Here we are again.  The dawn of a new redesign. This one? I love. I have to thank my awesome web design guy, Andrew, and Brittany for recommending him. He was AWESOME.

If you look up there at the menu you’ll see some new stuff.

I Make Stuff – This will have links to all my posts about my crochet stuff.

What I’m Reading – I will be posting entries here about just that.  Whether it is books, articles, blogs, whatever.

Being Fat Sucks – Yeah, it does.  I will be writing here about the struggles of being overweight and the seemingly never-ending battle to not be.

Absolutely Avon – I sell Avon, you all know that.  I will be posting items currently for sale, items I love, brand new items and can also answer questions about makeup, skin care, how to find the colors best for you and whatnot.  You can use the “Email Amy” over there to the right to ask me questions.  I’ll reply via email or if it’s worth a whole post I will answer them that way.

The best thing?  All of these posting pages will feed into one RSS, so add me to your reader if you haven’t already.  You’ll get everything I have to say.  And hello?  Who doesn’t want THAT?  I’m pretty much awesome and this blog redesign is fantastic so I can only believe that this falls right in line with my assumption that I’m going to be epic in 2012.

As a Christian, I believe a few things.

I believe Jesus was the son of God.

I believe He died for my sins and the sins of all to reconcile our souls with God.

I believe the Holy Spirit dwells within us.

I believe that God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit are the 3 in 1 and are the Holy Trinity.

So that’s pretty standard for being a Christian.  There’s a few more things I believe.

I  believe that we are supposed to live as close to Christ-like as possible.

I believe that Christ would not have ostracized anyone… because He didn’t.

I believe that Christ would not have hated anyone… because He didn’t.

I believe Christ embraced those others felt were the most unworthy… because He did.

I believe that a lot of Christians have become so busy being Christians they’ve forgotten to be Christ-like.

I believe it’s time to remember WHO we’re following instead of looking to see who’s following us.

I believe Christianity has lost its way.

Matthew 7:1  Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Mark 12:31  Love your neighbor as yourself.

John 8:7 …Let ye that are without sin cast the first stone.  (and that’s only if what is going on is sinful, which more often than not…  it isn’t.  because something makes YOU uncomfortable doesn’t make it sinful).

Matthew 7:3  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your neighbor’s eye but don’t se the wooden beam in your own?

Matthew 7:12 In everything (yes, everything) do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Let’s get it together, Christians.  Act right.  Treat people right.  Love everyone.  It is not your job to judge.  It is definitely not your job to hate.

Everything will work out however it should.  We, as Christians, believe that.   So let it.  You may be surprised how it pans out.

Lastly, just as a reference, most Christians point to a verse in the Old Testament as where it says in the Bible that homosexuality is sinful..  it ALSO says in Leviticus:

- Do not eat meat with the blood still in it.   –  All you rare meat eaters…  sorry.

- Do not tattoo your body…  oops.  Sucks to be me.

- Do not wear clothing sewn with two kinds of material…  good-bye cotton poly blend.

There are also a ton a rules about how to worship, how to make sacrifices, how to talk to God…  all of THOSE laws went away when Christ died on the cross, but somehow other ones didn’t.  Why do we Christians think we can pick and choose?

You like your meat rare, so that’s ok…  but if your neighbor, Steve, likes Mark…  that’s not ok.

You can’t just take whatever makes you uncomfortable and decide THAT’S a sin if other things mentioned in the same exact book of the Bible that you’ve chosen not to follow anymore aren’t.  It doesn’t work that way.

So, don’t worry about it.  It’s not your concern anyway.

Plus loving takes SO much less energy than hating.  Aren’t you tired?

Hi all.  It’s time for another PSA.  My last one had to do with wrong number message etiquette and how rude it is to call and hang up and not leave a message and the quandary that leaves the callee in with deciding whether or not they should call the mystery number back.  Just plain rude.

While this isn’t about being rude, there are a few things that people just don’t seem to get about Facebook.

