who needs instincts? i got google.

My last post, Walking Away From the Learn'd, talked about the overwhelming abundance of information on the internet, all of it clamoring for our attention. I'm going to keep running with this theme here. You ready?

I love Google. Sometime I wonder what I did before it. Did I know anything back then?! (Relax. It's a joke.)

You know that saying, "It take a village to raise a child"? Well, Google is the new village. Seriously. "Piper has a goose egg on her head. Quick. Google it." ("Wait, does 'goose egg' need a hyphen? Google it.") "Clay is stuttering. Is that normal? Let's Google it." And I'm not even joking about this one: Kadie was begging for me to let her start wiping her butt all by herself and I told her, "I'm not sure if you're big enough, Buddy. Let me Google it first."

My husband and I have a running joke with the words, "Google it". It's pretty sad. And hilarious.

So, I was thinking about my last post and thought I'd do a little research. Okay, it's not really research. It's more like goofing around to avoid the things I should be doing. I wanted to see what kinds of rediculous things I could find through Google, and here's what I got:

• I Googled, "how to breathe" and was bombarded by tons of articles because, apparently, I'm not doing a good enough job at it. Here's one of the results, and, I kid you not, the first sentence is "Believe it or not, most people don't know how to breath." It also goes on to say that with practice it can become second nature. Whew! Because I was starting to get worried.
• Next, I typed in "how to chew food". Thank God, I found someone ready to give me step -by-step directions (helpfully numbered 1-6, in fact) along with tips and warning in the article How to Properly Chew Your Food.
• Now I was starting to get creative. I typed in, "how to wipe after peeing" (please forgive me, you squeamish types). Oh yeah. People are talking about it here on the internet. Apparently it's a big debate. I'm barely sleeping at night while waiting for them to figure it out so I can be sure to do it the right way.
• "When should I drink water?" Trusted.MD was there to tell me with their article When to Drink Water.
• "How to peel a banana". Look! Nine different methods in the article How to Peel a Banana!
• Then I typed "Should I" into my Google bar and noticed that popular searches dropped down to help me. I clicked on the search "should I text him?" and found an entire website and eBook titled Should I Text Him? which you can buy for an affordable $49.97! Her claim? "The way you text him will make or break your relationship!"
• Then I tried, "who am I?" and Oprah was there to help me out with a quiz. I learned that I am an adventurer who is striving to be spontaneous. Then she gave me a list of jobs, none of which sounded fun enough, but, hey, if Oprah said it then I better get with it and pick one, right?

Apparently, we've gotten a little carried away with this whole internet thing. Julian Smith and his friend Johnny know exactly what I'm talking about here...




What crazy things can you find with Google? Have you seen Julian's Malk video? It's my favorite :)

walking away from the learn'd

With the internet at my finger tips, I have access to monstrous amounts of information. Half of it is probably wrong (and maybe not the half we were expecting), but it's all there, begging me to read it and believe it. And I get a little sick of it.

Don't we all? Don't get me wrong. I LOVE having this incredible resource and am so thankful for it because it has helped to bring me and my family to some pretty amazing places, but it gets to be too much some times, and I have to look away.

I was on Facebook and saw that Dr. Mercola (who I love and have gleaned a lot from) was talking about exercise and the best way to exercise proven by these studies and something about intervals and blah, blah, blah. And my thought was, Really? I'm sure that there are better ways to exercise than others, and I'm sure his article is going to be a gold mine to some people and changes their lives for the better... but not me. Not today. 

Today I'm not worried about the perfect way to exercise. I just want to do it, and I also want to have fun doing it which I don't think is too much to ask. Which is why I hoop. I don't want to make a science out of it right now. I don't want to hear all of the facts.

I love that people want to learn and explore and study so that we can better understand our world and how things work, but leaving some things as mysteries is good too.

Which brings me to one of my most favorite poems:

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
by Walt Whitman

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;	5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

What are you learning and what are you happy to leave as a mystery right now? 
See mine in the comments!

inspire ME monday

Inspire Me Monday has traditionally been a place where I spew out the things that have been inspiring me in different, mostly creative, ways in hopes that some inspiration may spark with you as well. But today... today it's all about me. Because NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow. And I need some serious inspiration.

Here that? It's that sound of my labored breathing as I try to hold back an anxiety attack. Okay, I'm being dramatic here, but really, I'm freaking out a bit.

