Category Archives: Web Schtuff

Categorizing Myself

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Daniel went down early so after I had gone through all my bookmarked blogs, I started surfing around and came upon Patheos.Com. A few of the bloggers in my feed reader (Unequally Yoked and Barefoot and Pregnant) have their blogs there and as I’m an established blogger (almost 12 years of blogging), I’d probably be a good candidate, right?

Yeah… not so much.

I haven’t actually submitted a sample blog to them for consideration so it isn’t like they’ve rejected me but there are a few things that would have to be different for me to probably qualify to blog there.

[+] I’d have to actually fit into one of their channels. OK… obviously, I’m not Muslim/atheist/Buddhist/Jewish/Mormon so that part is easy enough. However, I’m an anomaly of a Christian. I’m not an Evangelical per se but I’m too theologically conservative to be part of the Progressive Christianity channel. I’m Lutheran so I definitely don’t fit in the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox channels either. I could probably fit the Family channel… except that my blog doesn’t always cover family topics (though I keep it family-friendly). I might be able to get in on the Spirituality channel but I abhor pop-culture religion. Sigh…

[+] I’d have to become better about updating here. I write only about twice a week on average. It’s not that I’m lazy — OK, actually I am most of the time — it’s just that I can sit here and look at a blank post for an hour and have no idea about what I want to write. Doing The Simple Woman’s Daybook is easy because I have prompts. Doing Quick Takes are harder because I have to find seven salient points on which to write.

[+] I’d have to be topical all the time. ::Meditatio:: is a blog whose purpose is to provide me with halfway-decent therapy and to “work out my salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12b). While I’m definitely a religious sociologist and it interests me to watch people practicing their faiths and praying, I’m also a mom, a sacred music snob, a cat herder, a khouria, a preeclampsia survivor, someone who reads whatever they can get their paws on, and most importantly, I am a child of God who is doing her best to give her Father a good name. This blog is about all those things, not just the faith dimension of my life which is very fluid at this point and well… has been since I came to Christ (inasmuch as one can per the explanation of the third article of the Creed in the Small Catechism).

I guess I’ll be remaining here. It has been my home for almost 7 of the 12 I have been blogging and I quite like it.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: June 11, 2012

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY June 11, 2012

Outside my window… hot hot hot. 95F today according to Weather.Com.

I am thinking… that I need to cut off my hair again. It’s been almost 3 months.

I am thankful… for the mini nap I got today while Daniel was taking his nap.

In the kitchen… oatmeal.

I am wearing… old black Arabic shirt and black running shorts.

I am creating… things for Brett’s Blogathon 2012.

I am going… to probably be spending a fair amount of time inside this week because of the heat.

I am wondering… if I should do a theme for Quick Takes this week.

I am reading… Sugarplum Dead by Carolyn Hart.

I am hoping… to get Daniel potty-trained this summer.

I am looking forward to… this weekend. That’s all I can say right now.

Around the house… I have house help at the moment which is seriously blessing me.

A favorite quote for today… “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.'” — C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… Daniel waking up happy from his nap.

A few plans for the rest of the week: errands and hopefully some water play with Daniel.

A peek into my day… Snow drifts in Montana — I needed a reminder of cold stuff because it’s so bloody hot here.

Snow drifts in Montana

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

11 Things

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Ann of House of Estrogen tagged me in this meme going around the Internet. Whee!

Rules
1.) The first rule is to post these rules.
2.) Post a photo of yourself then write 11 things about you/your life.
3.) Answer the questions for you set in the original post.
4.) Create 11 new questions and tag people to answer them.
5.) Go to their blog/twitter to tell them you have tagged them.

OK… so let me find a picture I like.

Me after a haircut

OK… 11 things about me.

