Gil Hibben Throwing Knives Review

 

I got this set of beauties the other day, and let me tell you, it was a much anticipated arrival.

I get all ridiculously excited about getting the mail on normal days, as it is. But if I'm expecting a package? You can expect obsessiveness when it comes to checking the mail. Obsessing with a capitol "O".

 

With shipping combined, I paid about 50 bucks for these Gil Hibben tanto-style throwing knives, on Budk.com. I can tell already that they were worth the price.

 

I'm no expert knife thrower by any means, but I can usually tell a quality knife when I see one. These came with razor sharp tips, and well-balanced. They are SOLID. Heaviest throwers I have yet acquired. My other set is cool too, and there a lot more of them, but they are really small in comparison and not balanced as well.

 

As you can see, they are fairly large knives in general. I am confident I could use them as weapons or for utilitarian purposes even if I wasn't throwing them.

 

Nonetheless, they were made for throwing. I tried them for the first time today outside and used several big pine trees as targets. The knives came with a thin tarp-material practice target which was an added benefit but I just need to find a place to put it up sensibly. The knife blades stuck into the tree effortlessly, and stuck deep. It took a little exertion to get them un-stuck from the bark/outer layer of the tree.

 

This might sound kind of odd, but I find an interesting sort of pleasure in listening to the knife whiz through the air and sinking into the target. With my other, smaller throwers, I couldn't hear them whistling as much. And the "thud" was smaller. With these Hibbens? Boy, they whistle as they fly. And the thud is realllyyy satisfactory. ^_^ Random note, there, but hey, I just figured it was an added benefit you should know about.

 

 

I'll admit, once again, I'm no authority on the sport of knife-throwing. I have been doing it for about two years now on and off, but not very seriously. I haven't practiced lately in a lonnnng while...today was the first time in months actually. My brothers can tell you, I'm pretty lousy. I agree with them.

Right now. Give me another several weeks and that will hopefully change.

 

There is an art to knife throwing and it ain't easy in many regards. I am still trying to figure out the perfect balance of how to throw it...how to align one's body in preparation to throw, how to position your throwing arm and how to actually throw. How to hold the knife when you throw. Sounds basic, right? Eh, not really. At least, not until you figure out what you're doing and develop a rhythm/pattern which you follow each time. I am so inconsistent right now. One time, I'll stick all 3 knives in the target area without any trouble, the next, I throw and all 3 bounce off the tree in 3 different, unpredicted directions. O_O

 

You definitely need patience with this. But, with well-made knives like these Hibbens, it should make it a heck of a lot easier for you. I purposely chose the "large" size because I have tended to overestimate sizes of knives in the past and with knife throwing especially, I think it's important to get a good, big knife. They are way easier to handle than little throwers, in my opinion.

 

Want some Hibben tanto throwing knives of your own? You can find some here.

 

I hope you enjoyed this review!  Do any of y'all throw? What are your favorite knives to use? I'd love to hear about it!

 

Blessings!

Seven Billion {WriterlyWednesday}

{this is an abbreviated version of a song I wrote two days ago}

 

 

"Seven Billion"

By Leah K. Oxendine

 

 

Coffee brown skies, and coal black sidewalks,

Yellow taxi-cabs racing down the street.

Millions of people brushing past me,

And I forget whether I’m coming or going.

Welcome to New York City, welcome to a hurting land.

The neon lights are burning bright, but

They can’t hide the darkness thriving here.

 

Seven billion people on planet earth,

Seven billion lives of incredible worth

Seven billion souls in this world, and how many of seven billion have truly heard?

How many lives have been touched?

By hands reaching out, spreading God’s Holy Word?

 

How many souls have been told the Good News?

And how they can be saved from hell and what Jesus can do?

Seven billion, that’s a pretty huge number,

 but the Lord made us all incredibly unique and special.

As children of God, we’ve been given a task,

to spread the gospel to as many as we can.

 

Towering pine trees and fields of green,

prettiest landscape that I ever did see.

Horse farms scattered all across the county,

rolling down the road, pick-up trucks and dualees.

