Though it pains me to do so, I’m forced to break my not-posting-on-my-blog streak for a very, very important reason. To do an informal poll on which Hugh Laurie… um, character?… you all like best.

1. Hugh Laurie as seen on Black Adder.
The goofy, loud, slightly insane Prince George (also Lieutenant The Honourable George Colthurst St. Barleigh).

 

-or-

2. Hugh Laurie as seen in Sense & Sensibility.
The amiable annoyed Mr. Palmer. Mr. Palmer who finds all the world that is outside of his newspaper to be too frivolous to bother being polite to. But who nevertheless is concerned enough about Miss Marianne to call in a doctor- not an apothecary- and even offers to stay and help care for her when his wife and baby are evacuated from their own home due to Marianne’s illness.  Awwww. No wonder Charlotte loves him- and who wouldn’t fight her for the chance to be married to Hugh Laurie? I mean, duh!

Join us next time as we debate the various merits between Professor Severus Snape and Colonel Brandon. Yum.

So- which Hugh Laurie is your favorite? (Note: House doesn’t count because he’s American, and A Bit Of Fry and Laurie doesn’t count because he’s too many people.)

Or can we?

Zenni Optical actually offers professional quality glasses for as low as $6.95! At that price, you can get a pair of glasses for every day of the week- and holidays too!

And speaking of glasses for the holidays, Zenni Optical even has a line of Valentine’s Day frames. I kid you not. Most are pink, red, or look like filigree work, but for some extra money saving festive glasses, check these out:

Yah, they’re green, but see the little flowers on the arm? Totes Valentine-ish. And the green? They double as Saint Patrick’s Day eyeglasses! Right?

Granted, the pair shown above is actually $29.95, but I saw a few other cute pairs for about $9.95. Get glasses for the whole family- until Feb. 15 (2012), they’re offering free shipping on orders that are over $50 to those in the USA.

Anyway, eventually I got to hear Steve Brown interview the actual Mark Driscoll (pastor of mega church Mars Hill Church, with over 7000 members spread across several campuses in several states). Honestly, I got a few good laughs out of that interview, and quite often, as Driscoll was speaking, I’d think, “well, that’s an interesting take on it”, and then he’d finish his thought and I’d think, “interesting, but completely wrong.”. And Driscoll does have some interesting ideas. To him, MMA is next to godliness, swearing in the pulpit is a good way to reach people, and he seems to think that everyone is completely obsessed with sex simply because he, himself, is completely obsessed with sex.

So, it was with a good deal of trepidation that I requested his new book on marriage, Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together. The focus of this book pretty much goes in that order.

So, first, the technical details. Real Marriage by Mark Driscoll and Grace Driscoll (his wife) is published by Thomas Nelson and is 256 pages long. Interestingly, about 1/4 of the book is a Preface, and Introduction (yes, both), and 5 appendices (plus a little more scattered around). The Preface, which is titled How Not To Read This Book, instructs you to not be a voyeur, a critic, to not say that you tried it and it didn’t work (actual quote “If it’s rooted in biblical wisdom, keep trying until it works or you die.”), don’t think of other people who need this book, don’t be unwilling to put in the work that this book says to do, don’t read this book and see your spouse’s shortcomings, don’t think you’re the exception, don’t try to figure out how to have a good enough marriage instead of a great one, talk about the book with your spouse- chapter by chapter, and don’t copy us.

The writing style leaves much to be desired. Unfortunately, I believe that the Driscolls really did actually write this book by themselves. Normally, I applaud celebrity books being written by the actual celebrity (and make no mistake, Mark Driscoll is a celebrity pastor- a strange, but real phenomena). However, while the sections that tell you what to do are pretty clear, the sections that tell you what they did tend to be rather vague. For example, it is mentioned in the book that Grace once (or, it seems to have been only once) had sex with another man shortly after she began dating Mark. Elsewhere, it is said that she was sexually abused. The way it’s written, it’s difficult to tell if the “sex with another man” incident is the same as the “sexual abuse” incident. The way the book is written, it sounds as though he’s referring to both cases as Grace sinning. This is cruel to Grace, whether intentional or unintentional, as many people now believe that he has called her rape to be her sin. It is, however, brilliant marketing, as once this firestorm erupted online, many people who had no interest in the book immediately ran off to obtain copies to read for themselves. Oops, there goes the “don’t be a critic” rule.

In addition to rather ambiguous stories of their past, it’s extremely difficult to tell who is writing what section until one identifies himself or herself. Several times, I was reading a section believing that it was one, and several paragraphs later, it’s identified as the other.

