Playing on the iPhone

I’m playing with some of the features on my new phone. One really nice app is Instagram, which also works on iPod Touches by using photos you’ve already saved on the iPod.

Here’s a picture I took.

Word Cloud Test

(clicking on the image will bring you to a full-sized version)

IHM, Washington, DC, June 2010

Travel Man and I are blessed to have some very good (and very kind) friends in the DC area who host us annually and then watch our girls while we go to the IHM Conference in Chantilly, VA, each year. I’ve got copious notes which I MUST transcribe ASAP.

Because I forgot my IHM notebook and they’re all written on the back of coupons I printed from MyPoints just before our vacation. So they’re very valuable notes in more ways than one. I’ll pass on the spiritual value to you, but if you want the monetary value, leave me your email and I’ll invite you to MyPoints so you can print off coupons (and earn points towards free gift cards for exciting places like Wal Mart and Home Depot and the iTunes store).

Just for Fun

Done at Tagxedo on a tip from LifeHacker. Word cloud is based on my blog URL.

For My Girls

…who love Lego Rock Band, Band Hero, and Guitar Hero.

Make-up of the Rock Hand by Finger:

Blog Facelift

I just did a quick update on the blog’s look. If you’re on a feed aggregator, feel free to click through and see the new, updated header and the new color scheme.

Travel Man will be SO thrilled to post, I’m sure. Not that he does much, anyway.

Lenten Mission

I just discovered one of the priests giving our Lenten Mission wrote in support of that “Just Say, WAIT!” article on the new translation.

The nun on the mission team blogged recently about how it’s bad to ask for religious to wear habits or be too monastic or even to ask that they still pray the Divine Office daily. (This in reaction to the Vatican’s survey of women religious in the U.S.) She, too, complains about the new translation.

There’s even a link on their page (Thomas More Center) to U.S. Catholic, which printed an article in support of Liberation Theology, and highlighted a professor at a Catholic university who teaches it to undergrads!! Among their recommended authors on theology is Richard McBrien.

My first clue that I wouldn’t be particularly jazzed about going was when I saw the two priests and the nun were all in street clothes. Their website doesn’t encourage me at all. I can’t help but be underwhelmed by the whole thing, and not at all motivated to rearrange my schedule to go to any sessions.

yuck.

Home-Made Again

I’ve tried my hand more than once at baking bread from scratch. I honestly like it. Like the way the house smells as it bakes, like the way it tastes, like that I know what’s in the bread. It’s nice.

But it’s easier with a bread machine.

When we got married, we got a bread machine that made one-pound loaves of bread as a wedding gift. At the time, those things ran in the $100+ range; it was an extremely generous gift! But when we moved to Virginia, I tried to make this cheddar cheese jalepeño bread. I *thought* I had a 1.5 pound bread machine until that day.

Do you know how awful it smells when cheese bread overflows the baking pan and gets on the heating element of your bread machine? It’s not pretty. It’s not even ugly. It’s horrifying.

And I had to throw away my bread machine as a result.

Ever since then, I’ve been wanting another one. I’m home with the kids all day, unless we’re heading out for dance or sports or YMCA Homeschool Art Classes or working out at the Y or homeschool co-op or church or … Well, I don’t have a job outside the home, so a bread machine to make bread would be nice. I can make bread, but it won’t take up my whole day, which, as you can see, makes it hard to get bread made. Schedules being what they are and all.

I was wandering through Wally World and saw a breadmaker for $60. I thought, “Mmmm… I like it. I can make up to two pound loaves, I can look in the window and see my bread… I think I’ll save my blow money for it!” I actually said as much to Travel Man this morning as he donned his Super Suit for his business trip. I had saved $15 of my blow money from two weeks ago and hadn’t taken out my blow money last week, which put me up to $40 so far. If I just didn’t get coffee at Starbucks or anything, I was golden! Only one more week (this Friday!) of blow money, and that baby would be mine!!