Welcome to Fairfield Florida, welcome to a needy land

The stars, they shine in the clear night sky, but they can’t hide the darkness dwelling here.

 

What are we doing, sitting here;

drowning in the waters of our own fears?

Why do we worry, what others think?

Why do we let that worry stop us from witnessing?

Why do we worry about others’ thoughts?

When we step outside our comfort zones we step into God’s.

-

 

I stayed up till' 4 in the morning to write that. O_O Scary, right? Well, when God gives you inspiration, you can't just dump it because of what time of day it is.

I'm pretty pleased with it. Maybe one of these days I'll stop being lazy and try to record it somehow so you can hear it. I wrote it mainly with intentions of using it in our church band, so if you REALLY wanna hear it you just need to come to our church sometime! XD

 

Apologies for not posting anything lately. Life is hectic as always and I've been trying to cut how much time I spend on the computer so I can spend more time with my family, God, and instruments. :D I am planning to post something for FabHealthFriday this week however, about natural deodorants! How exciting, no? Heheh.

 

 

Have a blessed day! What's new with y'all this week? I'd love to hear about it!

Adventures Up North {nyc 2013}

Well, last weekend Daddy and I flew up north to the biggest city in the USA.

 

New York City.

 

This was my...let's see...sixth time I've been to the Big Apple. Kinda hard to believe, but I've been going with my dad since 2009, once every year for his ASGA conference. (See me working there at this album here) These are all business trips, I help Daddy by assisting with conference set-up and tear down, as well as running the ASGA store and registration process.

 

But it usually doesn't end just with work. On our last day, before we catch a flight home, we usually spend a few hours sightseeing.  Here are some of the photos I snapped throughout the trip.

 

 

This was the view from six floors up at our hotel in Brooklyn.

 

 

I know it may seem odd that I decided to snap photos of ruins...but in case y'all didn't already know, I am slightly obessed with abandonded buildings. This particular was was being torn down while we were there.

 

I found this rather interesting, and haunting at the same time.

 

Don't you wonder what's inside that door?!

 

Okay, enough with the pictures of a condemned building. xP Here is what our hotel room looked like. Daddy was just getting up from his chair...hehe.

 

Moi snapping a photo of the bathroom/closet/mini-kitchen area. This room was pretty small and everything was compact and the space utilized to maximum effeciency. Typical for NYC style.

 

On Sunday, (our last day- also the day we came home) we got to take a tour of the Radio City Music Hall. This was the main stairway in the lobby. I thought it was pretty neat. The ceiling was HIGH.

 

 

On the actual stage of the music hall!

 

Music Hall seating.

 

Me on the stage! Pretty neat view.

 

 

 

Bad, bad, bad hair day. Actually, the whole weekend my hair was behaving terribly. I think it was because of the change in atmosphere, temprature and humidity. My hair is used to 100% humidity and apparently NYC doesn't have that. XP Oh well, what are cute newsboy caps for? *grins*

 

Daddy.

 

Moi again, snapping a photo of myself in the mirror of a column in another lobby a floor below the stage. I though the architecture here was interesting. And even the color scheme. It was all chosen for specific reasons...e.g., the designer thought that black paint on the walls would simulate a calm atmosphere and encourage people in the room to be quieter for the audiences upstairs who might've been watching a production.

 

From the highest level of seating in the music hall. Whew, this is pretty high up. The acoustics were amazing however.

 

Another classy stairway, with cool abstract-musical instrument carpeting.

 

Side-walk POV! Love the retro signs.

 

I kinda really like this. ^^

 

Times Square!

 

One of my dreams is to one day return here with a group of other people and hand out tracts on the sidewalk, and do street evangelism. I would love to organize a mission trip up here...this is a spiritually starved city and there is so much darkness and sin amidst all the bright lights and crowds of people!

 

Daddy again!

 

I personally think this is a horrid picture of me. -_-

 

We ate at a cute little restaurant underneath Grand Central Station. The french toast there was delish. Mmm. Got to have some really good, deep conversations with Padre. This is one of my favorite things about getting to travel on these business trips with him.

