Dec 31

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone! In honour of the last day of the year I’m linking to some of my favourite posts from 2008.  Enjoy yourselves and be safe tonight! Cheers!

Sep 18

I said I wasn’t going to talk about boobs for a while and I lied.  But I promise it will be short. I am honoured to have been included in the Breastfeeding Without Blankets Blog Carnival over at defining someday. I am glad to see the focus returning to where it was supposed to be in the first place: a simple critique of WestJet’s blunder (their treatment of a specific class of passengers) and their lack of appropriate response.

Thanks, Elle, for making the effort to listen and for including me as one of “the feared online pundits, The Mommy Bloggers”. It totally made my day! And it kind of made me giggle a little, too.

Aug 23

I discovered a wonderful organization that promotes a small change to have a significant impact on the environment.  Asking not have a phone book delivered to your home.  I know! Small, right?

Five hundred MILLION phone books are printed each which requires that:

  • 19 million trees need to be harvested
  • 1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted
  • 7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep)
  • 268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up
  • 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are squandered  

      (this information from yellowpagesgoesgreen.org)

I don’t know about you but I can’t even remember the last time I picked up the phone book. Google is my phone book! In the age of technology there is no excuse for so much waste to happen and it seems like the only reason it does is that the phone companies make money from advertisers using their pages for ads.  

This organization is not trying to completely do away with phone books. They just think that phone books should only be delivered to those who request them, thereby saving a huge amount of waste and natural resources.

If you live in the United States and want to sign up to have your address taken off the delivery list for phone directories in your area you can do so here. Yellowpagesgoesgreen will contact your local telephone provider and ask on your behalf to have you address taken off the list. There is no guarantee that this will keep them from delivering to you as they do not have to oblige, but if it works, that’s one less book delivered and hopefully one less book that will be manufactured the next time around.

For my Canadian friends, you may have to do a little more work if you want to request not to receive a phone book. Try calling your local phone company.  For my dear ones in Saskatchewan, if you haven’t been using mysask.com for all your phone number needs (for both people and businesses), WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? It’s the whole SaskTel phone book online.  There should be NO REASON for most of you to have a phone book.

We need to encourage the telephone industry to be more environmentally responsible by using the internet for telephone listings and only manufacturing a small amount of phone books for those who really need them.  And if you happen to have a blog, I encourage you to post about Yellowpagesgoesgreen and link to them so that more people will learn about this small way to make a difference in the world.

Aug 21

What I’d like to know is what does this say about the reliability of eye witness testimony?

Aug 21

So we’re just over a week from moving into our new place.  The place that I am so excited about. The place with an ocean view and the whole beach for our backyard. And a nice big kitchen. And new appliances that don’t squeal like a stuck pig when operating!  I can hardly wait! 

Another feature that is HUGE (for me) is that we will have 2.5 bathrooms! That is exactly 1.5 bathrooms MORE than we had at our last place and I could not be happier.  The hubby thinks this excessive bathroomage is over the top. But he is generally pleased that there is more than one place to pee.

Until yesterday. Yesterday the hubby started making crazy suggestions.  And not the “wacky” kind of crazy either. We’re talking drooling in a straightjacket, eating your own feces, LOCK ME UP ‘CAUSE I’M ONE HELLA CUH-RAY-ZAY EM-EFFER!

Yes, he actually suggested we use one of the bathrooms for a purpose other than bathroom-type activities. Like a storage room. A STORAGE ROOM! 

Someone call the looney-bin because my husband is officially certifiable. Clearly the stress of the last few months has caused his break with reality.

Here’s how the conversation went:

The hubby:

“I’ve been thinking…” *drools, wipes away drool* “What if we used one of the bathrooms for storage space? 2.5 bathrooms is a lot of bathroom. There must be some way to repurpose one of those rooms. Like turn it into a fitness center? Or how about a yoga salon? Hey! Hey! How about a karaoke bar??! BLAAAAABLBBLBLBBLBLBBBLAAAA!!!!”  

