Yay Blogger!

Check out the new sidebar to the right, entitled good reads...

Voila! A selection of blogs I read daily! The 10 most recently updated appear by default; if you want to see a more complete list, there's a link for that at the bottom. I'm loving the utter up-to-the-minute-ness of it all!

Design Tips

In another life, I would be into design. Gotta love these tips. Props to one of my favorite bloggers.

Today's Sermon

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I couldn't resist!

For some reason, I can't get the visual above, but click on the link for the wordle.

Wordle

Click on the above image for a close up.

What is it? A word cloud of this very blog. Make your own, using a blog or any text at all! I'm thinking of wordle-ing a sermon sometime, to distill its "true" message. :-)

Wordle your world.

I Believe!

Just got back from seeing the movie. "Amen" to Roger Ebert's review. No fancy footwork, no mind-blowing CGI, no superheroes or monsters (excepting the human ones). IMHO, that's what makes this movie work. It's not Batman, and you don't want it to be. It's Scully and Mulder, together again.

Critics say it's like watching an episode of the series writ large. Well, trust me ~ if you were (are) a fan of the TV series, that is not at all a bad thing.

Yay X-Files! Yay creepy theme music! Yay scary moments when I sucked in my breath and said "oh dear"!

Apparently, Chris Carter said that if this movie does well, he hopes for a third. Perhaps it will be released on 12/22/12? You know, the date of the next alien invasion?

PS ~ Poster source here.

Me, Again

Modern Art Museum by dumpr.net

Me, museumified

Art Museum by dumpr.net

Mouth Melting Maraschino Madness

Were M-n-M's a memorable part of anyone else's growing up years? I remember when the most exciting color in a bag of M-n-Ms was green. After all, that was the only color separating M-n-M's from their butterier cousins, the Reeses Pieces. Yes, at that time, there were two shades of brown M-n-M's! (Might that have something to do with the 1970's and the decade's inexplicable embrace of brown decor?) I remember the thrilling appearance of the first red M-n-M's, and their subsequent hasty removal from grocery store shelves as the dye was suspected to be a carcinogen. Later, I remember when we got to vote for the next new color ~ blue or purple? (Blue won.) As a teen, the release of peanut butter M-n-Ms rocked my world completely. Almond M-n-M's were a close second.

All that to say, I'm a pushover for any new kind of M-n-M. (I love the dark chocolate variety in the purple package they came out with last year.) Today I happened across Wildly Cherry, a new limited edition that tastes just like those chocolate covered maraschino cherries that come in fancy satin boxes. Yay!

Oh, and at the M-n-M website, you can become an M-n-M! Joy!

(Anyone prefer Smarties to M-n-M's? The jury is still out for me.)

Earlier this month, while in Ohio ....

I turned 33,

saw some old friends,

took a drive with the top down,

hung out with farflung family members,

and even took a turn in the pulpit.

Aren't the visuals lovely? Thanks to Luana and Peg for their creative response to a few of Jesus' parables as recorded in Matthew. My sermon was titled: "Seeds, Pearls, Yeast and a Fishing Net." If I was studying New Testament instead of Hebrew Bible, you can bet I'd be writing on the gospels. Nothing against Paul, but the spare, unornamented gospel narratives are the ones I would want with me on my desert island. Along with the entire Hebrew Bible, of course!

More Ohio pics coming soon ....

Happy Birthday Anne!

With an e.