 

Leaving Midtown, on the way to the JFK airport.

 

I thought this bridge was cool. Sorry for the quality of the picture, it was shot out a cab window.

 

That concludes the photos from the trip, but I hope you enjoyed them! It was a great trip and I really enjoyed it. The conference went well, I got to meet and talk to interesting people,  enjoy the cold weather, see some neat sights, spend quality time with my dad, and eat yummy food. ^_^ And the flights, both up there and back, were smooth as peanut butter.

 

It can't get much better than that, can it?

 

I love being home schooled. And I love having a dad who is awesome enough to take me with him on his business travels. God is good!

 

None the less, as much as I enjoyed this trip, I am glad to be back in the south where I belong.

If even my hair seems to protest, I guess that should say something...

 

I'm a country, Florida girl and that's who I'll always be.

Halftee Review!

 

I was so excited when my Halftee came in the mail the other day. I had heard about these from a friend's blog, and the concept immediately interested me.

 

In case you're wondering, or have never heard of these before, Halftees are for layering purposes - obviously you wouldn't wear that little tiny mini-shirt above as a regular shirt!

 

Maybe you have a really adorable blouse in your absolute favorite color...The only problem? Neckline's too low. 

In situations like this...Enter the Halftee! It's a marvelous little half-shirt which, unlike full layering tops, has less fabric and is therefore more practical and convenient...less fabric means it won't be as hot and you won't have a ton of excess fabric bunching up awkwardly.

 

I was sent a black lace (don't you just LOVE black lace?!) halftee to review. You can find it/buy it here.

 

Please bear with me on the lame photos. I took them last minute before I had to go to a church band performance, hence the shirt.  Okay, I'll be honest. This is positively the most ugliest shirt in my wardrobe so I guess it's ironic that I paired it with such a pretty little piece. :P BUT anyways. I needed to help Mom with dinner and I had just come from testing my tree-climbing skills in the woods...(don't ask) so...didn't have time to throw together something really fashionable or chic.

And truth be told I just look like an utter mess here.

 

As you can see, the lace is extremely see-through. I would not recommend this particular Halftee as a cover-up means for a low neckline. I chose this one mainly just because 1., I loveeee black lace and think it is so elegant, and 2., because I had NOTHING black lace in my closet before now. This Halftee is great for dressing up your more plain, everyday stuff.

 

 

Like I said, I was a mess. And my hair? This is how it is about 90% of my life. Yeah. Bleh.

I don't usually have the time for nice hairstyles during workdays around the house. We're talking practicality here, people, not fashion queen style.

 

Notice the intricate lace detail. Very feminine, light and delicate. One thing you should note if you get one of the lace Halftees, is that the sleeves, even on a tall, long-armed girl like myself, are very long. 

 I got a size large because when I looked at the options on the Halftee website, the sizes appeared to run small and I didn't want to send my Halftee back because it was too small. I am however usually a small or medium in shirts, and I do own a good number of extra-smalls(which ran true to size) in tops as well.

 

Now, my halftee is fine on me, and judging by the sleeves I probably could have gotten away with a medium, but when you're ordering off the web you just never know. I usually overestimate to be safe.  

 

 

As you can see, you can also wear this Halftee with more formal attire... even though this doesn't really match this particular dress...-_- I need to find a solid print dress to pair with the Halftee.

 And yes, these were more last minute messiness photos that I snapped in a matter of minutes. 

 

If you would like to buy your own Halftee, you can visit their website here. 

 

 This is my first official review so I'm sorry if I rambled or yacked too long on messes and minor trifles. And once again I apologize for the quality of the pictures. You will probably see a better outfit combination using the halftee in the future on the fashion blog I run.

 

 

Anyways, hope y'all are having a blessed weekend!

Oh The Joys of Movie Editing...

