i just have a few random things i want to share today!  i hardly blog enough so i figured i might as well

1. my new favorite song.  “Fight to Win” by Goodie Mob

Cee-Lo Green is one of my all-time favorite people.  i loved him in Gnarls Barkley and Goodie Mob, and i love him by himself.  i also love him on The Voice.  the performance of this song was so awesome – i loved the costumes and the performance but i REALLY love this song, and i’m really excited about the Goodie Mob reunion.  i bought it from iTunes last night and i can’t wait to listen to it in my car!!

2. Jamar Rogers.

[ photo from americanidol.com ]

Jamar, if you ever read this, i want you to know that you are my hero!  thank you for being who you are, thank you for fighting, thank you for proving that someone CAN turn their life around out of drugs and make it positive.  i don’t know that that point can be any more emphasized by our generation.  everyone makes bad choices, but we need to own up to them to get through them.  Jamar is currently a contestant (and my vote to WIN!) on The Voice.  i can’t wait to hear his songs on the radio and be able to buy his original music.  his story is so powerful, he is truly a role model for anyone who has ever hit rock bottom and thought that life wasn’t worth living.  you can read more of his story, see his performances – AND VOTE FOR HIM TO WIN – on TheVoice.com

3. PRINCE HARRY HIPPO.

you just can’t tell me he’s not the cutest thing ever!  i’m obsessed, ever since i stumbled on an article about him on dailymail.co.uk …. i probably could have just done a whole post about him, he’s so sweet!  a pygmy hippo born in South Africa in an animal sanctuary back in March – Harry was rejected by his mother, who has shown no maternal instincts, so he was taken in to the shelter and receives round-the-clock care from a team of very devoted and loving caregivers.  there are currently less than 3,000 pygmy hippos left in the wild, making them a critically endangered species.  he’s just so cute!  i never thought i would say a hippopotamus was cute, but i can’t help it in this case!

4. THE SAMPLER’S FIRST-EVER BLOG HOP!!!!

we are currently transitioning over to a new blog on Blogger, and gearing up for The Sampler Kit Club’s first-ever blog hop!  THIS FRIDAY, APRIL 27 ALL DAY!  we will have a Sampling of goodies from The Sampler valued at $25-30 at each stop along the way so make sure you come out and participate!!!!  i’ll have a fun project to share with you here, and everyone else will have a special blog hop project on each blog along the way – there will be different requirements to qualify for prizes but i’m sure that it will be spectacular!  join us at The Sampler’s New Blog on Friday morning to get started

well that about wraps it up for what i wanted to say!  hope to see you back on Friday!

peace, love and stickers -

shaunnaRooskie

It’s the Big News Lately.

This is what I’ve been hearing a lot about lately:

• Costa Concordia Cruise wreck off the coast of Italy (1/13/12) – as of today, 12 dead, 20 still missing
• GOP Candidates – Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum… who’s it gonna be
• Internet blackout on 1/17/12 in protest of SOPA – many sites were “blacked out” in protest, and offered ways to contact your congressman to help discourage votes
• American Idol…another season, really?  I mean… X Factor is the new American Idol…
• Strange weather all over the place… below zero temperatures, mountains of snow, freezing drizzle… everywhere but Texas, where it has {thankfully} been in the 70s most of the week.  strange for January.
• Picnik is closing down.  Depressing.

because you could save 50 lives with it.

our church’s youth group, Elevate, is raising money to build an orphanage in Andhra Pradesh, India, for 50 kids who don’t have a place to call home.  and not only will these kids get a roof over their heads – your $15 could also help provide them with food, clothing and a great education.  think on it for a minute.  there are literally 20 MILLION orphans in India – that’s a LOT.  these kids sleep on the streets or in pigsties, wherever they can find shelter from the dark and cold; they are lucky to have a meal of rice every few days and clean water to drink.  some go naked, others wear rags.  some are faced with the challenge of not only caring for themselves, but making sure that a younger sibling is cared for as well.  they never know the love of a parent or grandparent, even sometimes friends are hard to come by.  each day of their lives is a struggle just to get their needs met and survive.  i can’t imagine how lonely that could get.

when i say our youth are seeking to build an orphanage it’s almost an understatement.  we BELIEVE that our youth have been called not to build just one orphanage for these children, but that we will be able to raise funds to build several orphanages and get some of these kids off the streets.  we BELIEVE that God has something planned for these kids in India.  we BELIEVE that our students can witness to kids half a world away and that many of them will come to know Jesus through this outstretched hand – they will find peace, love and joy in their hearts, and some for the first time in their entire lives.

The Vision // 15for50 from Elevate Student Ministries on Vimeo.

we really need your help!  if you have just $15, we can make it happen.  no starbucks for a week?  skip that meal at McDonalds – your $15 can feed a child, clothe them, give them a bed to sleep in, in a warm place, with a roof over their head, and give them a wonderful education and the opportunity to have a relationship with Jesus… i mean, i thought i was a bargain shopper but i’ve never thought $15 could buy so much.

check out their website – 15for50.com  you can make a donation and join our effort to help spread the Good News – and help some really amazing people out too.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” – Matthew 5:14-16

OMG for real tho.  this lady, 25-year old Melodi Dushane from Toledo, Ohio, was not kiddin’ around.  when told at 6:30 AM they would not sell her McNuggets, she freaked out and got out of her car and punched the drive thru chick in. the. face.

