The Simple Woman’s Daybook: May 20, 2013

Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY May 20, 2013

Outside my window… sunny and in the 80’s.

I am thinking… about the tornadoes in Oklahoma and all the first responders. I’m hoping and praying the death toll doesn’t go up any higher..

I am thankful… for a good birthday weekend.

I am wearing… preeclampsia survivor shirt and running shorts.

I am creating… plot ideas for NaNo.

I am going… to hope I can get some editing done this week in the midst of everything else.

I am wondering… what Friday morning will show. (I’m having an endoscopy.)

I am reading… I just finished Red Velvet Revenge by Jenn McKinlay.

I am hoping… that my endocrinology appointment goes well on Wednesday.

I am looking forward to… Daniel’s bedtime tonight. (Jon is at a meeting and the wee bairn refused to nap.)

Around the house… I’m loving the Roomba that I got from my in-laws even if I have to clean it out perfectly each night.

A favorite quote for today… “Evil is a parasite. It is there only because good is there for it to spoil and confuse.” — C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… Lipton Pure Leaf Raspberry Tea. I can get it in individual bottles at the store. Boo yah!

A few plans for the rest of the week: Morning Prayer tomorow, endocrinologist appointment on Wednesday morning and meeting with austism therapy people for Daniel’s evaluation on Wednesday afternoon, and the endoscopy on Friday.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: May 13, 2013

Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY May 13, 2013

Outside my window… sunny and hot. I do not approve of 90F before June 21st (or really at all).

I am thinking… about the things I would totally say on this blog if I didn’t have to self-censor for pastor’s wife reasons.

I am thankful… for getting so much sleep yesterday and for Jon getting me dinner at Subway.

In the kitchen… spinach salad.

I am wearing… brown t-shirt with a ruched collar and black running shorts.

I am creating… plot ideas for NaNoWriMo in November.

I am going… to have a pedicure on Wednesday morning. I can’t wait.

I am wondering… some really snarky things about people.

I am reading… Red Velvet Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke. I’m reading a bunch of silly murder mysteries these days and it’s giving me a break from my regular life.

I am hoping… it doesn’t hurt too much when they use the Dremel on the calluses on my feet. (I’m a discalced kind of girl.)

I am looking forward to… seeing my parents/evil twin/sister-in-law this weekend for the communal birthday celebration.

Around the house… next question!

I am pondering… why people like to call me a “lib” or a “liberal” as an insult but get so incredibly worked up when I call them a “fascist moron”. 🙂

A favorite quote for today… ??…My idea of God is a not divine idea. It has to be shattered from time to time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?..?? — C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… Lipton Pure Leaf Raspberry Tea.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Morning Prayer tomorrow, pedicure on Wednesday, autism team meeting on Thursday, and communal birthday celebration on Saturday.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (II)

Five Favorites

Ko

Because “House M.D. is off the air… I am reading through the archives of Dr. Grumpy in the House. He’s a neurologist and talks about his more… interesting patients as well as reporting on boring medical symposiums, stupid criminals, and interesting war anecdotes.

Bi

Old Navy flip flops. I am a BAD pastor’s wife because I’ve worn these to church on a few (OK… MANY) occasions because I’m having to chase a 4 year old around. It’s also what I wear a lot of the time when I don’t have running shoes on and I can’t be barefoot. (I’m in a perpetually discalced state most days.)

Old Navy flip flops

Hiru

Louise Penny. I discovered one of her latest books randomly at the library and immediately checked it out to read. It takes place in a monastery where one of the monks has been killed over the chants they do every day as part of their daily prayers. Penny manages to write with a chiaroscuro-like view where you see both the inner darkness of the person as well as elements of light. It’s what makes her novels so excellent.

A Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

Lau

Frappucino love. Starbucks has a new frappucino or two out these days and I’m dying to try the Caramel Ribbon Crunch one. It’s one where it would have to be my breakfast because of the calories and the fact that it packs 3 meals worth of carbs. I must resist the temptation…

Caramel Ribbon Crunch frappucino

Bost

Arabic Easter song. A friend of mine who is an Orthodox deacon’s wife posted this on Facebook and I wanted to share it because it’s an amazing video. Lebanese Christians are effectively doing a flash mob to sing an Easter praise song which actually sounds less strange to my ears than much of the music coming out of the Antiochian Orthodox churches and the Coptic church. (Sorry Tasoni — I’m still getting used to your church’s music. It’s beautiful but it sounds… different to my Western ears.)

Go love up Grace and the others. Grace is hosting this week while entertains guests and enjoys the chrism scent on Mr. Charlie after his baptism.

