34 Great Gifts You Can Make Yourself

Great list!

via Rocks in my Dryer

A thought for the harvest season

An interesting post from DarwinCatholic about how removed we've become from seasonal cycles:

In a modern supermarket, all produce is available year round, fresh and ready to eat. Nor is there any real doubt that food will always be there. If you don't have food, the feeling goes, it is because someone is denying you your rights.

In a society in which people are closely dependent on the local harvest, there was real and immediate reason to be thankful once the harvest was safely gathered and stored. Plenty was worth celebrating and being truly grateful for, because there was the ever present possibility that a bad harvest would result in widespread hunger.

Read the rest here.

Mystery piano, abandoned deep in the woods

Weird!

Employee trampled to death in Wal Mart stampede

The details of this article are a scary look at Black Friday taken way too far.

via Little Sanctuary

Astronaut's Lost Toolbag Visible From Earth

Wow, cool!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day today.

(And happy Thursday to readers outside the U.S.)

'Bailout' Is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year

Not surprising that this was a hot term for them this year.

Post-abortion ad reaches out, brings healing

An ad that ran on New York subways offering help to post-abortive women got a surprisingly positive response.

Remembering what Christmas is all about

via Like Merchant Ships

Why Modern Motherhood is So Much Harder than it Ought to Be

A thought-provoking post.

Stone Soup

A wonderful post about what one family did when they found themselves broke with no food, and the symbolism it has for the Christian life.

Precious Gavin

A touching poem that a young woman wrote for her baby nephew who recently passed away. Really beautiful.

via MrsL (Twitter)

LIFE photos now available online

What a great project: "Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."

via Rocks in My Dryer

"If we cannot welcome the stranger among us in the womb..."

A powerful post by The Political Housewyf.

A dinner where real people talk about real problems

I always love living vicariously through the folks over at 4 Reluctant Entertainers and hearing about the great dinners they put on, like this most recent one.

Line rider

A fun little Flash game.

via Rocks in My Dryer

Portable chapels

I saw an ad for this company over at Faith and Family Live and thought I'd share since it's such an interesting idea: portable, ready-made chapels that you can buy for home or commercial use. Cool idea!

What are the most expensive foods in the world?

Find out here. (A $1,000 pizza?!?!)

Why I Broke Up With Facebook

A fun Friday post from Elizabeth Esther.

America's healthiest grocery stores

Helpful list.

via...I forget where I found this one -- sorry!

A real life pirate ship battle

I had no idea that stuff like this still went on!

How to bring reform to your church

Rich Leonardi has 11 great tips for keeping your sanity and bringing about needed changes if you find yourself in a church that is less than orthodox.

via DarwinCatholic

A mom of 12 gets honest about obesity, weight loss and gluttony

How did I miss Barbara Curtis' series of posts about her 90+ pound weight loss? I'm just now catching up and find them to be a wonderful breath of fresh air. Here's an excerpt from one of her posts in which she talks about the difficulty of being a mom of a busy household and having a slower metabolism than other people:

I've learned to let go of any entitlement mentality. If other people don't have to struggle with their weight and I do, so what? Other people struggle with other issues that I don't have to. My job calls for handling a lot of food even though I can't eat a lot myself right now. A bank teller has to handle money all day and not keep any even if she's broke.

I also found the inspiration she drew from her Down Syndrome children to be inspiring. Some particularly good posts: Diet Update; More Diet Discussion; and When Your Spouse is Overweight. Some excellent food for thought (hah!) for anyone interested in the subject of weight loss, particularly from a Christian perspective.

Children are dangerous

Randy Bohlender writes in a thought-provoking blog post, "Satan does not rage against children because they're vulnerable. He rages against them because they are dangerous."

Trinity Church, Antarctica

There is a permanent Orthodox church down in Antarctica -- neat.

How far can your car go after the low fuel light comes on?

Find out here.

via BooMama

The stunning conversion of an abortion doctor

The must-read story of a communist abortion doctor who performed 48,000 abortion and is now a pro-life advocate.

The 20 Unhealthiest Drinks in America

But some of them taste so good!

Amazing images of the microscopic

Wow! It's amazing to see the level of intricate detail that exists even in the most minuscule objects.

A funny cat video with a funnier comment

I loved this video of a cat playing with a box, but Jamie's comment about it in this post had me laughing out loud. She writes:

This video of a cat reminded me of something I put myself through every year when I get the winter clothes out of storage, and am inexplicably seized by the hope that maybe I will suddenly — and for no apparent reason — be able to fit back into my skinny jeans, so why not try them on? At the close of the video, Em summed it up neatly with the same interjection I always end up using: “Stuck!”

Google Earth now has ancient Rome!

Find out more at http://earth.google.com/rome/.

When will the flu hit your area?

This map attempts to predict when the flu will hit your area. Click on your state.

via Faith & Family Live

Cool performance art

...using Google street view.

This is just wrong

I understand eating vegetarian, but getting a tofu "turkey" to carve crosses some sort of line. Check out this vegan "roast."

A list of weekly blog memes

This is a great list of blog memes (many of them Christianity-related). Scroll down to see the full list. I'd heard of Works for Me Wednesday and Menu Plan Monday, but not some of the others. So many neat memes out there!