01.) I’m a night owl. I get most of my blogging done after 9 p.m.
02.) I’m 5’1 on a bad hair day. People tell me that I seem taller online.
03.) I’m incredibly shy and very introverted. I’d prefer to people-watch rather than socialize.
04.) I have a weird accent that makes me sound like a valley girl Canadian. It makes it really hilarious when I switch into academic mode and I’m using polysyllabic words while sounding like I should be on a beach in southern California tanning myself.
05.) I graduated from college in 3 years. I’m not smart — just strategic. The fact that I was sick of being in a long-distance relationship also didn’t hurt.
06.) I read murder mysteries for fun. I’m currently reading Buried in Buttercream by G.A. McKevitt.
07.) I have part of a Masters in Theological Studies. I’m incredibly good at it but theology in general bores me. I’m more of a historian and linguist.
08.) I’ve been singing Handel’s Messiah since I was 15. It was a holiday tradition for my mom and I throughout high school and college to do the You-Sing-It-Messiah with the San Jose Symphonic Choir.
09.) I love t-shirts with interesting messages. I love my We Will Not Be Silent shirt and am heartbroken that I’m having to replace it.
10.) My promise not to blog on the Republican candidates is grating on me. There’s SOOOOOOOO much snark I want to post!!!!!!
11.) I’m a princess darnit!

OK… my questions to answer!

1.) What is your favorite movie? It varies. I like the classic Disney cartoons like “The Aristocats” and “The Sword and the Stone” as well as “Forrest Gump”, “The Birdcage”, “The Spitfire Grill”, “Whale Rider”, and “Saved”.

2.) If you could go back and give your 16 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be? Stop worrying about what people will think and join a church. (I’m a convert to Christianity.)

3.) Why do you blog? So many reasons. Generally, I do it because it’s cheaper than therapy and I’ve made so many friends doing it. It also was my way of accessing the outside world when I lived in remote areas of the US.

4.) What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you doing that? I wanted to be a lawyer until I was 15 when I started wanting to be a doctor. I’m not doing either though I’m discerning doing training as a respiratory therapist because they’ve been the coolest health professionals that I’ve encountered in my own adventures and with Daniel.

5.) M&M’s – plain or peanut? Coconut.

6.) What was your first car? 1984 Volvo 240 GL.

7.) What is your favorite Halloween costume you’ve ever worn? The cat costume my mom made us when we were 3.

8.) What are your favorite blogs to read? I have at least 30-40 in my feed reader. They range from Canadian pastors to young Catholic women to Mormon housewives. Most blogs these day happen to be mommy blogs because all my bloggy friends have kids.

9.) If you were to have a boy and a girl tomorrow, what would you name them? Aidan Michael and Hannah Grace.

10.) What was your favorite class in college? Women’s Chorale, my advisor’s history classes, Religion and Social Change, Science and Human Values, the Making of the Modern Middle East, my Organic Chemistry labs, and my college’s Core course.

11.) What celebrity do you think it would be fun to be friends with? Definitely Pauley Perette (Abby on NCIS). She’s very much in person like she is on TV and she’s also incredibly socially conscious. I also love anyone who can pull off the goth look over the age of 30. (She’s in her 40’s.)

OK… now my questions!

01.) What food would you never eat even if you were paid to eat it?
02.) What is your favorite Bible verse or quote?
03.) Should jello at church be in the proper liturgical color?
04.) What was your high school or college mascot?
05.) What do you wish you could do?
06.) What book should everyone read?
07.) What is the weirdest thing you’ve eaten?
08.) Pretend I magically arrived on your doorstep. How would we spend your ideal day?
09.) Manicure or pedicure?
10.) What is the best type of ethnic food (i.e. Italian, Japanese, Indonesian)?
11.) Grey or orange tabby cats?

Now for the tagging!

Beth @ The Catholic Couponer

Nikkiana @ Authentic Experience

Kate @ ImperfectKate

Kathleen @ So Much to Say…

The Preoteasa @ Fear Not Little Flock

Dawn @ ladydusk

I know all of you have lives and such. Please find a way to mold this meme to your blog. If you can’t post a picture of yourself, post one of your kids or something that represents you.

7 Quick Takes — Fruit of a Grumpy Week

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7 Quick Takes

It’s been a tough week for blogging. AT&T screwed with our Internet and forced me to have to put posts on hold while I found alternate methods of posting them. When I did get back to posting, I found I had tremendous writer’s block. Oy vey…

— 1 —

I just saw that “The Big Bang Theory” is being pre-empted by some stupid basketball games. I don’t care who is playing — this is simply unacceptable. The egregiousness of this is on par with CBS News cutting into NCIS: Los Angeles to announce election returns.