7 Quick Takes: Blessings, Wait Wait Cinecast, and a Diagnosis.

7 Quick Takes

Usually, I’m chomping at the bit to be first. Tonight, that’s not going to happen. I headed to the Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me cinecast tonight which is a birthday present from my AWESOME and WONDERFUL husband Jon who is staying home with Daniel while I go live it up. (My birthday isn’t until the 19th so you have 16 more days to shop! Hint: I love Barnes & Noble giftcards!) I got home at 10 p.m. and decided to take a shower before I got caught up on blogs/surfing/news and it’s 1:30 a.m. as I’m settling down to do Quick Takes (which are usually done in advance).

— 1 —

Orphans. Do you see these adorable kids?

BrettKaia

Brett (on the left) needs a mama and Kaia (on the right) has a family who needs help raising the funds to bring her home. If you can help out at all, click on their pictures. Please and thank you!

— 2 —

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me cinecast. It was *fabulous*. It was basically the live taping of the radio show but beamed to movie theaters across the country. It was nice to actually see what Tom Bodett looks like, to see Paula Poundstone now 20 years after she used to occasionally be on VH-1, and to watch Mo Rocca who looks so much older than he did in all the “I love the [insert decade]” shows on VH-1. (Yes, I’m aware that it’s been 5-10 years since those were made in many cases). Steve Martin was the special guest and I was a bit underwhelmed by him. Peter Sagal was fabulous and reminded me of a sexy Fortune 500 CEO. Carl Kasell looks elderly but I also remember him reading the news on Morning Edition 30+ years ago while getting dressed in my parents’ bedroom for school while my mom woke up and got ready as well. I’m totally glad I went!

— 3 —

God’s sense of humor. Last Saturday, Daniel decided to take some keys of the keyboard of my laptop while I was in the bathroom dealing with IBS issues. I was able to get most of them back on but some of the plastic pieces were broken so I called HP parts and ordered a new keyboard. After placing the order, I logged into my bank account to transfer funds around because Jon’s paycheck wouldn’t be there until Monday… and found a charge on my debit card for $73 (almost the exact price of the new keyboard) that I hadn’t made. Oh crap! I immediately called my bank and reported it. They were awesome, took all my information, gave me a claim number so I could file a police report, credited the money back to me, and started an investigation. In the meantime, they told me to go to my local branch and get a temporary debit card as mine had been compromised and would need to be replaced. I did have to wait 30 minutes to get a new one (which sucked because my parents were visiting) but I did get some of my murder mystery (A Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny) read and the banker I worked with was helpful. I filed the police report on Monday with my town’s police department and had two excellent officers work with me. My new debit card arrived yesterday and things seem to be fixed for the moment. Meanwhile, I’m having to watch my checking account to see if it has been completely compromised.

Why is this God’s sense of humor? If Daniel hadn’t broken the keys off my laptop, I would never have looked in my account and found the charge and the person could possibly have done worse damage.

— 4 —

Finally! I had to drop pages of health history off with the G-I specialist I see next week this past Wednesday and I scheduled an appointment with my regular nurse practitioner to go over my bloodwork from last week and get back on Singulair because allergies are kicking the crap out of me. Well, last week I had been telling her about all the health issues that I was having and mentioned that my period was being screwy after nearly 20 years of cycles like clockwork (except for pregnancy). She has been suspecting that I have some kind of metabolic syndrome so she added that panel to my lab order. Lo and behold, the panel came back indicating a high likelihood of PCOS which my neurologist (whom I loved and whom I miss a lot) had suspected 5 years ago when she first started treating me. (It was something she picked up on in my health history.) I’m getting in for an endocrinology consult ASAP and will probably also be going to bond with an OB/GYN as well (there will be an ultrasound needed) but it’s nice to know that my inability to lose weight and all that isn’t because I’m lazy — there’s something else going on!

— 5 —

Blessings. Tuesday night, I notice water on the floor of the laundry shed and a load of laundry on Wednesday morning exacerbated it. It was, of course, the morning where I was supposed to be running from 8:30 a.m. until Daniel was picked up from school at 1 p.m. so I expected all this to put hold when I called one of our deacons to deal with it. D, our deacon, cheerfully told me he would be over in 20 minutes and showed up with towels to mop up the water and a bucket to bail the water out of the washer. He took it apart and discovered the issue. While consulting with one of our elders (who used to be one of the deacons), they were en route to a parts store and passed a used appliance place. Well… it turns out that a new used washer was incredibly cheaper than parts and would function better. Our council president went and took care of buying it, the store delivered it, and took the old one away. Meanwhile, D took the clothes that had been in the washer back to his house and washed/dried/folded them before leaving them on our back porch. Given that I was out of clean underwear, convinced that I would have to hit up a laundromat, and deal with that plus Daniel, I was almost sobbing with gratitude to have clean clothes and most importantly CLEAN UNDERWEAR!!!!!! I thanked D profusely over the phone and told his wife M at dinner (it was Ladies’ Night Out for church) how incredibly grateful I was to her for D and how wonderful her husband is. Thank God for wonderful deacons and elders!

