Category Archives: Media/TV

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: August 9, 2015

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY August 9, 2015

Outside my window… hot. Weather.Com says it’s 86F outside and I’ll trust them on that one. I’m also writing this before dark which is unusual for me; but I’m with my parents for 10 days and am not having to restrict blogging to times when Daniel is asleep.

I am thinking… about some things being discussed in some of the Facebook groups with whom I hang.

I am thankful… to be able to find stations for my listening pleasure on my 8-hour drive north yesterday. I normally listen to my CD collection or books on CD but the CD player in my car is refusing to cooperate. It was a melange of NPR, Air1, KLOVE, and Family Radio (which had some fabulous instrumental and acapella music).

In the kitchen… not sure what we’re having tonight but the Hawaiian pizza from Round Table was fabulous last night.

I am wearing… black “perfect tee” from Old Navy and capris from Kohl’s. My church attire was a top and pants from Kohl’s and Maude shoes from Naturalizer.

I am going… to Target for school clothes for Daniel in the next couple days.

I am wondering… about some things that are due to happen in the next few months.

I am reading… The Alpine Zen by Mary Daheim. I’ll be finishing my re-read and then re-reading The Alpine Yeoman which is the previous book in the series.

I am hoping… for a good visit with my parents and that my doctor can figure out what the Hades is going on with my stomach.

I am looking forward to… Daniel going back to school. Kiddo has been B-O-R-E-D for the last few weeks.

I am hearing… Rend Collective on YouTube singing “My Lighthouse”:

A Daniel story for today… we’ve been referring to him as “Toothless” since he lost the bottom tooth on Wednesday.

A favorite quote for today… “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and go well with ketchup.”

One of my favorite things… pesto bagel with garlic schmear from The Posh Bagel.

A few plans for the rest of the week: park dates, back-to-school shopping, and lots of walking.

A peek into my day… more Rend Collective. 🙂 This one is a song I’ve shared before and it’s called “Build Your Kingdom Here”. I’m seriously amused by bluegrass style instruments, Salvation Army band members, and fireeaters sharing the same space.

Hosted by The Simple Woman.

7 Quick Takes: Why I Am Not Watching the GOP Debate and Other Parts of My Week

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Reason #1 why I am not watching the GOP debate. I can only deal with so many bloviating people before I want to drink myself into a stupor.

— 2 —

Reason #2 why I am not watching the GOP debate. The election is not until November of next year. I honestly don’t give a crap at this juncture about who in the GOP thinks they should run. When we’re 6 months from Election Day, I’ll possibly start paying attention.

— 3 —

Reason #3 why I am not watching the GOP debate. Donald Trump. Enough said.

— 4 —

Reason #4 why I am not watching the GOP debate. I don’t have a TV. 🙂

— 5 —

Jen and her food issues. I find that I really resonate with this piece from Buzzfeed on picky eating. Between food allergies and having to avoid certain foods (and cuisines) 6yto keep from exacerbating my G-I issues, I get quite a lot of flak for being a picky eater. Thing is… I’m not rude about it and for me it comes down to the fact that I don’t want to eat something that is going to cause me pain or aggravation.

There are also just some foods that I just don’t like and I’ll take small portions of those to be polite; but I’m not going to eat large amounts of something on my plate and praise it unless I actually *LIKE* it. To do otherwise would be a lie and will cause me problems down the road when people assume I love it and make it for me in large quantities.

— 6 —

The prerequisite take on vaccines. Some of the most vociferous objectors to vaccines that I’ve found have been Catholics claiming that it isn’t allowable because of their derivation from cell lines taken from aborted fetuses.

Actually, it *IS* allowable regardless because of the effect on public health.

— 7 —

Daniel’s dental appointment. Daniel had a consultation at a pediatric dentist in Rancho Cucamonga on Wednesday. He was relatively good for it but definitely refused to let them do the full exam with x-rays, cleaning, etc. The dentist is totally used to this and can sedate him for the exam so we’re seeing his doctor tomorrow to get medical clearance for the sedation. Once we have that in hand, we can schedule the appointment. Denti-Cal has to pre-authorize all this so I’m thinking we’ll have at least a month before they can get it scheduled. If you could pray that this all comes together sooner than later, I’d appreciate it. Please and thank you!

Daniel also lost his second tooth last night while we were brushing his teeth. Given that they thought they might have to extract it, this is good news.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Crowdsourced Content

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

What I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Daniel is off school for the next month and now that we’re back from my parents’ house, I’ve got him pretty much all day. My mother-in-law has stepped up and helped *A LOT* this week because I’m fighting stomach issues (which is meaning that I’m feeling more run down than usual and am napping a lot) but today, I had him pretty much all day so writing this post with insightful Quick Takes was just not going to happen.

So… I decided to take a page from Kelly of This Ain’t The Lyceum and crowdsource some content. I had three people give me questions that I’ll answer (and I’ll put one person’s two part question into two Quick Takes) and then I’ll give you two things I saw online that amused me. Sound like a plan?

— 2 —

From Kelly of This Ain’t The Lyceum: Your feelings on Klondike bars? Absolutely neutral. I don’t think I’ve eaten one in years so I honestly can’t say what I would or wouldn’t do for one.

