I’m thankful for Thankful Thursday. It’s a special time to reflect on the week and count my blessings. Writing what I am grateful for has been an inspiration each week.

I’m thankful my husband insisted I go to the doctor this week. I have been exhausted and blaming it on anemia. Hubby was right–it is more than anemia.

I’m thankful for my wonderful God who is my source of comfort. The doctor heard an arrhythmia while listening to my heart and ordered an EKG that confirmed it. It was a bit scary listening to the doctor explain the problems and possibilities. My mind jumped to “What about my children…” - but then I switched gears and turned to my Father and He immediately calmed me. I know things will be fine. I’m glad they found the reason I’m tired and look forward to the solution. I’m halfway through the heart tests and only have two more. Will know more next week.

I am thankful most of you reading this have already stopped and said a prayer for me! How neat is that?–like prayer request on autopilot! (I should add this to Reasons I Blog.)

I am thankful that the medical news helped me put my priorities into focus. Today I had to choose between work or talking off half a day for swimming with the children. If it were not for the medical news I may have missed the swim. We had a lovely day.

I’m thankful for the information available on the Internet for health and alternative medicine. I believe I have an easy-to-treat magnesium deficiency (based on similar problem in my past).

I’m thankful for Web2.0. Blogging and memes are part of Web 2.0. I love all the new technology that allows us to fellowship online. I’m writing a series on Web2.0. If you like to get email updates you can subscribe to this blog in the upper left corner.

I’m thankful for all trials. Trials bring us to God–and that’s a good thing. Wiersbe said, “If we only endure our trials, then trials become our master, and we have a tendency to become hard and bitter. If we try to escape our trials, then we will probably miss the purposes God wants to achieve in our lives. But if we learn to enlist our trials, they will become our servants instead of our masters and work for us; and God will work all things together for our good and His glory. (Rom. 8:28).”

Thankful Thursday is a meme based on a posted quote each week at Sting My Heart. For more memes see the Christian and Homeschool Meme List

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This is a tribute and prayer prompt for our troops. But alos a super encouragement to all Christians. I did not create this, I received it an email.

Also see a tribute to My husband My Hero.

The purpose of Word filled Wednesday meme is to share God’s word through photo’s and a verse. On a normal Wednesday you could join this meme by going to 160 Acre Woods Blog add your name to the list. However, Amy had a baby this week and won’t be hosting this Wednesday. Congratulations Amy and family.

For more memes see the Daily Blogs Meme List.

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This is part of a series of articles on Utilizing the Internet focusing on Web 2.0 communities.

Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. Its almost like having a research secretary! Alerts results come from News, Web, Blogs, and Groups. You can use Google Alert to keep track of anything, including information regarding yourself, your homeschool, Bible studies, or your interests. Google alerts returns extremely relevant results. I use the results constantly and have come to rely on the service to keep me up to date in several areas. (more…)

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“Lower your expectations of earth. This isn’t heaven, so don’t expect it to be.”
~ Max Lucado ~

I attended a seminar in 1975 titled “Give Your Expectations to God.” I learned that you can’t be frustrated with people when you don’t expect anything from them. We choose to be irritated and upset with others. Forgive those who fail you; have mercy on those who hurt you. Anger and grief take great amounts of energy. Turn the situation over to God and let Him deal with it. We aren’t perfect. We shouldn’t expect others to be perfect. I was pregnant with my second daughter at the time.

Yesterday morning my daughter (the one I was pregnant with in the 1975 seminar) and I were talking about a commentary she read that said Paul’s thorn in the flesh was possibly a false teacher. While no one can say for sure what it was, that certainly makes sense. Paul called his thorn the messenger of Satan. (more…)

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This is part of a series of articles on Utilizing the Internet with Web2.0 communities.

Channel surf the internet with the StumbleUpon toolbar to find great websites, videos, photos and more based on your interests–I use to find homeschool sites, Bible studies, and web design. You can use it to find things you that meet your interests.

StumbleUpon learns what you like and makes better recommendations. Over 2 million people have installed stumbleupon.com toolbars on their computers. Whenever they have free time, they click on the “stumble” button on their browser’s toolbar and stumbleupon.com will take them to a random website based on their preferences (homeschooling, politics, web2.0, etc).

The Toolbar and Voting

Once you install the toolbar (very easy) you tell Stumbleupon what your interests are and then you can click on the green button to find a new site. You have the option of voting (thumbs up or thumbs down) on whether you like that website or not and, based on those ratings, stumbleupon.com shows you similar websites. The more people who give a positive vote to a particular website, the more StumbleUpon users will get to see it. Real people vote–not a Goggle robot spider.

Every time you hit the Stumble button on the toolbar a new page will appear based on your interests! You can also narrow the results by choosing a topic from your toolbar dropdown list. (more…)

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