While I believe that advice should stand on its own (good or bad) and not depend on the character of the person giving it, I have to specify one incident here. While reading Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll, I was also reading Real Marriage reviews online. I also read one or two interviews. In the book, Real Marriage, Mark Driscoll states twice that he was not a virgin when he met Grace, and at least once that Grace was not a virgin when she met Mark. No biggie. For one thing, Mark wasn’t a Christian, and Grace had “fallen away”.  At location 288 in the ebook, Mark states, “By fifteen I had lied about my age, falsified my birth certificate, bought a car, and drove myself to work at a 7-Eleven (near the strip clubs), where I sold liquor, condoms, porn, and rubbing alcohol for freebasing drug addicts who lived in the low-income apartments next door. Around this time, I also started having sex with a girlfriend.” (he didn’t meet Grace until he was 17). At location 306 he says “Neither Grace nor I was a virgin when we met,”.  Here’s the thing, in an interview with Christianity Today, he says “We were virgins when we met and were sleeping together as high-school boyfriend and girlfriend.”  Now, maybe it was a mis-statement, or maybe CT accidentally left out the word “not”.  It’s been known to happen. However, he’s been caught in other untruths- for example, depending on the interview, he can’t make up his mind which state he was in when God told him to marry Grace and start a church.

Do I care whether they’d had sex before they met? No. Does it matter whether they’d had sex before they met? No. But if you’re going to make a big deal out of it (and they did), then they should at least get their story straight.

Now, as for the actual advice in the book, meh. Sure, some of it is solid- be friends with your spouse, respect your spouse, have sex often. That’s all well and good. It’s also in every half decent marriage book out there, and it’ll also be the advice that you get if you ask anyone with a decently healthy marriage for advice. Nothing new here, folks! Although, they do seem to confuse “respect” with “submit”. Really folks, just because your husband gets offended or hurt by something you say, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve actually disrespected him.

1/3 of Real Marriage by Mark Driscoll and Grace Driscoll is devoted to sex. Yes, sex pervades the other 2/3, but 1/3 is actually devoted to it. Chapter 6 Sex: God, Gross, or Gift? had me ready to hurl the book across the room. But, it’s on my brand new Kindle, so, yeah, I restrained myself. This is the section that gave me the most giggles and the most nausea.

If you’ve ever wondered if it’s ok to have oral or anal sex with your spouse, there’s a chapter to address that too (good news, Mark gives both the thumbs up).

The most helpful part of Real Marriage, I think, is the section near the end where they list several pages worth of questions to discuss with your spouse. The questions are taken from their premarital counseling sessions, and I think that most, if not all, are worth discussing. At the very least, you’ll have fodder for a few days of discussion, and at the most, you’ll learn things that you never knew about yourself and your spouse as you open up about some deep topics.

The biggest minus is probably that, well, Pastor Mark comes across as a real jerk to his wife. Story after story about how he was treating her, and you expect a “Looking back, I really shouldn’t have/should have done this instead of that.”, and it never comes. Does he regret his poor treatment of his wife, or does he actually think that he treated her right? I don’t know. And that’s what worries me about this book. They say to not copy them, but anyone who needs a self help book tends to do just that. The opportunities for abuse based on this book is quite high. Anyone who is able to separate the chaff from the wheat very likely doesn’t need this book, and anyone who can’t, well, heaven help you because this book surely won’t.

For the most part, I can only recommend Real Marriage to fans of Mark Driscoll, because anyone else will either find it unhelpful or enraging, depending on your point of view. Actually, that’s not true. I also recommend it to those who loathe Driscoll, because there are plenty of (unintentionally)  hilarious quotes in here for those who already disagree with him.

If you’re deciding whether or not you would find this book helpful to your marriage, please do consider that Pastor Mark and his wife are not professional therapists, and this book was not intended for those in crisis. If you are in danger from an abusive spouse- get out and protect yourself. If you both have serious emotional, mental, and/or spiritual or physical problems creating a rift in your marriage, get professional help. This book is intended for those who just want a better marriage, not those who are in dire straits.

I received this copy of Real Marriage from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze review program in exchange for an honest review.

P.S. If you’re curious about some of the more interesting quotes from the book, let me know and I’ll try to hook you up.

Since it will rush up to about 1 foot away and then stop, but continuously barks, all you have to do is totally ignore it and walk into the store. And all I can think of is that scene from Much Ado About Nothing.

