Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation

Delivered October 3, 1863. Still rings true today.

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.

We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Fun Fact for the Day

I was reading through a few prayer letters today and one was from a missionary serving in Poland who recently had emergency eye surgery (in Poland) to repair a detached retina. She writes, "The 19th century eye hospital has no elevator. So after my operation I was carried upstairs on a stretcher. Things to take with you to a hospital here: pajamas, slippers, a towel, a cup, soap, and cutlery."

And then this, which was my favorite part: "In Polish, retina and volleyball are the same word. So 'odklejana siadkowka' could equally mean detached retina or unglued volleyball."

So there you have your fun fact for the day. Bust it out at parties and impress your friends.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

My New Roommate

Well, it turns out the visit from my roommate's mom & her dog last month was a tipping point. This past Saturday my roommate brought home a brown and white Japanese Chin puppy. Meet Gizmo, the newest addition to our little household:

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Suz through the years...

It seems by now a lot of people are aware of yearbookyourself.com, a nifty site where you can upload a photo of yourself and see what you might have looked like with the hairstyles of days gone by. I'd managed to resist jumping on the bandwagon until today, when I decided it was a legitimate way to entertain myself on my lunch break. So, here's what I might have looked like back in the day (and as a brunette)...
1968

1986

1994

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

A Romantic Evening in the City

Travis and I were talking a couple weeks ago and realized that we've been so intent on getting together with our various friends and associates and keeping up with our other commitments that we hadn't really gone on a date, just the two of us, in something like two months. We decided to address that with a date night this past Friday (which happened to be Halloween). So, instead of putting on a costume, at Travis' instructions I got dressed up for a night on the town.

Travis picked me up Friday afternoon and took me into downtown Chicago where he'd arranged for us to go on a horsedrawn carriage ride through the city streets. That part I knew about beforehand. When the carriage brought us back to where we'd started we had our driver snap a pic, and then we headed to dinner, for which I had been told we had reservations, but didn't know where.

Well, it turned out that our reservations were at the Signature Room, which is the restaurant on the 95th floor of the Hancock Building. We were seated at an intimate table for two right next to the window at the northeast corner of the building, so we had an incredible view of the shoreline and city. About halfway through dinner we even got to watch fireworks going off from Navy Pier - the first time we'd seen fireworks from above instead of below! After a scrumptious dinner we ordered the "dark chocolate voodoo cake" for dessert, not realizing it was the same dish we'd make snide comments about on our way in when we passed the dessert display. Travis had said it looked like a slug-type bug, and the decorative sauces were the slime it left behind as it made its way across the plate. Thankfully we were able to get past that appetizing comparison and enjoy the rich flavors!