GOT OUT OF HER CAR.  PUNCHED SOMEONE IN THE FACE.  OVER NUGGETS.

it didn’t end there, though.  she continued to try to attack the woman through the window, and several other McDonald’s employees joined in the melee after the worker struggled to close the drive thru window, to no avail.  after Dushane’s several failed attempts to break the window with her fists, she gets back in her car and gets something and throws it through the window and proceeds to punch it several times and drive off.

the best part?  the next car in line just pulls forward…

this lends proof to my theory that McDonald’s should take a lesson from Jack-in-the-Box and just serve everything 24/7.  so you might have to wait longer because they actually have to make your food, but at least it’ll stave off any angry outbursts over not getting it your way.

i am updating my blog. SLOWLY.
i guess it can be one of my new year’s resolutions.

so if you see some random posts from last year show up as new, that’s just me, updating my blog. i feel bad i let it go into such neglect.

thanks for stopping by.

Yet another sad day for Americans. The largest mass-killing in US History occurred Monday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech. An unknown gunman shot and killed 2 people in a dormitory and 30 more in a campus hall early Monday morning before turning the gun on himself. Within the space of 2 hours, 33 people were dead, all but one of them unknowingly. What a sad, sad day this is for us.

Primary speculation regarding this incident cited that the shooting arose over a “domestic dispute” in the dorms, after which it proceeded on to the Norris Hall – which houses VA Tech’s Science and Engineering school. The separate shootings occurred approximately two hours apart, leaving many to question why students on campus were not alerted immediately of the emergency and warning status. Emails were sent to students letting them know what happened, but not soon enough after the first incident to have prevented another tragedy.

The president of VA Tech responded to the allegations by saying that they thought the shooter had left the area of the campus, and that the incident was confined to the dormitories only, and no one had any idea that there would be cause for further shootings. Students described the email as “lacking urgency”.

Witnesses described the shooter as an Asian male, dressed in black, who went calmly from room to room shooting students and staff without a word or a second thought. Investigation at the dormitory found that doors had been chain-locked shut, in an attempt to keep “victims” from escaping. Upon further investigation, the body of the shooter was unidentifiable; no cell phone or identification, fingerprints did not yield a match, and he shot himself in the face – which will make it hard to obtain dental records or an accurate image of the shooter.

He turned out to be 23-year old Seung Hui-Cho, an English major at VA Tech, who had a history of mental illness, and who was also prescribed to be on anti-depressants. Cho was reported to the police in 2005, by two female students who claimed he was “stalking” them – no arrest was made because the police found no specific threat. He was deemed by a district court to be “mentally ill” and “an imminent threat to self and others” and was ordered to undergo psychiatric testing. He was discharged after his insight and judgment were found to be “normal”.

Students also spoke today of numerous bomb threats that have occurred over the last few weeks on the VA Tech campus, two of which were directed at the school of Science and Engineering.

“Everybody’s in complete shock,” said freshman Rachel Wirth, 18, of Charlotte, N.C. “Everybody’s wondering if they know anybody who was killed or wounded.”

19-year old Kyle Blasser, from Annadale, VA, is still waiting to hear from a high school friend who was in a French class on the 2nd floor of Norris Hall at the time the shootings occurred.

The shooting replaced the 1966 shooting from the tower at the University of Texas as the worst “school shooting” in US History. Seems April has also been a black month in mass-murder history, with this incident following suit. The battle at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, 1993, the Oklahoma City Bombings in 1995, and the Columbine High School shootings of 1999 all have anniversaries within the next few days, only solidifying the grim fate of not only the month of April in the US, but the direction our society is headed as a whole.

With this, debates were rekindled over gun laws and gun control.

More than 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds in the United States every year and there are more guns in private hands than in any other country.

But a powerful gun lobby and support for gun ownership rights has largely thwarted attempts to tighten controls.

Advocates of gun ownership rights saw Monday’s massacre as evidence of the need to relax gun laws rather than tighten them.

“All the school shootings that have ended abruptly in the last 10 years were stopped because a law-abiding citizen – a potential victim – had a gun,” said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.

“The latest school shooting at Virginia Tech demands an immediate end to the gun-free zone law which leaves the nation’s schools at the mercy of madmen.”

I can guarantee with certainty that had there been ONE armed person at either of the shooting sites yesterday, many victims would have been spared. Over 700,000 gun crimes this year have been thwarted as the result of a concealed-carry gun owner being present.

My deepest sympathies and prayers are with the families and students involved in this tragedy. My heart goes out to all who have been affected by this type of violence, and I can only hope that in the future, the United States will be a safe place for my son to grow up and raise his family; hopefully one in which guns are not used in committing crimes, but in helping to prevent them from happening altogether.

This is absolutely Cr@zy. It needs to stop – NOW.

(*News information provided by Reuters).

** UPDATE – I was wrong about the guns. Apparently they were legal, and he’d obviously been planning this for a while, since he purchased the guns some time ago. Which still makes him a sick-you-know-what. **

So I heard this today… a FEMALE South Carolina JUNIOR HIGH school teacher gets busted for sleeping with five students. Can someone please explain to me what is wrong with these people. I’m sorry, but I just don’t quite understand. FIVE Junior High school students? OK, well according to media sources they were 14- and 15-year old boys, but still… I mean, COME ON! Have you ever been around 14-and 15-year old boys? Most of them are rude, disgusting, and immature. I can’t believe how often we are hearing about this kind of thing in the news nowadays; nothing in the world could be said to convince me that there is something appealing about having sex with a child. This girl, I have seen pictures of her, is not just some hideous monster, either. She could have gotten a date if she wanted to. Wow.

I think they should let people line up for blocks and just punch her in the face one by one.