"If I were to die from eating something fattening, it would be bacon."

- Steve Taylor

"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

- Middlemarch, by George Eliot

"Love is like malaria--once it's under your skin, it's never really gone."

-Australian guy on "Crossing Jordan"

Weird photo

Okay, I invariably get to a point where I'm pretty confident in my technical abilities and my knowledge of blogging, and then something like this happens. Look to the left. Can anyone help me figure out why my photo is all squished, even though it looks fine on my blogger dashboard? And can you tell me how I can fix it?

Yet another quote

"We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

- Albert Einstein

Dancing dogs

Yes, I'm a crazy dog person.

More quotes

"The mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it."

-Middlemarch, by George Eliot

"Femininity is not the thing I hate once a month, it is not a collection of fatty deposits, not a style of clothing, or an overabundance of specific hormones. Femininity is a part of my essence, or philosophically speaking, my soul. Femininity is who I am, not merely what I do."

-Ruby Slippers, by Jonalyn Grace Fincher

Literary quotes

Here are a couple quotes that struck me as I was reading this week:

“He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.”

–Nelly Dean, in reference to Joseph (Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë)

“[Marriage] is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.”

–Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Library voice

The close tie between patriotism and Christianity

Butt out

I have never before agreed so much with Tyra Banks. Check this out:

February in Santa Cruz, CA (my birthplace)

Grrr . . . Minor rant: While I love most things about this template, I hate how it automatically capitalizes every word in the title of a post. The editor in me cringes!

Testing my patience

I was disappointed to read the following on a Christian crisis-pregnancy-center Web site. It's a test entitled "Am I going to heaven?" Most disappointing of all is probably the last part of the test.

Am I going to heaven?

It's not very encouraging that I'm surprised by this.

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
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I am

I am sleepy.

I want ice cream.

I have long second toes.

I wish I could fall asleep.

I hate it when my son gets shots.

I fear disappointing people.

I hear my son crying in the monitor.

I search for poop stains on baby clothes.

I wonder if I’m a better person than I was five years ago.

I regret saying vindictive things.

I love seeing my son smile at me in the morning.

I ache to go home again.

I think ½ cup is a ridiculous serving size for ice cream.

I always position toilet paper rolls with the paper coming over the top.

I usually correct typos I find in books.

I am not kidding.

I dance in smarty pants.

I sing without realizing it.

I never eat just ½ cup of ice cream.

I rarely lose things (famous last words).

I cry when I share details about my life (even fairly superficial ones) in groups.

I am not always good at giving people grace.

I lose weight when I get pregnant.

I'm confused by people who are purposely and randomly cruel.

I need to clean the bathrooms.



Now it's your turn!

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Imperial Majesty Wendy the Amicable of Deepest Throcking Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

True Confessions

We still have all our Christmas decorations up--outdoor and indoor (including the Christmas tree). The Christmas lights outside all still go on at dusk, as do the tree lights. Maybe I should send this in to PostSecret (see link at left).

Dance

Here's another video from OK Go, the group that did "Here We Go" (with the treadmills video).

Poem

I thought this was interesting.

The Calf's Path
Sam Walter Foss (1895)

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead;
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed--do not laugh--
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o'er crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the Calf-path of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do,
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.

Ah, many things this tale might teach -
But I am not ordained to preach.