We're about to try to switch to www.scottandlori.co.uk

See you there.

I have just completed my application for the job with the CID. I am tired. I've spent most of the night trying to write out my "Why you should hire me instead of all the other perfectly capable applicants". Trying to sell oneself in a paragraph is difficult.

And now it's 2:30am, and I ought to be in bed. Night night.

-It is snowing and sticking. We hope the snow will build up so high we'll be "stranded" tomorrow and unable to make it to work.

-My Friend Date got cancelled again, this time due to the snow. It's the third time. We rescheduled for Wednesday which actually works better. I'll have money then, and we're going shopping at Braehead. We plan on gossipping about our husbands. (I've never gotten to do that before!!)

-I gave my manager lots of advice on his love life that he probably won't take. What is it with people? He's in love with her, she's in love with him, they both feel like they could spend the rest of their lives together, and they both love Jesus, so why is there a problem??

-Scott promised to clean the house so he's somewhere singing to music and presumably cleaning. He's a good man.

-I was a big girl and went to the bank all by myself to raise a complaint. Then I called the Recruiting office for that job that I want (see a few posts down) to ask some technical questions about the application. It asks for Highers scores, but we don't do "Highers" in America. Granted, we do ACT/SAT but I'm not gonna admit to my horendous score on that! So I'm just gonna give them my high school and university GPAs. That'll look good.

-I sewed.

Guys, I'm not one to usually ask people on my blog to pray on my behalf. I know a lot of people feel that horrible sense of responsibility and guilt when someone asks the blogging world to pray for them, especially when you barely know them...

But look. If you don't mind saying a quick but sincere prayer, I know God'll listen. Because, guys, this is the JOB of my dreams. I found it in the paper and looked up online. I've never been more amazed at how PERFECT a job could be for me. I'm going to apply as soon as they send me an application (the vacancy isn't up on the website yet), and I hate to say it, but my heart is so SET on it. If I don't get it, I'll fully understand that God has something better and more suited for me. But if there is a chance that this is God's will, then by George, I'll take it!

Description:
CID Intelligence,
CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE ANALYST
Working as part of a small team, you'll focus on patterns, locations and the underlying causes of crime- and the reports and statistical findings you prepare will contribute to the overall policing plan for the area. You'll research, develop and analyse intelligence from computerised and manual records, to compile intelligence profiles- collating, evaluating, analysing and disseminating information from a variety of sources, including major incidents and serious crimes. You must have high awareness of the sensitive, important nature of the information you'll be dealing with, and you may be called on to give evidence in court. With a proven track record of report writing skills, you'll be educated to Higher level, preferably including English and Maths, or have a minimum of two years' analytical or research experience - although a degree in a relevant subject and experience of i2softwarea nd Internet search engines will be an advantage. Operating a range of computer based systems, you'll be computer literate with knowledge of Microsoft Office. Your skills will include picking out critical information from large volumes of data, and accuracy is crucial- while your verbal communication and customer focus will be excellent. The nature of the role means you will often have to work under pressure, so time management is important- as are personal integerity, and self-motivation. With a flexible approach, you'll be able to adapt to change- moving with changes within the role.


I'm not kidding, I want this job.

Today I received some rather good news at work. I shall be changing my working pattern from 2-10 to 9-5. Meaning a lot of free time has been freed up! Hurray. I'll be able to spend my evenings with my wife, friends and general stuff I haven't been able to do.

Which includes starting/joining a band. I'm really starting to miss music. I played my guitar/keyboard or sang pretty much every day for around 3 years. Now I rarely pick it up, rather than to do the tunes at church. Which is a shame.

Maybe I'll just do some recordings on my own. Or something. Either way, I think you might have some Scott McFarlane originals to listen to in the near future.

I just watched Supersize Me , and I'm so glad Scott and I already started our diet. Sprouts and tomatoes anyone?

In response to this matter I wrote a letter to the Department of Justice...


Dear Mr. Acosta,

I understand that this situation, in which four Christians in Philadelphia were arrested for speaking out against homosexuality in public, is a tricky one for the Department of Justice and the United States as a whole. On the one hand, we must be considerate and fair in our treatment of our homosexual citizens; yet on the other, we must not discriminate against members of a certain religious community by disallowing them their freedom to assemble peacefully and their freedom of speech as given to us by our Bill of Rights (Amendment I: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.") While the Christian view of homosexuality appears intolerant and offensive to those of differing beliefs, a Christian would be forced to stand unfaithful to his or herself and to God if forced to remain silent on the subject. While the Christian faith does not advocate or tolerate hatefullness or ill-treatment of homosexuals, it does teach that the practice of homosexuality is detrimental to one's eternal soul. It is for this reason, and for the responsibility to remain true to the Bible which is believed to be the Word of God, that Christians speak out against homosexuality. It is intended to be an act of love, of concern for the eternal lives of others, not one of hate. This is not always how it is displayed in actual performance, but it is the Biblical principle that Christians strive to follow.