Me:

“Have you lost your ever loving mind? I am finally going to have a dream jacuzzi tub and a beautiful double wide shower - both of which will not be available to the kids! We have OUR OWN FULL MASTER BATHROOM! Why would you want to give that up??? We aren’t hard pressed for storage, why would you even suggest such a horrendous thing?”

“…or a PETTING ZOO!!! What about that? Some kind of miniature Wild Animal Theme Park?! Or we could use it as a recycling centre for paper and bottles and cans…”

*sigh*

The five year old:

“We could store my dressup clothes in the bathroom!”  *Holy crap! More than one potty to pee in! I can’t wait to try them all!*

The two year old:

*So I could be flushing toys down one of the two upstairs toilets while my mom is fishing out the toys I dumped in the downstairs toilet Awesome!*

(If you want to face YOUR manga, click here.)

May 6

Just a note, it is TOTALLY UNETHICAL to advertise a rental property as having utilities included in the rent and then putting a coin-operated washer and dryer in the basement.  Particularly if you are renting to a naive couple from Saskatchewan who has no opportunity to view said washer and dryer before signing a twelve month lease.  And even more so if it will cost a freaking two dollars and twenty-five cents per LOAD!  I am bitter and angry. Yes I am.  Use of the water and power, including that which is required to operate the washer and dryer would fall under the category of UTILITIES.  Also, advertising air conditioning is useless if you are going to put a lockbox on the thermostat so as to prevent your tenants from actually ACCESSING the damn air conditioning.  Damn it. I hate Ontario and I’m not even there yet.  I’m in a really bad mood right now.  Homesickness is starting to kick in.

Just so this post isn’t a complete bore… here’s a little something…You’ve probably seen this before but I was amused: Top Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained.

Mar 17

Yeah, you read that right.  I have never considered this possibility before until I read this post on RLP.  He links to this article by Tony Campolo (who is way more “left wing” than I thought he would be) about the same thing and this fabulous short film called Credo.  It is very interesting and just a few minutes long, from the point of view of God. It’s weird to imagine this bald guy with thick glasses singing operatic/hebrew type music as God.  But give it a try.

If you don’t read the whole RLP post then this quote sums it up quite well:

I loved it. It’s lovely, precious, and endearing. And it’s certain to spark some pretty intense conversations. As you watch it, remember this: It is a work of art, not a theological treatise. Don’t pick the theology apart. Also, you should remember that in the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament) God repents several times. In Genesis God repents and is sorry that he created humankind. In First Samuel God repented that he made Saul king. And, most stunningly, in Exodus God is angry and about to destroy the children of Israel. Moses intervenes and demands that he repent of this anger.

“Why are you angry with Your people, which you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand? . . .Turn from your fierce wrath and repent of this evil against your people…And the Lord repented of the evil which He said He would do unto his people.” (32:11-14)

This notion of God experiencing regret is only a problem if you are into the whole omniscient and omnipotent thing. And since those ideas are NOT IN THE BIBLE, I don’t feel obligated to believe them myself.

Yeah, not in the Bible. The omni concept is more of a Greek, philosophical thing. Surprised aren’t you? Here’s a little article about this by Tony Campolo, who is a huge hero of mine.

Keith Synder explores the idea of God, evil, and repentance in this wonderful little film. And if you can let go of the omni stuff, then you make room for the idea that Larry Picard’s God character might actually be possible. Which is cool because I absolutely adore Larry in this film. I wish he was my friend in real life, but I’d have a hard time not always wanting to pray to him. ;-)

Love, love, LOVE!  Good watch! Go see!

Feb 22

 A little post to make you laugh if you have or have ever had PMS. (If you know someone with PMS, it might make you laugh, too. Just keep you mouth shut around said female.)

Feb 17

I found this link on a blog I regularly read and, as that author said…There is absolutely nothing I can say to prepare you for this.  WTF?

Jan 31

A good reminder to us all about protecting the innocence in children and trying to recover our own softness. Thanks RLP.

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