And today, I walked into Wally World for some things I actually needed and walked by the display. I pointed at it and said to the girls, “I’m saving my blow money to get th- … HEY! IT’S MARKED DOWN!!!”

I JUMPED into action and called Travel Man. He didn’t answer. I blurted out, “I’m going to get the breadmaker because it’s on clearance and I’ve almost got all the money so I’m just going to get it now and pay the last tiny bit at the end of the week and I am really excited.” (Actually, I said this between telling Little Girl to only pick up the conditioner and not the shampoo because I only need one. I’m sure he’ll love me for that.) Then, just to be sure, I texted him and told him what I was doing.

See, once upon a time, I wanted a food processor at Wally World, and when they put it on clearance, I hemmed and hawed for four days and it was gone. GONE. And I’m still without a food processor. I’m so bummed out.

But today, I got that bread machine, and Travel Man even texted back “Ok,” which might mean just, “Sure! That’s great that you found it and I don’t have time to text more than two letters!” or it could mean, “Ok, fine, stop bothering me while I’m trying to set up for my workshop, please.”

Tomorrow, I think I’ll be baking bread. Mmmmm…

How I Roll

GraphJam has this graph up that perfectly sums up my gardening prowess:

Graph by: moon-cat via Graph Jam Builder

So if I post pictures of living, blooming flowers on this blog, I expect lots of praise for not managing to kill them.

And if I manage to grow a tomato and pepper plant this year, too … well, I want a party.

So there.

Census

I’m a little annoyed with the scope of the questions on the Census this year, and not particularly in the mood. I was most annoyed that I got a letter telling me that they’re going to send me the Census next week.

Helloooo??? How much money did they just waste sending out a letter telling me that they’re going to send a letter? And how much do you want to make a bet the Census contains a letter worded almost identically?

grrr…

But politics is not usually in the domain here. Go to the Soccer Mom blog for that, if you’re in the mood.

However, I do know that homeschoolers are probably a bit concerned with the Census. I mean, there are ads telling us that they need to count our children so they know how many schools to build. Honestly, it’d be more interesting if they also included a box asking if they are IN public school. I’d mark that they’re in private school. Because they are. I happen to be the head teacher, and to keep my kids in, I sleep with their principal. ‘Cuz he’s my husband.

Come on, spicy comments like that might drive up my readership. Or scandalize people and drive it down. But I don’t know why you’d be scandalized by my sleeping with my husband.

Anyway…

HSLDA, who is never prone to advising homeschoolers to dole out unnecessary information to the government, has an FAQ up about the Census. Here’s a snippet:

Do I Have to Fill out the Whole Form?

The most frequent question we receive from member families is, “Am I required by law to answer the census form?”

The U.S. Census is mandatory by federal law. There is clear federal warning in the code about refusing to give the required information to the Census Bureau. U.S. Code, Title 13 states that citizens must comply with the census or face a $100 fine. There is a $500 penalty for giving false information.

Are the Census Questions Constitutional?

Article I, Section 2(3) of the U.S. Constitution is the provision that authorizes a census. “The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such a manner as they shall by law direct.”

The last phrase, “in such a manner as they shall by law direct,” gives Congress broad authority to determine the scope and process for collecting the census. Congress used this authority to define the parameters of the census in Title 13 of the U.S. Code.

More information is found on the site for members. But it seems that these Right Wingers who are FREAKING OUT and refusing to fill out the Census are a bit off-base. The government is supposed to count us. Congress can set the rules as to what they ask us. So answer your Census, people. It’s what the Founders asked of us.

Now that doesn’t mean you can’t be creative. I mean, in the last Census, “American” was a race box you could check. (I think that’s what I selected. How else would you categorize someone who is English, German, French, Irish, Puerto-Rican-by-way-of-Castillian-Spanish, and Dutch?)

It’s not an option this year, but you can check “Other” and write it in. That’s totally okay, you know. And it might send a message to Washington. One that says we are sick and tired of being boxed in racial categories. You want to banish racism? Start being colorblind, and that means stop asking me incessantly if I’m of Hispanic origins.