Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV
Don’t Give Up by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. A little melodrama goes nicely with beta carotene.
Name a root vegetable without repeating any named in the comments before yours.
This post was featured on Project Underblog on October 29, 2012.
Rumor has it you’ve changed Facebook again. It’s your company. You can do as you please. What you may not realize is that your latest alterations have the blogosphere all a-Twitter.
Mark Zuckerberg by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid, creative commons license
We blogger types write our little hearts out day after day. We work hard for our fans on Facebook. Oh, I know you have one billion people using Facebook now, so my page’s 254 likes may not mean much to you.
But to me they mean the world.
Many of us lowly bloggers have noticed a significant drop in the number of fans who actually see our posts in their News Feed since your recent changes. We’re scrambling to figure out how to manage. Do we ask fans to add our pages to Facebook Interest Lists? Do we pay to promote our posts? Do we step up our presence on Google+?
Mark,—may I call you Mark?—you may be a visionary like Steve Jobs. A person no one really understands. You may see a future the rest of us can’t quite grasp. More power to you, son.
We stood by you through the Timeline, the Top Stories, the Ticker deal in the sidebar. We survived and learned to thrive. We watched as your social media empire evolved. But there’s something you need to remember.
We make you look good.
Yes, Mark. Yes, we do. When we invest our energy to promote our content on Facebook and build likes for our pages, we add power to your platform.
On behalf of all the little (and big) blogs, causes, businesses, bands, and others who’ve created Facebook pages for fans, could you give us a break? Keep things fun, simple, and uncomplicated. I like Facebook, I really do. It’s intuitive. More personal than Twitter. More connective than Google+. I want to stick with you, but you must stay true to the mission.
Help us easily connect with our people.
Now Mark, I know the whole stock thing hasn’t worked out so well for you, but give it time. Trust me. It’s cyclical. It’ll come around. We’re in a recession, in case you haven’t heard.
Wait it out, son. Cut us some slack, and we’ll do the same for you. We’ll give you time to do that crazy coding thing you do. Just make the magic happen, and let the good times roll again on Facebook.
Sincerely,
Aimee
PS: The Social Network may be an unauthorized account of your story, but I loved it all the same.
Surely God is my help; the Lord is the One who sustains me. Psalm 54:4 NIV
Welcome wickedly witty guest blogger, my sorority sister Kim Drew Wright. Today Kim shares a glimpse of the Real Wives of Richmond, Virginia.
He opens the door, takes off his jacket and gives me that look. The one that says, “Why is the house still a mess? Why isn’t dinner ready?”
Instead he says, “What have you done all day?”
I’ve: gotten the kids out of bed, scrambled eggs and poured milk, let the dogs out, made pb&j sandwiches to put in plastic, let the kids help even though it would have been quicker if I did it myself, reminded them to brush their teeth, cleared the breakfast dishes, been saddened by the morning news, braided hair, mediated an argument, picked out clothes, nagged that they are going to miss the bus, yelled to go brush their teeth, tied shoes, found jackets, walked to the bus stop, told them to have a good day, hauled dirty laundry downstairs, unloaded the dishwasher, wiped down the table, loaded the dishwasher, scrubbed stains from shirts, thought about calling my mother before it’s too late, let the dogs in, put laundry in the washer, sent an email about a PTA fundraiser, counseled a friend having marital issues, volunteered at the school library shelving books in order, put the clothes in the dryer before they mildewed, wiped pee off the bathroom floor, forgot to eat lunch, tripped over an abandoned babydoll, tried to remember a conversation from 1982, cleaned up dog puke, ran to the store for miscellaneous items you needed, joked with the cashier to make her day easier, ran into a friend who wanted to do lunch sometime—I think she’s having marital problems, put my tennis shoes on and ran around the neighborhood because according to you a woman my age has to exercise an hour a day just to stay the same weight, gave the dogs a treat, folded laundry and carried it upstairs, took a shower, shoved my skinny jeans aside, answered 11 emails about the fundraiser, considered getting a job with a paycheck, petted the dogs so they would know they are loved, walked to the bus stop, gave our children hugs, gave them a snack, reminded them to wash their hands first, shuffled through school papers, encouraged them to learn from their mistakes, signed up to bring in cookies for a class party as soon as I got the note so the teacher would know I appreciated her, sorted through the mail, swept under the table, screened calls from telemarketers, picked up socks, shoes, jackets and backpacks forgotten in the foyer, listened to our children, reminded them to do their homework, updated Facebook with something cute our children said so I would never forget, yelled for them to turn off the TV, was ignored, took the trash out and, just now, sat down with that book I’ve been wanting to read for 3 months.
