I love podcasts

How I spend time...
listening.
taking notes.
telling others about the great things I've listened and taken notes on.
repeat.

Current favorite podcasts...

• The Phil Vischer Podcast   (Christian discussion of current events and topics)
• I'll even admit to a "spiritual crush" on Skye.  
• Unbelievable  (90 min debate between various Christians and non-Christians)
• Vox (Mike Erre, Christian, various topics)
• Freakonomics  (Various topics from the view point of Economists - seriously interesting)

Podcasts/teachings you really should listen to:

Faith & Doubt 
VOX - Mike Erre
     Mike talks about what faith ISN'T and then moves on to what it is.

Necessity of Doubt, Faith & Doubt part 2
VOX - Mike Erre

     Part 2, Mike gets into more of what faith IS and more about doubt.

My life group is joining our church and reading through the Bible in a year.  We decided to make it a bible study and just talk about what we are learning each week.

No lie, Old Testament (OT) can be hard.  I had to admit that I didn't recognize God in some of the OT.  that opened the discussion up to someone else sharing the same issue and we were able to talk about it.  We ended with the idea that while we don't claim to understand all that we're reading, we do know who our God is and because of that we'll choose to trust Him in our lack of understanding.

That night was Tuesday which means New Phil Vischer Poscast download!  They discussed some of the exact questions we had and gave a different perspective on it.  Wonderful!  Such a lovely answer to our prayer just that evening.

Interpreting the OT and NRB

Phil Vischer Podcast - Phil Visher, Skye Jethani, Dr. John Walton

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you choose to listen to any of these.

gift giving

has anybody else noticed the trend towards gift cards and cash giving vs. an actual purchased something?

I certainly have.  I find myself looking for clever ways to wrap gift cards so that they feel more like opening something special.  I'm also not saying I'm going to change that.

I noticed it myself when talking (OK, emailing because who talks anymore) with family about Christmas and the kids "list" so that we might buy presents for the nieces and nephews.  Mind you, we always work to spend just the same amount and make everything fair.  None of this is bad.
Even the youngest kid, who's 11, wants gift cards.  I found myself missing purchasing an actual, thoughtfully purchased gift.  

Am I alone?  Does anybody else miss buying actual gifts?
I do and I don't.

I started buying gift cards when my daughter was in grade school and every weekend would find us at a birthday party for a school friend.  I personally didn't know these kids well enough to really pick something out and my daughter didn't always have a good idea on what to buy.  If we had something specific, we'd get that, but I was often stressing about it.  I would stop by my local Target (be sure to say that properly... Tar ghay.  Thank you.) and one of the ladies in the food court asked me if I was stressing out about another gift.  

Yes, yes I am!  I want it to be special.

Stop stressing about it.  Buy a gift card and be happy.

I thought about that.  Did I actually have 'permission' to buy a gift card for kids I didn't really know?  That's actually... wait... pretty cool.

So started by desire to then WRAP them special.  Because I couldn't just let it go at "giftcard...check.  card...check" and be done.

Ways I've wrapped gift cards:

• My favorite idea for a while (before every 2 year old had a smart phone) was with a disposable camera and a little $1 photo book for them to put the pictures from their party in + gift card.  
• I wrapped them in balloons.
• I wrapped one in a paper mache balloon/egg that didn't try completely but I was so set on the idea of this awesome wrapping idea that I still brought it to the party.  Lord I wish I had a picture of the sad floppy somewhat moist "egg" with a gift card in it.  I bet that family still laugh about the crazy lady and her son with the unknown floppy ball thing they put the gift card in. 
•  I tried to bury one in a home made dinosaur egg.  (note tried, though I have successfully hidden plastic dinosaurs in home made dino eggs that took FOR FREAKING EVER to dry.  That's the party where my mother in law took the pictures and somehow managed to get my VERY LARGE LEOPARD* CLAD BUTT IN EVERY PICTURE!  
• I wrapped them in helium balloons.
• I taped them to bricks and wrapped that.

But where was I?  Oh yes... gifts vs. gift cards

I wonder if part of it is just practicality.  What if I buy something and they don't like it?
What if I buy something and they don't like it and never return it.  Then I just wasted their money and they didn't get anything.  It's almost like a negative gift.

Am I the only person going through this?
Is this really only for a small segment of the people in my life and I should be OK with it because I am able to buy actual gifts for other people?

Hmmm.
.