1.  When you say you “can’t wait to go away for x number of days to x location more than 5 minutes from your house” you have now told who knows how many people exactly when your home will be unoccupied and how long it would take you to get home in an emergency.  Use your date of birth as your security code and you’ve scored a hat trick.   –  See when any of your friends comments or “likes” your comment then ALL of their friends can see said comment.  Do you know all 300 friends of your 300 friends?  And know them to be fine upstanding people?  I’m guessing not.

2.  When you post a less than flattering picture of yourself.  Half-dressed, half-sober, half play-acting out a sexual act it may seem really funny.   But see above and add – Do you know all 300 of your 300 friends (and if the above photo is one in your collection I’m guessing you’re over on the over/under 300 friends) to NOT be a potential future employer, fellow homeroom mother or in-law?

3.  If you hire someone to do something for you professionally…  all the way from building a deck to taking photos to giving you a tattoo… if they have a Facebook page, photos of your thing will be on it.  It’s called advertising.   There’s little to nothing you can do about this, especially if the contract said that they could use photos of your whatever it was in advertising.  Make sure you get a discount for agreeing.  You’re welcome.

4.  When you take pictures in your home and your belongings are in the background, like that new 60-inch tv, most cameras and cell phones have geotracking in them now which embeds latitudes and longitudes onto your photos.  So now, referring to #1 the would be robbers know when you’ll be away, how long it’ll take you to get home, that you have a brand new 60 inch flat panel tv AND because of crazy Uncle Sal in the background pointing at his blue and red fancy glasses….  that it’s 3-D.  Which is fortunate for them because I’m sure not knowing to look for and subsequently grab the glasses would have hurt the value they’ll get at the pawn shop.

5.  For anyone who has a friend or relative that fancies themselves a photographer – please see #3.  Minus the whole discount thing.  They’re going to post pictures of you on their wall for FREE!   Lucky you!

6. OH!  And for anyone who hasn’t noticed yet.  When you’re posting anything…  statuses, pictures, links…  there’s an option now for Public, Friends, Friends of friends…  make sure this is on the one that you want EVERY time.   Luckily this is changeable even after you hit “Post”.

7.  Most importantly…  ANYTHING you post.  Pictures, statuses, links, comments on other people’s pictures, statuses and links can ALL be deleted by you.  This is important for the multi-posters, too, not just for the inappropriate “I probably shouldn’t have said that.” posters.   For those times the update posts but you’re just not sure and you end up with the same thing a dozen times.   Delete, delete, delete!

Remember…  The More You Know.    This advice has been free so don’t forget to tip your waitresses on the way out.

Thank you and goodnight.

And not the ridiculously fun dance Limbo either.  Limbo lower now!!

I’m in this weird place blog-wise where I’m on the precipice of a couple of good things happening with it that I’m excited about but they’re just not happening yet.

In the meantime the parts of my life that pertain to those parts of the blog I feel like are also in like a holding pattern until things are up and running.

What’s in a holding pattern?  Oh things like my fitness plans, getting my book club back on track (I haven’t forgotten you all, I promise!), Avon…  all of these things are going to find their place here and until they do I feel like I can’t do anything.

It’s frustrating.   And exciting.  And holy heck am I being impatient.  This poor fella that is working on this for me (I think) is probably about ready to block my email address.

But some fun things are coming.  Hopefully.  Stay tuned.

… and potential smack-down including toddler-shaped missiles.

Last week I was off work and since my friend’s son’s daycare was closed she was off as well.  We planned a day to hang out for the express purpose of going to Ikea.  Somewhere I’d never been before.  She found this shocking…  appalling, even…  and so we went.

It won’t be my last visit.

It really was like the mother-ship calling me home.  I said more than once, “I want to live here.”

I know I’m inexplicably and horrendously late to this party.  After all, Ikea has been around since 1985 in the US.   But seriously, there are only 38 stores in the US.  How lucky is it that the one I have is 50 minutes from my doorstep?  I know.  VERY.  Making it even more ridiculous I’ve never been there.

