Things that make me feel rich

* My library cards and all of the pick-up-able and downloadable goodness they provide

* Crockpots! (Coming home to a hot meal? Yes, thank you!)

* The radio, including online radio stations (24/7 music at my fingertips)

* The Clarins lipstick that I bought three years ago (don't judge)

* Old Navy workout clothes (cheap, comfy, and functional)

* A trip to the ski resort on a random Tuesday night with my brother and husband (who was amazing on the bunny slope for his first time on a snowboard)

You?

Cold

It is dark and cold outside. I had a horrible time dragging myself out of my warm, cozy nest this morning, and I don't want to leave work and venture out into the night to go home.

I may see if I can scrounge up the cash in our budget to buy a cheap light box. January and February are just dreadful every single year. I don't want to do anything but lie in bed or on the couch.

On the bright side, I'm listening to The Screwtape Letters on my commute, and it's brilliant.

Faith wrestling

I need to preface this by saying that I have really good parents who sacrificed a lot for us kids and gave me a great start in life. I'm grateful for everything that they did for us. I don't blame them for the choices they made at all, and, actually, I think that most of their choices were pretty good ones. They are very sincere and well-meaning in everything that they do. From my perspective today, I can and do look back and wish that they had done some things differently, but I understand that they were doing their best to follow God's leading. What follows is not intended in any way to be disrespectful or disparaging of them.

My folks are very into end-times prophecy. For those not familiar with it, there are a lot of passages in the Bible that talk about the end of the world, when Jesus will come back to Earth. Most of these passages are in the books of Daniel or Revelation, and they consist almost entirely of imagery. Odd imagery; creatures with multiple heads, dragons, stuff like that. People have spent their entire careers deciphering what all of these passages mean. My folks filled our house with books, tapes, and magazines from one particular organization that is devoted to the study of this stuff.

Some of this material is pretty scary, especially if you're a Christian, and, say, 9 or 10 years old. I used to have nightmares about being beheaded or burnt alive for my faith because I read and heard about it so much. The thought of meeting Jesus in all His glory face-to-face scared me to death. My parents didn't understand very well when I tried to explain my fears to them; they thought that my freakouts meant that I wasn't "really saved." Gee, thanks. I wasn't scared of going to Hell; I knew that wasn't going to happen. I was scared in the way that you're terrified of getting up on a stage in front of thousands of people or something like that.

I absorbed a very scary, grumpy, vengeful view of God. I would hear that "God is love," but it never really made sense because He seemed to really dislike humanity. I never understood why He would go to the trouble and sacrifice of sending His Son for us if we were all so awful and He couldn't stand us. I didn't so much love God as I feared Him, but, according to most of the verses I heard and got to memorize, "the fear of the LORD" was the goal, anyway.

Attending a Nazarene college was an eye-opening experience. I wasn't sure that I was on board with every last bit of doctrine, but I had to admit that these people were kinder, happier, and more welcoming than most of the other Christians I'd met. When they said that God loved you, you believed it. It wasn't so much a difference of substance as it was of emphasis. It felt like a warm hug, sunlight, and a breath of clean air all in one. The the Wesleyan concept of prevenient grace changed my life.

So that's my back story. To this day, it's very difficult for me to read anything from the book of Revelation. I follow the daily reading schedule from the Book of Common Prayer, and one of this morning's passages was from Revelation. It was full of all sorts of stuff about martyrs, and my heart was racing by the time I had gritted my teeth through all 17 verses. For a few years, I actually refused to read anything from that book of the Bible, but now I make myself do it. It hasn't gotten any easier. I understand God more fully than I used to, and I can take on faith that all of these parts fit into the bigger whole somehow, but it still reminds me very vividly of the way I lived and believed for 18 years.

Today's Her.meneutics entry addresses some of the other ideas that swirled around in our house while I was growing up. Obviously, my family didn't subscribe hard-core to the "Stay-at-Home Daughters" movement. But my parents have told me several times that, according to the Bible, I should have lived in their house until I got married and that they should have been the ones to pick my husband for me. It's still hard for me to think about. When you've been told your whole life that you're not as wise as your parents, it's very difficult to go against their advice or instructions. You're always going to doubt yourself. Three different pastors (two of them Baptist!) told me that I didn't have to obey my parents once I reached adulthood, but I've never been able to completely shake the guilt-- even though I know that I did the right thing.

