NaBloPoMo 30

My darling dearest Stewie has a fascination with shoes, and has got his teeth into my wedding shoes thus ruining them and making them unwearable.

They were like this just before the wedding:


And are now like this:



He did all this a while ago but I loved the shoes because they could be worn everyday and went with lots of outfits, as well as the fact they were the shoes I got married in.

Recently I have been looking in the stores for these shoes and had no luck, so decided to look up the Faith website and call the headquarters and see if maybe there were some there.... it was a small chance but I thought what the heck it's only a phone call and if I don't ask I'll never know. So I called and asked and what I learned for today was that there was only one available pair of these shoes in my size left and that they were in Milton Keynes. I called the store in Milton Keynes and they told me that I would need to come into the store to buy them, they can't accept payment over the phone or transfer the shoes to a more local store. I was really bummed by this, one pair left in my size! I was thinking God was just teasing me with this! I was texting Rob about it and he suggested asking about us posting the money instead. So I called the store back and asked, even saying I'd pay double for them, the girl called her manager to speak to me who said that she would send the shoes to me for the price they were and not have to pay postage, however I couldn't send cash it would need to be vouchers bought from a local store. I bought some vouchers, as well as a box of chocolates and a thank you card to send them.

It's not often that retailers take such good care of their customers, but I'm really appreciative and recommend to any of the ladies out there to go have a shop in Faith sometime!


Well this is the end of NaBloPoMo folks, I know it's been a bumpy ride with some really really REALLY dodgy posts but it's been fun at the same time!

Now back to our regular programming.....

NaBloPoMo 29

On Sunday I was at a youth rally with our young people, which i mentioned before. The night was led by Worship Ireland and at the end of the night they gave out a free CD. I got round to listening to it in the car today and really enjoyed it.

There was a track in the middle that was a talk and it gave me my NabloPoMo thing for the day:

Henry J. Heinz is someone we all know and love.... well I do at least. It turns out that he was a Christian and at the age of 9 he was growing, making and selling his own horseradish sauce. At 17 he was making about $2,500 a year - a lot of money at that time.
Later on as his business grew so did his workforce and he was a very caring boss - he had a swimming pool at the factory so the employee's familys could come and spend the day there, as well as being the first employer to pay for the employee's health care. An inspiration to many bosses and managers to follow him.

NaBloPoMo 28

I do an assembly in a special needs school once a month, which I look forward to: it's a great school where as soon as you walk in you know it's a place full of love.

It's only a small thing for NaBloPoMo today, but the children taught me a new song.

They are practicing hard for Christmas and will actually be coming to our church luncheon group next Tuesday to entertain us before our Christmas dinner as well as visiting a nursing home the following day for a repeat show.

NaBloPoMo 27

Is it cheating if I say I've learnt more about pensions today?

A wee bit? OK well here's something else...

Rob learnt this a while ago, which is surprising seeing as it's cooking related and I do 99% of the cooking, but I've just learnt it today.

How to Turn Cheap "Choice" Steaks into Gucci "Prime" Steaks

There'll be a post on Just Add Eggs sometime soon about the results of our steaks tonight.

NaBloPoMo 26

Well a fellow NaBloPoMo-er (is that a word?) has taught me something useful today:

To get the “one search engine to rule them all” (meaning google) to search a specific web site, just sart your search string with the name of the site preceded by “site:”. So yesterday I used the search site:marramgrass.org.uk jpod to find my old post.

Thanks marramgrass

Personal questions....

Sundays are my busiest days and usually on Sunday mornings after Bible Class I'm running around the church trying to find people before the service for various reasons because as soon as it's over everyone rushes home for their Sunday roast.

Today while I was rushing around someone stopped me for a quick chat and asked, "have you put weight on recently?" I didn't know what to say, I was really caught off guard! Like there was no "how are you?" or anything before hand! In truth yes, I have, not much, so little that I didn't think it would be that noticeable to other people. Well I kind of laughed and said "well sure everyone does around Christmas". The next question was "are you pregnant?" The phrase "none of your business" came to mind but I laughed again and said no.