So I loved it.  For reals.  I now heart Ikea.  I can’t wait to go back.

We were ready to go home, waving our handkerchiefs and promising to come back soon, and staked out our spot for us to load up the car in the front of the store.  If you’ve been there (which of course you have) you know they have a whole line of handy dandy load the car spots.  When my friend went to go get the car she left me with my cart, which had her 2-yr-old son in it and her cart.  When she got about 30 yards away her son began to slowly lose his ability to hold it together and started murmuring, “Mama??”  And started to cry.  I calmed him down fairly easily but it was a precarious balance of funny faces and “it’s ok”-ing and rubbing his back.  And then?  This little chippy behind me…  all manicured nails and perfect hair and size 2 body of her says:

“My husband is coming with the car and these people took our spot so he’s going to park there.  These people will be done soon and whoever you’re waiting for can park here.”

So I look at my cart filled with a toddler and my friend’s cart and evaluated how I could most effectively manuever both at the same time.  Realizing I couldn’t I said to her:

“Ok, that’s fine, but I have him here and I have another cart and I can’t bring both and I don’t want to walk away from him in either spot to get the cart so could…”

Her:  (Completely cutting me off) it’s not THAT big a deal.  He’s going to park in your spot.  You’ll take this one.

Me:  I get that, it’s just I have the two carts.  Could…  (by the way, I was trying to ask her, nicely, if she could grab my 2nd cart to facilitate the spot switching.   I never did get to ask.)

Her:  (Interrupting again) I’m TRYING to be considerate here.

Me:  (By this point I’m next to her at her old spot/my new spot with my cart and my friend’s son and I see the car pulling out and the huge while Lexus pulling out of our former spot and am thoroughly confused)  So what’s happening?

Her:  NEVERMIND, just NEVERMIND.  It’s REALLY wasn’t that big a deal and I was TRYING to be considerate.  This guy is leaving and my husband will just park here so NEVERMIND!!

So I mosey back over to my former spot, a bit befuddled as to what. just. happened.  but still just happy to have been at Ikea.  When all the sudden I hear her over there like a chattering bird complaining about me to her husband.  At which point I lost all ability to be cordial.

Me:  SERIOUSLY?  I TRIED to change spots with you.  I TRIED to do exactly what you were asking me to do.  I was just trying to ask you to grab my 2nd cart but you wouldn’t let me get that out.  All you could say was you were TRYING to be considerate.  It would have been better had you actually BEEN considerate!

Her:  It’s NOT a BIG DEAL!

Me:  And yet you’re still talking about it.   HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!   (then to my friend’s son but loud enough for, oh, everybody to hear)  As you grow up always remember that it takes so little effort to just be NICE.

Her:  Yes, it does, DOESN’T IT?

At this point my friend was backing into our spot and when she got out I said she got there just in time because her son was about to be used as a ballistic missile.  (This is a joke, OBVIOUSLY, hopefully years from now no one will accuse me of saying I’d ACTUALLY throw my friend’s son at anyone…  I mean, unless they really deserved it, of course).

She asked what happened and I told her I’d tell her in the car and as we brilliantly loaded her car…  (seriously, we discussed being professional car loaders.  We could do that, write and like, fight crime…  or something…) … I think she almost peed laughing when I said:

“We’ve GOT to figure this out because the people with the Lexus will NOT be helping us.”

She laughed even harder in the car when I told her the whole story.

At any rate, to sum up.  I love Ikea, I’ll be going back.  Some customers there TRY to be CONSIDERATE.  While others, probably actually are.   Like the ones with two carts and a toddler in tow.

Oh yes. This is very real. $21 so far, baby!

It’s that time.  It’s the afternoon of December 31, when any self-respecting blogger has to try to piece together a last-minute end of year post that they’ve given no thought to because Holidays!  Presents!  Things to do!  People to see! takes up all the extra time leaving us with about 15 minutes to throw a post together before we have to start thinking about what the next year will bring so we have something to say for tomorrow’s obligatory “Looking at the New Year” post.