Dogberry: Are you good men and true?

All: Yea.

Dogberry: Being chosen for the Prince’s watch. This is your charge: You are to bid any man stand, in the prince’s name.

Francis Seacole: How if a’ will not stand?

Dogberry: Why, then take no note of him, but let him go.

Verges: If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the prince’s subjects.

Dogberry: True. and we are to meddle with none but the prince’s subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets.

George Seacole: We will rather sleep than talk.

Dogberry: Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I cannot see how sleeping should offend.

“How if he will not stand?” “Then take no note of him and let him go.”

If you don’t stop and run away when the dog starts barking, then obviously you’re not an intruder and should be allowed to roam at will. Or something like that.

I think Michael Keaton’s version of this scene is the funniest version out there, but for some reason, no one has put it on YouTube. To get an idea of his version of Dogberry, though, there is this compilation of EVERY OTHER DOGBERRY SCENE IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE except this one. Which is the funniest of his scenes, so WTH?

Anyway. This book is called Mere Churchianity- Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality by Michael Spencer, aka The Internet Monk (internetmonk.com). Michael Spencer was a pastor who blogged his views on Christianity and church life and, based on a blog post that he wrote, was solicited to write this book. He died shortly before it was released.

While most books on the church (written by Christians) seek to defend the church and most, if not all, of its ways, Mere Churchianity is the opposite. Despite being a pastor himself, Michael Spencer considered the modern church to be more or less the antithesis of a Christ centered life. According to Spencer, at least, in this book, the majority of churches today are too busy either chasing after modern culture (to bring in the sheep- of course) or replacing the Christ-centered life with a bunch of moral rules of its own making.

For the most part, he’s right. It happened in Jesus’ day too- why do you think He was always ragging on the Jewish priesthood?

Rather than try to convince church leavers to give church another try, Spencer seems to be encouraging anyone who’s even contemplating leaving the church to do just that. Go ahead- leave! It might be the best decision you’ve ever made for your spiritual life!

I’m not entirely certain how I feel about his points. On the one hand, I agree. For one thing, the early church certainly didn’t take place in a big building with a band leading you in songs that you may or may not know and taking communion by eating a tiny piece of bread or wafer and a thimble sized shot of grape juice. From what I can gather from reading the New Testament, it was believers gathering together in each others homes, sharing a meal, companionship, and sometimes worshiping God the same way that they did when they were simply Jews (singing, instruments, praying), and meeting in the temple courts (that would be the Jewish temple, by the way, not a church dedicated to Christianity) to pray.

So, yes, I do agree that the modern church doesn’t model how the disciples and the apostles did it. However, our lives don’t mirror that of the Jews during that time either! For many of us, the only way to “not cease gathering together” is in church. If you don’t have a circle of fellow believers to gather with and fellowship with, well, what other way are you going to find fellowship? And if all of your Christian acquaintances believe as you do, how are your beliefs ever going to be challenged? How will you grow? I’m not saying that it’s not possible, I’m just saying that at no point in this book did I feel that Spencer took any look at the good points of having a church.

Part of that single mindedness is simply because the whole point of the book is more or less “If you want to leave church because you don’t want to just be a churchie, then go ahead, it’s probably the right thing to do.”, but the lack of any other point of view made parts of the book actually come across as somewhat bitter.

Honestly though, I think this book is best suited to those who struggle with the idea of others leaving church. The people who immediately condemn “leavers” won’t be able to hear the message, and “leavers” don’t care. But those who hurt to see someone leave the church, but don’t respond in an Holier Than Thou manner, may find Mere Churchianity to be useful in understanding why someone who professes to believe in God and/or Jesus would leave church.

It has some good points, it has some bad points, and overall, I found it to be the least painful non-fiction Christian book to finish. That said, had it not been endorsed by Steve Brown, I probably would not have requested it, and might have not finished it if I had still requested it (which I might have done as I love the title). Better than most, interesting, but not particularly useful unless you’re confused already.

Note- I received this book free of charge from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange for reviewing it.

Today started out great, too. Hubs was going out to play with the guys, and I couldn’t stay asleep, so I actually got up at a decent time (1pm). Then, I called dad for some last minute info about a farm store/bent & dent and ended up talking to him for about 20 minutes. He usually answers the phone with “talk to you later, bye” (not literally, but I’m sure he would if he could), so actually chatting with him was awesome.

Then, on my way to said farm store, I passed a charter bus- the company name emblazoned on the back? Chariots of Hire. I’m not joking. Totally made my day.