I walked away sucking my stomach in and thinking do i look fat?. I don't think I'm all that paranoid about how I look, in general I'm quite happy with it - like most people there are a few things I would change if I could - but these two questions left me feeling very paranoid and self conscious. When I got home poor Rob had to hear all about it.

I've posted before about the campaign for real beauty - why don't I get it into my head that beauty is more than what's on the outside?

Tonight at the local youth rally the speaker was talking about all sorts of things but a little sentence was in there about how we are a unique and beautiful creation, individually crafted by the Maker and unconditionally loved by him. Why should I, or anyone for that matter, be seeking approval from others? I'm not saying I shouldn't take pride in my appearance and want to look my best, but that really I need to find assurance from my Heavenly Father.

NaBloPoMo 25

Just a little thing for today's NaBloPoMo that our visiting preacher told us in the children's address in church this morning:

The fastest time (according to the Guinness world records) that a 12" pizza has been eaten in is 19.91s!!!!! I won't be trying to beat that anytime soon... I'm such a slow eater!

NaBloPoMo 24

Today I was at Building Blocks, a conference for people in children's ministry and one of the seminars I went to was called "Here's something I prepared earlier" talking about planning and preparing for arts and crafts. It was a great class, and we got a chance to make a couple of things ourselves including this Reindeer pencil holder! Cool eh?

Re: Lies damned lies

After reading alan in belfast's post about Tesco clubcard and a mistake they'd made on him. Well this week they've confused me when I've come to use some of my clubcard vouchers this week.... you know the wee vouchers you get for extra points when you buy something specific.

Well earlier in the week I was buying some naan bread and handed the girl at the checkout a voucher I had for extra points when I buy "Bread", but apparently naan BREAD isn't included...... hmmmm. Tonight I was buying some sorbet and had a voucher for extra points when I buy ICE CREAM and thought I'd hand over the voucher seeing as sobet is found beside ice cream in the freezer, and it went through.... I was quite confused. I mean how can naan bread not be bread? And how can sorbet really be ice cream? There's no cream in it for a start!


Maybe tomorrow I should try buying some milk and handing over my voucher for extra points when i buy a CD.

NaBloPoMo 23

I teach a scripture lesson to our junior GB girls most weeks and this week's lesson gave me an interesting tidbit for my NaBloPoMo what I've learnt today thing.

In Acts 16:14 we hear about a lady called Lydia who was a seller of purple cloth (Tyrian purple to be exact). Now purple cloth was very expensive then (maybe not now seeing as it's everywhere in the shops lately) because the purple dye was so rare and difficult to get.

From the GB notes I learned that certain shellfish were gathered and that the oils inside them were white but when exposed to sunlight they turn purple. Yahoo answers answers the question Where did Lydia in the Bible get her purple from? with lots of extra info if you're interested.

NaBloPoMo 22 - part 2

Also just discovered that it's National Buy Nothing Day tomorrow in the US and Canada tomorrow and Internationally on Saturday.

(Lovin the iPod look ad)

NaBloPoMo 22

I read the WikiHow (The how to manual that you can edit) RSS feed everyday where a new "How to" is posted. About a week ago the how to was "Fold a towel elephant" and I thought I'd have a go at it.
The one on "how to" looked like this....


And mine didn't turn out too badly I think....

NaBloPoMo 21 - part 2

I'd never heard of all this before.

HT to "me in my small corner"

NaBloPoMo 21

On Radio 1 today Edith Bowman was talking about celebrities people are tired of seeing and read through some texts people had sent about who they were annoyed with seeing in the news/magazines/tv etc. Someone texted in saying somethign like "have pity on us in Banbridge, Co. Down, we have Chanelle from Big Brother turning our lights on this weekend." I'm not a Big Brother fan so I had to look this girl up to see who she is and found from the Banbridge District site that she's not actually turning the lights on for the town but for The Outlet on 23rd November (as well as opening the ice rink) and that the lights for the town will be switched on by Santa (I think: the website isn't all that clear) on Friday 30th November.

