First, you’ll have to excuse the big copyright sign in the center of the video – this is just a sample, though you can purchase the real deal here. Not that I think any of you are eager to purchase a one-minute video for, you know, ten dollars, but your church just might be. :-)

Second, I do think this is a funny take on a very real problem. And seeing it also reminded me that in the last few days Jules and Jeana have touched on, in a much more thoughtful way than I ever could, some other issues churches – and their members – are facing. Check out their posts if you get a chance – they’ll make you think, for sure.

And I wish I could link to the sermon we heard yesterday (not up on our church website yet) – because it addressed this particular issue so thoroughly and so Biblically (see Ephesians 1).

But in the meantime, for your viewing pleasure…

Like all good satire, there’s some truth beneath the surface, isn’t there?

Diane tagged me for this novel of a meme, and I’m happy to oblige such a loyal bloggy friend. So here we go.

7 RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME…
– I was born in Mississippi, lived in Louisiana, and am now at home in Alabama (forever, I hope).
– I love SEC football and basketball more than your average girl. When I was in college I camped outside MSU’s coliseum the night before a State / LSU basketball game…and this was one of the most fun days of my life. Seriously.
– I have known my husband since I was six or seven years old when we were in Mrs. Nicholson’s Sunday School class. We got married in that very same church, and my parents and D’s mama are still in Sunday School together even now.
– I grew up Methodist, joined an Episcopal church in my twenties, and have taught in Baptist and Presbyterian schools. You’d think I’d have a slight case of Protestant Schizophrenia, but I feel pretty blessed to have experienced those denominations firsthand. We go to a Baptist church, by the way – just in case you’re wondering where we “settled.”
– I want to lose 40 pounds. Preferably in the next week or so.
– I was a bridesmaid 10 times before I was ever a bride.
– I will never, as long as I live, understand why I had to take algebra.

7 THINGS THAT SCARE ME…
– cockroaches
– larvae stages of anything
– a snake shedding its skin
– clowns
– puppets and/or grown people in mascot costumes
– honeycombs
– a picture I saw in college of a man with 100 cigarettes in his mouth at the same time – it still gives me chills when I think about it

7 RANDOM/MUSIC AT THE MOMENT…(I’m not sure exactly what means, so I’ll just tell y’all what I’m listening to right now)
– Sunday Morning Songs – Veggie Tales
– Pirates’ Boat Load of Fun – Veggie Tales
– A Grateful People – Watermark – you reallllly need this CD if you don’t have it
– Arriving – Chris Tomlin – it’s been in my car for almost two years, and I still love it
– a great mixed CD that our friend Todd made for me
– sermons by our friend Kevin that I’ve burned to CD (not music, but I am listening to it in the car)
– “Takin’ It To The Streets” – Taylor Hicks (please don’t roll your eyes)

7 THINGS I LIKE THE MOST…
– diet Coke
– the smell of a little one right after a bath
– laughing so hard that I fear I may quit breathing
– TiVo – good grief it simplifies the TV-watching process. Not that it was a terribly complicated process to begin with.
– pedicures
– days where I have nowhere to be and can stay in my pajamas all day long if I feel like it
– standing in church, singing my heart out, knowing I’m probably way off key but God loves to hear me anyway

7 THINGS I SAY THE MOST…
– “OH MY WORD”
– “Have mercy”
– “Alex!”
– “I can’t understand what you’re saying. Say it like a big boy.”
– “Is ANYTHING on television?”
– “What in the sam hill…?”
– “What’s goin’ on?”

7 THINGS YOU WILL NEVER HEAR ME SAY…(I totally stole this category from Addie because hers cracked me up so much)
– “The doctor has really been encouraging me to gain some weight.”
– “This size 4 is too big. I think I may need a 2.”
– “I’ll be over there in the petites section if you need me.”
– “That fried chicken wasn’t so good, but this raw celery is DELICIOUS.”
– “Why, I’d be delighted to participate in your skit. I hope we perform in front of hundreds of people!”
– “I only spend about 10 or 15 minutes a day blogging.”
– “Back when I was participating in aerobics contests….”

Now I could be all cool and pretend like it’s been a normal couple of days here at BooMama. But the problem is, I’m a goob. I wouldn’t know “cool” if it slapped me in the face and called me Judy, and as a result, I can only say one thing:

SWEET MERCY, WHERE DID ALL YOU PEOPLE COME FROM?

Which is sort of a rhetorical question. Because I have SiteMeter. And it tells me things.

Like that a huge chunk of you have been referred here by either Shannon, Queen of Blogdom, or by my sweet friend Sarah, who linked to me in a post a couple of days ago. Which, as it turns out, was a couple of days after Lisa Whelchel linked to her.

And I’ve learned two things as a result: 1) Shannon has waaay more than tens of readers, and 2) when Blair Warner talks? People listen. I know because I’m a second-string beneficiary of her linkage. To extend that analogy a bit, it’s like I’m like the little gift shop on the corner that starts to get a few more patrons when the restaurant a couple of doors down gets a glowing review from a respected critic.

By the way, I’m not so good with the analogies. Better that you know it up front so that you can lower your expectations accordingly.

Last night I was telling D. (my husband, not just a random man I engaged in conversation) that it’s been a veritable linking extravaganza around here the last couple of days. In fact, I think Addie would call it Linkapalooza. :-) And honestly, it’s been a little strange for me (but in a good way) because I have a hard time understanding why anyone would bother to read my blog unless they know me in real life. And that’s not a plea for comments…that’s just the truth.

