New Year's Resolution?

NO THANKS!!! Why should I put off until Thursday at midnight what I can begin right now? I've never really understood the reason for New Year's Resolutions. If you have something you want to change about your life, yourself, etc., why wait? What is the significance of a new year? Time is purely relative. If this "New Year" is such a turning point for everyone, why not have a Jewish New Year Resolution? The Jewish traditions/holidays move on a Lunar calendar, as opposed to our Solar calendar. Let's make resolutions then too. Or how about Chinese New year? We could have three different rounds of New Year's resolutions. Or, if you mess up the first time wait for the NEW "New Year" and just start over when another one rolls around. Oh, you didn't exercise every day last week, like you were supposed to? Oh, no big deal, just start over on the Chinese New Year! Why not have a New Month resolution? New Week?

My point is, why wait? START NOW! If you have identified what you don't like about the way you are living your life, why not begin to change it this minute? This second! New Year Resoluters are just procrastinators! My New DAY resolution is to not be that way.











P.S. Time means nothing . . .

Merry Christmas

Comic from HarkAVagrant.com

Where the Radishes are

Vacation almost over

Well, the end of my vacation draws near and not much has been completed yet. But have no fear, you will still receive Christmas presents . . . at some point. The garden isn't yet planted, but the ground is being tilled and prepared. My progress is slowed by the massive amount of bricks I found buried in my yard. My best guess is it was some sort of experimental home made brick kiln. The size of the bricks are about right for that, and in another section I found a buried lump of clay. (Mind you all of this is more than a foot below the ground) So, it goes slow as I dig out bricks. I hope to use them to make a walk way in the large part of the garden, so really it is a blessing in disguise. But now for the good news, finals are over! I think I did well. I would be surprised to not have an A in both my classes. So the largest part of the stress is gone. Not that I really felt stressed about it.

Vacation

I start a nice long week and a half vacation tomorrow. It won't be work free however, because I have so much stuff to do. It is finals week, and I have a lot of work and studying to do before my exams. I have about a million Christmas presents to finish making, a garden to plan and plant, and lots of stuff to make for Etsy. My apartment needs a severe cleaning and reordering. I am trying to make room for a roommate, although I haven't found one yet. I really don't think a week and a half is going to be enough time. I'll have to try to limit myself to one or two hours of television a day. Can you guess what that will be?

Etsy

Well, two necklaces sold and only four left on Etsy. I need to make more. Also, a special project coming soon. I don't know if its ever been done before, or if I should get it patented. I do know that I can't find anything like it anywere else at all. Perhaps I invented it? I dunno, but I gotta get on it. So, did you notice my link above to my Etsy shop? Also, on the right is an updating list of my favorite items on Etsy that other people make. Remember, its free to use Etsy, so take a look at it and check out all the amazing stuff.

My Etsy Shop

So I now have a shop on Etsy. There are a few listings there, please take a look. So far it is only jewelry, but later it will get much more eclectic, like my style. There are a lot of other ideas in the works, but they probably will not happen until after the holidays due to time constraint and the fact that I am making most of the Christmas presents I am giving. And I am severly running out of time on that front.







http://www.ChimeraArtworks.etsy.com

Greenhouse

More Garden

I would have more pictures, but I'm having trouble with my computer at work, so I can't put them up.

Garden update

This picture is from Monday. There are a lot more plants now. More pictures soon.

Garden

Starting a garden. More pictures to come REAL soon . . . .

Blind Pilot at my birthday party

Today is my Birthday

and I made a shirt

So Many Studies, So Little Time

Are you wondering what I'm thinking about? Everyday it seems I'm researching something new. Yesterday was about Heavenly manna, today is Copernicus. The other day it was the legend of the Minotaur. I've been meaning to write about that one for a while, but there is not enough time.

Also, for those of you who have never noticed, my twitter feed is on the right hand side of this blog. It only shows the most recent tweet there, but you can follow me on twitter. The reason I mention this is if you really want to know what's going on with me between posts, I have my twitter connected to my twine. I post interesting articles I'm reading almost daily to my twine account which automatically posts to my twitter. I usually post a few things every day. Sometimes they are funny comics, sometimes they are news articles or just things I think might interest YOU.