— 3 —

From Beth Anne of Beth Anne’s Best: In honor of your 15 years of blogging, what site did you start blogging on? I started out hand-coding a web journal on Peacefulwaters.Org, my own domain, in July 2000 and used Microsoft Front Page to generate some of it. (I’ve been doing website stuff for 18 years so this wasn’t that weird.)

— 4 —

From Beth Anne of Beth Anne’s Best: What sites have you used over the years? This is actually the second part of the question and I split it up because her question could honestly have been a post of its own. I did the hand-coding for a year and then did Livejournal for a bit, tried Grey Matter a few times, used Moveable Type for a few months, and then switched to WordPress’ predecessor b2. I fully switched over to WordPress in 2004.

::Meditatio:: itself has existed in pretty much unbroken form since 2003 when I switched to b2 and has been hosted on Grace-Filled.Net since 2005. I’ve imported all of the hand-coded stuff, the Livejournal entries, and one of the Grey Matter sections. I still need to import about 6 months or so of Grey Matter and Moveable Type which unfortunately has to be done by hand and it requires a working CD-ROM… which I currently do not have. (Laptops don’t like falling on hardwood floors. It’s under warranty but that would involve sending it to HP for weeks at a time.)

— 5 —

From Jen (@Jentoinfinity): How many people have you met IRL from blogging? You can name them if you want or just a number. This is kind of a weird question because I’ve known some of my blogging friends since before they had blogs, as in the case of my BFF Rebecca who was my maid-of honor, is Daniel’s godmother, and whom I have known for 20+ years. As far as fellow people I’ve met because of my blog, I’d say 3? I met Ellen of Stranger in a Strange Land in 2002, Dawn of ladydusk in 2003, and Chris of Father Christopher (and formerly of SomethingUnderstood.Org) in 2004.

Related to this, I think one of the stranger things that has happened was standing in the receiving line at a church in Ponoka, Alberta where Jon was interviewing for an associate pastor position in 2009 and having someone come up to me and tell me that they love my blog. It turns out that they were talking about my Blogathon site but it gave me a shock for a few days because I keep pretty quiet about my real name on here.

**UPDATE** I also met Kym back in 2011. Sorry for missing you in my count!

— 6 —

Something for which I really respect Sen. Lindsey Graham. So some of you might have seen the news about this yesterday:

This was Senator Graham’s response:

Stay classy, Senator!

— 7 —

Finally, some lovely music. Here’s one of my favorite videos from The Piano Guys:

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Taking on Some Controversy in the Media and Talking About A Couple Books

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

The bakers fined $135K for refusing to bake the wedding cake. I actually had some sympathy for the couple who refused to bake the cake. They should be allowed to politely refuse to do so and face some bad publicity for their decision. My sympathy vanished, however, when I found out that they not only declined rudely to make the cake but they also doxxed the lesbian couple by giving out their names, address, email address, and phone number. Granted, this information *IS* public record because of the lawsuit, but the husband of the baker specifically shared it in anger and people used the information to send death threats to the lesbian couple.

(Libby Anne has a good blog post on this.)

— 2 —

The Planned Parenthood debacle. So here’s the thing: it wouldn’t surprise me if Planned Parenthood has had some unscrupulous people selling fetal tissue and I’m good with Congressional panels looking into this. HOWEVER… the Center for Medical Progress acted pretty dishonestly inasmuch as they had actors portraying people from a tissue company and in the fact that the video was pretty edited. All of the sites like LifeSiteNews that have broken the story are acting really smug about it and in a really distasteful way. LifeSiteNews in particular is so liberal with the inaccuracies in the news that they report that I honestly wouldn’t believe them as far as I could throw them and this is making me really leery to believe what they’re saying. On the other hand, I don’t trust Planned Parenthood either.

Truthfully, the news makes me feel tired. This article from America Magazine probably comes the closest to how I’m feeling.

— 3 —

A situation completely foreign to me as a West Coaster. Libby Anne’s blog post referred me to this one about a teacher in Mississippi who lost his job when a student outted him as an atheist. This horrifies me because I’m the daughter of a secular humanist and an agnostic/Buddhist and it scares me that one of my parents could be the person behind Godless in Dixie.

— 4 —

Why California does better under Jerry Brown. My mother-in-law gets a happy expression on her face every time someone mentions Governor Jerry Brown because, according to her, the state just does *sooooo* much better under his leadership. I’m having to admit that I agree, especially as he just signed into law a bill ending religious and personal exemptions for vaccines. Only kiddos who have specific medical conditions and a note from their doctor are exempt from the requirements. The only two other states who have passed a similar law are West Virginia and Mississippi, which kind of surprises me because you’d think that those two states would allow religious exemptions given the religious nature of their populations.

— 5 —

Owning one’s atheism. Neil Carter of Godless in Dixie appeared in a report on CBS This Morning on atheism. I’m watching it right now and it’s interesting. It saddens me however that his girlfriend’s father shunned him and his girlfriend because of it. The father just passed away and specifically asked that Neil not be allowed to be around the family while they mourned. That’s pretty serious hatred of someone right there.