— 6 —

Promise Walk for Preeclampsia. You’ll see me start publicizing my Promise Walk in a few weeks but today, I’d like to draw your attention to my dear friend Kate.

Kate and Gus

(I stole this picture off her participant page. Kate, if you want a different one, email it to me and I’ll replace it post-haste.)

Kate is one of the reasons I’m involved with the Promise Walk. She’s heard me talking about my experiences with preeclampsia/HELLP Syndrome and her recognition of her symptoms meant that they were able to monitor her and she was able to carry Gus almost to full-term(?). Things did go south during his birth and a c-section was needed to keep both of them alive but knowledge of the condition was what saved their lives. She’s participating in one of the walks this year so that other women can be made aware of the condition and more lives can be saved. I am totally proud of her and I’d like to ask you to consider throwing a few bucks her way.

— 7 —

Wedding bells. One of the blessings of participating in the Quick Takes for the last two years is that I’ve been blessed to form friendships online with some pretty amazing women. One of them, Emily of A Day in the Life / Emily Runs / Fine Linen and Purple, is getting married tomorrow after an epic engagement (594 days!). Blessings to you and your beloved, dear one and I really hope that some of the wedding pictures involve a light saber battle because you *are* getting married on Star Wars Day. 😉

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: April 29, 2013

Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY April 28, 2013

Outside my window… dark. It was in the 90’s today. I will be smacking the next person who denies climate change.

I am thinking… that in response to people posting about homeschooling their kids to keep them away from “godless liberals”, I totally want to respond by saying that I’m sending my kids to public schools to keep them away from the people saying those things. I almost want to get a shirt that says “I’m the godless liberal your parents warned you about.”

I am thankful… for the water fight and tickle fight I had with Daniel today and in general I’m thankful for his laugh.

In the kitchen… nothing from scratch. Must fix that.

I am wearing… blue v-neck shirt and capri sweats.

I am creating… nothing yarn-wise but always coming up with plot things for NaNoWriMo.

I am going… shopping tomorrow for toiletries and trying to figure out something to cook that I actually want to eat.

I am wondering… how to post something on Facebook calling out those who are posting partisan and factually incorrect things and telling me that I don’t know that I’m talking about because I give in to the “liberal media”. Riiiiight… the fact that I have a B.A. in Religious Studies focused around comparative religon and part of a Masters in Theology can’t mean that I actually know what I’m talking about, right? (Not to mention that one of the things that they’re making factual inaccuracies about is one of my areas of specialty.)

I am reading… Just finished The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny. She is amazing when it comes to the chiaroscuro of the human soul. Next book will be Death by the Dozen by Jenn McKinlay or possibly taking Maphead by Ken Jennings back up.

I am hoping… my allergies/cold/crud is on its way out.

I am looking forward to… Ladies’ Night Out on Wednesday.

Around the house… clean thanks to having company on Saturday and a young mom in the congregation to come and clean for me. (I pay her well and she is the reason I’m functional.)

I am pondering… how someone could have gotten my debit card number when I’m fanatical about keeping it secret. Thank God I was checking my account online and caught the bogus charge.

A favorite quote for today… “Why I often find myself at such cross-purposes with the modern world: I have been a converted Pagan living among apostate Puritans.” — C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… making a good play on Words With Friends.

A few plans for the rest of the week: shopping tomorrow and possibly filing a police report, Morning Prayer and NCIS/NCIS:LA on Tuesday, Ladies’ Night Out on Wednesday, watching the cinecast of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on Thursday, and possibly a trip to San Jose this weekend.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

7 Quick Takes: Insane Fast Food Creations, Murder Mysteries, and the 2013 All-Star Game Ballot

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

20×20. If you know what In-n-Out Burger is, you know that you can get some rather interesting combinations on their “secret” menu. I know my brother ate an 8×8 (8 patties and 8 slices of cheese) once and I guess the most that has ever been allegedly ordered is a 100×100. I found an account of someone who bought (and ate) a 20×20. I was pondering the sheer number of calories in that so I looked up the nutritional information and by subtracting the calories in a regular cheeseburger (480) from the calories in a double-double (670), I came out with the number of calories per extra cheese/patty (190). I multiplied that by 19 (getting 3610) and added the calories in the cheeseburger (480) back in, getting a total of 4090. Given that the estimate I saw on the 100×100 from Eat This, Not That was 19100 calories, I think this is probably pretty close to accurate.

It’s also no longer possible to order something like this — they capped the limit at 4×4 because they were getting some really bizarre orders.

