Kathy’s Neighborhood

1 Thessalonians 1:8 The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it.
Each of us has a “frontier” where friends, relatives, and neighbors are our mission field. Can you think of someone today who needs to hear the good news?

Those who love Christ have a love for the lost.

Colossians 3:2 "Let heaven fill your thoughts; don't spend your time worrying about things down here."
If you are a Christian, you can look to Christ's promise of a heavenly home He has gone to prepare (John 14:2). Don't try to find heaven on earth. You won't - no matter how hard you look!
Those who have their hearts fixed on heaven will hold loosely the things on earth.

This Quest is a 2 week quest to give you time to reflect on what you are thankful for and how to capture that in a photo.  We have had a lot of quests on techniques and photos effects.  In this quest take what you have learned about photography and whatever photo software you use and create some photos of what makes you thankful.

For this quest you can use any photos you have and submit individual photos or a groups of photos.  Get artistic and try different effects on your photos...filters, artistic, exposure and frames.  Anything goes just lose your creative juices and have some fun.

I wish all that celebrate Thanksgiving a very wonderful time with family and friends. 

Gees this week had a record 10 entries..sorry I'm late in commenting on them...I have the Thanksgiving rushing, stressed, out of control blues...well not really blue but it sounded good!  Of course when I'm all stressed out I have the most entries ever.  This is not a complaint as I'm thrilled with all the entries.

OK here goes starting with the 1st entry, I'm going to comment on the one I like the best of each post and why I picked the photo.  Oh you also have to know that it is 10:30 pm and I'm trying to get everything together for a Thanksgiving event that starts tomorrow morning. 

1st to post this week was TanyaRPM.  My favorite was her photo of fallcuties.  What I liked the best of this photo was that both the dog and her little boy are leaning in on each other.  It is a great photo showing the relationship of the dog and the boy as being equal and dependent.  The beautiful big eyes of the dog lead you right to the little boys face...very nice composition and the wonderful depth of field and bokeh background set off the subjects perfectly. 

2nd to post was Darcy with her amazing PC spider.  Im not sure that this spider is a pet but it is cute and this is a creative photo as I have never seen a spider on a PC before!

3rd to post was Maju with the most incredible cat that likes dental floss.  OK now is the some kind of world record...I never have heard or seen a cat that flosses.  My favorite of Maju's set of photos is the 4th photo as it looks as if the cat is have such a great time.  I know how hard it is to get good photos of cats and photos of cats doing something are the hardest ever...Maju's photos are wonderful.

Now the 4th to post photos this week was Jacolily,  Oh this was a very hard decision as all these photos were great.  I think it was some what unfair of her to post so many wonderful photos of dogs and kids...very hard to judge the best one there.  So I pick her first photo of the kitten around her neck.  Not only is a great photo but I vote for Jacolily as the bravest women I know!

For the 5th entry along comes Anthrogrrl with photos of her dogs.  I went back and forth several times to look at her photos to pick the one I liked best...I have to go with photo titled ears.  I like the curve of the dogs head and neck and the shine on the coat...very nice photo!

#6 was Spike with some great cat photos.  Yes, I do agree with Spike that cat photos are the hardest to get.  My pick here is the Halloween cat photo.  I like that it is done in black and white and she had nailed the eyes on this cat...great work Spike!

Then we have # 7 Yancunyong.  OK you get the award for the most unusual pet a Stag Beetle.  Wow now I've never heard of having a beetle as a pet.   I liked this photo as the beetle was very well exposed and the pinchers looked very dangerous...is this the Stag Beetle that ate Tokyo?

For #8 CountrybyDesign wowed me with some great photos of her dogs.  I had to look at her series several times to pick my favorite.  I'm going with her 4th photo of her dog Paya in an old photo look.  In this photo the dog really stands out.  Nice work Country!

Now for #9 Amy Sue posted some great photos.  Again it was very hard to pick the one I liked the best as I like them all.  After looking at the photos over and over again I have to go with her first photo of her mom and bandit.  There is such a terrific connection between her mom and her dog that Amy Sue captured in this photo and it is a winner.

Ok for the last entry #10 by RealWorld...now who can resist kittens...all his photos are great.  Since this quest was on creative pet photos I have to go with the headbanger photo...very creative and fun too!

Thanks all for your wonderful entries this week and making this the best Photo Quest ever!

Galations 5:25 "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

Fruitofthespirit

Christians have fruit called the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). Each “fruit” is a different aspect of Christlikeness. In the Gospels, we see how Christ exemplified these virtues. Now He wants to produce them in our hearts—in what we say, how we think, and how we respond to life (John 15:1-4).

A rare and delicious fruit may bring a premium price in the marketplace, but Christlike character is of far greater worth. As we confess all known sin and yield to God’s indwelling Spirit, our lives will be transformed to the likeness of Christ (1 John 1:9; Eph. 5:18). This spiritual fruit will fill our lives with joy, bless those around us, and last into eternity. Fruitfulness for Christ depends on fellowship with Christ.

Mark 12:44 "They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on."
The widow wasn’t trying to draw attention to herself. She was simply doing what she was able to do. And Jesus noticed!

We mustn’t forget that our Lord sees all that we do, though it may seem very small. It may be nothing more than showing a cheerful countenance in difficult times or an unnoticed act of love and kindness to someone who happens to pass by. It may be a brief, silent prayer for a neighbor in need.

Jesus said, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. . . . But when you do a charitable deed, . . . may [it] be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly” (Matt. 6:1-4). God looks at the heart, not the hand; the giver, not the gift.

First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!

The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.

TypePad Micro

2 comments

A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.

Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.

On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.

And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!

~ daisy

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4).
Pay attention to the components of your hobby, to see if any part of it can be used to serve God and others. "God knows that we are driven by our passions, because he created us to be eager to do what we enjoy. The desires of our heart are quite simply God's way of giving us a compass for the paths he wants us to take. For that, I am so grateful."

As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.

The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.

When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.

It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.

Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.

As always, thanks for your patience.

~daisy