I finally finished watching Shtisel on Netflix. Took me forever but persistence and hard work paid off. I loved it. If you ever are sitting around, binging on some fantastic series, and think to yourself, ‘Anne would love this,’ pause and ask yourself three questions. Does it have a suspenseful plot? Do people die? Is it scary and sad? If the answers to those questions are yes, then you’re wrong, Anne would not like to watch whatever you’re watching—or read... Read more
Good Moaning. As a sick cosmic April fool joke it is snowing—for real—right outside my window. Moreover, Matt has no voice and cannot croak anything into the phone for a podcast. This must be providence because it’s kind of a slow news day anyway, and also, for sometime we’ve needed to change the Day of Our Pontification. We are going to podcast this week, but we’re going to wait till his voice isn’t so painful. I know one of the... Read more
[Jesus, pictured here, is excited that I’m blogging instead of doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing. ‘But Jesus,’ I say, ‘I blog every day…] I don’t mean to be obsessed with self-care, self-compassion, and self-forgiveness, but I run into them everywhere, especially in this, which I was reading, get this, as a way of procrastinating. That’s right, there is something I have to do that I’ve been avoiding for weeks. I could have done it at the beginning... Read more
It is another gray Friday, though not so cold. Maybe some takes will make the sun shine. One Just read this—had to because as soon as I clicked on it I was reminded that I have read half of my allotted articles for the month. That’s what I do now, I skulk around the internet trying not to click on anything accidentally, fearing to use up the allotted number of free articles on ones I don’t care about. This one... Read more
[Jesus excited to see how you’re managing to pull yourself out of the mire without any help from him.] You probably need some motivation to get yourself up and going this morning. I know I do. Let’s head over to twitter, that great rushing stream of human wisdom and understanding, and see what we can find. Wait, what’s that? You don’t want to go near twitter for any reason? Oh well, I’ll pick up my cross and do it for... Read more
[This cat, like all babies, doesn’t even care if you’re happy.] I think last week the world happiness statistics were released and, of course, the US fell back in the ranking even more behind Scandinavia and the Netherlands. We’re still way ahead of Venezuela though, so there’s that. Around the same time I found this piece—a German study of some kind showing, incontrovertibly, that having children will make you more unhappy than divorce and even losing your spouse to death.... Read more
A bit more than a week ago we finally had the push (my cousin whom I love) to face pulling up the carpet in the basement. The carpet probably needed to come up the minute we moved in to this old and glorious house almost three years ago, but we had other carpet to pull out, and also, what a lot of work. But then the situation became dire because our stupid tiny dogs, who turn up their noses at... Read more
Good Morning. There is a tiny ray of sunshine peering through the usual blanket of clouds. We woke up late and did a fascinating (for me anyway) podcast about Jesus being a socialist, the use of the word ‘body,’ and how I’m a failure at being a Proverbs 31 woman. It’s everything you could want for a Monday, probably. Here is the article we start in on. And here are those ladies channeling some kind of spirit. This is true.... Read more
Friday, there you are with your gray snow mixed with rain. One I just wasted an hour reading about snowplow parenting, a curious expression for me, seeing, as I do, the plows moving up and down the road all day long but never quite in the places I wish they would go. Two To some degree, the plowing method of parenting seems like it would be exactly right. Push them along. Get them going. Come along. Get in the car.... Read more
[Oh look! There it was in real life! Too bad it’s out of print.] I saw on Twitter yesterday that all of LifeWay’s stores will be closing this year and that LifeWay will, like so many, be confined to a virtual existence. This news put me in mind of a sarcastic turn I took around Barnes and Noble almost five years ago. Isn’t it amazing that Barnes and Noble is still there? I even went in ours the other day... Read more
Preventing Grace
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