Still, I’m glad for Neil and the others in the video that they are owning what they believe. Do I agree with them on their stances? No. Do I respect their dignity as people and would I have a drink with them? No question that I would!

— 6 —

The book I just finished. I just finished The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows and while it wasn’t as good as her first book, it was pretty fabulous.

— 7 —

You know your book is old when… Killer Pancake by Diane Mott Davidson has been interesting to listen to, partially because the book is pretty dated. They’re talking about things like payphones which I haven’t personally seen in probably 5 years!

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

Answer Me This: Father’s Day Edition

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I’ve got a bunch of blogger friends who participate in this so I decided to give it a try!

Answer Me This from CatholicAllYear.Com

1. What’s the best thing about your dad?

My dad can figure out how to make things from scratch. It might be his engineering mind but he can seriously build whatever is needed.

2. If you’ve got kids, what’s the best thing about THEIR dad? (If you don’t, feel free to substitute your grandfather or another father figure.)

Jon is a little more adventurous than I am which is why he does things like take hikes to the park with Daniel instead of my sissy self who drives to the park. He is also able to have a good rapport with all the high school he has had in 12 years of ministry (internship and parish).

3. What’s the best advice your dad ever gave you?

Choose the battles that make your heart sing.

4. What’s something you have in common with your dad?

We have the same build. (Thank you, PCOS, for making me built like a linebacker intead of a woman.) We somehow become interested in the same things though approaching them from different angles and it makes for interesting dinner conversation when I visit them and vice versa. I also have his temper and I’m slightly better at controlling mine than he is (but only slightly).

5. What’s the manliest thing you know how to do?

I know how to change a tire and assemble just about anything that doesn’t require a blow torch.

6. Who is your favorite fictional dad?

This is a really hard one because most of the TV I watch is forensics dramas on CBS(not a lot of family interaction) and I read a lot of murder mysteries which involve females as the protagonist. I think I’m going to echo Mary on this and go with Frank Reagan of Blue Bloods as one of my favorites. I’m also a fan of Tim Taylor of Home Improvement, Gibbs from NCIS (he is paternal to Abby and some of the people involved in a case), and Dwayne Pride from NCIS: New Orleans.

This is all I’ve got. Go see Kendra for more people’s answers!

#FiveFaves: Miscellanea (XXXVII)

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#5Faves

One

Air-conditioning. It was 98F at my parents’ house in San Jose yesterday… and they don’t have A/C. Can we say “working off time in Purgatory”? We were getting the remnants of a hurricane from Baja California today so it thankfully cooled down almost 20 degrees.

Two

Physical therapy. I’m missing my TENS machine time, heating pad, and massage this week. Given that I’ve woken up with neck pain for two mornings, I’m seriously looking forward to it next week.

Three

My Bible study ladies. I haven’t been to Bible study since May 20th and I miss my women. I’m always the youngest and most of them are old enough to be my mother or (in some cases) my grandmother; but they are a group of wonderful, wise, and strong women who fuss over me.

Four

The man at Safeway. Mom and I walked with Daniel to Safeway today and while we were walking through the shopping center, Daniel got ahead of us. I called out, “sweetie, stop!” and both Daniel and an older man in front of us froze. I apologized profusely and the man was really nice about it, explaining that he had been well-trained. My mom’s comment: “You definitely obeyed better than the kid did.”

Five

TV. I’m catching up on all my shows while I’m up here. I will probably end up watching a bunch of them online but it has given me something to do while putting Daniel to bed.

Go love up Jenna and the others.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: June 7, 2015

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY June 7, 2015

Outside my window… dark but still warm. They claim it was 82F earlier but I don’t believe them — it felt like closer to 90F and it’s still hot in my parents’ house.

I am thinking… about the heat. It’s supposed to be 95F tomorrow and my parents don’t have A/C.

I am thankful… for a good visit thus far with my parents. I’m here until Friday.

In the kitchen… steak tonight. Leftovers tomorrow.

I am wearing… my Momcat shirt and capri sweats.

I am praying for… a call for Jon, for my father-in-law’s cancer, for a friend who is having marriage issues, and for a few special intentions.

I am going… to Costco and Target with Mom and Daniel tomorrow.

I am wondering… if Mom and Dad will finish the planting in the front yard tomorrow. They got rid of the front lawn, covered the area with bark, and are planting ground cover.

I am reading… Vanishing Grace by Phillip Yancey and The Cat Who Robbed a Bank by Lilian Jackson Braun.

I am hoping… the heat breaks soon.

I am looking forward to… cooler weather.

I am hearing… Game of Thrones — Dad is watching it.

Crocheting… the amigurumi stuffed animal but am working right now on Daniel’s big boy blankie which I brought up to San Jose with me.

Around the house… somewhat quiet other than Dad watching TV.

One of my favorite things… coffee with my friend Rebecca. We got to have coffee today after church.

A few plans for the rest of the week: walks, errands with Mom and Daniel, and whatever else happens before I head back down south on Friday.

Hosted by The Simple Woman.