Miss Adventures in the 37206’s Neighborhood

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Random Harvest (1942)

xina
3 hours ago
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proposal

#68 - Angry Conversations with God by Susan Isaacs

Cori
Yesterday
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Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir

Susan E. Isaacs

Recommended on: Relevant Magazine's "Best Books of 2009...So Far" list.

Borrowed from: the Sacramento Library (although, if someone wanted to get it for me for Christmas, I would love them forever and ever)

Rating: 10 out of 10

Synopsis: God in couples counseling? Sounds sacrilegious, but in the adept hands of comedian, writer and actress Isaacs, it's a success. Isaacs reached bottom at age 40: no job, no boyfriend, no home. Of course, she blamed God. So off they went to counseling with the ever-patient therapist Rudy. Isaacs moves easily between recounting her life story and her counseling sessions. She describes encounters with the Nice Jesus of her Lutheran upbringing; the Oakie Pentecostal church and the militant counselor; the Rock-n-Roll church and the Orthopraxy, Dude church, plus her rocky acting career and her love life, including guilt-ridden sex and Mostly Mister Right. Isaacs readily admits to being snarky, but she's honest about her quest and its conclusion. She's funny, biting, earthy and brilliant.

Review: I've been putting off writing this review because of just how much I loved this book and I don't feel like my review can do it justice. Susan Isaacs is a) raw, b) brilliant, and c) hilarious. The literary device she created —of taking God to couples counseling—worked perfectly and did a great job of giving the whole book a cohesive feel that is sometimes absent from memoir. The evolution of God's voice throughout the book is especially well done. Reading about the difficulties Isaacs went through in her walk with God felt so much more real than a lot of other Christian books I've read in the past. It's like she's, this is going to sound crazy, an actual person. She is refreshingly honest and I just fell in love with her story and the way she dealt with what came her way. And did I mention she's funny? Bitingly funny. I couldn't recommend this book more highly to all of my Christian girlfriends and to anyone who's disillusioned with the church. We ended up reading it for my book club and every single person absolutely loved it.

12 Days of Zazzle Deals - FREE SHIPPING!

Today is DAY THREE of the 12 deals of Christmas and your deal is:

FREE SHIPPING when you order $25 Dollars or more of Zazzle stuff!

Avery Binders!

colorful christmas ornaments notebook-01 binder

colorful christmas ornaments notebook-01 by dooni_notebooks

The Nutcracker Binder by IslandVintage

When I Was Little Photo Album averyphotobindercont binder

When I Was Little Photo Album averyphotobindercont by littlegoose

What are Zazzle's 12 Deals of Christmas?

Shop, customize, or create the perfect Christmas gift! Zazzle's 12 Deals of Christmas are a series of amazing daily deals on Zazzle products. Each day there's a different deal that is valid for one day only. Missed a deal? No problem! Sign up for our newsletter to get special access to yesterday's deal, and to be notified of each new deal first thing in the morning!

To qualify for this free shipping offer, one or more Zazzle products must be purchased with a net sale price equal to or greater than 25.00 dollars. Enter promo code 12DEALSSHIPS at checkout to receive the free shipping. The free shipping offer is for ground shipping to U.S. addresses only. Shipping charges will apply to oversized orders and orders being shipped on an expedited basis or outside the U.S. Offer is valid from December 5, 2009 through December 5, 2009 at 11:59pm PT. This promotional offer may not combine with any other Zazzle promotional or volume discount offers. Offer valid on Zazzle.com only.

I hear sleigh bells.

xina
2 days ago
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Los Feliz Christmas

Amazon Store Update

dewitte
2 days ago
11 comments

PERKY

I updated my Amazon Store. I've managed to sell about $4 worth of stuff on it in the past three years. Well, $4 worth of profit. It's so low that Amazon won't mail it out. If you are buying, though (hint, hint) anything from Amazon for sure in the next few weeks (or anytime), send me the product ID info and I'll add it to the store. I don't think you pay any more for the item, but I do get like a penny or something for the referral.

Anyway - if you don't mind, please go to the store page and click on some products. I'm trying to figure out if Amazon is recognizing the "clicks" or not. It shows no clicks at all, which is certainly possible but also curious.

Implant-Based Cancer Vaccine Is First to Eliminate Tumors in Mice

dewitte
Nov 25, 2009
1 comment

Mice are so lucky! Doctors are always working hard on cures for them.

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2009) — A cancer vaccine carried into the body on a carefully engineered, fingernail-sized implant is the first to successfully eliminate tumors in mammals, scientists recently reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The new approach, pioneered by bioengineers and immunologists at Harvard University, uses plastic disks impregnated with tumor-specific antigens and implanted under the skin to reprogram the mammalian immune system to attack tumors. The new paper describes the use of such implants to eradicate melanoma tumors in mice.

The slender implants developed by Mooney's group are 8.5 millimeters in diameter and made of an FDA-approved biodegradable polymer. Ninety percent air, the disks are highly permeable to immune cells and release cytokines, powerful recruiters of immune-system messengers called dendritic cells.

Daily Show - Things not to be Thankful for

dewitte
Nov 24, 2009
3 comments

You can fast-forward to about 4:05 if you are in a hurry.

