The book is written by Diane Setterfield, and my cousin was right: I enjoyed it thoroughly! To say this book is a story within a story is like saying an onion has layers. It is a marvelously complex piece of work, and the slide on it begins about halfway through. We’ve talked about the slide before, haven’t we? That point in a book where you can hardly bear to put it down, not even for such mundane things as eating and going to the bathroom?

I have a love/hate relationship with writing book reviews, you know. I never know how much to say. I don’t want to know about the plot of a book before I pick it up. A simple and direct “read it” from a trusted source is a much more effective draw for me that all sorts of details and character analysis. So, uh, “read it”.

It’s way more interesting than shopping for xerox phaser 8560 supplies. Or your dinner. Just go get something you can put in the microwave, or maybe even some trail mix, and pick the book up.

Congregation Builder’s web based church management software can, and does, use your membership lists in many creative and useful ways.

Congregation Builder’s Church Management Software Options Page

The Options page of Congregation Builder’s web based church management software is where you can select which membership types you would like to include for newsletter labels, broadcast emails, the online and printed directories, and attendance lists.

Congregation Builder’s Church Management Software Skills, Interests And Passions Page

The web based church management software Skills, Interests and Passions page will allow you to survey the members on your membership lists to determine their likes and dislikes. This allows congregations to use this information to match each member with a suitable church endeavor.

Congregation Builder’s Church Management Software eBeacons and Email Broadcast Pages

By using your membership lists, Congregation Builder’s Church Management Software eBeacons and Email Broadcast pages can be utilized to send email transmissions to select membership categories.

Congregation Builder’s Church Management Software Print Labels Page

By clicking on “Make Labels For: Member Types” in Congregation Builder’s web based church management software Print Labels page, you can create and print labels for just the membership types that you want to target. No need to print labels for the entire congregation and then pick and choose those you want, and possibly missing some!

These are just a few examples of the ways you can use your membership lists with Congregation Builder’s web based church management software to obtain the results you want each time, all the time!

Then we watched Apocalypto. This one movie was like watching two different movies for me. It’s about the ancient Mayan civilization, and it portrays that civilization with gruesome accuracy. I spent a good bit of the first half of the movie averting my eyes. There was a LOT of violence and gruesomeness, and while I understand that it was historically accurate, it is one thing to read about something in black and white and quite another to see it acted out in full color with bloody special effects. My motto is that you can’t unsee a thing, and so I avoided seeing that which I knew would bother me later. I’m told by Micheal that That One and I had matching looks of distaste on our faces during the first part, so I guess that’s comforting. I don’t think I’d much like to know a man who could revel in that. Just sayin’

Now then, the second part of the movie was awesome. The switch from group violence to one man’s desperate struggle for survival was what made it seem like two different movies. As much as I found the first part distasteful, I enjoyed the second part. Watching one man outwit and destroy a band of 10 men one by one changed the movie into a mental game, and I was swept up in it as he fought to live. It was still quite gory, but the overwhelming oppressiveness was gone, replaced by pure action adventure. The special effects remained awesome, and I was able to watch every bit of it. They did a great job depicting arterial spray from a head wound. In the end, of course, he……..never mind, not gonna tell ya, but it reminded me very much of the Bourne movies, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Does that show my penchant for mental violence as opposed to physical? Probably so.

The movie is still very much on my mind and not in a bad way. Mel Gibson did a great job with it, and even though I chose not to look at parts of it, I think I came away with pretty much the lessons he meant to teach in it. Fear will destroy you from the inside out. Conquering your fear will free you in the same direction.

Speaking of technology that doesn’t work, this post has come to a screeching halt while I wait for the blackberry to reset itself after working on DriveCarefully. Well, if deleting with intent to re-install counts as “working on it”. Tap, tap, tap. Guess I’ll make a grilled cheese or something.

Sandwich cooked and eaten and now the blog is down. What the heck???
And now my computer doesn’t see the pics in my phone?
And now, there they are. Apparently you have to wait for the blackberry to go into mass storage mode. I forget that every time. Sigh.

March 28 This book is called Call Me By Your Name, and I finished it on the 28th. I’d been looking for something to read and Micheal had just brought this home, and said it was a good book, so I decided to give it a try. It is a good book. The first half of the book details a young person’s infatuation with a man named Oliver. They do the dance of liking but not admitting to liking one another, and the accompanying agonies of over-analyzing every conversation and action, looking for clues to Oliver’s state of mind. It isn’t until a third of the way through the book that the narrator, the younger person, is named Elio, and he is a boy.

I’m telling you, as a firm hetero-sexual, every word describing the initial infatuation and eventual love rang so true that I re-read the section revealing Elio’s identity three times, sure I had misunderstood. Nope, two guys. The book is tastefully done, and I enjoyed it. Right up until I cried at the ending.

March 29 I’ve developed a new habit. I send That One a picture of a flower almost every day that he is out on the road. It started with just one, but he enjoyed it, so I kept it up. I think we’ll manage to figure out exactly how busy and depressed I’ve been this past month as we see how many days there were where I only managed to snap a flower.

March 30 My oldest son, playing baseball. He really enjoys the game and says he’d rather do “fall ball” instead of football this year. We’ll see.

