Are you sitting down?  Because I’ve got news.  No, I’m not engaged – but it’s just about as exciting.  Okay, here it is:  Magpie and Muttonfly has a new home!  [squeal!!!] 

This means no more complaining about needing an account to post a comment.  When someone asks for my blog address, I’ll no longer have to say:  “It’s mapgie and muttonfly … something, something … live-dot-spaces … or maybe spaces-dot-live … I don’t really know, but if you Google it, it will totally come up … “

To Live Spaces, we bid a fond farewell.  Thanks for being our home the last few years.  Even when we did little more than take up space.  But alas, it’s time to move on …

www.magpieandmuttonfly.com

See you there!

Okay.  I’m just gonna come out and say it.  [right about now my mom is wincing and wondering where she went wrong]  Sometimes I read the sensationalized entertainment pieces.  GASP!!!  I know. 

Typically I stay true to the red carpet photos – all for the sake of fashion, naturally.  But every once in awhile, I’ll stray.  It’s always when I’m bored.  Bored and stuck at my computer.  When I can’t take one more edit, I’ll sneak out to the web and peruse various entertainment links. 

And you would NOT believe what is out there.  Seriously.  The things said about Jennifer Aniston are not right.  Who cares if she is going on vacation with her married friends?  Or the latest – that Robert Pattinson smells bad.  Yes, you read that correctly.  There was a whole write-up on the “fact” that a horrific odor follows him wherever he may roam.  Of course, the insiders refused to give their names.  Hmmm… I wonder why.  Could it be because they MADE IT UP?!!!  Who would even think that was a good idea? 

I was totally unnerved.  They should leave the poor guy alone already!  Let him do his thing.  If they want to comment on his work, fine, good.  But enough with the absurdities. 

I had just jumped atop my soapbox – how anyone who writes another asinine story about a celebrity should be strung up by their toenails … their TOENAILS – when it hit me.  It may be drivel, but look who’s reading it. 

Bad llama … bad llama!

Needless to say, I re-bookmarked FreeRice.com.  If I need a reprieve from boredom it might as well have meaning.  Not to mention, being appalled will do nothing.  These ridiculous “news” articles are being read.  And linked.  And commented on.  The publishers are simply fulfilling a “need.”  Maybe it’s time we all lived our own lives – and let celebrities live theirs.  Sure, reporters might have to work a little harder, but in the end, we might actually have something worth reading …

The evil germs that have been infiltrating this city for months now, finally took me down.  And to think I felt capable of avoiding such catastrophe.  After all, I remained stoic, while friends and family dropped like flies. 

I must admit, I wondered; one day they would mentioned a cold, the next thing I knew they were out of circulation for days.  What kind of cold takes you out for days?  Well now I know – the kind that obviously signed a pact with the devil, that’s what kind. 

I’ll spare you the details because, let’s be serious, no one really cares.  But to give you an idea of how bad it got – Friday I was folding clothes when I heard the ice cream truck drive by.  I burst into tears.  Yeah, I don’t know either …

On a bright note – there is a plus to being a light-weight.  I can’t sleep on my own accord in this dreadful state.  So I hauled out a Smirnoff sample.  That one 50 ml Smirnoff Green Apple Twist lasted two nights.  4 swigs – just a little num-num – was all I needed to sleep for hours.  It was a beautiful thing.  Sigh. 

Now, if only I can have a miraculous recovery by tomorrow.  If not, jury duty’s going to be even more fun than usual.  For me and everyone around me …

The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size.  ~Gertrude S. Wister

I love hosting overnight guests.  Of course, this may stem from the fact that it doesn’t happen very often – and when it does, it’s always someone I love to pieces!  All the same, I love it; and I love finding ways to make them feel at home in my home. 

If the mere thought of having someone spend the night in your home leaves you at a loss, check out the collaborative piece (yes, it has my name on it, but Mandi helped out too!) over at The Complete Woman blog.  It will give you all the tools you’ll need to be the perfect hostess for overnight guests!

Here is a good example of why I will never be considered a Fashion Diva:

I do not look at the above sandal and think fashion.  I look at it and think, “What in the hell is it?!!!”  A medieval torture device?  Summer footwear for the Roman Legion?  The mere thought of putting that on my foot gives me the creeps.  I get claustrophobia just looking at it.  I mean really, isn’t the whole point of a sandal to give your foot some breathing room?  Why – oh why – would you want to shackle your foot in up to your knee?  It gives whole new meaning to the phrase, a slave to fashion …

We think we’re all cool with our texting abbreviations – like we made it all up or something.  Well, let me just tell ya, it’s KY … that’s know yuse to you – or, you know, no use. 

Comical abbreviations were a fad that began in Boston, 1838, and moved to New York and New Orleans the following year.  Some of the abbreviations were straight forward:  GT (gone to Texas) or SP (small potatoes).  Others took the lead of humorists of the day, using exaggerated misspellings:  OW (oll wright) or KG (know go).     