I got to the farm store and found my second favorite brand of bacon for $1.50 less than I usually pay for it. Then I went to an actual farm and picked up some great pastured meat and offal (and they had sweetbreads! Seriously- it’s almost impossible to find sweetbreads!), and then drove home. And the weather. Was. Gorgeous. Windows down, all the way, baby.

So, and here’s the best part, the weather was still gorgeous when I got home. It’s too early for bees or wasps. The sun was out (no clouds, no rain). Nice breeze. And everyone else is outside taking walks and drives to enjoy the weather. This kind of day is rare enough, but this kind of day on a non-work, non-I-have-to-be-somewhere-right-now weekend day? THEY DON’T EXIST. Except for today. And I got to take advantage of it.

I pulled out my crochet, and a blanket, and plopped myself down under a tree. A nice family walked by and asked me about what I was crocheting, and their adorable little boy stared at me for a while, and a bunch of kids were riding bike and playing basket ball. And then I took my crochet and propped it under my head like a pillow and lay (layed, laid? I always get confused there) there for a bit looking at the sky through the tree branches. And then? I packed it all up and took a walk. Why? Because I wanted to!

It was so nice.

Now, however, I have laundry to do, a carpet to vacuum, food to eat, and instructions on how to cook sweetbreads to look up.

Hope everyone else had a day as lovely as mine!

What’s Going On:

1. I just bought 3 more domains. 2 for niches which are related to regular websites that my friends own, 1 is AffableBooks.com, which will be a site with recommendations for only good books. A bit of description, a bit of review, maybe some sort of rating system- but only good books. It’s not up yet, so I wouldn’t bother typing in the domain. The other two are more likely to be profitable, but if they’re not, at least I can boost up my friends’ sites.

2. One of those niches is related to a personal trainer friend of mine. If you’re interested in exercise video downloads, I recommend checking out TotallyFitWithCarol.com. Carol is made of awesome, and is the mother of two of my best friends- both professional writers (CJ is the author of Bound by Guilt, and her sister Tracy is a freelance magazine writer who also has a column in the new Suzy magazine). I’m trying to get her to set up an affiliate program for her videos. BTW- what I love about her videos is that she shows you multiple ways to do the same exercise, so that people at various levels of fitness and flexibility can participate.

3. I’ve been working my butt off on my Disney site. One of the new posts is about 13k words at this point, and it’s still growing as new search terms show up for it (anything that looks like a question I put up as a Q&A). And you wonder why I never post here anymore?

4. I’ve learned to crochet, and re-learned how to knit. Dad taught me the crochet (family tradition), and YouTube re-taught me how to knit. I’m currently crocheting a bed scarf and knitting a baby blanket.

5. Epic Mickey makes me cuss. The game is fun, but really, really aggravating.

6. I just finished 1 month gluten free. I’m about 1 1/2 weeks back into gluten, and I’ve decided that gluten and I don’t mix very well. Nothing too bad, but a lot of little things, and an overall attitude problem since re-introducing it. Luckily, I don’t seem to have any problems with having it one or two days- it’s the ongoing eating it that’s an issue, so I don’t think that I’ll have to be strict about it- just keep it out of my regular meals.

What’s Not Going On:

Hubs and I have decided to not go to Disney World this year. We’re trying to save up enough to jump over the final hurdle in our debt. Once it’s all paid off, we intend to celebrate by going back into debt. No, seriously. We’re probably going down to WDW and having an awesome trip to celebrate- and we are saving up some cash for the trip, but it’s not likely to be enough to pay for the whole thing. Still, it’s the thought that counts, right? And after that, we’re going to look at buying a house. We were kind of looking now because, well, face it, the market isn’t going to get much lower unless total disaster strikes, and decent homes are now approaching our budget level. But we’re just not thrilled enough with the homes in our current price range, so we’ll have to wait until we’re totally out of debt and hope that the market hasn’t spiked or that the interest rates haven’t gone up.

Still, my sites are doing well (tax season is always good for my main niche), and life is pretty much good. I could use more sleep, but I’m hardly alone in that.

Luckily, I’ve not yet seen someone light up while actually on a ride or while in a show. But some of those rides and shows are pretty long (Ellen’s Energy Adventure is about 45 minutes- no joke).

