My Christmas gift!

I got a laptop! I am so so happy, now I can go and use internet and keep up with all my friends and update everyone else through cyber world (and look up recipes, tips, music, news, and books, books and more books!!!)
I am so excited about my own laptop. My sil got me a gift certificate to a local coffee shop, so I am set now :) I enjoy so much writing and reading and the internet offers ways to do that in real time and share it with everyone else, especially my loved ones an ocean away and more! I also am so thankful to my hubby, who purchased this nice used laptop (a good way to save money and be green!) and uploaded all kinds of nice programs, like picasa from google, open office (a free program that works like word), mozilla firefox (our favorite internet software)...and much more (I have all our pictures, and he also bookmarked my favorite websites, like amazon and NPR). And now one big more challenge I am ready to head on: we had bought a personal finance program, (Money 2007) and I am ready to take care of our finances and budget. I am the biggest spender (but not the way you think! Jon spends the largest sum on one thing, I spend smaller amounts on groceries, things for the house, for Jman, etc!!! LOL...okay, and on occasional coffees and cutsie stuff.)


I am thinking of giving a new look to my blog. I should be able to give it a nice 'face lift' to celebrate this new calendar year, with some expert help from computer savvy dh who is at home this week (yuppie! family time!...btw, dh did GREAT this past semester. It was very hard intense work, but it paid off, I am so PROUD of him!)

So thank you to my best friend and husband (and to my folks and grandparents who pitched in)! Now he won't have to hear me say "Honey, can I borrow your laptop?"

Some things I enjoy and you might too

Movies: I watched Sweet Land fairly recently and I truly enjoyed it. It was a delicious taste of cinematography, especially as far as the setting of the play and the slow rhythm of individual scenes. (Yes, I am trying to be just as pretty in describing it:). If you are a action movie fanatic than you probably won't enjoy this movie very much!

Books: I also really enjoyed Donald Miller's book "Blue Like Jazz." Here is what he says at the beginning of the book:

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxopho9ne. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way. I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.

My favorite chapters were on Confession, Community, the two on Love (How to really Love Yourself and How to really Love Others) and the one on Money. This 'non-religious book on Christian spirituality' was a breath of fresh air after reading the same cliches too many times.

Music: Check out my hubby's teenage crush, Leigh Nash. He really had a good taste and a good "ear". I believe some of her latest songs have really shown how much she has matured vocally and as an artist. I really like her song "My idea of Heaven." (pls note: it is a 'romantic' one.)

Blogging: I want to invite you to read a blog I have enjoyed reading the past several months. Dr. Beck's Experimental Theology blog challenges my thinking about faith and how I live it. The author is a psychology professor, so he writes about psychological and behavioral issues and uses terms that are scientific, but he explains his ideas so clearly and by presenting these issues he really helps me digg deeper into broader aspects of life that affect me and the people I interact with. His last posts deal with the things we do everyday that are tantamount to sin and evil in this world. I identified some struggles in my own young and adult life in his post on conformity, and you should especially read his last post on being in a hurry! I really needed to reconfirm this idea that most of my stress, as well as many other's, boils down to being in a hurry, and not being able to do what would give us, others and God most joy.