Gladden The Heart

Good beer, seeing people pursue their passions, and the city of Birmingham are on the list of things that gladden my heart. Since The J. Clyde embodies all of these elements, there has been a special place in my heart since it opened in Southside a couple of years ago. Now that I’ve heard about [...]

The “Blog Posts Brewing Within” Version:
1) Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the importance of balancing online community with real life community. For some of us it’s easy to throw our thoughts about faith, politics, and the economy out on the internets. Are we also making space in our lives to discuss these issues with others over [...]

The “Things That Are Gladdening My Heart This Week” Version:
1) Coffee, cupcakes, & grilled cheese from Urban Standard
2) Our first Chilton County peaches of the season
3) Prosecco
4) Meaningful conversations with my husband, my kids, and friends.
5) Ginger+Chocolate
6) My work
7) So You Think You Can Dance
What’s gladdening your heart these days?
(Others quick takes…)

The “Parenting” version:
1. My children don’t need me to be a perfect mom. When I fail them and disappoint them, it is a good reminder for all of us that they need Jesus to be their Jesus.
2. Loving my kids well will oftentimes look very different from how parenting is portrayed in our culture, the [...]

The Hops Are Free…

I usually drink wine but sometimes I crave beer. Good beer. Because I am an economist and a beer snob, this is a fabulous day.
UPDATE: I just found out a greater variety of wine is coming to Alabama, as well. I read a short article in today’s paper about a [...]

Happy Birthday to me…

The 2008 Cono Sur Sauvignon Blanc from Chile is a great, cheap, drinkable wine. And, it has a screw cap. It was a nice addition to our lovely afternoon. Locals can purchase it for $9.99 at the Vineyard.

After community group each Tuesday night I have a collection of wine glasses to wash. (I’m not complaining–just explaining…) Because we have limited counter space, I often place all of the glasses on the window sill to dry. Last Wednesday morning while our children were eating breakfast, I picked up several clean, dry glasses in [...]

It looks like we survived the “Great Power Outage of 2009″ and have come away from it unscathed. Yesterday as I was boiling water to wash the dishes that had accumulated from eating chocolate roulage and whatnot, I kept thinking about a book I read recently.

This is somewhat amusing because my circumstances were no where [...]

Last year I did a “30 Days of Pictures” project. It’s time for round two. Although this year it will last for 34 days. Because 34 is a good number.
Our family has enjoyed the Lenten Lights readings and candle “snuffings” over the last 40 days. During the readings we have had the overhead lights off [...]