Anyway, I was telling D. that I totally get why Sarah has so many readers – her posts are thoughtful and insightful and inspiring. She seamlessly integrates theology with real life, and if she doesn’t write a book, I’m going to tell her husband to cut off her diet Coke supply. FOREVER. Which should get her motivated in no time.

But I’m not so much with the thoughtful. I mainly just talk about my very Southern family, and food, and TV, and my gratefulness that God loves me despite what a dork I am. And I told D. that I couldn’t help but wonder, in light of all that, what in the world people thought when they clicked over here from Sarah’s beautifully written blog and saw that she had directed them to The Post That Will Not Die, Bless My Mama’s Heart. It had to be a bit of bloggy culture shock.

D. thought for several seconds, and then, in the most comforting, soothing tone, he said, “Do you feel like your only claim to blog ‘fame’ is ‘hey, my mama tooted’?”

And I said, “YES, that’s exactly it.”

My husband, you see, understands me.

So just bear with me, y’all.

And welcome.

…to participate in a little shindig being organized over at A Gracious Home.

Now I’m fairly new (in the grand scheme of things) to all this bloggy business, and I see that there are some pretty specific requirements for these awards, but my guess is that every single person in the “Bloggity Goodness” links on my sidebar meets the criteria. And there are lots of categores besides the one you see to the left…that was just the only badge I could find on their website.

So if you have the time, do yourself a favor. Make a point to visit some (or all!) of the people I link to day in and day out. Check out the “Captivating” study girls, too. I am constantly encouraged and humbled by how well these women write, how deeply they think, and how fun they are to read.

Then, after you look at their blogs, as well as any others you read, think about heading over to “award headquarters” and taking the time to nominate a few.

And by the way…I don’t know any bloggers who write because they want to win contests. They write because they love it and because they have something to say. But encouragement is always a nice thing, and so many of the bloggers I read are deserving of a little pat on the back.

So thanks, Carol, for getting the word out…without you, I’d never have known that I can nominate all my favorites.

I’ll be working on that list directly. :-)

If I seem a little shaky this morning, it’s because my husband took the computer from me during my normal writing time (while Alex is eating breakfast) and took it downstairs because we hadn’t password protected our wireless network or somesuch nonsense, and yes, while I see the value in keeping everything secure so that some crafty geekazoid can’t look at my hard drive while he’s sitting at the end of my driveway and therefore determine once and for all if I use mayonnaise or cream cheese in my chicken and broccoli casserole, I TREASURE those few minutes of peace and quiet in the morning when Alex is trying to spear his waffle with his fork and I can actually string some words together and make sentences or even paragraphs.

At one point, when it seemed to me like I had given D. AMPLE time to set up the network password thing-y, I went to the top of the stairs that go down to his office and said, “Hey. Just so you know? I’m starting to twitch up here!” He did laugh – but in a “I’m-somewhat-worried-that-we’re-going-to-have-to-put-you-through-blogging-detox” sort of way. He said he’d be finished in about five minutes, so you can be proud of my restraint when, TWENTY MINUTES LATER, he finally returned the computer to its rightful place. With me.

I was planning to write about TV guilty pleasures this morning, and I had this whole angle worked out in my head about how as Christians sometimes we feel “wrong” or like we have to hide it if we get interested in some pop culture something-or-other – and how good grief we all need some entertainment every now and again and can’t possibly just sit on our hands and sing “Blessed Assurance” from sun-up to sun-down – but I can’t even remember everything I wanted to say right now because I don’t know if I mentioned it but MY HUSBAND? HE TOOK THE COMPUTER FROM ME.

Anyway, please understand: you will never ever hear me say that I think it’s okay for people to sit around and watch certain kinds of shows or movies. I’m just talking about stuff you like on network television. Stuff you can watch without it becoming some sort of stumbling block. Just so we’re clear.

So since you now know – at least if you read the comments to my post from yesterday – that I TiVo a little show about P. Diddy’s search for a new all-girl band, and since we also know from those comments that Shannon TiVo’d the Britney Spears / Matt Lauer interview (HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THAT?), and Amanda and Barb have interesting favorites, too, I’m guessing that most of us have some TV guilty pleasures that we enjoy on a pretty regular basis.

Mine? “Project Runway,” “24,” “America’s Top Model,” and oh my sweet goodness “The Office.”

Yours? NO JUDGMENT. I promise. :-)

I Tivo’d “The View” today.

And I feel a little guilty.

I mean, I’ve never watched “The View” except for a couple of times when it first came on. I’m sure the girls on the show are lovely people in real life, but on TV they all sort of get on my nerves talking on top of one another, and I always feel like it’s some sort of weird contest to see who can be the most “outrageous” or “hip” or “controversial.”

But to me it was all just “annoying.”

But then this Star Jones / Barbara Walters thing happened – and I just had to check it out. Would that be called television rubbernecking? Craning your neck to survey the damage as you slowly channelsurf past the morning show train wreck?

And to make sure I got all the latest “View” info, I even Tivo’d one of those entertainment “news” magazines (this is “apparently” the “post” of “quotation marks”) a couple of nights ago. You know, the shows where they scream at you and use the word “hot” a whole bunch? (Which reminds me: have I discussed my disdain for the use of the word “party” as a verb? I need to put that on my list.)

So that’s all. No other point to this, really.

And for all I know, this whole thing was just a big publicity stunt to get normally disinterested parties like me to watch “The View.”

I guess it worked. Because if they have a big tearful reunion show about two months down the road?

I’m SO there.

;-)