Of course, most of these abbreviations barely survived a generation.  All except for one, actually.  March 23, 1839 OK was first printed in Boston’s Morning Post.  Sure, we may have forgotten what the abbreviation stands for (oll korrect), but we understand the meaning all the same.     

I guess you could say the main difference between abbreviations of a century ago, and those of today, is that our texting abbreviations are an offshoot of laziness; the abbreviations of yesterday – an offshoot of wit.  

And with that, NS (“nuff said”). 

Note: There are many stories concerning the origins of “OK” – most can be refuted.  The information, above, was included in a series of articles by Columbia University professor, Allen Walker Read, published in the American Speech journal in 1963 and 1964.  Professor Read’s research seemed to have passed the test of time.  

I decided to do my part to aid the ailing economy today.  I was chauffeuring my mom to church this morning – happy in my own little world – when I heard her say, “Are you going to stop?!”  This, of course, brought me back down to reality.  But instead of breaking, like a rational human being, I panicked and gunned it.  Right through a fence. 

Really, if you think about it, it was rather impressive the efficiency with which I accomplished it all.  In a matter of seconds I managed to fly through the air, smash through a wooden barrier, reverse, pull back into the parking spot, shut off my car and start crying. 

Of course, I had to explain my plight to my friends.  The conversation went something like this:

Me: Who drives their car through a fence?

Mom: You.

Kristi: Don’t feel bad, I’m sure a lot of people drive through fences – Francine, you’ve driven through a fence before, right?

Francine: [deer-in-the-headlights-look]

Mom: We’ll take that as a no. 

Kristi: Well, it wasn’t your fault, there should be barriers of some sort.

Mom: There is.

Jen: She ran over the barrier.

Kristi:  You did?

Me:  Flew right over the top. 

So now a family gets a new portion of fence; a friend will earn some business; the church will get some free writing; and some point down the road the auto body shop will have a new customer (they make cars so cheap nowadays – I mean really, you can’t even even drive through an old rickety fence?! C’MON!).  It’s a win-win really. 

But here’s the thing that gets me.  Just this morning I was perusing the paper when I caught sight of a headline regarding a car being driven into a storefront.  I didn’t even read the article; I just thought, “What an idiot!”  Yeah, well who’s the idiot now my friend? Who’s the idiot now … sigh.    

Color is on the way!!!

If you have a large writing project – a training manual, say – don’t delay in getting it done.  Even if the deadline continues to be pushed back … and the work is painful … trudge through.  If you don’t, you’ll wake up on the day the draft is due – confident in in the fact that the project is nearly finished – when something strange happens.  You’ll turn on your computer, open the document, and all hell will break loose.  The Table of Contents for one is wonky.  As a matter of fact, it contains half the manual, rather than the headers you so dutifully marked.  Soon you find that the only way to fix the issue is to delete the formatting you spent the last four days slaving away on.   Now you have a matter of hours to redo it all.  And Word is gifted at sensing right about the time panic begins to set it.  That’s when it really starts playing with you – inserting ghost breaks, deleting words, suddenly switching chapters, holding back header fields – just for the fun of it.  Seriously.  You can actually hear it smirking.  And to top it all off – you’re wireless mouse and keyboard will decide to die.  Right in the middle.  You would cry, naturally, if only you had the time …

Not that I would know from experience or anything.  Sigh. 

They say St. Patrick composed a prayer – known as “St. Patrick’s breastplate” – for his victory over paganism.  So before we partake in the wearin’ o’ the green, dance an Irish gig or down an Irish pint, let us take the time to consider what the man behind the holiday was all about … 

Christ be with me
Christ before me
Christ behind me
Christ in me
Christ beneath me
Christ above me
Christ on my right
Christ on my left
Christ where I lie
Christ where I sit
Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man
who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of every man
who speaks of me
Christ in every eye that sees me
Christ in every ear that hears me
Salvation is of the Lord.

One-hundred-fifty-nine years ago today, Hester Prynne was first introduced to the world at large  That’s right - The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was first published March 16, 1850.  In honor of the occasion, a few tid-bits:

• Publisher James T. Fields paid a visit to Hawthorne’s home and offered to print 2,000 of anything he had; he left with a rough short titled The Scarlet Letter.
• February 3, 1850, Hawthorne finished the ending and read it to his wife.  He was most excited to report that “It broke her heart and sent her to bed with a grievous headache … a triumphant success!”
• Still, Hawthorne did not think much would come of it.  As a matter of fact, he once wrote: “The Scarlet Letter is powerfully written; but my writings do not, nor ever will, appeal to the broadest class of sympathies, and therefore will not obtain a very wide popularity.”
• All copies of the first edition were gone within a ten day period – two more editions were published that same year.
• The Scarlet Letter was one of the first mass-produced books in America. 
• From 1917 to present, over twenty songs and film, television, and theatrical adaptations have been based on The Scarlet Letter … not bad for something that could never be popular …  

My cousin is trying to kill me.  Okay, not really.  She is, however, trying to whip me into shape.  Not a easy endeavor I might add.  If you know me at all, you know how I despise the idea of exercise.  Not big on exertion.  I’m more of a lounge-about-with-a-good-book type.  Being tortured?  Um.  No, thank you.  I’ll pass. 

