Archives for January 2010

Catching Up

17 January 2010 by

So. I haven’t been very bloggity this week. I have, on the other hand, been very CNN-y. Surely that counts for something.

And do you know what else? I haven’t watched “American Idol” this week. I mean, I know that there have only been two whole episodes, but normally I would be chomping at the bit to fire up the DVR and settle in for the audition shows. After all, I consider “Idol” a bit of a hobby for me. That and, you know, eating cheese.

I think the real-life goings-on in Haiti and the make-believe goings-on in Dillon, Texas have me off my “Idol” game (I’ve been watching season one of “FNL” on Netflix on-demand. Or maybe it’s not called on-demand. But it’s the Netflix that I can just watch on the computer without having to wait for a DVD to arrive.)

(And personally I think they should call it Netflix NOW!, but unfortunately I was not consulted during the marketing and/or branding stages of that particular product line.)

(SHOCKING, I know.)

This morning I decided that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to break out of my CNN fog, so we pretty much built our whole Saturday around the fact that State was playing Georgia at 2. After a morning of washing clothes and getting the six year-old to help me with decluttering and cleaning in his room, I served up some blackeyed peas and cornbread for lunch (GLORY), and then we settled in to watch the ball game.

The Bulldogs had a tough time of it for about 36 minutes, but those last four minutes will be forever etched on the Favorite Basketball Memories portion of my brain. We won 72-69, and I’m really okay with the fact that the game aged me 25 years over the course of an afternoon. I’ll just wear more concealer and go a few shades lighter with the blonde. And if somebody happens to call me “Mamaw,” I’ll pretend like I don’t hear them.

Also: when we were losing by 14 with about 6 minutes left in the game, I decided that a change of scenery was in order, so I moved to the TV in the kitchen and stood in one place for the remainder of the game. We went on a 14-3 run during those six minutes.

COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT.

Anyway, I have a few links I’ve been meaning to share.

– If you are an SEC basketball who likes to re-watch games just for kicks, NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT, then I think this site will thrill and delight you.

– Do any of y’all Foursquare? I had never heard of it until I read this article. And for the record, I have all the social media I need in my life, but I still thought it was interesting.

– You can grab a Compassion banner for your blog if you’d like to encourage your readers to help the Haitian earthquake victims through Compassion. You can also change your Facebook and Twitter profile pics.

Hope y’all are having a great weekend!

Filed Under: Rambling

Haiti

13 January 2010 by

My heart is so heavy for Haiti today.

That’s all I know to say, really.

But if you would like to help with the relief efforts going on in Haiti, please consider making a one-time donation to . You can donate as little or as much as you’d like; it only takes one look at the photographs coming out of Haiti to know that the needs are mind-boggling.

Thanks, y’all.

Filed Under: Compassion

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose

11 January 2010 by

For almost three years Melanie has been telling me that I need to watch “Friday Night Lights,” but I have resisted because I typically do not enjoy an hour-long drama. I mean, do you know how much I can get done in an hour?

I can get TWO episodes of “House Hunters” done in an hour. That’s how much I can do.

Anyway, the other afternoon Mel and I were on the phone, and she was telling me how she’d watched a few old episodes of “FNL” the night before, and she said, “Listen. I need to talk to you about something. It just makes me SAD that you won’t watch. YOU ARE MISSING OUT. I’ve watched every show you have ever recommended to me, and I just think you need to make time to watch this ONE show I have recommended to you.”

“WELL.” I replied. “It looks like somebody has decided to THROW DOWN THE TV GAUNTLET.”

“YOU NEED TO WATCH.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll watch an episode this afternoon.”

“YOU’VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS.”

And that is why Saturday, January 9, in the Year of Our Lord 2010, will be remembered forever – at least by me – as the day Big Mama called me out on my TV procrastination. She held me accountable. She spoke a hard word into my TV-watching habits. And oh, it did not return void.

Because late Saturday afternoon – true to my word, though lo, IT TOOK ME TWO AND A HALF YEARS – I watched the first episode of season one of “Friday Night Lights.” And then I watched episode two. Then three. Then four five six. And then I went to bed and dreamed that I lived in Dillon, Texas and was a close personal friend of Tami and Eric Taylor.

So of course now I’m totally hooked on the show and made it through episode nine last night and am dying to watch more tonight because the Panthers are driving hard towards a state championship, but, well, first I have to soar to staggering new reality television heights on the wings of love with Jake Pavelka as my pilot.

