As we head into Mother’s Day weekend, Sarah’s post about her sweet new baby girl is a beautiful example of the depth of a mother’s love.

I encourage all of you to read it…and to keep Sarah and her family in your prayers.

from USA Today 5/11/06, by Ann Oldenburg:

Regarding Oprah:

“Marcia Nelson says that it’s not going too far to call her a spiritual leader. ‘I’ve said to a number of people — she’s today’s Billy Graham.’

One of Winfrey’s most appealing subtexts is that she’s anti-institutional, says Chris Altrock, minister of Highland Street Church of Christ in Memphis. He says Winfrey believes there are many paths to God, not just one. After doing his doctoral research three years ago on postmodernism religion, a religious era that began in the 1970s as Christians became deeply interested in spirituality and less interested in any established church, he came up with what he calls ‘The Church of Oprah,’ referring to the culture that has created her.

‘Our culture is changing,’ he says, ‘as churches are in decline and the bulk of a new generation is growing up outside of religion.’ Instead, they’re turning to the Church of Oprah.

‘People who have no religion relate to her,’ Nelson says.” [all emphasis mine]

You can read the article in its entirety here.

Now y’all know that I like me some Oprah.

But I’m also strong enough in my convictions that I don’t take what she says as capital T “Truth.”

Oprah as our country’s “moral monitor”? “Today’s Billy Graham”?

Hmmmm….

Thirteen Things That Make Me Laugh Out Loud
Now I could go all faux-holy on y’all and pretend like our idea of funny around here is when Pat Robertson’s tie knot is a little off-center or his cuff links don’t match (oh, that Pat…he is WACKY, he is). But I’m a firm believer in Christians keeping it real (first rule of “keeping it real”: don’t use the expression “keeping it real”) – and seriously, this is the stuff that cracks me up.

So for better or worse, here you have it.

1. Merritt’s impersonation of a ventriloquist. If I ever get video of it, I’m SO posting it here.

2. Ricky Bobby (I never claimed to be sophisticated, people.)

3. Listening to Mama or Sister tell a story, especially when they imitate other people’s voices.

4. “Arrested Development” – but it was cancelled, so I’m replacing it with “The Office”

5. Being anywhere with Daphne or Elise. Whenever I’m around them, I laugh until I cry.

6. The scene in “Urban Cowboy” where Bud and Sissy are having wedding pictures made and she looks down at her cowboy boots (underneath her wedding dress, no less) and says, “Mama, my legs are sweatin’.”

7. Toonces, The Cat Who Could Drive A Car

8. Funny Southern expressions

9. The Sweeney Sisters

10. This “Saturday Night Live” skit (until the part where they start planning what they’re doing after they leave the bar, and then it goes a little overboard). But “sandal-related foot cramp”? That’s humor.

11. The scene in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” where Doo opens up the screen door, throws Loretta’s home-cooked meal on the porch, and then whistles for the dogs.

12. Guffman

13. Ron Burgundy – and I’m actually not a big Will Ferrell fan, though this list certainly seems to indicate otherwise.

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Last night I was looking over my Bloglines subscriptions, and I thought, “Hey, I wonder what sites Bloglines recommends to people who read BooMama?”

The first four or five listings I totally understood. It listed several blogs I read: Addie’s, Blair’s, Maria’s, Jeana’s, etc.

And then the list got a little more, um, interesting.

I provide you with photographic evidence – look at the part below the “mama blogs.”

Now I ask you: is my writing so cryptic that Bloglines is forced to compare it to blogs posted in other languages?

Does the Bloglines computer scan my content and essentially see, “gibberish gibberish gibberish,” run a few quick commands and formulas and then conclude, “OH! That corresponds to this blog that’s written in Mandarin”?

It’s either that – or there are a whole lot of Asian BooMamas out there.

Don’t overthink – just answer in the comments, por favor.

1. Three favorite TV shows

2. Three favorite beauty products

3. Three favorite foods (and/or beverages)

4. Three favorite restaurants

5. Three favorite authors (and you can’t say “God – because He wrote the Bible” – I know you all love Him, but this is not Miss America, so you don’t have to impress the judges) :-)

6. Three favorite places

And mine, just for the record:

1. Y’all know there’s no way I can pick just three, so here are my top five: 24, Alias, Paula’s Home Cooking, Oprah (but only when she features celebrities, makeovers, or inspirational stories), American Idol

2. Okay, four: Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Oil shampoo, Arbonne skin care system (I know that’s about 8 separate items, but they’re all in one convenient package), Bath & Body Works Eucalyptus & Spearmint ANYTHING, the Sarah Jessica Parker perfume that I wear (I just had to use Google to remember that the name of it is “Lovely”)

3. DIET COKE, steak (preferably a filet cooked by my brother on the grill), coffee with 2 Equals and a splash of 1/2 & 1/2

4. Ninfa’s in Baton Rouge, Palace Cafe’ in New Orleans, Jim N Nick’s, which is all over the South

5. Jennifer Weiner, Patricia Cornwell, Harper Lee

6. Home, Destin, Nashville

Don’t be shy, opinionated friends-o-mine. :-)

Back in the summer of 2003, when I was pretty much watching Fox News all day long while taking care of an infant (this was before he could actually request Noggin and alter his mama’s TV routine), the whole Dixie Chicks brouhaha happened, and it flew all over me.

Not because they had an opinion. That didn’t bother me at all. They’re perfectly entitled to say what’s on their mind.

What bugged me is that they were – how should I say this? – kind of stupid.

I mean, if you’ve sold millions of country music albums, you should know better than to alienate your core audience with an off-the-cuff remark about the President. It’s just, as my mama would say, tacky.

Eventually the scandal died down, the Chicks’ tour ended, and they faded pretty deeply into the country music woodwork.

And even though I loved all of their CD’s, I haven’t thought much about them over the last three years. It’s not that I have some sort of personal vendetta against them…I’ve just been preoccupied with other stuff, like, you know, raising a child.

In other words, my worrying-about-the-Natalie-and-the-girls-time has been a little limited.

And, truth be told, I was pretty ambivalent when I read that they have a new CD coming out next week.

Until I listened to this.

I think I may have missed them.