Paula Deen Hit In Face With Ham

dewitte
Nov 23, 2009
8 comments

clipped from www.cbsatlanta.com

ATLANTA -- One celebrity chef is showing what it means lend a hand this holiday season.
Savannah's own Paula Deen is helping to deliver more than 25,000 lbs. of protein to Hosea Feed the Hungry.
Although the focus was on giving back, things took a quick turn when Deen got a serving of ham in a rather unique way.
While tossing hams and turkeys, a misguided thrown ham hit Deen in the face, but that didn’t sideline her from the topic at hand.

Related To Story
Paula Deen Ham Incident

Video: Raw Video: Paula Deen Hit In Face By Ham

Video: Deen's Reaction To Ham In Face

While Deen managed to escape visible injury, she did say the area around her nose hurt.
"I just got hit with a hog so what do I expect said Deen through laughter. "Ran head on to a hog."

Deck the Halls, my Bitches!

It might surprise you, dear readers, to know that I rarely find joy in anything. Disappointment builds character and I am brimming with character. I am so used to hitting snags and being turned down and cold cocked with "NO" that some days I don't even try. I just wait for sleep and dread waking up. Today is not one of those days, my friends!

Jingle Bells

When I went home to Arkansas in September, one of my goals was to get my mother's copy of Christmas with the Mexicali Brass and take it back to Canada to do a phono to cd burn. Sure, it was scratchy and skippy and possibly unplayable...but I had to have that record. So, I ask mom and she points to the album sorter. You know the kind. Looks like it's made of clothes hanger wire and you slip a single album in each slot...So I furiously slide each album up looking for the Mexicali Brass and when I find it I squeel! Then I mutter, "sonofabitch." All album cover, no album. Mom says it's in there somewhere. Yeah, but where?

Today I was feeling kind of festive - getting out the wreath and stockings and all. I started thinking about that Mexicali Brass record and how much I would like to listen to it while I decorate or make cookies...just like when I was little. My mom would hit the egg nog and before too long we were dancing in the kitchen to mariachi-fied Christmas songs. Long story short - itunes has the whole album and it is clean and remastered and now it IS MINE!!! I think I felt a little joy today. When you are used to hitting snags and being turned down and cold cocked with "NO" as much as I am - a little "yes!" goes a long way.

03 The First Noel

The Mexicali Brass

08 Deck the Halls

The Mexicali Brass

They've gone plaid

dewitte
Nov 21, 2009
12 comments

Spaceballs

Barf: [Spaceball 1 roars by them, in a plaid colouration of speed] Aah!
Barf: What the hell was that?
Lonestar: Spaceball 1.
Barf: They've gone to plaid!

Or rather, "It's" gone plaid. That would be my electric meter. Since we moved in something has been bugging me. It's my hot water heater. I was outside raking leaves once or doing something and I was near the electric meter and it was spinning faster that some kids' toy top. I went through my breakers one by one until it stopped and the culprit turned out to the be hot water heater. Of course - you'd suppose this, but what killed me was I don't use all that much hot water, so for it to suddenly come on in the middle of the day when it really wasn't even that cold out - and not just on, but on with a vengeance. It's a quick recovery heater so it really kicks in to get to and maintain the temperature. Well - that hurt me and my pocketbook (if I carried a pocketbook - Jamie has a purse, but I don't think that's a pocketbook. You'd think a pocketbook would just be a book - maybe a paperback).

I probably forgot about it for a while, but my electric bills really are outrageous. I don't think they are until I'm talking to someone and they say "HOLY COW! THAT'S HIGH!" and then I go away shaking my head and I think "Hmm... Water Heater...!". Finally after a few years, I opened up the access covers and lowered the temperature from "ABSOLUTE MAX - 125 - DANGER!" which is what the previous owners had set it at down to about 115 - maybe 110. I mean, really - I always hated burning my hands anyway every time I turned on the hot water. This would be better. Believe it or not - it was, and it was practically unnoticeable in the shower as not many people need to blast off grime with a full 125 degrees.

My bill went down - noticeably. So here it is a few years later and I was paying the @%#$^ bill which included my August air-conditioner usage and I started thinking about that hot water heater again. I don't know why I thought of it, but I recalled that people used to put timers on them. I mean, why keep it crazy hot 24 hours a day when we only take a shower in the morning? 24 hours of hot water for 20 minutes of showers - ugh!

I looked them up on Amazon, and sure enough there is a nice one for about $35. I didn't order it because I was going to look nearby first. Lowes didn't have it and neither did Home Depot. I think Home Depot did have it on their web site, just not locally. I kept meaning to call my local hardware store, but just didn't get around to it. I kicked myself for that since if I had ordered it the day I found it, it would have already been here. Today we were running errands and I had to go to the hardware store (we have a kick-ass hardware store, btw - they've been around forever and they have just about everything I've ever gone in there to get), so while there I asked about water heater timers. "Oh, yep - they are right over here."

Crazy, really. There it was for only $29, and I didn't even have to pay shipping. I came home and put it right on (because I'm handy like that). What's ironically funny is the homeowners before me hooked up their water heater with just wire nuts and the wires were just hanging out like that all these years - so I solved two problems by adding the switch. Now there are no more wires hanging out - no more wire nuts sticking out - no covers missing. The covers are in place, the timer is in place and everything looks great. I set it to come on at 5:45am and go off at 8:30am - the other 21 hours and 15 minutes, it's on it's own.

Take that, power company.