*leopard clad because all the parties we had for our kids were dress up parties.  I think kids should dress up all the time.  On this particular occasion I was a kitty cat.  My butt was in the pics because I brought a hammer so the kids could "excavate" their own dinosaurs from the now permanently dried concrete home made dino eggs.  I was bending over to make sure each kid had fun pounding away and didn't hurt themselves doing it.


 

sugar

I love sugar.

Seriously.  I tried to give up most sugary treats for Lent this year and I did OK, but man it was hard.

I slipped a few days before Lent was over.  Partially because one of the Catholics in the office told me Lend ended on Thursday and not being Catholic I was more than willing to believe her.  (It may have had something to do with the Oreo birthday cake she was offering me... it's a little fuzzy.)

So Easter Sunday... I binged on Mega Stuff Oreo's.  (for those of you who love Oreo's like I do, believe it or not, it's too much 'stuff.'  I prefer Double Stuff.)  I allowed myself to eat what I wanted for a few days and the bad news is... my health immediately took a nose dive!  I simply cannot allow large quantities of sugar into my body.  C A N N O T !

Before Lent, my vision was getting blurry and I had a hard time focusing.  Guess what was great while eschewing sugar for 40 days?  Yep, eye sight was doing fine.  Day 3 of sugar being in my daily diet and everything is fuzzy again.  

Ultimately this is good news because it gives me motivation to eat better.  

So today, I will go back to my Lenten ways.  I have decided to allow myself 1 treat per week if really necessary.  I will opt for fruit as much as possible.  (you know, when you don't eat a lot of sugar crap fruit is pretty wonderful).

I don't want to end up really sick.
I want to be healthy and live a life that is full... not condemned to illness and sitting on my sofa watching tv (though a little binge tv is good for the soul! ;) )

high maintenance

A group of people in my office regularly take turns doing a Starbucks run.

 

I want peach ring tea

If they don’t have that I want a very berry hibiscus refresher

If they don’t have that I want an orange spice iced coffee sweetened with a whisper of cinnamon

And if they don’t have that I want a dark roast with no room for cream

 

The name on her cup...

 difficult

OMG Beyonce!

If cursing is offensive to you, I recommend you read the disclaimer at the end first.  Just for the record, it's not my cursing... it's on another blog I link to.  I'd hate for you to be offended.

My children are just unflappable!  I love that my loudness and fondness for making a spectacle of myself doesn't often bother them too much and that occassionally they even enjoy it!

Last week, I went shopping with my daughter for some things my daughter needed and we found ourselves at Ross.  We didn't find what we needed, but we did find THESE!!!

We rounded a corner and I saw them, standing on the shelf at eye level!  I exclaimed!

It's Beyonce!

I was completely entranced in my own little world of chickens and failed to notice that I started several people (causing one to jump) and created a small stir as people frantically looked around to see where Beyonce*was!  (I can only assume they were thinking of the singer).  

I ran up to her and pulled her off the shelf then hugged her for the preciousness she is.

Then I spotted a second chicken!

There are TWO!  I can have one too! 

(you will note that I spelled both two/too's correctly)

I debated the wisdom in spending $40 on metal chickens and tried to restrain myself by taking just one from the shelf.  I walked around blissfully happy for I've been looking for an apartment sized Beyonce for about a year.  

I made my way to the checkout and just as it was my turn, I pushed my daughter out of line to go get the other Beyonce QUICK!

I was next.  I told the young woman (oh man, did I just say that?) at the checkout that she needed to charge me for two of these as my daughter went back to get the other one.  

Checkout girl:  You really like chickens, eh?

Me:  Actually, I don't, but I love this one.  It's a long story, but a good one.  You need to go check it out on line.  (I then proceeded to tell her about The Bloggess and she was interested enough to take extra receipt paper from the till and write it down!  My chicken love must have been contagious!)

I cannot wait to give the other chicken away!  

The best part of this story is listening to my daughter tell it to others!  Thanks for being you Hannah and appreciating me!

Disclaimer:  I do not curse in this post (or really in this blog).  However, I am a fan of certain blogs and they do curse.  The nature of myself and the internet leads to many links and I would hate for you to not realize what you're getting yourself into.  Specifically here, The Bloggess curses a fair bit.  It's not the backbone of her humor (as some comedians use it) but it is liberally sprinkled throughout her site.  She is still hilarious and one of a few must read blogs on my list.  But I appreciate it isn't everyone's cup of tea.