Monday, February 19, 2007

Let's Help RUTH Find GREG MOORE!!

Anyone who wants to add the code to your site is welcome to use it!! Please ask your blogger friends to display it, too. The more people who see it, the more likely RUTH is to find the portrait of Mick! What a wonderful present from all of us this would be for them.

Replace each * with <

Change the font, etc., to match your blog

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*/br>

*!-- SEARCH begin -->
*a href="http://ruth-boofie.blogspot.com/2007/01/art-art-wherefore-art-thou-art.html" target="_blank">
*img src="http://www.dirtybutter.com/images/gregmoore2.gif" border="0" width="468" height="60" >
*/a>
*p>
*font ="comic sans" size="3">(Click the Banner for the Story Behind the Search)
*/font>
*/p>
*!-- SEARCH end -->

*/br>


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Sirius Business! WHEELIE CATHOLIC on the RADIO!!

Our very own Villager, Wheelie Catholic, is going to be interviewed about her blog on the Catholic Channel on Sirius Radio on Feb. 22, at 5:00PM EST on Channel 159.

Knowing her, it will be funny and informative, and she will probably challenge everyone to see the abilities, not disabilities, of those who are physically, mentally, or emotionally challenged in some way.

Go Gett'm Ruth!!


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Meet MARION - Our Featured BLOG VILLAGER

After sending Marion the same questions I ask of all my BLOG VILLAGE interviewees, she answered them in a way that does not need to be broken up! Please read on to find out about your fellow BLOG VILLAGER, Marion, over at The Herbal Connection:

I am a soon-to-be 56 year old woman who has had many life experiences, and who wants to share what I’ve learned as a result of these life-changing events.

I am twice-divorced; now living with my life-partner, Graham. Two dogs, Lucky and Nate, own us. I have lost a daughter; I am a recovering Alcoholic, still dry for many years. I am a mother and a grandmother, soon to welcome my second grandchild into the world.

As I learn, once more, to adapt to a different way of life, I use the Shamanistic and Reiki skills I have learned on a constant basis. I will always be amazed at how much easier life becomes, how well I can figure myself out, using these tools.

Graham is a Karuna Reiki Master Teacher and I hold Level 2 certification. I absorb the energies that fly around me so intensely, both negative and positive, that I had to learn how to protect myself. That is when I met Shaman Maggie Wahls, who opened the doors to an intensely spiritual time.

My awareness of ordinary, everyday occurrences became so acute; I wanted to write specifically about it. My life has become an amazing journey of miracles. It seemed right to share it.

And I wanted to be a storyteller. I have written all my life, primarily for myself…writing words that described the events of my life, horrible, sad words. It was the right time, suddenly, to turn those despairing words around to a more positive tone, to dissect and learn.

I wanted to reach people, to share hope in the everyday. Although I have sent some essays, etc. to various magazines, I have not seriously pursued this avenue. I treasure the rejection letters; seems they all, in handwritten words, love my writing…but what could they do with it? It doesn’t seem to fit in well, for magazine formats. LOL

Blogging seemed the natural choice for me. I am very at home on the Internet, having taken various different courses and having a natural bent towards research. I also wanted to learn to write consistently, with discipline. And I wanted to explore the world of photography.

My blog reading is done mainly in the morning, with some afternoon surfing. I try and find new blogs (to me) with the same interests I have, and try and extend my audience that way, as well as contacting and getting to know some wonderful people! And, no matter how busy life gets, I try and keep up with the great friends I have already made, just by blogging. I have huge gratitude for their support.

When I first started blogging, I knew nothing about it. Nothing. It took awhile to even understand how to publish, how to load photos, how to…the list goes on. I didn’t know about comments, etc., I didn’t know there were groups you could join. And then, one day, I heard Blog Village mentioned... I think it may even have been the Google help group, lol, a group I have had many occasions to visit!

My blog is a personal one. After all those rejections from editors, after all their suggestions to change my writing to more acceptable topics, I decided I was going to write what the muse wanted to. And so I did.

I only maintain one blog. I have others; they are still in the starting phases, where they will probably remain. I admire the people who have more than one blog; I just do not have time.

I usually try to post two or three times a week; it is a release and an outlet for my creativity. My writing is not for everyone; I wouldn’t expect it to be. But I try and project peace and serenity, I try and work out the happenings around me. I try and share any wisdom I may have learned, or am learning.

The sites on Blog Village are always entertaining. In my opinion, it is a great collection of different viewpoints; my site feels at home here. I enjoy it every day.

Now I get to pick another Blog Villager ... ta daaaa! I would love to hear about Tea, from Tea and Margaritas in my Garden!