It has been reported that the Department of Justice is refusing to investigate this situation because some Department of Justice attorneys were present when these people were arrested and advised members of the Philadelphia police on how to arrest them on charges of ethnic intimidation. If this is indeed the truth, I believe the Department of Justice has failed in its responsibility to the citizens of the United States. I do not know the whole story of what happened in Philadelphia; obviously, I can only rely on the media's representation. I do not mean to claim the arrested Christians' innocence, as I do not know if any distasteful activity took place on their behalf. I am unaware of the full details regarding the situation, but then again, isn't that the very point? No one can know the full details unless a fair trial takes place. Innocent of hate crimes or guilty, these four individuals deserve a fair trial in which they are allowed to defend themselves and their belief system, as also granted in our Bill of Rights (Amendment VI). As the Justice Department of the United States, it is your responsibility to ensure that all citizens receive the investigation adequate to assure a fair trial and hopefully a just verdict. To refuse to investigate this matter is certainly a breach in that responsibility on behalf of those arrested individuals.

This is a request for the Department of Justice to investigate the treatment and indictment of the Christians in Philadelphia. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely...

Congratulations to my brother Matt and his girlfriend-now-fiancee Charity on their engagement!! My wee brother whom I used to try to kill is getting married to an absolutely lovely girl this summer. We've known Charity, well, forever so we all immensely approve.

Ok, ok, so let's cut the chase. The point is, I'm a bridesmaid!!! I've never ever been a bridesmaid!! I was a bride once, but this is completely different. This is my dream come true. Of all my friends who've gotten married (which actually isn't many), none of them have asked me to be a bridesmaid. So I'm very excited that Charity has asked me to do this honour.

But really, that's not the only reason I've posted. The congrats do go out to the sib. I'm very proud of the way my little brother has grown up. Like all kids, Matt could've gone one way or the other, but the wee boy grew up alright. He's an impressive wee man. And he was just the cutest kid EVER--oh my gosh, and he's gonna be a husband.

Greetings and Hellos,

Today is a better day than yesterday. And I slept more than I have for the last few nights. :). Stuff was going down, it's getting better now.

In other news, we got a new mouse. It's a wireless one, but it has a spiffing little charging cradle, which is suweet. So our new website should begin design sometime this weekend. As soon as I find the Macromedia CD.

Well, I just thought I'd post.

Ooooh, yeah. I'm going to be the Secular Music mod again. Fun.

Our Hogmanay "party" was a success. Even though only one couple showed, we had a good time. And as it turned out, had any other couples shown up, we probably would not have enjoyed our new board game, Purple Ronnie's Groovy Game of Risks and Rhymes. It's not a game for all walks of life. It's definitely a "I-dare-you-to-moon-the-bus!" game. Fun times. We also played Scrabble and Absolute Balderdash. Bored games? I think not.

Scott and I have the day off tomorrow so we're hoping to find something exciting to do, like go bowling. Anyone wanna join us?

Tonight we are doing the praise at church so we better get moving. We almost had the chance to babysit for a newborn (!), but the opportunity was passed up. We didn't react fast enough. Oh well, I feel that more babysitting opportunities with this girl might arrive. She's a single mom so I'd imagine she wouldn't mind some free babysitting every now and then. (Yes, free. She's a single mom for goodness sake.)

That's me. (This is how someone in Scotland says "I'm done.")

I spent my fondue set money on a shirt and tie for Scott since nowhere in the freaking land of Great Britain sells real fondue sets. Can a man wear a midnight blue shirt with black trousers? It's such a good blue...

It's a lazy Tuesday morning, and I've blagged myself out of a day of work. Scott is off work until tomorrow, and I hated the idea of missing a special day off with him. So I rearranged my shift to Sunday afternoon (leaving me time to make it to the Rememberance service) and voila! today I am free.