— 2 —

Our router seems to be having hiccups. It worked perfectly fine in Montana and I don’t think it has anything to do with being 2.5 years old. I’m wondering if it’s issues because of the weather (again, it’s curious) or what it is. The package said not to let it near cordless phones or microwaves but as I don’t know of another phone jack in the house, I’m not sure we have a choice. It’s kind of irritating because I’d *like* decent wi-fi. (And yes, I’m aware that this is yet another first world problem.)

— 3 —

I’m finding that I could probably quote and analyze the entirety of every Sojourners article I read. They manage to speak to me on a level that I rarely find in faith-based publications. There have been articles on discourse, tithing, and retention of 20somethings that are just brilliant beyond anything else I see on those subjects.

— 4 —

I got the rest of the devotionals written for the family friend of my in-laws. Again, I ended up with weird passages from Acts and in some cases, it was a struggle to find ways to make them applicable. I’ve been asked if I’m going to post any of them on here and the answer is probably “no” because they’re going to be part of a book and I don’t want to deal with copyright issues.

— 5 —

Daniel is doing better. Those who are on Twitter with me know that he and I made a trip to Urgent Care yesterday at UCD Pediatrics. He had been coughing and after our nap (he fell asleep on top of me and I was “forced” to take a nap with him), he had a low grade fever. This a kid who can go from normal to critical in the period of an hour so I called the advice nurse at UCD Pediatrics and asked her sweetly for a same-day appointment. They had one so I got us dressed, packed what I’d need overnight (basically figuring that he wouldn’t be admitted to the hospital if I came prepared), and drove to Sacramento. The med student who saw us first could hear him wheezing and breathing quickly but her attending couldn’t, mostly because my precious sweetling was in full-on tantrum mode by the time she came in. Her thought was that his cold/allergies exacerbated his asthma and advised us to keep giving him his inhaler over the next 24 hours. (During his tantrum, he worked himself into a gagging fit and coughed up a decent chunk of phlegm so I think that was part of it.) They told me that it was good that I brought him in considering his history (two hospitalizations in a year) but that they wouldn’t have to admit him. Yay. We came home, bathed him, and spent the evening bonding.

— 6 —

We’ve got a busy couple days ahead of us. We’re headed up north to have dinner with friends tomorrow night and on Saturday, we’re headed to my evil twin’s house for my dad’s birthday celebration. (Yes, he was actually born on St. Patrick’s Day and we are indeed Irish.) He should already have received his present (a gift certificate from Oceanside Photo and Telescope) but I should probably find an irreverant card. (It’s not a milestone birthday so that narrows it down a bit.)

— 7 —

Do you love babies? I do. I also love their mommies. Preeclampsia is a pregnancy disorder that strikes 5-8% of pregnant women in some shape or form. The only cure is to deliver the baby and if it happens early enough in the pregnancy (earliest is 16 weeks), the baby will not survive. Help mommies keep their babies in the womb longer — sponsor me

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

Versatile Blogger Award

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Kate of ImperfectKate blessed me with this:

Versatile Blogger Award

The rules state that I need to list 7 things about myself so here it goes…

01.) Contrary to how I come across on my blog, I’m incredibly introverted. I’m more likely to hang out in a corner and people-watch than be the life of a party.

02.) I’m a twin. My brother is 5’10” and six minutes older. (I’m 5’1″ on a bad hair day.)

03.) I’m a forensics junkie. Nothing makes me happier than a new episode of “NCIS” or “CSI”.

04.) I’m a convert to Christianity.

05.) I have been married for almost 10 years now.

06.) I’m sensitive to things touching my neck in certain places. I’m about 9 days away from chopping my hair off again.

07.) Despite being a blogger, I’m a serious Luddite. I didn’t have an iPod until 2008, I have an e-reader only because it was a gift, and I have maybe sent 10 texts in my entire life.

I can’t think of any people I want to tag so if you want to do the questions and such, feel free to take the award.