All you need to do is read one of Marion posts to see her passion for life, to see how deeply she feels about the world around her. She has a unique way of writing and expressing life as she sees it. Read her Valentine’s Day post “Fury” to see what I mean and stop by to wish her a Happy Birthday. Her birthday is in February sometime! ~ Janey Loree


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

Carnivals! Carnivals! Take Your Pick OR Enter Them ALL!!!

Thanks to Kilroy, the Carnival Bug, as Naomi expressed it, has certainly hit our Villagers.

I'm trying to keep up with all of them and put a banner on the side bar, but you're all way ahead of me LOL.

You'll find TWO GONZO Carnivals to enter, a Poetry Carnival, and a Photography Carnival, hosted by James, one of our Villager photographers, on his Points of Light blog.

Another one of our Villagers, Local Girl, at her An Island Life blog, has a new Carnival EVERY WEEK! She's accepting entries for edition number 42 of The Carnival of Life, I think! Whew!!!

I'm not that ambitious, I fear. I figure with all the members being involved in carnivals, once a quarter is enough for me to sponsor or host. But I certainly admire those Villagers with the stamina to do this over and over and over .....

Now, get busy and follow those sidebar links, and get involved. Why, you might have so much fun you decide to have a carnival, yourself.

And, just in case you're having so much fun entering, reading, and commenting, that you've forgotten everything else, let me make a quick reminder that all this carnival doin's is great for your page rank. And why, you say, do you care about page rank? More visitors, more readers, better PPP offers, more sales ... well, you get the idea.


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Lost Girls Featured in National Geographic Travel Blog

Congratulations to our Villagers at Lost Girls!


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

STEVE (Just Your Average Revolutionary), Our FEATURED VILLAGER

Janey Loree: Who is Steve Bremner? Tell us more about Just your average revolutionary!

Steve: Steve Bremner is a 25 year old missionary to the Netherlands. I was saved around the age of 15, and grew up in a brethren church. I then went on to a charismatic Bible school, originally located in Pensacola, FL, which had been birthed out of the Brownsville Revival. Some time after graduating I made my way over to the Netherlands as a missionary. My heritage in the Plymouth Brethren background, coupled with my charismatic experience in my early twenties and to date, really make an interesting mix, I believe. Click here for my three part testimony

Steve Bremner is someone who hates traditional "church" as we know it, and someone who wants to see God's kingdom invade this earth and shake everything that can be shaken--including and specifically the Church. And, specifically, to see restored to the Body of Christ the things God's word tells us are ours, that are sadly lacking, such as the supernatural and miraculous.

I'm a revolutionary because the Holy Spirit lives inside of me, and I'm a disciple of King Jesus, who rules a kingdom out of this world and in authority above this earthly realm's kingdom. I'm average just like anybody else in that this is not my own identity, but His. He takes the weak things of this world, and the unwise things of this world, and makes something big with them and uses people like you and me to do it. He's in the habit of using average revolutionaries like us. That and I've been too uncreative and lazy to come up with a new title for the blog, and I think it has a nice ring to it the way it is.

Janey Loree: What prompted you to start blogging in the first place?

Steve: I heard about blogging from two different people independently of each other. One was a missionary in Germany, the other was someone on my MSN chat list, and when I clicked on hers, I found an online journal, and immediately decided to start my own. I felt like I had things to say and ideas to share that other people aren't necessarily preaching about or sharing in theirs.

I feel one of my giftings is that of a teacher, and I'm studying the Word a lot, and feel like I'm constantly finding awesome nuggets of truth that I need to share with somebody, somewhere! So for me my blog was the perfect outlet for such expression, but I didn't know what "image" or "personality" I wanted to give my blog at first, and upon deciding to start one, I had no idea how to get it rolling.

In the summer of 2004, the Lord dramatically healed my mom of fibromyalgia, and I posted the testimony in an e-mail and sent it to my entire e-address book, and then decided to copy and paste it as my first written entry. Given the fact that most of my circle of Christian influence in Peterborough (the city in Canada where I'm from) was from a conservative evangelical or brethren background at that time, in all likelihood many of them would read or visit my blog if given the link. I know I have the respect of a good number of the people from my church upbringing, but who are closed to the things of the Holy Spirit, so I decided I'd use this blog as a place to study and teach on subjects strongly lacking in the non-charismatic circles of Christians, and that many of my friends might not otherwise learn or come across, if not for someone "from their midst" teaching on it and not being weird.

Janey Loree: When do you do your blog reading?

Steve: Randomly. I have a list of blogs, either that I've discovered or that belong to friends of mine, and maybe in the course of my day, I'll go through my bookmarks and catch up on them, and if few people have written much, then I can read all the blogs I frequent in a day. However, it probably takes me an average of one week to read all the blogs I bookmark.

