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Overcast ~ High: 70°F ~ Low: 47°F Monday, May 20, 2013 |
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PicturesPosted Thursday, May 16, at 12:38 PM I've been thinking a lot about pictures lately. A picture is worth a thousand words, so if I utilized more pictures, I might be more inspired to post a blog more often with just a few words and a picture. The problem is, I'm not very good at taking pictures. ...
One Morning Our family had a rare, chaos-free morning at the breakfast table today. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but with three boys at home, I count it as a miracle. Most of the time, at least two of them are squabbling about something. There was one touch and go moment when my youngest spoke to my middle child: "Could you please chew with your mouth closed?" The fact that he said "please" was the first miracle. ...
This last summer, my boys and I finally broke our streak of neglected gardens from years past. Sadly, I can't say the same about our lawn, but our garden was really rockin' this year. I picked a few tomato plants and an abundance of basil, sage, rosemary, oregano, cilantro, and mint. ...
Twitter War Worth Fighting Every cause has its own awareness month, so each calendar month gets a little crowded. February is AMD/Low Vision Awareness Month, American Heart Month, Black History Month, and National Children's Dental Health Month. February is also Teen Dating Violence Awareness month. ...
Life is full of distractions. That's not always a bad thing. Our personal relationships can distract us from the stress of work. Work can offer a distraction from hardships in our personal lives. Books have consistently been my favorite distraction from all of the news and technology overload...
Escape, by Carolyn Jessop (with Laura Palmer) Carolyn Jessop grew up in an FLDS Polygamist community. Though her mother suffered from depression and was prone to violence, Carolyn did not associate this with her religion. From her grandmother, she learned to take pride in her religion. She was raised to believe that they were God's chosen people and that husbands would be fair to their wives in plural marriages. ...
Blood Memory, by Greg Iles Normally, when I choose an audio book, I make sure it's unabridged. If you get an abridged book, you never know what gets lost from the author's original vision. In my desperation to find an author that begins with the letter "I" and avoiding the chic lit selection at the library, the abridged version of "Blood Memory" found its way into my hands...
Two Letters, One Blog A few blogs ago, I wrote about my goal to read an alphabetical list of authors. It may seem like I'm slacking off on that goal, since I haven't done a book review since F for Frankl in mid-April. The project was temporarily de-railed by an unfortunate hairball incident followed by a new obsession to follow the Nook vs. ...
To E-Read or Not To E-Read It's getting harder and harder to carve out time for reading and writing lately. My newest excuse is not exactly "My cat ate my homework," but it's close. Let's just say it involves a book, my 17 year-old house-cat, and a hairball. In the aftermath of that unfortunate event, I decided I just wasn't that interested in that book and decided to make a trip to the library for another one...
Man's Search for Meaning Some messages are so great that a paraphrase, quote, or summary just can't do them justice. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, for example, is the greatest story of God's love for us, but when we try to explain it to others, it's hard to summarize how much Jesus loved us, as well. ...
Love and Respect Here's where my alphabetical project has become a drag. I was eager to read, "The Bingo Palace," by Lisa Erdrich, which I had long ago picked up in a bargain bin. When the time came to read my E book, I couldn't find it anywhere. It's absolutely baffling. ...
Dickens and Dahl My children get on a kick with certain favorite authors. Lucky for me, the authors they can't get enough of lately are Roald Dahl and Charles Dickens. D was the next letter to knock off my alphabetical author goal this year, so it's just really convenient that our nightly reading coincides with that goal. It's so convenient; I can't even claim to be multi-tasking. It feels like cheating...
How Do I Get That Job? I once heard a comedian say that adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas. I often tease my husband that in case he ever comes to his senses and fires me, I better start making a back-up plan. ...
B is for Bock To recap from a few blogs ago, I set a challenge for myself to read a book by an author from every letter of the alphabet this year. The B one took... a very long time, but it was absolutely worth every minute spent reading. "Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies," by Kenneth Bock, M.D. ...
Confessions of an English Major At my last writers meeting, one of our members brought in a newspaper insert from American Profile that had a list of "20 of America's most celebrated and influential writers," compiled by Stuart Englert. We had a lot of fun going through the list. Each of us recalled which works we had read and which ones we liked or disliked. Having majored in English at UNL, I'm always embarrassed whenever someone mentions a great classic that I have not yet read...
Taking a Breath When you are exhausted from caring for a sick child, you try to focus on your blessings. You groggily pour the albuterol in the nebulizer at three o'clock in the morning. You hold your child until his breathing returns to normal, and you say a prayer of thanks that at least you have the medicine to help him breathe easier again. ...
A to Z One of my favorite short stories is "Mad House," by Richard Matheson (author of "I Am Legend"). In Mad House, a college professor is frustrated that everything in his life seems to go wrong. He resents his job, his students, and his wife. Things around the house always seem to break or cause injury. ...
Great Mom Freak-Outs It's been nearly a year since I've written a blog. Part of the reason is the usual busyness of life. Another reason is that my copy editing skills are a little rusty, and I cringe whenever I find mistakes a week after posting something. The main reason I had stopped blogging is that my kids have reached the age that they are mortified when I talk about them. ...
Forget the puppies In the comments of my last blog, I said I'd write my next blog about puppies. Puppies seemed like a nice, innocuous topic that we could all agree on, right? Then, just when I was getting ready to write a blog about puppies, our city was in the middle of a debate about new pet licensing requirements--a debate that got so heated, it made solving our national healthcare problems look like first grade addition. Okay forget the puppies. Is there anything Americans can agree on these days?...
Mean Men In 2004, there was a movie called Mean Girls, with Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and Tina Fey. The movie showed how cruel teenage girls can be toward each other with their rules of high school conformity. The cruelty of the teen years for girls was not a new subject. ...
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One Morning
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