Some thoughts on adoption

A mom of seven reflects on what's in it for her in terms of adoption. Her answer is surprising and beautiful.

How clothes should fit

I found this instructive (although a bit depressing since I'm freakishly tall and would have to have a personal tailor to get my clothes to fit like that).

via Almost Frugal

'Why Believe in a God?' Ad Campaign Launches

An atheistic ad campaign will run on D.C. buses during the holiday season.

via Dan Nunley (Twitter)

Recycling Myths: Debunking 5 Half Truths about Recycling

Interesting.

via the Grass Widow's Diary

Electronic device lets you know when you're slouching

I have terrible posture. I must have one!

The best Christmas gift ever

Betty Beguiles shares the absolutely lovely (and FREE) Christmas gifts that she and her husband exchange. Not only is it a great idea, but it's a really touching post.

2,000-year-old gold earring found in Jerusalem

Wow! It's neat to see how much it looks like something women would wear today.

One of the most inspiring videos I've seen in a while

Wow! A must-see:

A feminist-turned-housewife reflects on housework

Aimee (Milburn) Cooper is eloquent, as always.

Adopting children with Down Syndrome

The Curtis family shares their inspiring story.

How to take a great Christmas card photo

Great tips!

Some great collections of pictures

Stunning pictures of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons; a look inside the coronation of the new king of Bhutan; and autumn around the world. Beautiful!

Health Communication Materials Database

A database with a collection of health education materials from around the world. It's interesting (and sometimes sad) to see how topics of family size or sterilization are sometimes discussed.

A Cinderella Ball for foster children

Nice idea.

Finally, a funeral for a baby who survived abortion

Shanice Osbourne finally received a proper funeral. It's interesting (in a macabre way) to see the tricky legal issues that came with the fact that the clinic workers killed her after she was born.

via This Burning Woman

Neat idea: a wheelchair for dolls

In some sort of target market analysis error my family received a copy of American Girl magazine. I flipped through it and was pleasantly surprised to see that you can order a wheelchair for your American Girl doll. Neat idea -- one that I'm sure will be especially appreciated by families who have a child or children with disabilities.

Soy foods make men less fertile?

Interesting study.

7 things you can't do as a moral relativist

Very thought-provoking! I ran into a lot of these when I was an atheist.

via Mary's Aggies

Amazon editors' top 10 recipe books of 2008

Yum!

A touching story of kindness and generosity

What a great story:

You want to see what it means to love one's neighbor? Marilyn Mock, who lives in the Dallas suburb of Rockwall, went to a foreclosure auction with her grown son last weekend to be with him as he purchased his first house. While there, she saw a woman sitting at the edge of the auction hall, sobbing. It was Tracy Orr, a housekeeper who was there to watch her humble house sold off to the highest bidder.

Marilyn couldn't stand it. She bought Tracy's house, sight unseen, and told her to move back home. Now Tracy will be paying her mortgage to Marilyn, not to the bank. If you go to the story, be sure to watch the video report from the scene. Tracy, through tears, says nobody's ever done anything like that for her before. And Marilyn is not a wealthy woman, it seems from the story.

via John C. Wright

The cycle of democracy

A thought-provoking quote emailed to me by a reader:

From Alexander Tyler, a history professor at the University of Edinburgh. Written in 1787:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy...which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage

UPDATE: See Catherine's comment below for a question about the accuracy of this quote. Thanks, Catherine!

FAQ's about the electoral college

Helpful link for today.

Infertility and abortion

Wow! A powerful post from Aimee Milburn:

In all the arguments about abortion, one thing gets lost: the argument for love. The argument for tenderness. The argument for cultivating our own human natures in such a way that we become loving, tender, giving, careful with others, careful with ourselves.

Read the rest here.

From career-obsessed newspaperman to stay-at-home dad

This is a beautiful, touching story. An excerpt:

[I told my future wife] that although our future together was very important, I couldn't be happy unless I was succeeding in my career. You see, I said, to succeed at anything you need to have one thing as your goal. Whatever your goal is, everything else should be built towards achieving that goal.

When I look back, I don't even know the guy saying those things. But it was one of those moments that I didn't realize at the time was a big moment...She wiped her eyes and said she would've hoped that I could be happy with her and our future children in our imaginary house no matter what kind of work I did.

And that's when I said it: "I can't be happy unless I'm writing for big newspapers or magazines. I need to succeed. That's just me. It's the way I'm built. You have to accept that."

Read what happened next here. Great, great post.

We were made for eternity

Some interesting thoughts on our discomfort with time:

We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. We love good fresh air, but we do not love “time.” We may love the existing moment because of what it offers, but time itself spoils our greatest moments. Nothing can quite come up to expectation because of it. It is strange that this seems to be true of humans alone. Animals, so far as we can tell, are unaware of time. They are untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense it is not ours?

Read the rest here.

Patron saints of moms with health problems, unwed mothers and moms in difficulty

Great list.

A cute video for All Saint's Day

via Catholic Mom

10 ways to occupy your toddler

Some great ideas. See the comments too.

via Simple Mom