Fun, New Blogging Option

So sometimes I read a blog post and I think to myself 'that is so cool, or cute, or interesting, etc. but I'm not really feeling like leaving a comment' (not, mind you, because I don't think you are not worth my time to leave a comment but rather that I don't feel like my comment is good enough to leave on your excellent blogs). Blogger, though, as solved this problem for me in creating the Reactions option where you merely check the reaction you have toward the post without having to come up with the words necessary of a comment. I hope you'll take advantage of the option here (especially those who stalk my blog but never comment) and maybe consider making it available on your blogs so I can tell you how cool I think your posts are.

Christmas Music

So I've been a really lazy blogger this week, but I did get a bit of inspiration from Science Teacher Mommy and created a Christmas playlist. You can check it out on my sidebar. I would also add this song, but playlist.com didn't have it so it was youtube to the rescue.

What songs would you add?

I love Kristin Chenoweth and I love this song that she does.

Happiness is...

...finally getting released from my calling in Nursery--not that I didn't really grow to love my calling there, but I am glad to be moving on.

Happiness is doing a much better job at this whole teaching thing last Sunday--there is hope!

Happiness is also pretty fingernails--just got back from getting manicures with the Mia Maids. Tough calling, huh?

Happiness is a catered dinner for Relief Society tonight.

When I was going to school in Northern Ireland I spent a lot of evenings at various church activities--there were lots of activities to try to keep members active and because active members liked spending time together. I loved the amount of time I was spending there, but on returning home I felt a little bit of relief at not having a church activity to go to nearly every night. Now that I've been home a while I'm starting to miss having that fellowship. It looks like in Young Women's I may just get a good mix of church activities and at home time.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Saw this fabulous movie a couple of nights ago and highly recommend it. It is the story of a young boy and his family who live near a concentration camp and provides an interesting look at differing reactions to lies and life at that time. It is a good thinking movie and you will find yourself asking how you would have reacted given the dangerously real circumstances of Nazi Germany. Would I have been brave enough? Hard to say. Hindsight makes me want to say yes. And yet, how many genocides have occurred since then and continue to occur now with my knowledge. How brave would I have been with a Nazi soldier screaming in my face?

Before you should go, however, you should know that it is a rather emotionally intense film--being about the Holocaust and all.

I think this is going to be my favorite Christmas song this year. So Beautiful.

James Blunt

Remember how I have a sort of strange love for James Blunt? Well I love this bit he did with Sesame Street.

Temple Square Lights

The Young Women went up to Temple Square for dinner, a movie (the Joseph Smith one), and to see the lights. I thought it might have been a good time to get to know the girls a little bit more, but the girls had different plans like avoiding the leaders. It was perfect weather, though, and the lights were beautiful. Did I tell you that I taught my first Young Women lesson a couple of Sundays ago? I did. It was a train wreck. Really, it was. This is what I've learned: teaching nursery and teaching young women...not so different. I teach again on Sunday. Hopefully it will go better.

Saw this on Science Teacher Mommy (whose review of Australia is very good and should be read before you go see the movie). It's called Wordle and "is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

Here is mine (It doesn't search your entire blog just what shows up on your blog's homepage so you can do it over and over again to see what themes you are writing about. I love that Hugh Jackman and the Temple both show up as being prominent--I think that shows that I am very balanced ;) )

Click on it to see it a bit better.

The Librarian

"It's only fair to warn that I am a Librarian."

Don't know how I missed the first two, but I'm looking forward to seeing this one. It airs on TNT on December 7th (as do the first 2).