March 31 Another flower. Can you see where we’re headed here?

Recently, I received this lovely box of goodies from Yoplait through MyBlogSpark. Go ahead and take a good look. Aren’t you jealous? Slippers, loofah sponge, fingernail brush, exfoliating towel, a back rubber and one of those velcro towels I have been wanting for-ev-ah, but was too cheap to buy myself, plus coupons for 2 cups of their new yogurt. And this is not skimpy towel either, it is a TOWEL, girlfriends, and it covers me from armpits to knees, muhahahaha.

See, Yoplait has developed a new line of Greek yogurt, with 12 grams of protein and it’s available in 4 flavors (Strawberry, Blueberry, Honey Vanilla and Plain) to nourish you from the inside out. It has a thick and creamy texture you are sure to love! The wonderful part for you, dear readers, is that not all of you will have to remain jealous. MyBlogSpark has offered up a second gift pack, which one of you will receive, so you’ll be able to try the new yogurt for free while wearing the cool towel, too!

Now, if you just can’t wait, you can download a coupon and save $0.30 on one cup of new Yoplait Greek today!

Unfortunately, the coupons for the free yogurts are not valid in California, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Tennessee. For the rest of you, go ahead and leave a comment on this post telling me which flavor you’d most like to try, and I will select a winner at random next Sunday afternoon. We’ll set the deadline at noon of that day. Your package will come directly from MyBlogSpark, so you’ll need to be prepared to give me your address, so I can give it to them. And, oh yeah, please be in the USA, including APO/FPO.

If all that gets you in a goddess-y mood, you might want to check out this Clash of the Titans trailer with actress Izabella Miko:

Enjoy!

They sayOk, I say that a well written book can pull you out of yourself, teach you something about life. I fought myself to read this one because it is a very painful story. Seriously, it begins and ends painfully and the entire middle is full of pain. But that’s just the way life is sometimes, and even in the midst of the pain, the story is beautiful, both in life and in this book. Life is beautiful, even when it hurts, because it is life. And this book is beautiful because it speaks a truth even though it is fiction.

Irreplaceable is well written, the characters are fully formed, very human, and the events are realistic, even in their unfathomableness. On the surface, it’s the story of an organ donor and what happens to her heart, but that short description doesn’t do the book justice. It is intensely emotional, and I cried when I read the last sentence: that’s just how they say hello. That one line sealed the book for me, because I actually have a leave taking ritual with a friend of mine–something we’ve never discussed, and I’m not even sure they know it exists, but it does for me, and that’s how I know Stephen Lovely is writing from a heart that understands motivations and desires and can adequately portray that in words that paint pictures for the mind. Irreplaceable is his first novel, and I’ll be looking to see what he writes next.

Instead, I want to talk about the Orient watches at Kenmar Watches. You know I picked this one because it is pink, right? Yes, that is too pink. It’s a magenta-ish dark pink. Isn’t it gorgeous? For a man’s watch, I mean?

If that doesn’t appeal, Kenmar has plenty more. Did you know New Balance makes watches? Me either, I thought they just did shoes! The most fun thing about Kenmar watches, though, is the search feature, because you can type “pink” in that search box (like I did), and you will get seventeen pages of results. Seventeen, people. Please excuse me, I have some, ummm, research to do. Like sixteen more pages worth!

And then I need to post some project 365 stuff. I actually took a picture of GuitarGuy yesterday, and he is practically panting to see himself on the internets. HA!

Anyway, he picked a book, and read it for a bout three seconds before he called out, “hey, what’s this paper?”

Well, that paper happened to be a check that my aunt had written for my cousin’s youth council dues, way back in the day. My cousin and I had served on Youth Council together in high school, and although I can no longer remember the purpose and function of the program, I do remember that we had a lot of fun going all the way to the county seat for the monthly meetings.

Can you see the huge amount of the dues? Here is a close-up:

Yeah, a whopping $5. Can you name an extra curricular activity today that costs just five bucks?

And here is another thing. My kids have never met this cousin. We were tight as tight could be all through high school, and then we had a fight one day, and never made it right, and haven’t really spoken since. Actually, that’s not even true. What really happened is that she spoke a word of truth to me that I wasn’t ready to hear, and I quit talking to her. And by the time I realized several years later that she was saying something I should hear, it was too late. I called her a while back, and she was convinced that I must want something. Of course, there was quite a bit of stuff going on in our extended family at the time, but I had no ulterior motive with my call. I just wanted to say hello.

And one more thing. I keep this picture in my bedroom. I bought it only because it looks so much like my cousin. Love you, Shirley. Miss you, still!

Fortunately, the world is in much better shape that the newscasters would have us believe, and here is an example. One of the members over at the Immortality Institute has been diagnosed with cancer. Now, that’s a bad thing, and it’s a pretty serious bad thing, as I am sure you know. But here’s the deal–his online friends are coming together to help him buy the supplememts that he thinks will save his life! You can read about it on the resveratrol forum.

Now, I don’t want to debate the ideology of these folks, or even alternative medicine. I just want to point out that some people some where are still doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. Brian, Charles and Katie ought to talk about stuff like this a little more and murder and mayhem a little less. Just sayin’