In entertainment we lost a few good men and some good women, too.  Superman’s mom died, Suzannah York, and Columbo, Peter Falk who doubled as the grandfather in one of my favorite movies “The Princess Bride”.  Andy Rooney, Nick Ashford, Jani Lane…  who put a soundtrack to some of my most heartbreaking teen moments…  and dear sweet Col. Potter from MASH.  I always thought Harry Morgan was totally adorable.

We lost some trailblazers and difference makers this year.  Geraldine Ferraro  the first female VP candidate.  Clara Luper  - an Oklahoma civil rights icon who watched the inauguration of current president, Barack Obama with tears in her eyes.    And Steve Jobs.  I know at the time of his death there were people who were angry at the outpouring of admiration for “just one guy”.  But there’s no denying the man revolutionized how the world communicates.  His vision.  his dreams, his ideas.  He made them real.  And accessible for all of us and most of us can’t imagine being without them now.

In sports we lost some real greats.  Baseball took a real hit with the passing of two of its best evers – Duke Snider and my personal favorite Harmon Killebrew, whose profile is the logo for the MLB.  What a story.  What a man.  In football we lost the great Al Davis.  He wasn’t always crazy.  He is probably one of the prolific NFL team owners in history.   When he became an owner the NFL was an afterthought.  Now?  Well we know what it is now.  And he opened doors that weren’t previously accessible.   He hired the first Latino NFL coach, the first black NFL coach in 50 years and the first ever female chief executive.  His team won 3 championships in 7 years – without cheating.  The losses hit close to home this year when Philly lost one of its hometown heroes, Smokin’ Joe Frazier.  I will always remember watching the Eagles/Bears national broadcast (a game the Eagles went on to lose…  of course…  more on that later) when the announcer say he had bad news for the Philadelphia fans watching and that Joe Frazier had died.

It was a year of tumult with the tornadoes in the Southern US, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the earthquake in New Zealand.  We even had an earthquake HERE, which is bizarre, and just odd.

The war in Iraq “ended”.   We got Bin Laden.  Moammar Ghadfi died as did Kim Jong Il and the Occupy movement began where everyone was protesting different things but just did it together because, I guess, it’s better that way?  I didn’t hear any two protestors saying they were there for the same reasons.  But they were doing something which made it newsworthy.   Oh and Donald Trump tried to run for president, Prince William got married, Casey Anthony went free, Anthony Weiner didn’t learn from others mistakes (I’m looking at you, Brett Farve) and Jerry Sandusky was arrested for the worst of crimes and shamed the PSU proud.

It was a disappointing year for Philadelphia sports as the Flyers did manage to gimp into the playoffs but then fell to the Bruins in May on the road to Lord Stanley’s cup.   The Phillies were started up by then with all the expectations in the world.  After all, WE GOT CLIFF LEE!!!, it was going to be a great year.  And then…  they fell.  October 7th.  They didn’t even go out with a fight.  And they proved the saying true that the bigger they are the harder they fall.  They broke our hearts and it took months for the city to recover.  Some still haven’t.  Phillie hopes were still flying high when, in July, we found out that we would – indeed – have an NFL season.  And then the Eagles went to work.  They made deals.  They worked in secret.  They made monster signings.  It was a heyday of free agent wheelings and dealings.  The Phillies were doing awesome, the Flyers had puffed out but we had high hopes for the next season and the Eagles were “all in” and making us feel like this was THE YEAR.  It was a great time to be a Philadelphia fan.   And then?  The Eagles started playing.  As it turned out making an offensive line coach into a defensive coordinator actually wasn’t a good idea and it takes more than good pieces to make a great team.  By October it already wasn’t looking good and the Phils lost it all.  It’s been a rough year to be a Philadelphia sports fan.   But the cycle continues.  Pitchers and catchers report in about 7 weeks and that’s enough to make me feel all warm inside.