 

Here's the product of much annoyance with Adobe Premiere Pro and YouTube...not to mention, a good many hours spent trying to figure out how to correctly export the file...without it taking 20 hours to accomplish. (seriously, one time YouTube stated that's how long it would take...O_O)

 

This is just a bloopers/outtakes video compiled from footage we filmed about a year ago for GFP's Rumpelstiltskin.

 

Hope you enjoy! (And if anyone has any tips on how to utilize Adobe Premiere well PLEASEEE let me know. I've been having...er...quite a time figuring out this thing. At least I'm still on the trial for 7 more days. -_-)

 

P.S. I know it's unusual for me to post twice in one day, but with all the effort that went into this single video (That sounds pretty pathetic, doesn't it?) I just had to share it with y'all.

Ch-ch-ch-Chia Seeds! {FabHealthFriday}

 

"Long ago, before the Spanish conquest of Latin America – and well before the Ch-ch-ch-chia Pet was born – chia seeds were a staple food, like corn and beans, in the diets of the Aztecs and Mayans. Chia actually got its name from the Mayan word for “strength.”

 Aztecs and Mayans consumed chia seeds regularly, grinding them into flour, pressing them for oil and drinking them mixed with water. At this time in history, chia seeds were considered to be almost 'magical' because of their ability to increase stamina and energy over long periods of time.

After the Spanish conquest of Latin America, chia seeds and their benefits became somewhat eclipsed, as the Spanish introduced their own foods and prohibited the farming of chia. Now, as modern scientists and nutritionists are recognizing the extreme lack of certain nutrients in the standard American diet, they are looking to history for natural solutions, including chia. Because of this, it is regaining popularity and its benefits are becoming known to modern America.

The chia seeds are “super” because, like a superfruit, they deliver the maximum amount of nutrients with minimum calories. They have several of the same benefits as the more well-known “super seed” flax, but unlike flax seed, you don’t need to grind them to reap the health benefits. The nutritional benefits of chia include fiber, omega fatty acids, calcium, antioxidants and much more – even protein! Chia absorbs up to 12 times its own weight and expands to curb your appetite, so adding just an ounce or so of chia seeds to your diet can reduce caloric intake and help lower the energy density (or calories) of foods, plus double the amount of fiber you receive."  (Information source)

 

 

 

If you haven't guessed by now what we're going to talk about today, it's the fabulous little chia seed.

 

Part of the Bulk Herb Store order we got recently (read about it here), I have just started adding it to my diet. My favorite way to have it is to throw a teaspoon of the tiny seeds in a salad, with almonds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and fresh greens from the garden; topped with my homemade Italian vinaigrette.

They are hardly noticeable in the salad because they are just so teeny! So it's not trouble at all getting them in my body.

 

 

 

Here are some of the many, abounding health benefits of chia seeds:

 

1. Helps with weight loss/maintaining a healthy weight.

2. Boosts metabolism and stamina.

3. Is a good source of calcium.

4. EXCELLENT source of essential omega 3 fatty-acids. In fact, chia seeds have more of this than salmon which is famous for high omega 3 fatty-acid content.

5. Great source of potassium.

 

If you are an athlete or distance runner you will definitely want to add chia seeds to your diet. Many marathon runners now swear by them. They’ve been known to provide surges of energy during and after a workout.  Being a distance runner myself, I can say I certainly am interested in getting extra energy during my runs!

 

You can eat chia seeds both raw (like I do in my salads) or in cooked items like breads and just about any other food product.  You can eat them by themselves, or mix them into  yogurt and even ice cream or pudding! The possibilities are endless.

 

If you're convinced you need to try some of these amazing little seeds, the Bulk Herb Store has some for sale for a pretty reasonable price.

 

Happy Friday!

Come Check out Creation Gals!

Howdy y'alls! I just wanted to invite you to come visit a new Creation Science blog a friend and I started. We named it Creation Gals since it is the two of us writing the articles.

 

The blog is still under construction so bear with us for a couple days while we straighten things out.

 

We will be posting about all things Creation Science related...everything from fulgurites and astronomy to marine biology and physics. Also, information on debunking evolutionism and atheistic theory.

 

We'd love to have you come check it out!

 

 

Blessings,