It's like labor. When I was pregnant with my first child, Kadie, I was a little nervous but mostly excited for the end result: My sweet little baby being in my arms. Likewise, when I started NaNoWriMo last year, I was mostly just excited about writing a novel and having the whole thing look back at me. But this time around, I know what it's like. I've been there. I labored and birthed a novel last year and it was freakin' hard! A whole novel! In thirty days! While maintaining a family of five and a life!  

Painful. Worth it, but painful none-the-less.

This time around, I'm freaking out a bit. And so is Clayton! Every time I mention it he cringes! It's a supportive cringe... maybe. I mean... is that possible?

Still, I'm going to write it, and I have a plan. I have been hashing out the whole story and, to make matters worse, I really like it. It carries an important message that I want to pass on and that adds pressure. That and... well... here is the book summed up into a sentence:

A modern day novel about a troubled marriage written for a mainstream/secular audience with God as the narrator.

Yeah... it should be interesting. And I'm a little bit nervous about putting words in God's mouth that He wouldn't even let touch His lips.

One sentence at a time. I can do this. 



What are you doing this November? Ever wanted to write a book?

yes, even pink cupcakes feed cancer

Truth be told, there are a lot of thing I have a hard time understanding. This is one of them: My local grocery store is partnering with National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. in "Supporting A Cure" by selling pink brownies, cookies, cakes, and cupcakes adorned with pink frosting and an eatable, pink, breast cancer ribbon.

Really? Like... really?

I'm all for finding a cure for breast cancer, but this has got to be the worst way to do it.

Sugar FEEDS cancer. Add in white flour and artificial food coloring, and you're heading down a slippery slope. Pink cupcakes do not support a cure for cancer; they support cancer.

(This also brings me to another source of frustration for me: Sending chocolates and other junk foods to someone who just discovered they have cancer. It says something along the lines of, "here's hoping you die sooner rather than later!" I have a better idea. Send an organic fruit basket instead.)


Hypocrates, the father of modern medicine said this...

"Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."

Food MATTERS. Pink cupcakes are NOT the answer. 

I've gotta ask it: Is the National Brest Cancer Foundation really interested in finding a cure for cancer or maintaining cancer and so maintaining their funding?

At any rate, WE can make a difference, and it starts with education.

Which brings me to some exciting news: This week only, you can watch the highly acclaimed documentary Food Matters for FREE! Just follow this link, enter your name and email address, and they will send you the link taking you to the site where you can watch documentary. But hurry! It ends at midnight October 8th!

Are you going to watch it? Have you seen it? Have you eaten any pink cupcakes lately? ;-)

confessions of a selfish blogger

My mom gave me a hard time about my last post. She was totally confused. See, she gets my posts delivered to her email account which is nice if you just follow that straight to the site and read the post here on the site, but Blogger is blocked at her work and so she reads what I wrote from the email that was delivered.

That would be fine too, except that my last post went something like, "Hey, I'm blogging again! Goodbye." Reading it on her email, she thought she was missing something. She thought that maybe there was more on the actual website that she couldn't see from the email and, since her and my dad are my two most faithful readers, she called me up to figure out what exactly my post had been about. When I told her it was just an "I'm back!" announcment she responded, "So, you just jumped on to tell us your back to blogging, but then didn't actually blog about anything?"

"Um... yeah. Yeah, I guess that's about it."

Uh-oh. I see I have a little problem on my hands here. My readers actually want something WORTH READING. Darn.

It got me thinking. While I love writing things that people enjoy and love to read, it's not my primary goal in blogging.

I have two goals that bring me back to this platform:

1) To get me writing. Plain and simple. Writers need to write, and I have found that this blog keeps me going even if it is just "dust in the wind" and completely boring and unedited.

2) To help me express myself. I am not naturally good at this. It takes me YEARS to get people seeing me accurately, and I can also be pretty sloppy when it comes to getting out what I think or how I feel about things in conversation. I process ideas slowly and I need to mull things over quite a bit before I feel ready to form any kind of opinion. This blog give me a place to process at my speed, write things out (because that helps me immensely), and share it with an actual audience instead of keeping it to myself. And because I have taken the time to write things out here on the blog I find myself more confident and clear when talking with people later. I'm a work in progress, but I'm getting there :)

So, unfortunately, I don't write for my readers so much, although I love having people here reading. I write for myself. There. I said it. Take it or leave it!