Pick Jen’s Lenten Discipline 2015. The second annual “Pick Jen’s Lenten Discipline” giveaway starts today and goes for ~2 weeks. Click here for details.
Panic attack myths. If you get panic attacks or love someone who gets them, I highly recommend you read this.
Progress on the plank challenge. I accidentally abandoned it this weekend as I had too much going on and then was taking care of Daniel who decided to scare the pants off of me and spike a fever of 104F. Instead of going back and making up missed days, I decided to just do 4 60-second planks this morning… and found that being up for 60 seconds was a piece of cake… something that it hadn’t been at the beginning of the month.
Some interesting perspectives on the vaccination debate. There is an outbreak of measles stemming from an unvaccinated person and I’m seeing a lot of things left and right about it. There are parents writing letters to parents with unvaccinated children, someone on BuzzFeed showing what measles looks like, and someone talks about their kid having to be quarantined because someone brought a measles patient to the doctor and the kid was too young to vaccinate, forcing the parents to quarantine her for a month.
And as always, here’s the opposing viewpoint (who I do not endorse and think is seriously misguided).
Small world. I was my father-in-law’s “plus-one” for the Respect Life Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Saturday and was walking with him to an accessible ramp for his walker when I hear the words, “Hello Jen!” I look up and it’s a seminary classmate of mine who is apparently representing the same pan-Lutheran group as my father-in-law. Once we found our assigned seats, he came back to where I was sitting and we caught up on the last 12 years since we have run into each other. It’s pretty pathetic that this is the first we’ve seen of each other because right now we live about 5 miles apart. Still, it was good to see him.
New Year’s resolution update. The read through the Bible is going well. I’ve gotten through Genesis and am in Exodus in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, I’m almost to the crucifixion scene in Matthew. I’ve also discovered some new Psalms (new to me, that is) that are really pretty.
Car-buying. Jon’s car decided to die on the 57 last Friday and repairs were going to be $3000. The car was only worth $1000 so we had to come up with another car for transportation. (The situation we’re in at the moment makes being a one-car family pretty impossible.) Thankfully, his mechanic had a used 2003 Volvo station wagon for sale and allowed us to purchase it for under the Kelly Blue Book value. (It is in impeccable condition.) Currently, I’m trying to get loan stuff done so I’d appreciate your prayers as I’m working on all of this over the weekend.
For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.
The problem with the plank challenge is that you’re seriously working the same muscles daily and not giving them a break to rebuild. Your few days off probably helped your performance. I’m impressed; I can barely manage 45 seconds.
Volvos are great cars! That’s a good deal—even though you didn’t want to buy a “new” car.
My mother has only driven Volvo station wagons since I was two and they have always been excellent cars. Congratulations on finding a great used one!