Lent

So...I know I am not Catholic, but I think the tradition of giving up a vice for Lent is a pretty cool thing. I decided today that I would give up swearing, and then within an hour of that I had said about 3 swear words. So I scrapped that idea and decided to give up something that is truly a problem for me. And that is my fruit punch flavored Welch's Fruit Snacks addiction. I am serious like a heart attack about this too. I calculated the other day that my fruit snacks addiction may have surpassed my Diet Coke addiction in terms of money spent per week. Disgraceful I tell you. So you heard it here first...for the next 40 days I will refrain from purchasing (even if they are on sale) or eating Welch's Fruit Snacks.

On a more serious note...I read this about Lent on Wikipedia today.


"There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour). Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations.[9]"

I didn't actually know about the other two acts of penance - prayer and almsgiving. But it sounds so nice to me that I think I will incorporate all three into my life for the next 40 days.

How about you?

This really touches me...I hope you will feel the same...

Some things that I have been thinking about.

I am blessed. We are blessed.

No matter how small the contribution, we can share our blessings with others.

This season I encourage you to do just that if you have the means.

One of my particular favorites lately is Kiva.org. Where you can contribute towards micro loans for as little as $25. Loans that can literally change someone's life.

Or go to Oprah.com to find out many other ways to help.

A Few of my Favorite Things...the Holiday Edition

I just wanted to share a few of my favorite Christmas Movies, Books, and Songs. I love this season - everything about it. And these are some of the things that I look forward to every year. In fact, I don't quite feel satisfied, unless I have read each of these books, heard each of these songs (multiple times), and watched each of these movies. What are your favorites?

MOVIES

White Christmas - enough said.

This one is Rated R, so catch it on TV sometime. I promise it is very christmasy and has a nice message.


I would walk through the swirly, twirly gum drop forest to watch this movie. It's a hoot.

We watched the newly colorized version of this one at home last night. Sometimes I don't like the colorization process, but this one is fantastic. And be sure to watch the short film at the end that talks about the colorization process and the research that went into making it historically accurate.

MUSIC

Band Aid - I remember obsessively listening to the radio, just hoping that I would catch this song in time to tape record it - the extended version. Bless my heart. Thank goodness for iTunes.

Who would have thought that the King of Glam Rock and the Crooner would blend so well together? I think this song is lovely. If you haven't heard it, I think you should go directly to iTunes and sample.

Mele Kalikimaka - I don't know why, but this song just says Christmas to me. I guess you can tell I was raised on Bing Crosby.

BOOKS

I LOVE this book. I cry every time I read it.

Now, this one could be in the Movie category as well. As a matter of fact I will be watching this film tonight, and I will be smiling when The Grinch himself - carves the roast beast.

I am sorry, but who doesn't love Little House on the Prairie.

Special story, special message.

Christmas Scripture, Song, and Story

Scripture - Matthew 2

Song - Silent Night

Story - The Littlest Angel

And lastly but not leastly, check out the sidebar for a link to my friend's Etsy store. It is a great cause, and for people I really, really like.

Merry Christmas to all....

My heart will go on..AKA...Princess Pet Peeve # 5...with a new humanitarian website thrown in to offset the 'Grinchiness' of having pet peeves.

I don’t mean to be a jerk or anything, but I have a problem with the latest ‘Twilight’ ad on TV. It states that ‘Twilight’ is the most epic love story since ‘Titanic’. Umm, excuse me? First of all, I am in no way advocating ‘Titanic’. I am not a huge fan of the movie to be quite honest; I am sure that this comes as no surprise to many of you. But come on? ‘Twilight’ does not equal ‘Titanic’. Let’s look up the definition of Epic shall we?

epic (from Dictionary.com)
A long narrative poem written in elevated style, in which heroes of great historical or legendary importance perform valorous deeds. The setting is vast in scope, covering great nations, the world, or the universe, and the action is important to the history of a nation or people. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid are some great epics from world literature, and two great epics in English are Beowulf and Paradise Lost.

‘Twilight’ is neither an epic romance, nor an epic movie for that matter. Think ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ or something like that for an epic movie and you are more on the mark.

And to compare a teen vampire love story to the love story which happens aboard a sinking ocean liner, in which 1517 people lose their lives, seems to trivialize the real life tragedy of the Titanic story. And by Titanic story I mean the history of the Titanic and not James Cameron’s self indulgent “King of the World” film.

Having said that, I will say that I did see ‘Twilight’ again this past Thanksgiving weekend, and I didn’t dislike it as much as I did the first time. I think I can give it a solid B- now and get it off the C+ cusp. I still hate the makeup, some of the special effects, editing, and other things; but it is innocuous enough of a movie to not deserve my wrath. Don’t get me started on ‘Titanic’ though…and by ‘Titanic’ I mean the movie.