Now that I'm married, of course, there are very clear statements in the Bible that say that I am no longer under my dad's authority. Nobody can argue with that, no matter how literally they take Scripture. Now I get to figure out exactly what being a wife looks like, since Matt and I don't ascribe to the rigid model in the "Biblical Patriarchy" way of thinking.

Something else that I've been thinking about the last couple of days ties into this. We're still trying to settle on a church home. It turns out that a lot of the United Methodist churches in the area are led by women pastors, and my feelings about that are conflicted. I'm just uncomfortable with a woman in that leadership role. But then I remember that I have rejected the inflexible gender roles of the so-called "biblical patriarchy" movement, so how dare I say that a woman shouldn't be a senior pastor? I'm still sorting all of that out. I love it when women have leadership positions in the church, but I don't want them to have that particular leadership role. Inconsistent? Yes. Like I said, I'm still struggling with all of this.

It comes and goes. Today is one of those days when I just have to tune in to K-Love and remind myself that, even though I don't understand a lot of things, I do understand that God is gracious and forgiving and loves us madly. All we have to do is accept that. The rest is just details.

Oh hai

Apparently my posting schedule is now once a month. I feel sort of bad about that, but then I realize that I'm just not wasting your time with a bunch of pointless nonsense, and then I feel better.

So what has happened since the beginning of November? Well, I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner. It went well. The turkey was gorgeous, and everything else turned out well, too. I can't take credit for everything, but I did make the green beans with almonds and the stuffing. The stuffing would have probably been fantastic if I hadn't had to use gluten-free bread to make it; as it was, I think it tasted okay, but it was difficult to get past the texture of corrugated cardboard. My brother-in-law's awesome wife and I drank a lot of spiced apple wine and put together the last-minute stuff, and Matt mashed the potatoes and carved the bird like a champ. The boys cleaned up afterward, too.

My other big accomplishment was running that 10k I was talking about. It was this past Sunday morning, and it was 32 degrees and snowing a bit, but I did it! I finished in 1:02:01-- yes, 62 minutes and ONE second. I probably would have come in faster if I hadn't decided to slow down for a couple of water stops and to take advantage of the porta-facility that was just past the halfway point. But that's a very solid 10-minute-mile pace, which was at the high end of the range I'd been hoping for.

Here I am approaching the finish line:

Today is the last day of finals at work, and I'm looking forward to a slower time over Christmas break. I have a lot of tutorial videos to create, which should keep me busy, but it will be nice to have a few weeks without quite so many interruptions.

E-reader rundown

A friend of mine recently asked me to explain the basics of the different electronic book readers. Since I put some time into the overview, I thought I'd post it here in case it would be useful for anyone else (Christmas is coming, after all). Please keep in mind that this is simply my best understanding of the situation and that I am human and therefore may err now and again. =)



The big boys right now are the Kindle from Amazon and the Nook from Barnes & Noble. There are also a bunch of other, lesser-known readers like Sony's eReader and the Kobi and such from Borders.These all have the "e-ink" screens, which look like regular paper pages. They have a light gray background, like cheap paper, and they can only display black "ink." You need to be in a lighted area to read them (no backlighting, so it's much easier on the eyes than a computer screen).

There are 3 different models of the Kindle. There is a big one, called the DX, and two versions of the smaller size: one has both WiFi and 3G connectivity, while the other has just WiFi. You pay a little more for the 3G model up front ($189 vs. $139), but using the Sprint network to browse, buy, and download books is free from that point on-- no contracts or anything. If you happen to have the just-WiFi version, you can browse and buy books anywhere that you can connect to a WiFi signal. If you can't get a signal, you can still buy books on your computer and transfer the books over to the Kindle by hooking it up with the charging cable (it's like putting files on a flash drive). The Kindles all have real buttons that you push to turn pages or type.

The B&N Nook is very similar in most respects. There are two versions right now-- WiFi + 3G ($199), as well as just WiFi ($149). Same deal as the Kindle as far as connecting goes-- I don't know which cellular network it uses, but I do know that there are no additional charges. (I have the just-WiFi version.) The main difference, physically, is that the Nook has a little color touchscreen at the bottom instead of a teeny keyboard. The touchscreen turns into a little keyboard if you need it to, but if you're just reading, it goes dark and you can turn pages back and forth with a finger swipe instead of always having to use the side buttons.

I think most of the other ones are either just WiFi or need to be physically hooked up to a computer to get books. I'm not sure, though.