I'll not be able to go to either of them... I'm quite happy to say I'll be working during the outlet thing for a couple of reasons:
1. As I said before I'm not a Big Brother fan so not all that interested in seeing this girl.
2. I decided about 6/7 months ago that I was boycotting the Outlet (I'll maybe explain sometime why)
3. And most importantly.... it'll most likely be cold!!!!! lol

Harry Potter Dilemma followup

I should have posted this sooner for those who were interested, but I'll tell you now what happened to the Harry Potter Dilemma.

The afternoon of the day it had happened I called the girl and asked had she bought copies for her children to keep, because she may have mixed them up. She realised her mistake and said we would swap them back the following Sunday. However she was dropping her daughters off at the pantomime we took the GB to on Friday night and had brought the DVDs with her to give to me and told me to keep the other 2 that she had given me in case the originals were damaged seeing as they had been on loop for weeks and weeks.

Regarding the other "dilemma" of whether to buy order of the phoenix or not, I've decided to wait for several reasons, mainly cos of lack of funds though lol.

I love my local butcher!!!!

I was to get some stuff from the butcher today and was on my way back home from walking Stewie when I realised the time (5.15pm). I called the local butcher and asked what time they closed at and he told me 5.30pm. I said was great, hung up and thought, really in this traffic I won't make it in time. I arrived outside the butcher at 5.35pm and he was still open. I walked in and he asked if it was me who had called. It turns out he had stayed open for me!!! The meat was all packed away for the night but he was more than happy to get me all that I needed and then when it came to paying he rounded the price down to the nearest £!!!!!!

I loved the butcher before but I love him loads more now!!!! Support your local butcher!!!!!!

And check out Just add eggs tomorrow for a new recipe.

Free Rice

I've seen this link posted on a few blogs recently and had a bit of fun playing. It's a bit of a word game where you're given a word and four options of what it means. For each correct answer, the advertisers at the bottom of the page donate 10 grains of rice that the United Nations will distribute to people going hungry. It may not seem like much but it makes a difference.

You may be asking:
If FreeRice has the rice to give, why not give it all away right now?
FreeRice is not sitting on a pile of rice―you are earning it 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

So check out FreeRice and play the game.

NaBloPoMo 20

Work has recently offered me a pension and so this morning was spent talking with the church treasurer about it and learning about how various pension plans work, which was all rather complicated and will require further reading and thinking, but there's what I've learnt for today.

NaBloPoMo 19

Rob and I were just watching a Dispatches documentary tonight on Coca Cola and learnt some interesting facts - however for some of these I can't find any information online to confirm:

1. It takes 2.5 litres of water to make 1 litre of water - I don't know how this works though
2. Cocaine used to be a key ingredient in Coca Cola, but it was removed around 1903
3. The plantations in El Salvador where some the sugar cane needed is grown are dangerous because of the use of machetes and dangerous snakes, employees working here are supposed to be over 18. However it is estimated that 30,000 children are working on the sugar plantations - also meaning the children miss school.
4. About 3/4 of those on death row in one prison in America requested Coca Cola as part of their last meal

The Coca Cola Company sent a statement to Dispacthes that was broadcast giving the website Get The Real Facts for people to look at and make their own decision about Coca Cola.

100 posts!!!!

This is my 100th post on the ruth E babes blog... I'm well impressed I made it this far And think one way to mark the occasion is to highlight 5 of my favourite posts from the blog over the last 100 posts(in no particular order)

1. Geography and Miss Teen USA South Carolina It's just too funny!
2. Johnny Vegas' Guide to.... Evangelical Christianity I really loved watching this show, it just fascinated me.
3. Harry Potter Dilemma (which I'll be posting an update to shortly)
4. Vote Zach Hunter OK he didn't win in the end, but I still love his passion and the work he does... i'll have to read his book sometime to get the same passion.
5. Campaign for Real Beauty Fantastic video!