— 2 —

All-Star Game ballot. The ballot for the 2013 MLB All-Star Game is out. I thought I’d link it here so you can all go vote for San Francisco Giants players. In case you need help doing this, here’s a list:

1st Base: Brandon Belt
2nd Base: Marco Scutaro
Shortstop: Brandon Crawford
3rd Base: Pablo Sandoval
Catcher: Buster Posey
Outfield: Gregor Blanco, Hunter Pence, and Angel Pagan

— 3 —

More fun Amazon.Com reviews. Apparently, people haven’t seen enough hilarious Amazon.Com reviews because this one was shared on Facebook on Wednesday. Even better, the things that “other customers viewed” are other joke Amazon.Com reviews.

— 4 —

Contemporary Worship Humor. Priest’s Wife shared this on Twitter this week:

It’s hysterically funny because it’s so true. I could walk into Bayside Church or any of the other megachurches in Sacramento and I could find a copy of this.

— 5 —

Orphans. Do you see these adorable kids?

BrettKaia

Brett (on the left) needs a mama and Kaia (on the right) has a family who needs help raising the funds to bring her home. If you can help out at all, click on their pictures. Please and thank you!

— 6 —

Mysteries. I’m currently reading A Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny and it’s her normal excellence. It’s hard to find a suitable adjective for the feeling that her mysteries evoke. It’s “dark” in the way that dark chocolate (with a high percentage of cacao) and I guess “somber” is the other adjective. She’s a crime writer in real life and she does an excellent job of portraying the darkness of our souls. Is “chiaroscuristic” a word? That’s probably the best term.

— 7 —

Prayer request. I am in allergy hell at the moment because every freaking plant is reproducing and we’re having lots of wind which is blowing it around. I’m not sleeping well because my face is congested, I’m coughing up nasty looking things, and the congestion is giving me wicked headaches. Could you please pray for some relief from it for me? Thanks!

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Cartacacoethes, Baseball, and the Ring Theory

7 Quick Takes

Before we start, please lift up some prayers for Jen (our usual hostess) and her son Joseph Thomas who was born on Monday and is in the NICU 30 minutes away with lung/breathing issues. We’re well acquainted with the NICU here at ::Meditatio:: and I hope Jen knows that my husband Jon, our son Daniel, and I are praying for her and her family.

— 1 —

The Ring Theory. This article was published in the L.A. Times and shared around Facebook this week. The premise is making a dot in the center (the person suffering) and drawing concentric circles outward representing different subsets of people ranging from the spouse/family to close friends to colleagues etc. The rule is that any negative comments can only be directed to the outer rings from wherever you happen to be while comforting words can be directed to everyone inward.

Example of ring theory
(HT: LA Times website)

Can I just say that I love this and wish I could have had it for some special people in Montana?

— 2 —

Search term fun. Thanks to the installation of the Jetpack plugin for WordPress, I can engage in sharing interesting search terms. The vast majority of mine have to do with famous brothers in literature because of a post I wrote 9 years ago while trying to find names for my mom’s boys. The interesting ones in the last three months have been…

gallbladder soy cheese
mentos tsa
darius rucker pat tillman memorial
i hate niacin
jack nicholson “as good as it gets” candy in jars
sergio romo tastic t shirts
spanking and fibromyalgia

— 3 —

Update on Ian. Some of you might remember me asking for prayer for Ian Brown, one of my college classmates. The last time I updated, he was dealing with sinusoidal obstructive syndrome which is a rare liver disease associated with his bone marrow transplant. The only hope was an experimental drug called Defibrotide which is only made in Italy. They procured some for him and after a 21 day course, he is doing MUCH better. The latest blog post had a picture of him walking to the local Farmer’s Market which required a 3 1/2 mile walk there and back. For those of us who know Ian, this is nothing new. He is the embodiment of “abundant life”.

— 4 —

Brett. This is Brett. He needs a mama.

Brett

Could you possibly be his mama? Click his picture to learn more about him.

— 5 —

Kaia. Do you have a bunch of loose change lying around? Want to use it to make a BIG difference?

Kaia's Kindergarten Fund

Click on the picture of this beautiful young lady (Kaia) to find out about how your loose change can help her family bring her home and let her go to kindergarten this fall.

— 6 —

Baseball. The Giants did not do well against the Cardinals last weekend (a 14-3 loss on the 7th was the most embarrassing) but they swept their series with the Rockies and have done well against the Cubs thus far. I’m kind of bummed that the games aren’t usually shown up here in Sacramento except on rare occasions but I appreciate that I can usually catch them online.

— 7 —

Cartacacoethes. A few weeks ago, Leah of Unequally Yoked mentioned the book Maphead by Ken Jennings. I’ve stopped and started it a couple times because I’m finding that I can’t be reading anything else at the same time and my local library seems to have cleared the backlog on my request list. I’m aiming to read it during my spare moments this weekend (which may just be Saturday night — Jon has Acquire the Fire and Daniel will be at a Respite Night). Meanwhile, I’m having major cartacacoethes.

For more Quick Takes, visit the fabulous Grace at Camp Patton.