The main thing that sets the Kindle and Nook apart, in my mind, is the type of files you can get. If you get the Kindle, you are pretty much locked into buying all of your ebooks through Amazon-- unless you "jailbreak" it, or hack it so it will accept files from other sellers. Doing that is supposed to be really easy, but I believe it also violates the warranty and service terms (like that kid who hacked his iPhone so it would work on the Verizon network a while back).

The Nook (and those other ereaders) accepts files from B&N but also from a lot of other places. I could buy books from Borders.com and put them on my Nook, for instance. I would have to do that from my computer and transfer them to the Nook with the cable, but I could do it.

A lot of public libraries are also starting to offer ebook collections that you can borrow, and the Nook makes that very easy. If you have a library card, you just get on your library's website and log in with your card number; you can browse, check out, and download ebooks. Once they're on your computer, you plug in your ereader and transfer the file onto it. Again, you can do this with a Kindle if you jailbreak it, but it's automatically supported by the Nook and the rest. I have a couple of library books on mine right now. You borrow them for a set period of time, and when that time is up, they expire and automatically "go back" to the library, so no late fees. =)

In a couple of weeks, Barnes & Noble is also releasing a new "Nook Color," which is a different beast entirely. It looks like more of an iPad than the other e-readers. It's all color touchscreen, which also means that it's all backlit. They're hyping it as great for electronic magazine subscriptions and stuff. It looks like an iPad without all of the apps, basically. It doesn't interest me, but it's half the price of an iPad ($249), so I'm curious to see how it sells.


In response to a question about the screen working outside and connecting via a netbook:

Either the Kindle or the Nook would be pretty good in sunlight. I would assume the others would be, as well. The iPad completely SUCKS outside (if you're sitting in warm sunlight, it will overheat and turn off, aside from the not-being-able-to-see-the-screen thing, which is bad enough). Maybe that's what they were talking about?

And, yes, the ereader will come with a USB cable and probably an adapter to charge it from a wall outlet, too. You should be able to use your netbook to download and transfer books with no problem. 


And, in response to a question about ongoing costs and book sharing:

No monthly charge with any of them.

If the publisher has given the okay, you can lend an ebook to someone else for 14 days. You type in their email address and hit "share." While they have it on their Nook, you can't read it on yours (after the 14 days, it disappears from theirs and you can read it again). You can only ever lend a given book one time, though, and, like I said, you can't do this with every book.

The Kindle has just announced that you'll be able to do the same thing, but you wouldn't be able to share from a Kindle to a Nook or vice versa, as I understand it (because of those file types being different). 


And, finally, in response to a question about the costs of the ebooks themselves:

I would say the book prices are pretty comparable to each other (Amazon vs. B&N vs. Borders for ebooks). Borders tends to be the highest, with Amazon and B&N neck-and-neck. Amazon seems to come in a few cents cheaper about half the time.

It really varies as to how much ebooks cost, though. I've gotten some for super-cheap (like $5 or less) or even free, and then I've paid nearly $20 for a couple of others. Some ebooks cost almost as much as the printed version, and once in a while, it's actually a few cents cheaper to buy the paperback than it is to buy the ebook! Most of the time the e-version is a little less than print, but not enough to blow you away. The biggest savings is on a new release that hasn't come out in paperback yet; the digital version tends to be a good bit cheaper than the hardback book.

You can usually get older stuff (pre-1923, and thus out of copyright) for free if you look around on sites like Project Gutenberg. Most of the better sites have files formatted for both the Kindle and everybody else. Amazon and B&N also have free downloads on some of the classics sometimes as a promotional thing. 

My current projects

I have several "projects" of varying natures in the works right now. I figured I'd share, since apparently I am too scatterbrained to post a coherent entry.

Fall Book Challenge: I'm participating in the fall book challenge for an online "book club" that I found. I did the summer one and it was a lot of fun, even though I didn't complete the whole thing. I ended in the top third, but, more importantly, I ended up reading a lot of books I'd have never thought to read, and I enjoyed it. The challenges are long lists of different categories that are worth different numbers of points; for instance, "read a Newbery Award winner" is a 5-point "task" this time around, while "Read a book that is told (at least in part) from the perspective of someone with autism or mental retardation. Post about how you felt the character's autism affected their story, in both positive and negative ways" is worth 25. I finished the summer challenge with 265 points, and I hope to do about as well this time around (though the 25-point tasks, for the most part, don't interest me very much this time around). Matt checks his fantasy football team; I work on my current book challenge.

