Alright, Alright, Alright: What Matthew McConaughey Needs Each Day
If you haven’t heard Matthew McConaughey’s acceptance speech for best actor last night at the Oscars, click here. It’s wonderful! He tells the audience the three things he needs each day: something to look up to, something to look forward to, and someone to chase. Something to look up to.Something to look forward to.Someone to chase. […]
Glamorous Life!
Our family loves watching the Oscars (mostly I do). We love the Red Carpet gowns and all the glamour of it all. When I was younger, I dreamed about what it might be like to be on that Red Carpet. Not tonight. On this night, we’re making little appetizers and watching the Oscars in our […]
Walking Around, Astonished
I love curiosity. Curiosity goads the depressed out of bed, the bored off the coach, and the apathetic into the world. May we never cease wondering about things. May we never stop asking ask why and how. May we never stop thinking about more than what we normally think about. I love so many things […]
The Brain Likes it When You Write
Last night, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience alerts me to a study that looks at what happens when people put their feelings into words. I’m not sure, but I think it’s this one from UCLA Neuroimaging. The very act of articulating our feelings soothes the part of the brain (the amygdala) responsible for negative emotional […]
This Will Sting
The weather report uses bitterly cold to describe tomorrow’s weather. Bitterly! Bitterly! The word use dates back to the 1800’s when, instead of describing a sour taste, bitter became figurative for hard to accept or endure, intensely grievous, and cruel. When used to describe the feeling associated with a bitter thing, writers use bitterly when […]
How We Perceive It
Today I learn that, although it’s technically 20 degrees outside, the RealFeel temperature is 5 degrees. The RealFeel temperature represents all the factors that influence how the temperature feels to us (regardless of actual temperature). These factors, like wind, angle of the sun, and humidity change how we experience a weather reality. I like to […]
Oh, Persistent Winter!
The snow falls again.It’s bitter cold, unrelenting.The wind rises up and pushes youwhere you had no intention of going. The persistence of it astonishes me.It almost, if I let it, makes me chuckle.I begin to admire it even while I loathe it.
Four Things the Priest Asks God For in Psalm 119
In Psalm 119: 33-37, a priest begs God to do four things: “Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees;then I will keep them to the end.Give me understanding, and I will keep your lawand obey it with all my heart.Direct me in the path of your commands,for there I find delight.Turn my heart toward […]
Today I Reinvent Myself
I tried on a dress I’d never wear otherwise, and I bought it today. I felt like I was reinventing myself. All the way home, I’ve been thinking about reinventing myself because “the old has gone, and the new has come” (2 Cor. 5). I normally think this happens just once in the Christian life, […]
Bad food = bad mood
A wise, older mother taught me the importance of being a “predictably cheerful” mom. I thought that was crazy at the time. Predictably cheerful? First of all, who can predict cheerful?Secondly, who can predict cheerful? I want to be predictably cheerful. I don’t want to have the kind of home where everybody fears what kind […]