it back in. Logan and Connor’s col­lided and we ended up los­ing Logan’s in our neigh­bors tree…so we are going to have their mon­key of an Uncle climb up and get it!

Writ­ten by Robert B. Sher­man
With tup­pence for paper and strings,
you can have your own set of wings.
With your feet on the ground,
you’re a bird in flight!
With your fist hold­ing tight,
to the string of your kite!
Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the high­est height
Let’s go fly a kite
And send it soar­ing
Up through the atmos­phere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!
When you send it fly­ing up there,
all at once your lighter than air!
You can dance on the breeze,
over ‘ouses and trees!
With your fist ‘old­ing tight,
to the string your kite!
Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the high­est height
Let’s go fly a kite
And send it soar­ing
Up through the atmos­phere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!

If I could turn back time
If I could find a way I’d take back those words that hurt you…Cher

I sim­ply can’t com­pete with a damsel in dis­tress! Note to all you guys: You can’t save a damsel if she LOVES her dis­tress! Def­i­n­i­tion: The help­less­ness of the damsel in dis­tress, who can be por­trayed as naive, young along with her need for others(mostly men) to res­cue her.
Is it that guys like to play hero? Do they need to find woman to res­cue so they can assume the “knight in shin­ing armor” role? Does it make them feel masculine…or just needed. Who doesn’t like to feel needed and appre­ci­ated?
You might be a damsel
…if you need a man to save you.
…if you feel depressed when you are sin­gle.
…if you dump a guy and have another lined up.
…if you are not happy with­out a man.
…if you have a strong need to have chil­dren — maybe they’ll stick around

Some men like needy women because men like to FIX things. So they look at this poor pathetic mess of a woman and fig­ure they can make it all bet­ter and she’s just been with the wrong men. When real­ity is that she prob­a­bly made some poor choices and it may not be totally the men in her life that were at fault.

So as I was research­ing this info from the internet(which has to be true right? LOL) it tells me that since I am mar­ried to an aries I should:
Let Him Res­cue YouAries men are chival­rous at heart; they love noth­ing more than to find a damsel in dis­tress to res­cue. Give an Aries man some­thing to do, then lav­ish him with praise when he comes through to save you. Then find another way for him to prove his worth; Aries thrives on meet­ing the needs of oth­ers and being praised for it.
Guess I can’t com­pete with one…I just have to be one. LOL

I am amazed at how much can hap­pen in 16 years, and how quickly it can all roll by!
Lit­tle his­tory on how we met: We were both work­ing at Golden Cor­ral, he was a cook and I was a server. I thought he looked like the guy on The Princess Bride. I got the nerve to ask him if he saw the movie and all he said was, “NO!” and went along his merry way. So that was that. I think the next day I called in to go to Sea World and he had thought I quit. When he found that I didn’t quit he told me he would like to see the movie with me. While we were watch­ing the movie at my apart­ment, we held hands. He was the sweet­est guy and still is! On our first offi­cial date, his cat knocked his phone off the hook…yeah he had one of those! LOL and his alarm clock didn’t go off — that was his way of say­ing he didn’t want to go the Bay­lor vs. Rice Foot­ball game. ;) We ended up going to a movie and he had to call in and let the boss know he was going to be a bit late. It turned out to be like a three hour movie! I fell in Love!
A suc­cess­ful mar­riage requires falling in love many times, always with the same per­son. ~Mignon McLaugh­lin
I am falling in love with you all over again and I intend to a ton more times. Love you — You’re the best!!

Speak­ing
Novem­ber 8, 2010
Let me start by say­ing I’m not a big fan of stand­ing in front of the church and speak­ing. It ter­ri­fies me more than just about any­thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve spo­ken in front of peo­ple before so it’s not com­pletely a fear of speak­ing. I’ve stood in front of 60–70 guys in the shop and it didn’t bother me. I know my job. I know I’m com­pe­tent and con­fi­dent. You aren’t going to ask me a ques­tion about my job or what I’m speak­ing on that I won’t know the answers to. I’ve stood in front of some pretty large Bass tour­na­ments and Bass Clubs and was fine. I could hold my own. I could stack up against any­one stand­ing there.
But…. Church… Man that’s a whole other story. It ter­ri­fies me! I’m scared to death! I feel like as I stand there every­one in that church can see every sin I’ve ever com­mit­ted, thought of com­mit­ting or even heard of. Its like there is a sports ticker going over my head read­ing out the time, date and offense.
Well a few months ago Mike was preach­ing on Advent Con­spir­acy. I thought it was kinda silly for him to be doing that in Octo­ber. The last thing I was think­ing of was Christ­mas. That’s months away. Well then to top it off he starts list­ing off the things North Point spent money on last year and he says “Goats and Chick­ens”. Really? Goats and Chick­ens? So after laugh­ing about him say­ing that it kinda stuck with me. It com­pelled me to follow-up on it and see exactly what in the world we would spend money on that for.
So I found out the orga­ni­za­tion that we worked with on this, World Vision is who North Point used. It took me all of about 20 sec­onds on their site to fig­ure out there isn’t the least bit of humor in these “Goats and Chick­ens”. There is noth­ing funny or cute about them.
Every 15 sec­onds a per­son dies in this world from hunger! So in the time it took me to snicker at the thought of “Goats and Chick­ens” Some­one DIED!
Every 7 sec­onds some­one dies from lack of clean drink­ing water! 7 sec­onds! We take longer than that to take a swig of the clean water we have from our sinks in our house. It takes you longer than that to pour out the water from your bot­tled water that you no longer want because its warm.
So as I looked at pic­ture after pic­ture of peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing and DYING from lack of some­thing so sim­ple and expected from us. I can’t wrap my hands around it. I can’t fig­ure it out. I don’t under­stand how a God that can bless me with so many bless­ings. Bless me with so much food that I couldn’t begin to need it all. I don’t under­stand how He can let that kind of suf­fer­ing exist in the same world that I’m so blessed in.
I don’t have the answers. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. But just like I felt com­pelled to see how God could use “Goats and Chick­ens” to effect a change in oth­ers lives. I want to explore how my bless­ings and their suf­fer­ings can co-exist in the King­dom.
I’m ask­ing you to help fund Advent Con­spir­acy. Help fund some­thing big­ger than your­self and your needs. God is big­ger than our igno­rance. He is big­ger than our doubts. He is big­ger than our fears. He is so much big­ger than our lit­tle world that we like to think we con­trol. Make the sac­ri­fice. Not out of guilt but out of under­stand­ing that it is how we show a love like no other love this world knew until it was lived on the cross.