Category Archives: Creativity

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: October 22, 2012

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY October 22, 2012

Outside my window… sunny after the rain and wind earlier. There was also a tornado to the north of us. Did I mention that I live in NORTHERN CALIFORNIA???

I am thinking… that I’m enjoying the quiet in the parsonage (other than the Giants’ game on TV) and the light filtering in through the windows.

I am thankful… that Jon got to St. Louis safely.

In the kitchen… kuchen later this week for the church’s Oktoberfest.

I am wearing… green shirt and black sweats.

I am creating… NaNo plans.

I am going… hopefully nowhere special this week.

I am wondering… why Cullen walks on his clawpoints. He clacks on the wood and linoleum when he walks.

I am reading… A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

I am hoping… the Giants win tonight.

I am looking forward to… my massage on Friday. (It got postponed due to health issues with my massage therapist.)

Around the house… vacuuming to do.

I am pondering…

A favorite quote for today… ??Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.?? ? C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… quiet time to do things during Daniel’s nap

A few plans for the rest of the week: coffee with a parishioner tomorrow, Morning Prayer on Wednesday, teaching Bible study on Thursday, and my massage on Friday. Oktoberfest is also Friday but I think we’ll just donate the cost of tickets.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

7 Quick Takes: Writing, Voting, and Interesting Office Supply Products

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

I VOTED!!!! *cue confetti and balloons* I’m in California so we have all the normal slate of candidates in addition to a bunch of ballot measures so the envelope to mail back the ballots requires extra postage. I also wish that there was an “I voted!” sticker included in my absentee ballot because there might be merchants who give perks for those who voted like free coffee or something. Oh well… Jon just dropped his absentee ballot off at our town hall and they were giving out “I voted!” stickers so I have one on the fridge so that I can get any perks offered by merchants for having one on Election Day.

— 2 —

I’m doing NaNoWriMo again. I *might* actually win given that I do have some more spare time than I’ve had in the last few years with Daniel in school. I’m recycling my characters from last year and altering a few of them. My main character is a pastor’s wife — what can I say? I write about what I know. It’s either that or write about import brokerage stuff and a cross-border murder.

— 3 —

I was taking a drive when I heard this song. Daniel had woken up grumpy and we were driving around when this song came on. After CSI was over tonight, I started looking for it online and was having a heck of a time finding it. It turns out that it’s probably just been released to radio stations and the album isn’t due until January. Still… I found it on YouTube! Boo yah!

— 4 —

Cardinal Dolan said something awesome on his Twitter today. His remark: “If I only sat down with people who agreed with me, and I with them, or with those who were saints, I??d be taking all my meals alone.” I think it’s relevant in our politically-polarized country where one side is claiming that the media is on the side of the other and there is so much back-biting. I have readers on this blog who agree with me politically and readers who think I’ve lost my mind for backing the candidates I back. Somehow, we all manage to find common ground and I’d readily break bread (or a gluten-free alternative) with any of them.

— 5 —

OMG NLCS baseball!!! We swept the Reds *in* Cincinnati and we’re currently playing Game 4 in St. Louis. I’m thinking of Kathleen Basi and Grace Patton as I’m watching. I have no idea if Grace is a Cardinals fan (or if she’s even all that concerned with baseball) but I remember talking about the World Series with Kathleen last year and now our teams are playing each other in the NLCS! As much as I’m a Giants fan, I do like the Cardinals and I’d totally root for them if they prevailed and made it to the World Series to play Detroit.

— 6 —

For those who read all the interesting comments on the BIC for Her pens, there’s now a new office product sensation. Yes, I totally realize that Romney’s “binders full of women” are binders full of women’s resumés. Yes, I would totally be mentioning this if Obama or Biden had said it. No, I didn’t watch the debate — I was too busy being righteously indignant over NCIS being pre-empted. I had also already filled out my ballot on Sunday night so the debate wasn’t going to change anything for me.

— 7 —

My grandma turns 92 tomorrow. She was the first college graduate on my mom’s side of the family. (My grandfather didn’t finish because Pearl Harbor happened.) She and my grandfather just missed making it 63 years when he passed away in 2006. She still lives at home and gardens a little bit. She also plays bridge twice a week. Happy birthday, Grandma! I love you!

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

7 Quick Takes: Reasons You Should Come Hang Out Online With Me Tomorrow

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7 Quick Takes

So tomorrow (or today if you see this on Friday) is Brett’s Blogathon 2012 and I’ll be blogging for 24 hours straight on things starting with the letter B. Here are 7 reasons to come join me and make a donation.

— 1 —

The funds go toward helping Brett’s adoptive mommy and daddy bring him home. Is this not a cute kid?

Brett

Let’s talk about getting him to the States so he can have some physical therapy and stop having to crawl everywhere.