Also, I try to update pictures every so often. The most recent pictures are from a concert of Gogol Bordello with Deleon. I keep adding to these pictures as Google lets me retrieve my photos. (I think I mentioned this in a recent blog) And on the right hand side are other picture feeds.

If you are subscribed to this blog, you will not receive emails on updates to picture feeds or twitter feeds. It just doesn't work that way :( So while I may be updated several times a day, you do not realize it.

It Has Become Necessary

I find it necessary to continue the topic of my last two posts. It is only through honest communication with others do we learn more about ourselves and through several conversations recently, I realized I have been making assumptions about other people's knowledge of Judaism. To "be Jewish" certainly does imply a religion, as most people are aware, but it also implies a race. This is not a theory, but is a fact. Here is what Wikipedia says about this, and it sums up everything pretty nicely:

"The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, Yehudim), also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.[3][4][5] Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The Jews have enjoyed three periods of political autonomy in their national homeland, the Land of Israel, twice during ancient history, and currently once again, since 1948, with the establishment of the modern State of Israel. The first of the two ancient eras spanned from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second era was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, the diaspora has been the home of most of the world's Jews.[6] Except in the modern State of Israel, Jews are a minority in every country in which they live, and they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries."

Further Clarification

Since maybe my last post was a little off topic and rambling at the end, I thought I'd go into more detail. Pictures always help me . . .


This is Shem, Ham and Japeth, the sons of Noah:



According to the Bible (Genesis 10) and Wikipedia, Shem is the father of the Semites(the middle peoples), Ham is the father of the Hamitic Africa(the southern peoples), and Japeth is the father of the Japhetic Eurasia (the northern peoples).

Here's a breakdown of Shem and Ham's territories:



So each of their family lines produced a lot of people. For Ham, this includes Nimrod (a mighty hunter before God) and Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Ninevites and Akkadians, among many others. For Shem this includes the line of descendants that stretch all the way to Abram (whose name later became Abraham). Here he is, looking at the stars, the amount of which his descendants would number.



So, Abraham and Sarah had Isaac after they were realy old. Isaac had Jacob, whose name later became Isreal. Jacob had 12 sons, who would eventually become all the tribes of Isreal.



Jacob liked his son Joseph the best, and gave him the coat of many colors. Some of his brothers got jealous and beat him up and and sold him into slavery.



Joseph went through a lot, and even ended up in jail in Egypt, falsely accused. The Pharoah heard about him and how good he was at interpreting dreams. Joseph interpreted the Pharoahs dreams, warning of a great famine coming in 7 years. The Pharoah was really impressed and put him in charge of storing food to prepare for the famine. Eventually Joseph's brothers traveled to Egypt for food, not knowing their brother was the man in charge. After some tom-foolery and deception, he forgave them for all they did to him. He told them that it was because of them he was now in this position of power and able to save his family from starvation. So he invited the whole bunch of them to come live in Egypt with them on land the Pharoah donated. There were 70 of them in all. These were the Isrealites. Genesis ends with Joseph dying at a very old age.

The Bible then picks up again in Exodus, more than 200 years later, when all the Isrealites are slaves to the Egyptians. Archealogists have said that the Pharoah mentioned in this part of the Bible was probably Ramses II. This is his ginormous rock cut temple to himself, carved into a mountain.



During the beginning of Ramses II reign, his focus was on building huge building and monuments . . . . then suddenly his focus shifts to campaign battles to other lands . . . hmmmm, let's see . . . This is the Pharoah associated with the enslavement of many many Isrealites. The slaves of the Egyptians were used in many purposes of their lives and they would have been really upset to let them go. Then the slaves leave (according to the Bible) and suddenly, (according to archealogy) this Pharoah is venturing out and attempting to defeat new lands? Why? Well, it just so happens according to Wikipedia, his immediate successor is Merneptah. He also loved to go out attempting to defeat other lands. It is his reign associated with the Victory Stele of Merneptah, commonly referred to as the Isreal Stele:



This is currently the first Egyptian artwork or document found that mentions Isreal, as a group of peoples.

The next archealogical mention of Isreal in art isn't for a long time (9th Century BC according to archealogists): the Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite stone. King Mesha of the Moabites is mentioned in 2 Kings.