Personally, 2011 has been…   odd.  To say the least.  A little bad.  But so much good.  Good that has made me whole again.  Good that mended a part of me that I thought was healed… but have come to realize that it was a part that wasn’t broken.  It was just a part that was missing.  For so very long.  As it turns out, it didn’t take me being angry.  It didn’t take me being hurt and it didn’t take me being at the mercy of others to get things fixed.  And there was nothing I needed to do for it to happen.  It just took patience.  And time.  The bad brought me and my husband closer together as most all bad things do, luckily and the good made me able to laugh all the way from my toes again.

I’ve so missed laughing all the way from my toes.

I posted here about a family with a son who is Delorean/Back to the Future crazed.

I know a little about this…

Clearly.

I did have one thing wrong in that post.  The child in question, Alex, is not 8 or 9.  He’s 11 and will be turning 12 with his twin brother, Thomas, pretty soon.

Alex has high-functioning autism.  He knows so much about Back to the Future – which they watched last night again – he loves it.   With Tom’s cousin being autistic I’m familiar with the trait that sometimes a person with autism will fixate on certain things.  With Tom’s cousin, who has a lower-functioning form of autism..  is that right?  Lower-functioning?  I don’t even know, but you know what I mean – it has been rewinding and watching a part of a moving over and over until someone stops him.

For Alex, it’s Back to the Future and the Delorean.  He’s been looking online.  Trying to find where he can go see one.  His parents were thinking about contacting the Delorean car club.  It looks like they even tried back in October, but to no avail.  Alex even came to his dad, Will, the other day and asked him how long it would take to get to Lakeview, FL because there was a Delorean there for sale.

A couple days before Christmas, even, Alex was still talking to his mom, Linda, about how he didn’t know if he’d get to see one and he couldn’t figure out how.  His twin, Thomas, gave their mom a knowing look, because by then they knew they were coming here, today.  He was in on it, too.

Will had Alex sit down the other day and make a Christmas wish list and told him to put anything on it.  Just anything.  Aim for the sky.  He put on it to see a Delorean in person.

Yesterday after all the presents were done Alex’s parents told him they sent him an email and to check it.  In the email they told him he was finally going to see a Delorean.  He was so excited he froze.  And then said he had to go take a shower.   And that?  Is adorable.

So today Alex came.  With Thomas, Linda and Will.   And his Christmas wish came true.   I think he had a blast.  I’m sure he’ll talk about it for longer than we’ll ever know.  Thomas thought it was pretty awesome, too.

And despite the cold, despite the wind, my heart melted a little.

Alex telling his friend that didn't believe he was going to see a Delorean that "I'm really going to open the door right now!"

Alex, Thomas and Linda

Tom explaining the finer points of the Mr. Fusion to Will

Alex and Thomas

Can I talk freely about something I don’t get?   Of course I can,  this is my blog.  So here we go.

I do not get why people praying is so offensive.  I really don’t.

Granted, I’m a Christian, so that could be part of why I don’t understand.  But Christianity is not the only faith that prays.

But here’s my thinking:

People who pray believe they are doing it for a reason.

They believe it makes a difference

They believe it matters.

They believe it makes miracles happen and can move mountains.

They believe that while they may also help tangibly (which very many do) – with moral support (yes I know that’s not TANGIBLE, but it’s worldly), financial support or actual physical support, that praying is still the most caring, considerate, loving thing they can do.

Whether others believe it or not.

Whether you believe it or not.

So when someone is praying near you, around you or FOR you…  don’t be offended – don’t scoff- and don’t try to put them down or silence their already usually silent prayers…  because it’s actually a GOOD thing.

It means they give a crap.  About you.  About this country.  About this world.  About whatever it is they’re praying for.

Whether it’s the economy, people in need, the health of a loved one or even a stranger or just that no one is injured during the course of a sporting event.  Or praying as a group for victims of a horrible ordeal.

And they believe it to be the best thing they can do.

And that’s more than most anyone else does.

To them praying isn’t just some little thing…  it’s everything.

And if they’re doing it for you…  it’s because they love you.

So let them do it.  In peace.

 It REALLY isn’t hurting you.

I promise.

Just say thank you and move on.