Amanda's Adventures and New Product Reviews

Are you kidding me? I'm a writer. I love to write. Just not writing blogs.

Well, I have nothing to say, but I want to start updating the blog again. So here we go.

I've seen more and more people with cute blogs, so I just went and added this new cute background. Love it!

I watched a special on CBS last about Edward Kennedy's remarkable life.  Here are the transcripts.  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/26/national/main5267991_page5.shtml This is amazing: After [Caroline's] wedding, Jackie wrote Ted a thank you letter - a token of gratitude for what he’d meant to all the Kennedys over the years. The letter read, "There have been 17 children besides your own - Bobby's, Pat's, Jack's and mine, for whom you have always been there. Every graduation, every big decision, every trouble, every sad and even every happy day. On you, the carefree youngest brother, fell a burden a hero would beg to be spared. Sick parents, lost children, desolate wives. You are a hero. Everyone is going to make it, because you are always there with your love. Jackie." As a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, I am not sure I would have agreed with Sen. Kennedy on very much, but one thing is the same: compassion. By all accounts, he matured into a kind-h...

I borrowed the title of a lecture that I'm reading from Kathleen Norris, the marvelous poet and Christian thinker. Here's the book's Google Page, where you can read more: http://books.google.com/books?id=ETnB8B93otEC&dq=Kathleen+Norris&printsec=frontcover&source=an&hl=en&ei=p1-MSp2gCIisMJ2V3JMO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#v=onepage&q=&f=false Honestly, I purchased this book to round out a cart for free shipping. What a wonderful accident (or instance of providence, I should say). Quotidian was one of those words on the fringes on my consciousness. I had heard of it, but wasn't quite sure what it meant... It does mean "everyday, repeated actions." It comes from the same Latin root/Old English as "quote," from the question "how many." Entomology aside, that's exactly what I've been thinking about lately. Perhaps, I should message the subtitle: "Laundry, Liturgy, and 'Wom...

I'm going to visit my parents in two weeks. I am getting very nervous about that. Everything I do is wrong...I never make the right plans...there's never enough room for me. I spend too much time with my friends...I don't help enough...I'm in the way.  Can you hear me rolling my eyes? I don't like conflict and there's a reason why I spend most of the year 700 miles away from my parents. That sounds crazy...but it's the way it is. I haven't even yet mentioned my grandmother. She is really getting on my mother's nerves. There's so much tension there....because they're both seriously passive-aggressive. My mother won't call out my grandma's bad behavior and my grandma won't stop acting like a petulant. I know there's 55 years of passive-aggressive past between them, but it just seems so crazy. I'm not sure how I'm going to fit into this. I'm hoping to be honest about how I feel and not hop on the crazy train. We will ...

Yesterday, I began this message, and all I typed was a "p".  I am wondering what I was thinking. Since I'm not sure, I will start over again.  It saddens me that I've only written a handful of posts this year. What have I been doing? Working and writing of course. I've said I was busy before, but I had no idea what that meant. I haven't been this busy since college. But those silly credit cards are almost paid off. Really...I've paid off 80 percent of the balance. That's a lot of money. And a lot of work behind it.  Anyway... balance is the key word. My wonderful friends that are part of the GSPN.tv community are working on living a more balanced life. You can visit  pursuingabalancedlife.com  to find out who's involved and read more about it. Thanks to Cliff's leadership, we've started talking about our goals and making real changes in our lives. Really, we're learning how to be happy with what we have. Being healthy, moderate, wise, a...