And as promised here is a new Humanitarian website that I found (well my friend Rob found...well actually my friend Rob's wife Jenn found). Anyhoo, I think it's cool. Check it out.

Meaningful Gifts

Christmas Song - Far, Far Away on Judea's Plain

Christmas Scripture - Psalms 24

Christmas Story - A Christmas Prayer by Robert Louis Stephenson

Random thoughts on the economy, sports, blogging…and a movie review.

So…I have been thinking a lot about the economy lately. Who hasn’t, right? But my thought is this - except for some small things we can do at home, like budgeting better, cutting back on expenses, and stocking up on food storage – there isn’t anything we can really do on a personal level about the global economy right now. So why dwell on it. Sure I can spend every day fretting over whether I will keep my job or not, but truth be told even if you are a good worker you can still get laid off. And part of being a good worker is knowing how to strategize your career, so when it’s all said and done what is going to happen is probably going to happen. And I know that it’s the Holiday season as well, and times are tight. But what if we all just committed to giving some money or some of our personal time, any amount, to a group or person in need this year? I think we would all feel better, I truly do. It doesn’t have to be a large amount, maybe all you can afford is 5 dollars. That’s ok, because it truly is the thought that counts. So in the spirit of that thought, here are some organizations or people that I think could use some holiday cheer.

http://www.fmsc.org/ - I found out about ‘Feed my Starving Children’ through my good friend Lori’s blog - http://countdowntohomecoming.blogspot.com/. They are “a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding God’s starving children hungry in body and spirit.” Lori has been involved with them through her quest to adopt in Haiti. Read more about the plight of the Haitian’s and especially their sweet little ones on her blog.

http://www.madebynikki.blogspot.com/ - I love my blog design and I would love to take credit for it, but I can’t. I found Nikki through someone else’s blog and was impressed with her enthusiasm for humanitarian work. She truly represents one of my favorite quotes which is – “You must be the change you wish to see in the world. - Gandhi”. She is presently raising money to travel to Ethiopia (February) and the Dominican Republic (May and June) to do volunteer/humanitarian aid work. If you need a new blog header or just want to donate to her cause, check out her site.

http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=COGP_CA_LosAngls_main - If you are interested in donating to the Red Cross, this is a good link where you can either donate to the general disaster relief fund or specifically to the Greater Los Angeles relief fund in order to help out with the disaster relief from the wildfires of the past few weeks.

http://web.me.com/andrewtbagley/NieRecovery/About.html - This site was setup for donations to help with the recovery efforts of Stephanie and Christian Nielson who were in a fatal plane crash in August. Stephanie was burned over 80 % of her body, and is expected to have a long and painful recovery. Stephanie and Christian are the parents of four young children, and with hospital bills in the millions of dollars, I am sure they can use our help. I don’t know them personally, but I do know some of their extended family members though and this is how I found out about their story. If you want to know more, read http://blog.cjanerun.com/ and http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/.

In Utah, you can donate to http://www.rescuesaltlake.org/ and http://www.utahhumane.org/ (I am particularly found of the people at the Humane Society because when Sally died I sent them a donation in her name, and they responded with a very nice letter thanking me for my donation and naming Sally in the letter. It was only $25 dollars, so it was very kind of them to bother.)

http://www.lds.org/library/page/display/0,7098,6433-1-3298-1,00.html – this site lists some of the ways the L.D.S. church suggests that we can donate our time and money as well.

Anyway, my just a thought turned out to be kind of long one. The point is that if you are so inclined there are many ways that you can make a difference this holiday season.

Now on to more frivolous ramblings…

How about those Utes? I know the BYU/Utah rivalry isn’t considered to be one of the great rivalries in all sports, but it’s HUGE around here, so a 48-24 Ute win is not too shabby. I try not to get too excited about sporting events anymore because well frankly what’s the point. (Except the Olympics of course!) But it is pretty cool that the University of Utah has done so well this season. And since I did graduate from there, I thought I would give them a shout out.

And finally, a movie review of Twilight. Yes I braved the throngs of tween girls to see Twilight on its opening weekend. I admit I loved the book, so I too was just as excited. I however, did not love the movie. It was semi-satisfying, so I wouldn’t say I hated it, but it definitely was not on the level that I was craving. The actors are decent, and the movie is certainly filled with all of the teen angst that the book delivers. But the directing style left something to be desired and don’t get me started on some of the special effects. I don’t want to go into too much detail in case I taint your desire to see the movie. Believe me if it was horrible, I would warn you, but it’s not. It’s probably right on the cusp of a B-/C+ movie in my opinion. So please do go and see it for yourself and then let me know what you thought.


P.S. I am sorry for being a slacker blogger lately. I think the problem is that I spend all day working on a computer for work, and sometimes also nights and weekends. So there are times when the LAST thing in the world that I want to do is look at or touch a computer. I will be posting some pictures of my recent trip in the next week or so and there are some really cute photos, so don’t give up on me yet.