“Nothing important,” I say and get up to start dinner.
She carefully watches everything in her household
and suffers nothing from laziness. Proverbs 31:27 NLT
Presenting Steven Tyler and his little band Aerosmith with Crazy… because that’s how we feel on days when we do nothing important.
Crazy Steven & Tyler
What did you do all day?
Kim Drew Wright is a freelance writer, devoted wife, and frazzled mother of three. Most notably, she has excellent taste in dogs.
Scrunchie. Fabric covered rubber band. Vintage hair accessory. Friend of the weary and downtrodden, color-treated and conditioned Gen X tresses.
scrunchie fierce
“Do they still make those?” said my stylist when I mentioned tying my hair up in a scrunchie for yoga class.
“I don’t know if they still make them,” I said. “But they’re magical.”
My hair stylist is in her twenties. She doesn’t know the power of the scrunchie.
In my hair history, I’ve owned sponge rollers, velcro rollers, hot rollers, steam rollers, curling irons, crimping irons, banana clips, bobby pins, barrettes, crab claws, and an ocean of ponytail elastics. I have not owned a Flowbee, and I’m resisting the urge to buy a flat iron, though my BFF swears by hers. Her flat iron, that is. Not her Flowbee.
pair of scrunchies
The scrunchie has staying power.
I’ve saved two from the 90s. I keep them safely stashed behind my collection of plastic, hotel shower caps. Secret weapons of my hair care arsenal.
Scrunchie A is a cotton calico gem from 1992. It boasts a saturated red that glows like rubies. Bought it on clearance at the Gap for $3. (I remember all my significant fashion purchases the way I remember song lyrics.)
I wear it to the pool. The cotton dries fast, and the bright bathing suit colors of this past summer breathed new life into the 20-year-old accessory.
Scrunchie B, my favorite, is a silk-covered leopard print. It’s fierce.
My sister gave it to me in 1995. Little did we know animal prints would become the new neutrals. Thank you, Ballard Designs. Ordinary scrunchies may fall by the wayside along the runway of trends. The leopard scrunchie goes to yoga class.
Don’t get me wrong. I still care about my appearance. I want to be presentable, respectable, approachable. You and I, we have to wear clothes in public, so we might as well put some effort into it. And we need to do something with our crowning glory while it clings to our heads.
But I find, as the decades roll by, there are compromises to be made on the personal catwalk of life.
good-bye glamour
Comfortable shoes instead of stilettos, so the plantar fasciitis doesn’t anger the wicked sciatica. Untucked shirts and higher rise jeans, so I can belly laugh with abandon rather than sucking in my tummy or perpetually donning Spanx to squash the muffin top. Sweat pants worn occasionally even though fashion experts rage against them and the flip-flops.
Best regards, Vogue, Glamour, Elle, Stacy and Clinton. I’ll keep my scrunchies and wear them when I must. Because to me, they’re the epitome of style: comfortable, confident, magical, fierce.
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30 NIV
This morning, I accidentally hit publish rather than save.
Subscribers got a preview of a post in the works for later this week. The draft was up on the site for about 52 minutes before I realized the mistake and pulled it.
This is the second time this has happened in my 19 months of blogging. Misspells and grammatical errors, however, usually average one per post. Yes, I proofread, but mistakes sometimes escape me before I publish, catch, and correct.
If you want to see the inner workings of the blog and catch the flubs before I do, you really should subscribe via email or RSS feed.
