Ok, hopefully it will be back to business tomorrow. I'm finished with the upgrades (at least for now). At first glance you may not notice much difference but I can assure you that it was a lot of work. The site has many new embellishments that should make your browsing experience all the more enjoyable, as well as more productive. There's too much to mention so let's just say it was worth the effort.

Enjoy!

Fr. John shares from John 19:28-37.

Fr. Stephen De Young finishes his discussion on 1 Corinthians with Chapter 16.

Fr. Stephen De Young finishes the discussion from last week on the third chapter of 2 Corinthians.

In the healing of the man born blind, Jesus heals not only his blindness, but also his spiritual understanding. Fr Thomas reminds us that just as the man born blind came to a fuller revelation of who Jesus was, we too must also allow the mercy and grace of God to heal us in order to experience Him in a deeper way. (Sunday of the Blind Man)

Bobby Maddex interviews Steven Christoforou, the director of the GOA’s Department of Youth and Young Adult Ministries, the co-host of the AFR podcast Pop Culture Coffee Hour, and the erstwhile host of the popular Orthodox video podcast Be the Bee.

Even though "Be the Bee" is coming to an end, this is just the beginning of Y2AM's life-changing work. Together, we can find Christ at work in our lives and move towards His Kingdom.

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Designed By: Patti, Jewelry Designer, Exclusively for Fire Mountain Gems and Beads®

Click Here For An Enhanced View And Materials List

Designed By: Patti, Jewelry Designer, Exclusively for Fire Mountain Gems and Beads®

Click Here For An Enhanced View And Materials List

Poet Amanda Gorman speaks at the inauguration of U.S. President Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.; Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Camila Domonoske | NPR

When Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old poet from Los Angeles, took to the stage on Wednesday, it was immediately clear why the new president had chosen her as his inaugural poet.

Gorman echoed, in dynamic and propulsive verse, the same themes that Biden has returned to again and again and that he wove throughout his inaugural address: unity, healing, grief and hope, the painful history of American experience and the redemptive power of American ideals.

Where Biden said, "We must end this uncivil war," Gorman declared, "We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another."

And where Biden called for an American story of "love and healing" and "greatness and goodness," Gorman saw strength in pain: "Even as we grieved, we grew," she said.

Gorman opened by acknowledging the reasons why hope can be challenging. "Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?" she asked.

But she continued: "And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished."

She acknowledged the power of her own presence on the stage in "a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one."

Like Obama inaugural poet Richard Blanco, who invoked the grand sweep of American geography in a call for unity in "One Today," Gorman dedicated a portion to "every corner called our country" from the South to the Midwest. She ended with an invitation to "step out of the shade."

"The new dawn blooms as we free it," she said. "For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it – if only we are brave enough to be it."

Gorman was following in the footsteps of poets like Blanco, Robert Frost and Maya Angelou as she composed the poem "The Hill We Climb" for the inauguration.

She also took her cues from orators like Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. — people who knew a thing or two about calling for hope and unity in times of despair and division.

Gorman told NPR she dug into the works of those speakers (and Winston Churchill, too) to study up on ways "rhetoric has been used for good." Over the past few weeks, she composed a poem that acknowledges the previous president's incitement of violence, but turns toward hope.

"The Hill We Climb" reads, in part:

We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed,

It can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith, we trust.

For while we have our eyes on the future,

history has its eyes on us.

Gorman, like Biden, had a speech impediment as a child. (Biden had a stutter; Gorman had difficulty pronouncing certain sounds.) She told NPR's Steve Inskeep that her speech impediment was one reason she was drawn to poetry at a young age.

"Having an arena in which I could express my thoughts freely was just so liberating that I fell head over heels, you know, when I was barely a toddler," she said.

For Gorman, a former National Youth Poet Laureate, her struggle to speak provided a connection not only to the incoming president, but also to previous inaugural poets, too.

"Maya Angelou was mute growing up as a child and she grew up to deliver the inaugural poem for President Bill Clinton," she says. "So I think there is a real history of orators who have had to struggle with a type of imposed voicelessness, you know, having that stage in the inauguration."

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy were the only presidents in the past who chose to have poems read at their inaugurations. You can read all the previous poems here.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

RDS Real Estate is pleased to present 4577 JD Mouser Parkway #105, a 4000 square foot commercial space with two 14-foot bay doors, loading dock, office and restroom.

Comprehensive sanitation in India: Despite progress, an unfinished agenda

Building on improvements in Infant mortality.

The post Comprehensive sanitation in India: Despite progress, an unfinished agenda appeared first on IFPRI.

Step into the past with our photo gallery of the Unfinished Church in the east end. In describing the history of the church, the St. Peter’s website said, “The history of these ruins is integral to the history of St Peter’s. In 1869 a meeting in the old Town presented a rare spectacle – a […]

Finished Songs: Bands/Groups N-Z Cover Girl (New Kids On The Block); Games (New Kids On The Block); Hangin’ Tough (New Kids On The Block); I’ll Be Loving You (Forever) (New Kids On The Block); Please Don’t Go Girl (New Kids On The Block); Step by Step (New Kids On The Block)

Finished Objects Daggers

Have you ever found something you started writing but never finished? Here's something I started in October 2014. I've just rediscovered it in July 2020....