Scott and I are spending the day in true Lori fashion. We're heading up to Glasgow to visit Braehead, IKEA, and John Lewis, in search of clothes, tea cups, and a fondue set. After shopping, we're thinking of catching a movie at UGC (mind you, the biggest cinema in the world, it's like a million stories tall.) I'd quite like to see the Merchant of Venice, being the Shakespeare fan that I am.

Speaking of Shakespeare, [insert seeming pretentiousness] I'm desperate to get my books back. I've been without my books for, what, three months now? I bought a book in a charity shop so I've got something to read but it's not the same as going through a huge collection and selecting the perfect book out of them all. If it were up to me, I'd be reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's Short Stories.[/pretentiousness]

I had a dream last night that I was a freaking amazing painter and that before I became a Christian I had painted a picture of a Bible story (which now that I'm awake, I realize is not a Bible story) about some people who drowned. In the painting the people remained dead because I didn't believe God had saved them. But after I had become a Christian, I painted over it and made the people alive. The painting was amazing except for the fact that the alive people I had painted looked like Scott and Pete.

I also dreamed my dad totally rocked and told off the people at his old church for being self-righteous and condescending. The people at his old church aren't actually self-righteous and condescending, but in the dream they were, and my dad rocked.

I'm gonna go gather my husband away from his XBOX LIVE and make him take me shopping.

(SCOTT'S MIDNIGHT P.S.)

It's midnight.

Today was a mega-stressful nightmare ;). "January" sales shoppers everywhere. We didn't go to Glasgow, it was too busy. We didn't go to the cinema, we'd forgotten about the fact that Lori was going to a workmate's birthday party and I was off to a men's fellowship/eat a meal in a pub type thing. It was nice, apart from beer was off the menu due to people in rehab being there.

But I'm pretty sure Lori had fun. Which is the important thing in the end.

Because it is a White Christmas! Yay! For the first time in YEARS there is actually snow on the ground on Christmas. Usually it's too wet, since we live by the river, but this year has done us well.

Lori and I exchanged presents this morning. Our very first Christmas in each other's company. Lovely. Then we walked through to the kitchen to get breakfast, noticed and celebrated the snow. Before Lori monopolised the bathroom. And I phoned BT to sort our crackly phone line.

Incidentally, poor guy. He was working on Christmas morning with people moaning about their broadband and stuff. I felt bad. I think he was sleeping when I called to be honest, he didn't seem quite with it.

I just got sidetracked with other people's blogs for ten minutes. No one else is sad enough to post at this time. Haha, I am the ultimate blogging dweeb.

Have a good day, and I hope Santa is good to you all. He was to me.

P.S. Check out the link.

-by Scott.




Yuletide Ponderings
-by Lori.

Last night at the Christmas Eve service we attended, a few Christmasy thoughts came to mind as we sang The First Noel. I've never thought too in depthly about the Christmas story and how it all worked to fit into God's plan and character. Here's what I thought about:

1) God always chooses the lowly and poor to reveal himself to. On the night Jesus was born, angels appeared to the shephards. Why the shephards? God could've revealed himself to well respected members of the Jewish community, or at least the truly godly ones. Certainly there were better deserving people who could've received this message and gone to worship. But God sent angels to the shephards. Probably mostly young men, even boys. And they believed what they heard and went to worship the new King.
Then I started wondering what happened to those shephards as they grew up. Did they follow what was happening in Jerusalem with the little boy they knew to be the Messiah? Did any of them become followers when Jesus began his ministry? Were any of those shephards who were present at Jesus' birth find themselves present at his death, too, or resurrection? I wonder what happened to them after 30 years passed with nothing spectacular happening with that baby they found lying in a manger.

2) The second verse of The First Noel then deals with the wise men and I got to thinking about them. In Romans (I think it's Romans) Paul says that no one is without excuse of not knowing God because God has shown Himself in all things. The wise men from the East saw a star they couldn't explain. They believed in their hearts that this star must mean something incredible--so incredible that they picked up their things and traveled for two years across the continent to find out what was at the other end. They were Gentiles. They were not part of God's covenant to the Jews. They knew nothing of God. Yet by faith, by the way God showed Himself to all the world (for I imagine anyone could've seen the star, and anyone could've, by faith, followed it) wise men from a foreign land came and worshiped.

So then, were they saved by faith? We have no reason to believe they stayed in Bethlehem and heard of Jesus' life and death. Yet they had faith in Jesus and knew him to be a great and mighty King. Obviously this is not something we are able to know while on this earth, but it struck me as interesting. Surely the whole world was without excuse those years that the star was in the sky--except the men who followed it.