Janey Loree: Where did you hear about BLOG VILLAGE?

Steve: I'm not sure how long ago it was, but I was getting comments on my blog from someone using the sign-in name "Dirty Butter", always encouraging me, and always leaving positive comments about how something I wrote challenged her or blessed her. It was either in email or in a comment that she asked me to join Blog Village, and explained the purpose of the site, and I'm all for joining sites if it might introduce me to people who may enjoy or benefit from anything I have to write. And the rest is history, and here I am filling out questions like this for it!

Janey Loree: Why do you blog? Is your blog personal, business, etc?

Steve: My blog serves as a perpetual newsletter for those wanting to stay in touch with me, and as I began to say earlier, I find blogging to be an outlet--a FREE one at that--that I can share my thoughts and post what I burn for, knowing that the only people who will read it are the people who want to be impacted by it. I find it also can be an extension of my ministry and my monthly newsletters, in that while I'm not physically in Holland, I can still teach and write things that will impact the Dutch people I am involved with who will read it while I'm away. Same with Canadians and Americans while I'm in Holland--just the concept that I can impact lives without being present is awesome! My blog writings can go places that I can't. So in a nutshell, I blog to motivate and encourage as well as challenge others, especially saying a thing or two about lots of dumb things Christians believe. I don't want to blog just to write, but to invite change in those who read it and come across it.

It also helps for keeping people caught up with me, since I view blogs as "voluntary bulk mail". I hardly ever send forwards or junk mail to people, instead I'll post it in my blogs (sometimes, very rarely), but people can read them when they have time or the desire.

Blogs are neat little resources!

Janey Loree: How often do you post and how many blogs do you maintain?

Steve: Sometimes I'm bursting at the seams with things to post, whether they be other peoples' articles or my own studies. However, I don't write when NOT inspired to. I go through dry seasons, and I go through insanely wet seasons. But on average, I update a minimum of once a week. Given that most people have the attention span of a gust of wind, I try not to go nuts in posting too often, because I don't post anything that I don't want people to read. So if I have a lot of drafts saved up or on the go at any given moment, then I post them one or two days apart instead of all at once. I also post articles that say things better than I could.

The only blog I consistently maintain, is Just Your Average Revolutionary. When I first started this blog, one day I wrote a big fat humorous lie. I made up this story about being a missionary to the deserts of Yukon in Northern Canada. How was I supposed to know the fact it's colder the further north you go would not be obvious to everybody reading? So I had an anonymous comment from someone, puking on me for joking around on a serious blog. Even though it's my own blog to do what I want with, I did see how joking around too much could hinder peoples' ability to take me seriously when I am sharing from the Word, so I started Canadian Bacon, but it doesn't get nearly the attention from me as Just Your Average Revolutionary, but it's an outlet for other forms of creativity, especially ones lacking seriousness.

My blogging habits are that I take a lot of notes and journal things on my laptop when listening to podcasts or mp3 preachings, and sometimes I re-write the notes so as to make a blog entry of them. Also, if I am studying something in Scripture, I find I usually will post it on my blog, so I practice the habit of writing something I'd like to share with others, and of course I use the Blogger Add-on for Word. Then, next time I'm in a hotspot or something, I save it to my drafts, a few days go by and I check it again and see if I'm happy with it, and then post it, correct grammar, etc... And post it online. Other times, I post updates rather spontaneously to keep my friends up to date on the latest with me.

Another blog that originally started out of a desire to see people united from various areas of the world and denominational stances, was a Prayer Requests and Testimonies blog. The idea was having as many people as would like to, contributors to this blog, and they can go in there and post prayer requests, and share this link with other people as well who will pray for needs. Then, those involved theoretically subscribe to the feed and pray for every need requested as they show up in your subscriptions. I like the mechanism of it all, later on people could post testimonies and how those prayers were answered.

Anyone that would like to be a contributor and/or administrator of this prayer blog, and who will pray for others' requests, feel free to let me know and I'll shoot you an invitation to it. I think this is a brilliant way to get the kingdom of God impacting each other's lives, as well as making use of a tool such as blogging.

Thank you for the questions and for featuring me.

Steve

Janey Loree: Well, it looks like Steve headed back to Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, NL on Friday, January 19. In his Wednesday, January 17 post, he let his blog readers know that he will not have internet access in the apartment where he will be staying. He's continued to post, though, so he must have found a friend with internet access. Not to take away from Steve’s blog content, but if you want to know how to write January through December and the days of the week in Dutch, check out Steve’s blog!
Related Posts with Thumbnails

Girls Can Change the World

Girls Can Change the World
Adolescents make up a large percentage of the population, especially in developing countries.