 

A week of finishing!!! Oh my, it feels good to finish things, doesn't it?!

Last October, I started the applique process, stitching chick bodies and wings cut from felled wool onto the wool background fabric. Seven months later, 16 chicks, embroidered with threads and beads, run free! Please click the picture to enlarge it, so you can enjoy the fanciful details.

If you are new to this process, you can see the various steps and pictures of the chicks on these posts. Of course, they are inspired by Sue Spargo's exhibit at the La Conner Quilt Museum, by her book, Creative Stitching, and by taking a one-day class from her to get me going. Along the way, other books, embroideries, and drawings also inspired me.


As you might guess, most of the chicks have at least a few beads. Here is one with the main motif embroidered with beads.


And, here is one with just a few beads, the center of the "flowers," and one with no beads at all.

Also note that I've quilted the piece with Danish Flower Thread in a shade which closely matches the background color.

At first, I thought it would be pleasing to embellish the areas between the chicks with flowers, vines, and leaves using three close shades of the background color. Here is an example.


It looks OK when you look at just four chicks with the flower/vine motif in the center. But when I had finished 6 of the areas (sorry no photo), some of them with larger spaces and larger vines/leaves, it looked too busy. It took away from the chicks. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to look at the chicks or the flowers. So I picked out the vines and leaves, leaving just the flowers, which weren't such a distraction.


After sewing on the binding, the chicks seemed to need a little warming around them. So I added a line of stem stitch in variegated pearl-cotton in a magenta color. It pleases me!


Oh, and one more thing... This is a quilt, designed to hang on the wall, with lots of details to enjoy as you view it up close. But what happens to wool felt when it is out in the open? MOTH DAMAGE and DUST are the enemies. My solution? Find, buy, or have somebody make a wall-mounted display case, with a hinged door. Hang the quilt inside the case, which remains closed except when somebody wants to take a closer look. The above, found on the internet, is close to what I have in mind, with a white background of course.


What's next in chick-land? Well, my dear niece just got married... Here is the start of her wedding gift... I'll post a finished photo soon.

I started cutting scraps of fabric to make hexie flowers on September 1, 2015. After 9 months of labor, I have just finished stitching the 733rd flower!  I'll do the math for you... That's 5,131 hexies. They are small ones, 3/4 inch per side. The finished flowers measure just under 4" in diameter.


To give you an idea, this is what 44 hexie flowers look like. In case you don't know, for each hexie, the fabric is cut, and then basted over a paper, hexagon-shaped form. The hexies are then hand-stitched together to make the flowers. It takes about 1 hour to make one hexie flower, start-to-finish; thus 44 hours to make the batch above. Click the photo to see better detail of this process, which is called English paper piecing.


And here are all 733 hexie flowers! Each flower is a different fabric. Although a few of the flower petal fabrics were also used for flower centers, I'm certain that there are over 1,000 different fabrics used in these flowers.

What's next? Well, I'm going to build a design wall using sound-proofing foam-board covered with a king-sized flannel sheet. I haven't quite figured out how to make it yet.

When the design wall is ready, I'll get out my hexie flowers and start to "paint" with them. Who knows what will emerge? Not me. I only have a vague idea that I might want to try "painting" an abstract view of our island shoreline.

When the "painting" process is finished, I'll stitch the flowers together in small groups, and then stitch the groups together. The result, hopefully in my lifetime, will be a queen-sized, non-traditional style, hexie quilt!

Thanks to everybody who shared scraps of fabric for me to use!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

For those interested, here is a link to a "time study" and photos of my previous hexie quilt, Mama's Garden!

It was just a couple of weeks ago that the media was bragging about Kamala's HUGE fundraising haul.

The post YIKES: Kamala’s Failed Campaign Finished DEEP In Debt — Here’s The 411 appeared first on Clash Daily.

It's the potential beginning of the end of teachers' unions in this country.

Believers begin a conversation with a local religious leader about Jesus.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

The power situation has improved in the last decade. But there is a tangle with respect to distribution, transmission issues

Two of Raja Ravi Varma’s unfinished works will be unveiled at Kilimanoor Palace near Thiruvananthapuram, adding to the artist’s legacy in Indian art

That means a manufacturer looking at a market like India needs to decide whether small, cheap cars or small, expensive cars or both will work better for them, says Pavan Lall.

The United Kingdom’s economy is projected to expand this year and next, but challenges remain to boost productivity and make future growth more inclusive, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey.

Despite unprecedented progress over the past century, gender gaps in the labour market persist throughout the world and are especially marked in emerging economies. While the quantity of jobs held by women has increased in many countries, female workers continue to have worse jobs than men.