I also find it interesting that, while God sent angels to the lowly shephards, he also showed the star to educated and wise men all the same. God doesn't actually exclude learned people from his Kingdom, it's just that learned men most often will reject God. God deliberately showed Himself to the poor shephards, but God also gave everyone the chance to follow His star. The wise men knew enough about astronomy to know that this star was unique. Yet instead of considering one of nature's oddities, they followed it believing it was more. And they found the Messiah. And they brought him gifts and worshipped him. Interesting.


Merry Christmas.

I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

After hearing "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" about six times every day since the beginning of December, and after looking at the cheesy Christmas decorations on our blog every time I make a post, I have decided Christmas is over for scottandlori.blogspot.com. It's not over for the real Scott and Lori--no, no, that is still to come, and I am still excited!! But for now, we're going with the superhero look. Our superhero pictures to the sides are now fixed to where you can click on them and see a larger image.

We have the internet at our house. :D Merry Christmas!!

Of Broadband. Not Greyskull, although that'd be cool. 1 Mbit per second. Suweet.

Although, the speed isn't that impressive in reality, since we're pretty far away from the exchange and a lot of people are online right now, it being peak time and all that. But it still beats nothing/dial up.

Anyway, Lori redecorated, I think she was sick of Christmas. Scrooge.

Does everyone know she doesn't intend to tell our kids about Santa? :(

Holy crap! I just found, like, a million friends' blogs! See new section in sidebar.

When I was a kid, I coloured really hard. I didn't like when other kids coloured lightly because you couldn't really get the full colour that way. I pressed hard so the colour would be as vibrant as the wrapper around the crayon.

I broke a lot of crayons. But thats when you simply peel back the paper and get on with it.

I've always been "hard handed." I slam car doors with the best of them. I stomp. I twist tightly. I yank. I plunk. I slam. I'm wound up tighter than a tick, as they say. I think tighter than a clock makes more sense, but I didn't start the saying. It's just how I am. I don't do this intentionally; it doesn't reflect my mood or my attitude. I just do things powerfully. I break crayons. I prefer to think of myself as vibrant.

I'm strong spoken, too. I say what needs to be said that no one is saying. I wouldn't say I'm blunt, but I'd say I'm honest. Extremely. I yell if it is necessary. Sometimes I don't realize I'm yelling. I think I'm just speaking. But people tell me I'm yelling, and I guess they'd know. I fight sometimes, but sometimes people have to fight. If you don't fight, you don't fix things, and if you don't fix things, life gets complicated.

But this has gotten me into trouble numerous times. Needless to say, teachers didn't like me breaking their crayons, even if I had the prettiest colouring pages out of the class. Amanda and Scott always scold me for slamming the car doors. Downstairs neighbours hardly appreciated my heavy steps around the house. And people certainly have not liked me in the past because of the way I speak. But it's something I can't seem to change, and where the honesty comes in, I don't think I should. I don't do things forcefully on purpose, and when I think about it, I try extra carefully to be softer. If you point it out to me, I'll see that I did slam, and I'll try not to do it again. But the thing is, I will. I will do it again. My body is stiff as a board, and I dream about punching people. I'm a forceful person. It's in my marrow. How does one change something so indigenous to one's entire being?

But today I was told it must end. No ifs, ands, or buts. And if I don't stop, I'll probably get fired.

My boss had a talk with me today after work. No one likes to be called aside by one's boss; it always means you are doing something wrong. He asked me how I felt I was doing at the job. Sheepishly, I answered, "I think I'm doing well. Does this mean you don't think I'm doing well?" Indeed, it always does. He told me then and there he can't stand how heavy handed I am. "It just has to stop. No trying. It has to."

I sat there speechless as he told me how all day long I slam mugs down, drop dishes in the sink, stomp all around, and speak bluntly. But-- but I-- when do I do all this? And how exactly am I to stop? I told him I was completely unaware of all this and that I'd do my best to catch myself. He said that wasn't good enough. I told him he'll have to tell me as I'm doing it because I have no idea I'm being forceful. He didn't respond. That was it.

And the ironic thing? After that, he went on to scold me for not telling them when I am upset about something. After telling me I'm too blunt to customers (which I didn't think I was--I just try to speak clearly because they're all old and can't understand my "Australian" accent), he tells me to speak up if I'm upset. I won't go into the details on that one, but the one time I've gotten upset with the management, I decided to just let it go and then I got in trouble for letting it go. Sigh. Today's a rotten day.

I shall go now and practice being soft.