Well that's it!!!! Here's to the next 100!!!!

Loosing contact(s)

I've been sorting out my address book a little recently and deleting some of my contacts for people I don't see or haven't been in touch with for over 2 years. Before starting this process I had 390 contacts and after sorting it all out I now have 209, that's almost half of my original contacts gone.

Now lots of those were contacts from old businessy type relationships, but there were quite a few old friends where both our paths have just gone different ways and we've lost touch. However it has got me thinking about how many people I've met in my lifetime and wonder how much of an impression/impact I have had/not had on those people. And on the other hand, what kind of impression/impact have they had on me?

The past few weeks I've noticed how i've impacted/impressed upon some of my young people in various ways.
1. I said a word in a rather odd way once when I was talking to them as a group and later in the meeting I caught them trying to say it like I had said it..... made me wonder was this all they heard lol.
2. I was talking to a girl from the group and she was asking about something I had said about 3/4 weeks before hand. She had obviously been thinking about it and could quote me word for word.
3. We've had a few new people join the youth group and get involved in our mini music group. One of the boys turned to one of the girls (who would be similar height and hair colour etc to me) and was asking her did she want a copy of the music for the guitar - she doesn't play guitar so he got her confused with me.

God has given each of us one life to live, and thinking about the number of people I have met through out my life, have i made more positive impacts than negative? I really don't know, but I pray that God will just use whatever impact or impression i do make and use it.

NaBloPoMo 18

This morning we had our GB service, where the the talks were themed around the idea of a mobile phone. One of the talks was titled "What network are you on?" and started by talking about some of the mobile phone networks and about how mobiles connect to their network through aerials on masts. We then heard about how there would normally be several aerials at the top of a phone mast and several huts at the bottom (one for each network). So I learnt all sorts about phone masts today, and might have to google a bit now to find out more.

NaBloPoMo 17

Tonight we had some friends over for a bit of a pot luck dinner (we made the ribs lol) and I'd also bought some lemons and limes to make some nice refreshing water. I sliced the fruit, made some ice and then in went the water. I was quite surprised to see that the limes didn't float! I'd never noticed this before and just had to google a bit:

Stevespanglerscience.com says:
Scientists seem to be infatuated with objects that float and sink. Even non-scientists find great joy in dropping stuff in water to see if it floats or sinks. Fans of David Letterman are quick to point out one of Dave's favorite segments called "Will It Float?" Here's the latest float or sink challenge: Why do lemons float in water but limes sink? .....

......our next step was to weigh the lemon and the lime. Digging through our grocery bag of lemons and limes, we found two that were very similar in size and weight. Both the lemon and the lime weighed exactly 101 grams. If you know the weight, it only makes sense to determine the volume of each fruit. Using displacement of water, we determined that that the lemon had a volume of 99 mL and the lime had a volume of 90 mL.....

....our next step was to weigh the lemon and the lime. Digging through our grocery bag of lemons and limes, we found two that were very similar in size and weight. Both the lemon and the lime weighed exactly 101 grams. If you know the weight, it only makes sense to determine the volume of each fruit. Using displacement of water, we determined that that the lemon had a volume of 99 mL and the lime had a volume of 90 mL. ...

...Since the density of the lemon and lime are very close to water, even very small changes in composition could mean the difference between sinking and floating.

All rather interesting eh?

NaBloPoMo 16

Today has been spent learning how to use my new iPhone. It has been quite a fun day playing with my phone, updating contacts, adding my diary to it etc, unfortunately there's also work to be done.

I have the best hubby!

My hubby doesn't surprise me often, no flowers or chocolates etc, but when he does, he does it in style!