CigRX is a mint flavored lozenge that they claim can help curb your cravings for a smoke. You pop it in your mouth, let it dissolve, and swallow. The active ingredients are Yerba Mate extract (their science page emphasizes that there’s caffeine in Yerba Mate, which is true, but there’s much less caffeine in Mate than there is even in green tea, so I don’t know if this is their selling point or not), and anatabine, which is apparently one of the less addictive feel-good substances found in most cigarettes. According to their site, anatabine is also found in peppers, eggplant, and green tomatoes. It seems as though they’re saying that you could drink coffee and eat fried green tomatoes and curb your appetite for smoking, but that sucking on a lozenge is more convenient.

No other ingredients are listed on their site, and I was unable to find any mention of cigrx side effects. But, if you’re in the middle of Spaceship Earth (about 17 minutes), popping a mint flavored lozenge is certainly more acceptable than lighting one up- or chewing on an eggplant, for that matter.

I’m not sure how much of a review this is really going to be. I ordered this book from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze program (the theory behind that name is that good books are contagious) because I mistakenly thought this book was something other than what it was.

I grew up in a non-denominational church with very definite charismatic tendencies. My pastor grew up Amish, and his kids and nieces and nephews were all allowed to wear shorts and t-shirts on Sunday morning, even though my parents wouldn’t let me.

So, unlike most other kids that grew up in church, I never learned most of the old hymns, I never understood that whole sit, stand, sit, stand, reading out loud from a hymnal thing in response to what the pastor read out (though I got some of that at my grandma’s church), and never knew what incense was for. The closest I’ve ever been to a mass was a Philipino church in Paris (yes, France) that mixed a whole lot of different denominations into one, and that was confusing as heck.

But, I’ve always had a secret desire to be a nun, and I’ve always been interested in how other people worship as well as other religions. So when I saw The Liturgical Year, I snapped it up.

What I expected was a detailed account of how the liturgical year is celebrated. I mean, each and every day that something happens no matter how big or small, every single element of how to celebrate each celebratory day, and the why of each element. Like, why does the priest wear a particular vestment on a certain day, and what’s the significance of that particular color. Are there special prayers that are recited? Are there particular rituals for a particular day, and if so, what is the ritual, and what is the significance of each part of the ritual?

The chapter on Lent starts out “To understand Lent and its characteristic forty-day fast in its fullness would require a process of wandering back and forth between its historical evolution in the church and its gradually developing sense of purpose, whatever the nature or place or pace of its evolution.”

Well, yes. That’s what I wanted this book for- to learn the history of Lent and why and how it’s celebrated.

What I got, instead, was musings on each day. A meandering 5 or 6 pages in each section that essentially boil down to “Fill-in-the-blank is a time to think about blah-blah-blah”. I know it sounds a bit rude to put it that way, but that’s how the entire book read to me. Or rather, the first 50 pages, after which I skimmed through to about midway through the book, looking for something worth reading. Having not found anything, I flipped through to the end, and decided that it was time to just write this up and put myself out of my misery.

In conclusion, if you’re already quite familiar with the nuts and bolts of the Liturgical Year and just want a fresh way to think about it, or are interested in a nun’s take (Joan Chittister is a Benedictine nun) on it, then you’ll probably enjoy this book. Or, at least, you won’t hate it. But if you actually want to learn about the liturgical year, then give this book a miss and keep looking. A quick search on Amazon for “about the liturgy” netted me several potential winners.

Note- I received this book at no charge in exchange for a review from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze program.

I used to check out all those online coupon sites (you know the ones, they end in “bug” “mountain” and a bunch of other words that are totally unrelated to coupons or savings) until I realized that they almost never had the stores or items that I wanted, and that I was wasting a lot of time trying to find an appropriate coupon code. So, I just stopped.

But then, I found out about www.savings.com. Savings.com is awesome because, unlike the other coupon sites that I’ve visited, it’s actually easy to navigate. You can search by store, by item, by tags, or alphabetically, plus browsing.

I checked out all my usual haunts- Kmart, Amazon, eBay, Barnes & Nobel. All had coupons. Even Etsy had coupon codes (though those are seller specific, not site wide)! I checked Walmart too, for those of you who aren’t anti-W-Mart, and there are coupons for them too.

Then I checked “toaster oven” (just ordered one from Amazon- should have waited, could have used an Amazon code)- not so good, one result for a brand I’m not familiar with. Then I tried immersion blender- found a $10 off coupon for a Cuisinart Smart Stick. Not too shabby, though it was still cheaper on Amazon than it was in the store that offered the coupon, but Amazon has coupons too.

So will I use Savings.com in the future? Well, I’ll probably forget, but I think I’ll be suggesting it to my friends who sell on Etsy.