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.

coffee

that is all...

sneezing

A coworker of mine sneezes.
a lot
She sneezes at least 4 times a day.
She sneezes loud and long and colorfully. (sound wise, it has kind of a flourish to it like she's on stage)
She sneezes with a variety of endings.  I wish there was an accurate way to share this experience with you.  It's really more of an audio thing and somehow I don't think anybody would appreciate me trying to record her.

noisy

I'm at work, doing something repetitive.  This offers the opportunity to listen to a book on tape (Audible is my friend).  I talk to the characters.  I don't always realize I'm doing it.  I'm kind of in the zone of work and book.  
I comment on the story or a plot twist...
"Oh my!"
"No!?"
I laugh.
Sometimes people ask me if I'm talking to them.  Um, no, I'm actually talking to my book.

I listen to books when I'm out and about too.  I talk to the people (in my book) while in public.  (I now wonder if people just give me a wide berth or if they assume I'm on the phone since that's a thing now.)

I realize... I am noisy.

I laugh loud and often.  My laugh is rather instantly recognizable as my own.  In fact, I've been recognized by people having just heard my laugh bursting forth (while perusing humorous greeting cards, alone, in a store, just for the sake of enjoying them).  

I talk loud.  Lord only knows what I'll be like when I start losing my hearing.

Wait, what?
Oh, 12:30.

Sorry, that's an ongoing joke I have with my Mom (69) who is losing her hearing, and my daughter (15).

I have a friend who I describe to others as "making me look quiet or introverted."  What I find so fun about this description is that she describes me the same way.  (I wonder who's right?)

I find that I often whisper what I'm writing.  I catch myself doing this all the time.  Is that normal?

One thing I do that I know everyone does is talk to other people while driving.  I'll admit, I'm not always saying the nicest things, but sometimes I say... "Oh go ahead, you're probably having a bad day and I hope my letting you get over at the last possible minute helps you get to where you're going on time."  But... that's probably not the most common comment I make.

I talk to the TV.  I comment on what's going on, or that person should look behind them, or really, did they just say that?

My husband doesn't really like to sit near me in the movies.  I sincerely don't even realize I'm doing it.  I make comments while in the theater.  Honestly, I would probably drive myself crazy if I were more aware of it.  I do try to be quiet.  Maybe that's why I started whispering to myself when I write or type.  A way to use up more of the words I have stored for daily use inside my brain.  

Once, another friend and I ended up at the same IHOP for breakfast with our kids.
They heard me laugh

Kids:  "Oh Miss B is here!"
Mom:  "Oh, wow, is my laugh that loud?!"
Kids:  "No Mom, you're louder!"

Then my kids had the exact same conversation with me... but in that conversation, I was louder.  I guess that goes to slight embarrassment factor.  Though my daughter claims she is now inoculated against being embarrassed by me.  (I could totally get my son though!) 

So... this is me saying... yes.  I'm noisy.
I talk to myself.
I talk to the radio.
I talk to the TV.
I talk to my audio books.
I LOVE talking to people (I don't mind listening either...)
I talk when I'm writing.
I talk in my sleep.

But I'm OK with it.

(possibly because I am not on the receiving end of most of it... but, possibly because I'm just mostly OK with me.) ♥

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.


 

Looking for a coffee mug for a mug exchange at work.

Came up with several good contenders.
Sweet?
 

But First, Coffee.
If the cup isn't any good, at least the review was fun!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful

Makes Simple Tasks Delightfully Inconvenient

By ERH on May 7, 2015

Style Name: CasualItem Package Quantity: 1

Boy was I excited when this cup finally arrived. I read a zillion bad reviews for this product and I was not disappointed. Generally, I prefer when things don't work properly so you can imagine how tickled I was to find that this tumbler couldn't have leaked more if it came without a bottom. I'd usually give a product this pathetic five stars, but I'm seriously disappointed that this is advertised as a simple mug, rather than a coffee mug/spaghetti strainer, because that's how I use it. Had I known making coffee flavored spaghetti could be this easy I would have bought it WAY sooner. Opportunity missed, Ban.do.

Cons:
-super duper cute

Pros:
-leaks more than if a flood and a tsunami had a baby that actually turned out to be twins
-costs more than it's worth
-provides lovely coffee stains on anything you don't want to be stained