— 2 —

I might actually post a webcam video of me doing something embarrassing hilarious. C’mon… YOU KNOW you want to see me dancing the Timewarp at 3:00 a.m. or singing camp songs at 5 a.m. to keep myself awake. No promises that I’m going to do any of that — it’s a small house and I’d like both Jon and Daniel to get adequate sleep — but something cool might get posted and you don’t want to miss that, especially if it might be useful for future blackmail. 🙂

— 3 —

My evil twin is guest-posting and talking about beer-making. You think *I’m* delightfully snarky? I don’t hold a candle to him! And yes, he is seriously talking about beer-making, which is one of his hobbies. My task tonight is shrinking the pics he sent me of the process.

— 4 —

I’m giving away an Amazon.Com gift card to a lucky donor. It’s not a Keurig or a Kindle Fire but it will enable you to buy books, music, household appliances, or anything else that Amazon.Com sells. It’s not based on your donation amount so you could actually end up coming out ahead on this.

— 5 —

Brett’s mommy and daddy are out there somewhere and they need to see him. Seriously, I fully believe that Brett’s adoptive parents are out there somewhere and that they could possibly find him via my Blogathon for him. If you visit, make a donation and let people know what’s going on over there.

— 6 —

What else are you going to do on a Friday night? It’s not like the Olympic opening ceremonies are on or anything. Oh wait, they are. Darn! Still, you should totally come on over and see what I’m posting. It might be something interesting to do during the Parade of Nations when some unpronounceable country is parading through.

— 7 —

Again, someone needs to get to the States for care. Dude… this kid needs a mommy and a daddy. He also needs physical therapy for his CP. Let’s look at Brett again.

Brett!

Can you really say “no” to this kid?

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

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.

I Might Be A Geek…

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I was surfing the Quick Takes on ConversionDiary.Com and one set from Angie of Many Little Blessings mentions the question of whether the city of Constantinople is still called “Constantinople”.

The first thing in my head was…

(wait for it)

OMG THE “THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS” SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I frantically searched through my iTunes and discovered that it had gotten deleted somehow so I *IMMEDIATELY* went to iTunes and downloaded it. Then I proceeded to sing along with it TWICE while swing-dancing with Finian (my excessively fluffy cat who did NOT approve of this foolishness) and then with Daniel (who enjoyed it immensely). We had to pause “Winnie the Pooh” for all this.

(And yes, Finian is irritated and not speaking to me at the moment. He also still hasn’t forgiven me for the “Zoot Suit Riot” Incident of 2003.)

**UPDATE** I realized there are people who might not have *gasp* heard of either song. So….

7 Quick Takes: Travel Memories, Prayer Requests, and a Trivia Question

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Daniel starts back to school tomorrow. It’s not the regular school year — it’s summer school (an hour shorter each day) and goes for a month but it will be a good thing. Daniel needs structure and consistency and it’s a bit hard to get that when he’s home with me. I do my best to replicate his schedule at school (and to keep his naps consistent) but it’s better to have him with teachers who know what they’re doing. During the summer, they have water days on Fridays so we’re supposed to send a swimsuit and swim diapers to school with him. Daniel should enjoy that.

— 2 —

My trip down to southern California last week was awesome. The flights were mostly good — Daniel learned how to take off his seat belt on the way back so I had to hold it on and howled about that — but he slept most of the flight home. My father-in-law was ecstatic to have us down there and he spent as much time as he could with Daniel. We’ll back down in two months and I’m going to try and have us go down on long weekends if at all possible during the school year even if it’s just Daniel and I.

— 3 —

Brett’s Blogathon will be on July 27th starting at 7 a.m. I’m trying to come up with ideas like having a spare change challenge and all this will be announced on the Blogging for Brett site.

— 4 —

The [insert expletive] heat has started. It was 105 on Saturday when I flew in from Ontario and 102 the next day. On Wednesday (the first day of summer), it was 97. I’m thankful that it’s cooling down for the moment. I *need* to do some walking and it’s hard to do when it’s eleventy billion degrees outside.

— 5 —

After my grumpy post on Tuesday, I should probably enumerate some *good* things that happened on Tuesday. Les Schwab fixed my tire for free because it was my first time there. (We had been at the park while the tire was changed.) The woman at Michael’s gave me a really cool bag left over from their giveaway for me to use for the yarn I bought. (The recipient of the yarn product reads this blog so this is all I can currently say…)

— 6 —

I have a prayer request for y’all. My college friend Brian just had back surgery and is in a world of pain. This is the guy who carried me like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder to the health center whenever I’d sprain my ankle, forced food down my throat when I was too depressed to eat, and who is my incredibly wonderful surrogate big brother. Please pray for healing for him.

— 7 —

I have a trivia question for you. Where are the pictures used in my profiles taken? Here are the three I use:

A statue of Our Lady
Sunflowers
The ruins of the original church.

First person to answer correctly and tell me why this place is famous gets bragging rights. You may not guess if you are married to me or are related by blood or marriage. Combing my Facebook albums is also prohibited.

OK… Hevel got it right. It’s Mission San Juan Capistrano and it is the only mission in Orange County. There is one more trivia fact about why it is famous. Who can tell me? In an email, he got the return of the swallows. Thanks for playing everybody!

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

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