I am, however, thirty-five.  And I have been sitting on my rather large arse for extended periods of time.  Still, I think I could have overlooked these points had I not looked down one day to find chocolate smeared all over my favorite sweatshirt.  Low-point. 

So my cousin has graciously offered to lead me in strength training.  It’s a stretch (no pun intended), let me tell ya.  First of all, I’m fairly certain a minute in that class is FAR longer than a minute in the real word.  Pretty sure.  Secondly, children are present.  This means I cannot whine incessantly, nor can I break forth in a string of profanities. 

But, as they say, what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger… at least that’s the goal …   

Tell anyone you see me, and one you’re done for …

And no, for the record, this is not one of mine – so for those of you (Donna) who were preparing for some sort of intervention, no worries!

One of my all time favorite movie quotes is spoken by Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin), in The Jerk:  I know we’ve only known each other for four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days.  The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days.  And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days.  And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it…

I’ve been on dates like that – only I’d have to substitute minutes for days.  Seriously.  The date is over and I feel an overwhelming urge to grab the shoulders of the stranger walking next to me and scream, “What day is it?!!” because I’m certain I must have lost several. 

I don’t know about you, but something tells me this is a bad sign.  Sigh. 

I love my home office.  L-O-V-E --Love it!  I love the way it looks:  the dark wood is warm and inviting … the hutch is the perfect host to my glass pens, inks, and fleur de lis bookends.  Sigh.

But I also love the way it works.  Everything I need is close at hand.  I no longer have to search several different locations to come up with pens, paper, or reference books.  And since my printer now fits atop my desk, I no longer have to squat down to print.

How do I do it?  Well, I’m a bit OCD for starters; but I also know a few tricks that apply to anyone.  Check ‘em out at The Complete Woman blog …  

I was raised Pentecostal.  My father was a “Holy Roller,” my mom a Baptist, and I settled somewhere in the middle.  Catholic or no, I’ve always liked the idea of Lent.  Giving something up for God, who gave so much for us, seems a good way to say thanks.

But have you ever noticed?  It’s often all about us.  We surrender things we love, sure.  We give up our coffee, our sugar, our television.  We do so for God; but the end result is often to our benefit. 

This year, it’s different. 

This year the church I attend is joining countless others in “Seek God for the City 2009.”  Starting Wednesday, February 25 – for forty days leading to Palm Sunday – we have been praying the same promises, for the same people, on behalf of the same countries.  If I thought it a good idea when I picked up the book, I think it’s an amazing idea now.  There are countries I never knew existed; there are groups of people I may complain about, but never thought to pray for.  

Guess you might say I’m giving a bit of myself, to seek God’s blessing for others. 

And prayer seems a natural extension to the usual Lenten offering.  After all, Christ gave his very life to save the lives of others; it’s only fitting that we should give a few minutes that we might be a part of the same.

My mom and I were chatting about horrible movies – specifically the embarrassment of having someone catch you emerging from the theatre of a horrible movie – when she mentioned her blood clot.  Apparently, when we were at the theatre watching Twilight she had this weird pain in her leg.  Being the medical professional that she is, a blood clot came to mind. 

Of course, it wasn’t the idea of having a blood clot or throwing said blood clot that terrified her.  It was the thought of dying in the theatre of Twilight.  People would know.  Not only the people in the theatre, but countless others would see as they carried her lifeless body from the theatre.  Good heavens!  She might even make the news!  And she would be dead!  She couldn’t explain that yes, she was old enough to know better – but she was being a good mother.  Her daughter (who, she might add, is also old enough to know better) insisted they give the movie a go!!! 

The mere thought was the more than she could bare.   

She made me promise, right then and there, if she ever dies, in public, while watching a questionable movie, that I refrain from sobbing, screaming, or otherwise-drawing-attention to myself until I have at least dragged her corpse into in the theatre of a decent movie. 

I promised.  As long as she promised not to do such a wretched thing.  I mean really – a bad movie is traumatizing enough! 

But I will be – in a few short months!

Photo:  Copyright © 2009 Joshua D. Brueggemann. All rights reserved.

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I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but it’s snowing here.  SNOW-ing.  Big, white, puffy flakes.  Sigh. 

On the bright side, it’s perfect weather to pop some corn, whip up some hot cocoa, snuggle in, and watch an exceptional film.  Don’t know what to watch?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  I highly recommend Les Choristes (“The Chorus”).  Yes, it’s a French film – but don’t be alarmed.  As long as you can read, it’s all good. 

You can check out my full review over at The Complete Woman blog …