Tonight as I was waiting for Rob to call home to say he had left work so I could start cooking dinner, I was starting to worry because he's supposed to finish work at 9, doesn't usually get to leave until about 9.15ish but tonight the clock was nearing 9.45 and I hadn't heard anything yet - I was starting to worry. I txted asking if he was leaving soon, he replied saying he was leaving. Then he called a few minutes later and said he was on his way and to make up for being late that he'd get me something pretty.

So I got on with making the dinner (which i'll blog about here tomorrow) and when he got home he told me to close his eyes because he got me something already. I closed my eyes and got excited, when he told me to open them again there I saw a fantastic little box that contained a brand new iPhone! All for me! Isn't he the greatest?!?!?!? He bought one for himself as well so we'll be all like a weird couple with matchin phones, but who cares! We have funky cool iPhones!

He's now having fun getting the 2 of them set up and ready for use.... he's like a kid in a candy shop and I love him to bits!

NabloPoMo 15

I finally got round to watching a little of Autumn Watch tonight. It was very interesting, learning all about beavers, grey seals, red deer and much much more. Then a very interesting and rather odd report came on about the sound of trees. I've neer thought trees would have a sound, it's not like you can hear sound coming from the trees when you're walking through a forest right? However Alex Metcalf used listening devices (see picture) against various trees and recorded the sounds to play through some hanging headphones for passers by to listen to (see picture)

Apparently "you will hear the water being pulled up from the roots to the leaves through the xylem tubes.
The clicking sound that you will hear is produced by the water passing through the cells and cavitating."

Monthly review 3

I mentioned in last month's review how I was afraid no on was interested in this information, if you are would you add a wee comment, or even if you're not add a comment and I'll work out the future of these posts.
But for those who are interested here are some of the stats (obtained via Google Analytics) from the last month (13th October-12th November 07) concerning this blog with last months numbers in brackets:


1. There have been 414 (442) visits.
a) 248 (261) of those have come via referring sites
b) 141 (154) of those visits are direct traffic
c) 25 (27) of those visits are from search engines

2. Searches that have brought people to this site are:
portadown babes - 4 times
ruthebabes - 3 times
lurgan babes - 2 times
ruth - 2 times
"god pie"
asbo babes
babes portadown
banbridge babes
banbridgebabes
bebo banbridge night out
debbie mcgee glengormley
debs newtownabbey school teacher
difference between crane and heron
e-babes
forget bra unifrom blogspot
make unleavened bread
ruth all about me
ruth elkin

I've changed the title to ruth E now thinking that people who end up on my blog looking for "babes" must be really disappointed - however I'm sure they'll probably end up here from the mention of all these searches anyways

3. 383 (398) visits came from the UK
19(36) visits came from the USA
3 (3) visits came from Ireland
2 visits came from Canada
1 visit came from Egypt
1 visit came from Spain
1 visit came from Norway
1 (1) visit came from Romania
1 visit came from New Zealand
1 visit came from France
1 visit came from Singapore

Well that's it, please leave a comment if you think I should keep all this up or not.

NabloPoMo 14

I've spent a little time today looking at various church websites and found out that Ballygilbert Presbyterian has a curry club!!!!! I found this really very exciting just because Rob and i love getting Inidian food. It's also an idea I've not seen before in a church and a great way to get people together growing in community and fellowship, enjoying some of the most amazing flavours.

NaBloPoMo 13 - part 2

One other thing I learnt today was what the british equivalent of the american "heavy cream" means - it means "double cream" and the British "single cream" = American "half and half". I needed to know for a recipe I was cooking tonight, which will be posted on my cooking blog tomorrow if you're interested

NabloPoMo 13

Wow!!!! I'm impressed! While entering my blog address into this blog reader test I was really thinking I'd be something like junior high level, I mean this blog isn't all that intellectual, but apparently not.... feeling all chuffed with myself.



HT to Marko

Also using this as something i've learned today for NaBloPoMo, however I might have something else later tonight for it as well.