There have been suggestions Mayweather, who beat Conor McGregor in his last fight in 2017, could return to the ring to take on Adrien Broner. However, Mayweather played down the claims.

The new Global Cannabinoids catalog is the largest selection of hemp derived cannabinoid ingredients and finished products in the world.

Fight clubs and fashion designers are betting on "The Bronze Bomber" worn by Deontay Wilder, designed by Cosmo & Donato.

The invention relates to a metal-cutting machining process for a semi-finished product having a predetermined shape and at least one machining surface which has the steps: applying a protective foil having a predetermined elongation at break to the at least one machining surface with a predetermined adhesive force, placing a metal-cutting tool in a predetermined position above the machining surface, exerting a predetermined mechanical force in a predetermined direction for a predetermined length of time to the tool for carrying out a metal-cutting process on the semi-finished product and lifting the tool from the at least one machining surface after the predetermined length of time. In order to protect the semi-finished products from damage through the machining residues and at the same time not to impair the drilling performance, according to the invention through the adhesion an adhesive force is produced between the protective foil and the machining surface of substantially 10 N/25 mm and a protective foil is used which has an elongation at break of between 80 and 120%.

The invention relates to a method for determining the residual time until a cooking process of a foodstuff (12) has been finished. At first a set temperature value for a core (14) of the foodstuff (12) is defined. Next the actual temperatures in the core (14) of the foodstuff (12) at predetermined times are measured and the time dependence of the measured temperature in the core (14) of the foodstuff (12) is determined. At last the time dependence of the measured temperature is compared with the set temperature value and “the residual time of the cooking process is estimated. The invention relates further to a corresponding apparatus for determining the residual time until a cooking process of a foodstuff (12) has been finished.

The Unfinished has launched the Humankind 2020 promotion, a collection of limited edition charity synth soundsets. For those who don’t know, Humankind is a collection of synth soundsets (of 64 patches each), with 50% of the proceeds going to charity. This time around I have chosen The Trussell Trust, a wonderful charity who help provide […]

The post The Unfinished launches Humankind 2020, adding soundsets for RePro, U-No-LX and The Legend appeared first on rekkerd.org.

Coach Mike Hopkins faces his first serious adversity during his three-year tenure and his handling of the point-guard situation will likely determine the course of the season.

The Town of Narrogin says the latest proposal to merge with the neighbouring Narrogin Shire is just weeks from being finalised.

Starfighter Chapter 3 is officially finished! The comic will take a brief hiatus and return on Feb 14th! For no other reason than it's Valentine's day and I am a romantic, HAHA- but for real, Thisbe and I have to prep the book for print and do a whole bunch of other things that need to happen and take time, so we'll have our hands full. I know I said I was aiming for a Valentine release for the print, but the book Chp3 will actually be coming out later-- I will be sure to make BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS when it's available!

*THE COMIC ISN'T OVER, IT WILL RESUME ON FEB 14TH!*

*THE PRINT RELEASE OF CHP 3 IS NOT SET YET, I WILL MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT WHEN IT'S AVAILABLE*

Chapter 4 will be the next and last chapter of Starfighter, if I can do this properly!

As always, thank you all so much for your love and support! I am really happy to share this chapter with you, it's been a lot of fun!

SEE YOU SOON! -Hamlet

Indianapolis restaurant owners report up to 80% sales declines during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they expect numbers to keep falling.

The Astros logo outside the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches really is something to see, all the way from Haverhill Rd. The closer you get the bigger it gets, the white "H" right there in front of the huge orange star. Underneath the "H" is the following message, white against orange: "2017 World Champions." It would have been a simple matter to put "2018" down there, too. There was room.

Believers begin a conversation with a local religious leader about Jesus.

The next Grand Tour episode has been delayed, and host Jeremy Clarkson put producer Andy Wilman on the spot to answer the internet’s questions to when the episode will be released. The live session on Youtube revealed some good insights.

Lawrence, Kansas – The Haskell men's golf team finished eighth at the Ottawa Invitational held at Eagle Bend Golf Course on Tuesday evening. The Indians finished with a two round score of 678. 

Lawrence, Kansas – The Haskell men's golf team finished 8th out of 9 teams at the Ottawa Spring Invitational held at Eagle Bend Golf Course on Monday. The Indians finished with a round score of 344 and the second round was cancelled due to snow on the course. 

 

Lawrence, Kansas – The Haskell men's golf team finished 14th out of 16 teams in the Bethel Tournament held at Hesston Municipal Golf Park in Hesston, Kansas on Saturday. The Indians finished with a round score of 345 and the second round score of 334 with a total team score 679. 

Lawrence, Kansas – The Haskell men's golf team finished 8th out of 11 teams in the Ottawa Invitational held at Eagle Bend Golf Course in Lawrence, Kansas on Monday and Tuesday. The Indians finished with a round score of 321, 331, with a total team score 652.