Knitting! I'm working on fingerless gloves. I finished the first one yesterday! I'm using this pattern (click for pics). Mine are closer in color to the ones from the movie than to the ones in the pattern picture (holding the book). Love. I am so proud that I completed something in the round and was able to figure out how to switch back and forth from round to flat.

Run a 10k: After that 5k on Labor Day, I can't wait to try a "realer" race. I downloaded an "8 weeks to 10k" program and am now in Week 2. I'm eying up a 10k on December 5, and I think that I can be ready, distance-wise. I'm hesitant only because it's outdoors on December 5! I have until, I think, November 20th to pre-register, so I may wait a few more weeks and see how the training goes. So far, I'm really liking the speed work and tempo runs. It's adding some variety back into an exercise routine that had become monotonous slogging.

Host Thanksgiving (gulp)! Matt and I have decided to host Thanksgiving for his family this year. It's only 5-6 people, so it's not the most massive undertaking, but I'm still nervous. I've never made a turkey before, so this is ambitious. It's made yet more daunting by the fact that Matt's mother has Celiac disease and has to adhere to a completely gluten-free diet. I made a trip to the natural foods store this morning and investigated the options, and I am relieved to have discovered that there are pre-made, frozen gluten-free pie crusts, gluten-free bread for stuffing, and gluten-free gravy mixes. Those were the three parts that I was nervous about, and my fears have been allayed. I'll figure out the rest.

That's about it. Work continues to be busy, and the next two and a half weeks will be the most hectic of the whole year for me. With November, however, comes the chance to catch my breath and get my car inspected.

Speaking of, Matt's car has been in the shop since Thursday, so I've been running him to work in the mornings and picking him up at night. Since he works 25 minutes from our house in one direction and I work 25 minutes from our house in the other, this has meant a lot of driving for me. We knew that he needed two new tires to pass inspection, but we did not know that the entire floor of the car was rusted out and needed to be patched. That's why it's been at a body shop since Friday. The estimate was less than we'd feared, so we're hoping that there are no complications with that. Then it's just the tires and a (possibly) cracked manifold. :'( This has to happen by the end of October, because that's when his inspection is up. I love Pennsylvania.

Still here

So, I'm still alive. Work is always busy in the fall semester, and this year has been no exception. It cuts into my writing time!

Let's see... What have I been up to? Well, Matt and I ran that 5k on Labor Day, and it was a blast. We finished in 31:30, which I thought was pretty good. Our goal was to run the whole thing without stopping or slowing to a walk, and we accomplished that, even up the big hill! Here we are after:

I'm currently downloading an MP3 training program that's supposed to get you from a 5k to a 10k in eight weeks. That would be just about right for me to build up to run in the Trot for Tots 10k at the beginning of December, but I'm not sure if I want to commit to that. I love the idea, but they run in all weather, and I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to run for 6.2 miles in sleet or snow or such. Maybe I'll give it a couple of weeks and see how I'm feeling.

We hosted our first Steelers party a couple of weeks ago, and I would say that it was a success.

I kicked butt at my first writing & critical thinking class session last week, which is a good way to start October (I will do about 20 of these things by the time this month is over). The professor even sent my boss a two-page letter detailing how amazing I am! I'll take that. :)

In other news, my online book club has finished the summer book challenge and is moving on to fall. I'm sitting out the October monthly selection, since I am too much of a wimp to read Stephen King. We're doing an "exchange," where we all sign up on this website that randomly assigns us another participant, secret-Santa style. I'm waiting on the book to arrive to I can put the package together to send out to my "elf," and I can't wait to see what somebody sends me. :)

My knitting has stalled out a bit. My wrists have been bad lately, and I think it's a combination of my Nook (the buttons aren't positioned at the most convenient spot, and the touch-screen is apparently hard on me!) and my new Mac keyboard at work. I may have to ask IT to give me my PC peripherals back.

We ARE going to be hosting Thanksgiving for Matt's family here at our house. Matt and I went to Walmart yesterday and bought a roasting pan and basting set, and I ordered Williams & Sonoma's turkey brine from their website. I'm totally intimidated but also really excited.

The stray kitten outside is not so much of a kitten any more, and he has gotten really friendly and cute. We go back and forth on whether to adopt him or not; I went so far as to call the vet to find out how much vaccinations, etc. would set us back. In the end, though, we always decide that we're better off as a one-cat household.

So that's the news from here... I'll try to update more faithfully so there's not quite so much to gush forth when I finally sit down to blog!