Long time

Wow, its been a while. I keep starting posts and not finishing them. Lets catch you up: school started! i love to learn! Also, I went to the gogol bordello concert this summer and it was awesome. I havent been able to put up all the pictures from that night because they were on my phone and i emailed them to myself and google wont let me download them from my email and keeps kicking me out due to suspicious activity, because apparently its not suspicious to have emails with lots of pictures, its just suspicious to try to save them to your computer. go figure. well, at the gogol bordello concert, i also met the band Deleon. They are a lot of fun and sing in Hebrew and english (and a form of Hebrew mixed with Spanish, but I dont remember what its called now) Well, im going to go see them again in a couple of weeks, which should be awesome. They are opening for Os Mutantes, a brazilian band from the 70's.
Here is a video for a really fun Deleon song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYFrpLckWf0&feature=video_response

Also, Victor and I went to Deleon springs (a coincidence, I assure you) the mythical fountain of youth, found by Ponce de leon! We dipped our feet in the fountain of youth and then had pancakes. When I have my vacation next month, I am going to take my dad there so we can boat in the river. Maybe we'll see manatees!

So, I'm in an art history class right now and learning a lot about art from the ancient middle east, egypt and greece. It is a lot of fun, especially when mixed in with my Biblical studies. For example, my teacher told us about the "Victory stele of Naram-Sin".



This is an example of Akkadian art. (And in fact, the only example our teacher is having us study, though there are really intricate statues and other types of art from the Akkadian culture) This culture dominated the Mesopotamian region at one point in time. Our teacher explained that their language seemed to be a form of Hebrew, a Semitic like language. This really interested me and I figured that if this culture really used a Hebrew-like language, they must be in the Bible somewhere. In addition to this question, I often found myself confused at the definition of Hebrew, Semite, and Isrealite. I know that "Isrealites" are the descendants of "Isreal" (or Jacob) who had 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Isreal. But I also knew that in the story of one of those sons, Joseph (coat of many colors Joseph)when he lives in Egypt, it says in the Bible that the Hebrews were detestable to the Egyptians and would not eat in the same room with them. So my question was then, if the term "Isrealite" had not come about then, but the word Hebrew was used, what was the difference? I had always heard "Hebrew" and "Isrealite" used almost interchangeable when studying about the Bible. So, in my search for a Biblical Akkadian culture, I also wanted to find the answer to this. In Genesis 10, it explains that Noah had three sons, Ham, Japeth and Shem. The descendants of Shem are Semites. (In case you didnt know, Abraham is a descendant of Shem, and he himself is the ancester of Isreal) It also explains that some of the descendants of Ham occupied Akkad! So I found Akkadians in the bible! I was super excited! Although, they are not technically Semites, they are related. So that is my lesson for you today! I hope it is not too rambling, but I love to make these kind of connections. Even when you spend your whole life learning bible stories, sometimes they don't make sense if you don't understand how they are connected.

I am a HERO

I just found out that I am someone's hero and it made me smile! For those of you who do care, I have not forgotten about this blog, there have just been a lot of goings on. After the MANMAN show, I lost my Chang Wang button and I was really upset, but we finally found it about a week later in Victor's car. So, they no longer rest on my purse, but now in my jewelry case, so as not to have another mishap.
This Wednesday is the GOGOL BORDELLO concert that I have been awaiting for months. I am still disappointed I never got to see them when they were touring with MANMAN, but I am excited to see them in two days. I am kind of nervous about the show because I have a feeling there will be a lot of crazy people there.
In the realm of my personal life, I have been working on a lot of projects over the summer, trying to finish them before school starts again in the Fall. We built a doghouse for Duncan, complete with shingles. We are working on a rain barrel system right now, to use rain water for the garden. The barrels are done, but we need to house them and build something to hold them up, so they don't fall and to cover them up, because they are ugly. I've also been working on painting my new apartment, which isn't so new after 5 months. I'm still getting my Nightmare Before Christmas display all put together so that it can be up all year.

So here are some pictures from my Summer activities. Here is my Pappy's 90th birthday. It was a western theme because he is from Texas and the picture in the back ground is him at age 4.



Then we had a Luau at work:



Then it was Father's Day. Here is a card I made for my brother Chris. I forgot to take pictures of the card I made for Sam. Perhaps he will send some to me . . . .





I planted a lot of plants this summer in my new yard:




I built a composter, that's it in the corner by the fence:




Here are pictures of the rain barrel: