tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-368045342024-03-07T02:22:59.509-07:00Aunt BeaN's Third Blog(This blog is no longer active. Poke around as much as you want, then click over to my new blog, <a href="http://bnstc.blogpost.com">To Square a Circle.</a>) First-time teacher, obsessive reader, perpetual student. My work-in-progress: trying to cobble together a spiritual path from the remains of my Evangelical childhood. BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.comBlogger627125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-48981422072841434292015-03-04T18:10:00.001-07:002015-03-04T18:43:06.514-07:00You're invited...The new blog is up and running. I hadn't planned on such a long delay, but I kept waiting for a brilliant idea for the first post, and nothing happened. So, I wrote a boring one just to get it started. Here's the link:
To Square a Circle
If you still have this blog in your RSS feed, you should probably remove it. At some point in the next couple of months, I will make a bunch of fixes--updatingBarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-30328186176393401442015-02-17T09:32:00.000-07:002015-02-20T12:23:47.785-07:00the new old blog, or maybe it's the old new blogSo.... HI. It's been about six months since I told you I was shutting down this blog. After the first couple of weeks, I didn't think about it much for quite awhile. But recently I've realized that I really do miss blogging. I think it might be time to start back up again.
Also, I find myself randomly declaiming my opinion in an inappropriately lecture-ish tone on various social media. I think BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-75172792169613976442014-08-18T10:19:00.000-06:002014-08-18T10:28:12.967-06:00Break on Through to the Other SideVoilĂ ! Doors from Italy and Ireland. We were struck, especially in Tuscany, by how much effort people put into the way their front door looked. In those tiny ancient towns, there's no room for a garden or a lawn, so I guess a front door is all you've got. If you're on a slow connection, either skip this one or start it up and go get a cup of coffee while it loads.
I don't know what that BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-14793694688847066802014-08-17T23:52:00.000-06:002014-08-24T15:28:08.570-06:00looking aheadHi, gentle readers. You can't possibly know how much your loyalty and support have meant to me over the past few years. It's not much of a stretch to say that having this space to talk about what I'm thinking has saved my life a time or two. I'm more grateful than I can say.
But for the past several months, I've had the distinct feeling that I'm done with this blog. I'd be on the verge of BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-11872861084325357172014-07-12T10:29:00.000-06:002014-07-13T23:35:43.868-06:00a light unto my path, but not a laser beamI spent the 4th of July weekend in East Texas with my beloved family. My aunt and my older sister threw a party for my uncle's 80th birthday, and just about all of his kids, grandkids, nieces and their families arrived for the occasion. There were about 40 of us, and we had a wonderful time.
I was there for four days, including a Sunday, so of course we went to church. It was a little odd. AboutBarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-2619371024929446622014-07-11T11:27:00.000-06:002014-07-11T11:27:24.951-06:00reading report: too much time on the planeRemember "the next post" mentioned in the previous post? This isn't it. Still mulling that one.
In other news, you may have missed it in the comments a few weeks ago, but Laurel recommended a novel called Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, particularly for those who are planning a trip to Italy. It is perfect for that purpose, but it's also the best book I've read in years, so go find a BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-58888687352401633512014-06-26T02:12:00.000-06:002014-06-26T20:29:38.152-06:00odds and ends: no, really, this one is odds and endsSee the next post for why I'm doing this, but here are several half-written posts that have been sitting in my "drafts" folder for awhile now.
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Some word pairs that were going to be in a future Words on Wednesday post:
-hoard (a verb, meaning to save stuff up, usually a bit excessively) and horde (a noun meaning a group of people, usually used pejoratively to describe a mobBarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-61778786390878167802014-06-25T02:12:00.000-06:002014-06-26T00:41:44.347-06:00in which I do not use my wordsSince I seem to have nothing to say these days, I thought I would pass along some things I've read recently that have made me think. I'm not a huge fan of inspirational quotes, because so often when you pull things out of context, you lose much of their meaning. Also, it starts to sound like you're designing those idiotic inspirational posters. But, like I said, I got nothin' these days, so here BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-40914694999694416662014-06-06T11:08:00.003-06:002014-06-06T11:12:42.862-06:00odds and ends: I got two hands, one beating heart1. PellMel finished her first year of medical school a couple of weeks ago, was home for a week, and then took off again to do a month-long rotation at a rural clinic. She is so excited about the stuff she's learning, it's infectious--even I got excited when she called to tell us about her first experience with a cardioversion yesterday (which is the thing you see on TV all the time where they BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-78495044968098124592014-05-30T02:12:00.000-06:002014-05-30T02:12:00.559-06:00in which I confess to nothingI have three half-written posts in my drafts folder right now, and another one in my head. They sound fascinating in my head before I sit down to write them, but when I am actually in front of the keyboard, they disappear. I think I'm going through my midlife crisis, and as I say that, I think I remember telling you that before. HA. I just went and did a search and it was back in 2007. BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-36285789235673815982014-05-23T02:12:00.000-06:002014-05-23T02:12:00.653-06:00Food on Friday: Not-so-sweet treatsRemember when I gave up sweets for Lent? It went so well that I decided that for the most part I should just cut out sweets altogether. For the most part, I have. I haven't been a saint about it--I had chocolate covered strawberries at a party last week, and there may have been some ice cream once or twice. But really, I'm finding that I don't need sweets.
Except sometimes. Sometimes you just BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-83135555684139165862014-05-21T23:16:00.000-06:002014-05-22T12:41:45.024-06:00the post menopause postI thought about calling this post "Ladies Only" but I figure putting the word "menopause" in the post title has done the work for me, and my three male readers have already run for their lives. So here we are.
I've been reading online a bit recently about menopause trying to figure out exactly where I am. Technically speaking, the bad part of menopause is actually peri-menopause, the months or BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-24076685568692151502014-04-30T14:12:00.000-06:002014-04-30T14:12:00.222-06:00more odds and ends, because it's an odds and ends kind of week1. I've been a little discouraged about the number of headaches I'm still having even though I went through all the misery of getting off caffeine. But it's the end of the month tomorrow, and I still have six maxalt left. The drugs don't lie, I guess. My prescription is for twelve every month, and last fall I had to get extra a couple of times. So having six left at the end of the month BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-64411916314200870732014-04-24T11:55:00.000-06:002014-04-26T14:31:09.747-06:00Gerard Manley HopkinsI've said before that I'm more into fiction than I am poetry, which is probably a bit unusual for someone who spent too many years studying English literature. But there are a few poets I treasure--Emily Dickinson and Yeats come to mind, and I've told you before about my affinity for Philip Larkin. Another one is Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest who wrote gorgeous poetry back in the BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-893229967821603752014-04-23T16:24:00.002-06:002014-04-24T21:06:29.080-06:00Odds and ends: old and new1. Last fall I noticed that my ten-year anniversary as a blogger was coming up (it was in December). I was going to try and think of some cool thing to do with that, but then I forgot about it in the holiday rush and didn't remember until about a month ago.
Ten years. I was surprised, it doesn't seem like it's been that long--although when I go back and read some of those early posts, it seems BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-36116303220225140262014-04-18T09:42:00.002-06:002014-04-21T21:39:02.663-06:00Lent: WWJD? part twoOK, so in the last post we established that I find Jesus to be a difficult role model. He wasn't a parent, he wasn't a spouse. He wasn't female. He was an itinerant rabbi. He voluntarily died for his beliefs. He's a pretty tough exemplar.
It's occurring to me that I'm perhaps I'm being a bit too literal here. Which is odd, because the people who are literalists about the Bible don't BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-31987260048588893402014-04-17T14:39:00.001-06:002014-04-26T14:31:37.298-06:00Lent: WWJD? part oneI cringe to use that overworked four-letter cliché in the title of this post, because which of us doesn't cringe when we see it? But that's the topic today, so there it is.
The idea of emulating Jesus has been around since Jesus, of course, but this particular formulation of it started with Charles Sheldon's 1896 book In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? Even though it was published well overBarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-77596025808744733012014-04-16T15:39:00.000-06:002014-04-17T14:25:18.191-06:00AB at the movies: NoahI will confess up front that I thought this was a really interesting, thought-provoking movie. I went with all four members of our family, and that opinion was not shared by everybody. PellMel, for example, thought it was too dark and disturbing. We saw it a couple of weeks ago, and at the time I thought I would write a blog post about it. But then a bunch of other stuff happened and I forgot BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-28098995276652431652014-04-15T02:12:00.000-06:002014-04-26T15:13:54.709-06:00'tis a gift to have giftsI've been thinking about gifts, the way each of us is gifted. In the New Testament, Paul talks about "spiritual" gifts, which are a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit, but clearly this idea doesn't apply just to Christians. Everyone has their gifts. There are several lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament, including wisdom, knowledge, administration, preaching, teaching, BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-22279968966430165392014-04-08T22:10:00.000-06:002014-04-08T22:10:16.566-06:00What we did on vacationWhat did we do on vacation? Not a lot, but it was a good one. Sometimes the low-key ones are just what you need. We drove over to a hot springs near Bozeman and spent a couple of nights, and then spent a night at PellMel's apartment in Bozeman, and then drove back.
The hot springs where we stayed are near Yellowstone. So we drove down there twice. We went to Yellowstone in the fall, you may BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-19826045263684619822014-04-04T02:12:00.000-06:002014-04-26T16:23:36.102-06:00Food on Friday: Chopped SaladI like vegetables. Some of them, anyway. Carrots, broccoli, green beans, zucchini, corn. Okra, if it's fried. Spinach in salads. But not all vegetables. In spite of all the different ways I've tried them, I still have never found a brussel sprout recipe I'd make again (and yes, that includes several that say "even haters love them cooked this way"). And I'm still learning to like greens. Kale is BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-34025097701113977412014-03-30T02:12:00.000-06:002014-03-30T02:12:00.418-06:00odds and ends: March madnessWell, my bracket is trashed. I had UVA and Wichita State in the final game. I'm not even telling you who else I had in the final four. This is the first year in forever that I haven't had at least one of the Final Four teams. And the teams we have some emotional attachment to have been out since Thursday night. Our only comfort this year is that the Tar Heels lasted longer than Duke.
The ice onBarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-71059455277823357382014-03-29T02:12:00.000-06:002014-04-26T14:31:37.300-06:00Lent: this one really is about LentYou may remember that the church tradition I grew up in didn't celebrate Lent. Lent is an adopted tradition for me. And to be honest, I have pretty mixed feelings about it. In Christian theology, the whole point of Jesus's death on the cross is so that we don't have to suffer for our sins. It's called "substitutionary atonement" if you're interested (and I just googled that and found a BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-28911253247900433462014-03-11T23:35:00.002-06:002014-03-11T23:38:55.169-06:00there's no place like home. there's no place like home.It's true, you know. There is no place like home. But we had to keep reminding ourselves of that on Monday. We were sitting in the sun in SoCal Sunday morning, 80 degrees, nice breeze, gorgeous day, then we got on a plane about 4:30 in the afternoon, arrived home on the midnight flight, and woke up Monday morning to about 34 degrees and raining. Ah, Montana. And it rained, or snowed, or sleeted, BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36804534.post-2320196554603033382014-03-07T02:12:00.000-07:002014-04-26T16:23:36.106-06:00Food on Friday: The Cooking Grinch Strikes AgainFor awhile now, we've bought a quarter cow from a local rancher, i.e., one-fourth of one of his cattle. I'm not up on cow terminology--is it a steer? a cow? I have no idea. But we get a quarter of it. Not exactly a quarter--it's not like we choose the left back quadrant or something, but he sends the ... um... whatever-you-call-it off to a small, local processing center, and they divvy it up BarbNhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12088366782915923507noreply@blogger.com3