I mean, just because I have a new-show crush on “Friday Night Lights” does not mean I can abandon my long-standing TV commitments. OH NO IT DOES NOT.

And because I know y’all are wondering (and I know you’re wondering because I have the emails in my inbox to prove it), Melanie is still working on getting her blog up and running again. It’s her story to tell – and oh, will it ever be hilarious when she tells it – so just suffice it to say that the technical side of server switching has been a smidge challenging. Character-building, if you will.

By the way, have I ever told y’all that I like to save the emails from my webhost because they make me laugh? Please don’t misunderstand: I ADORE my webhost people, and they have been so, so kind to me, but every once in awhile they’ll email an update about a server that’s crashed or something like that, and the only words I understand in the email are the prepositions and OCCASIONALLY the adjectives. But most of the nouns and the verbs? No idea.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorites. You might want to pour yourself a fresh beverage of your choosing before you enjoy this little treasure.

The exploit is completely valid and usable on the latest versions of openssh for centos / rhel. Initially there was some speculation on my part that it was solely available for older versions (4.3 without the backported patches, for example) but that’s since been confirmed falsed — this is an exploit for the latest and most recent versions of openssh and is 100% confirmed functional.

Here’s what really tickles me about that email: somebody sent it to me BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT I’D UNDERSTAND IT. And considering that our sweet friend Melanie is having to listen to / decipher / process that sort of language as she navigates her way through the server switch, it might not be a bad idea for us to activate some sort of prayer chain.

In all seriousness, she’s hoping to have everything resolved really soon, and quite naturally she misses you terribly.

GO PANTHERS!

Filed Under: TV Is My Friend

Linky Interwebby Awesomeness 1.10.09

10 January 2010 by

I rarely post on the weekends – much less twice in one weekend – but I read a couple of things this afternoon that I couldn’t wait to share.

– This post by Amanda is absolutely beautiful.

– This article on Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado made me smile, and if you’re a Bulldog fan, it’ll make you smile, too.

– Finally, this week’s Bible readings and Family Worship Guide are up on the Radical Experiment website. You can also watch this week’s sermon, which centers on last week’s Bible readings (files should be up sometime Monday).

I really will try to remember to share the Radical Experiment links every week, but know that I am a forgetful creature who often walks into a room with great purpose and then can’t remember what I ever meant to do in that room in the first place. So it might be a good idea to bookmark the Radical Experiment site. It’s updated every Sunday.

Filed Under: Daily Awesome

Linky Interwebby Awesomeness 01.09.10

9 January 2010 by

– I just drew for a winner in the L’Bel Paris $500 giveaway, and you can find out who won by clicking over here.

– Here’s another neat giveaway: you can win Margaret Feinberg’s Scouting the Divine: Searching for God in Wine, Wool and Wild Honey Bible study leader kit (a member book, DVD with video clips, and a CD-Rom with leader helps, music, audio files, and more). You can enter the giveaway over at AllAccess.

– About a year and a half ago I realized that Roan, a childhood ballet buddy / fellow MSU grad, has a blog, and I get the biggest kick out of reading it. She homeschools her five kids, and they are avid – AVID – runners. Anyway, Roan wrote a post about Thursday’s “Mississippi Blizzard,” and it made me smile. Such a sweet family.

– I got several emails yesterday that said, “COULD YOU PLEASE TELL BIG MAMA THAT HER BLOG ISN’T WORKING?” Made me laugh. Anyway, Melanie can fill you in on all the details (or not), but just know that everything is going to be fixed very soon. And y’all should’ve heard Melanie and me on the phone last night trying to make sense of the techy problems – it was like a couple of second graders talking about thermodynamics.

– Baked Sweet Onion Dip? Yes, please and thank you.

– I cheered for ‘Bama in the National Championship game, but I was so impressed – once again – with Colt McCoy, the Texas quarterback who was injured on the fifth play of the game. If you haven’t seen his post-game interview, it is well worth your time.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Filed Under: Daily Awesome

L’Bel Paris Giveaway Winner

9 January 2010 by

Congratulations, Erin K. – you’ll have an email from me very soon about how to claim your $500 L’Bel Paris prize package.

And thanks so much, everybody, for your great participation!

Filed Under: Rambling
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