Category: Writing

7 Takes: Some books you can have, and others you can only want with earnest.

1. My book as available for sale!  That is, you can’t actually *have* the book, but you can pay for it.  So I guess it’s not so much a sale, yet, as a series of financial transactions straight out of 2nd 3rd year financial accounting, which is the year when nothing is ever just bought and sold, but always, always, passes through a whole series of special accounts that make perfect sense, I promise, if you can just keep ’em lined up right.

I think sometime this summer it graduates to an Accounting 101 exercise, where you can just pay money and have a book, done.

2. My favorite review-book supplier, MTF, seems to feel I need to get into the Year of Faith thing in a serious way. I broke down when I realized that there was no way I could ever remember on page 962 of Introduction to Catholicism for Adults exactly how I’d felt about Chapter 1, no matter how many little notes I penciled into the back inside cover.  So I’m reviewing it a chapter (or so) at a time, over at the Happy Catholic Bookshelf.  Chapter 1 is up.  Hint: So far, so good.

3.  Also in my candy box, as I mentioned before, was the 7th Edition of their Daily Roman Missal.  I broke Lisa M.’s blog by posting about three-posts-in-one, but my review is up.  With some notes on how you actually use such a thing for teaching kids.  I don’t think the book fairy knew that I am the kind of catechist who reads from this exact book during class, but you had probably guessed that about me a while ago.

4. The post you really want to read at AC this week is this one.

5. I’m trying to improve my Spanish, which is more difficult if you don’t have cable TV.  So I’ve resorted to mining the Spanish-language section of my local Catholic bookstore.  I think you could make a sort of Catechist Spanish Language Evaluation test that grades you by which sections of El Youcat you can read, and which ones leave you absolutely puzzled.  To give you an idea of my junior-linguist credentials, the bold print on Youcat #374 is no trouble at all.  In contrast, that Blaise Pascal quote on the sidebar of p. 191? No comprendo. (I’m okay with that.  I don’t think I much understand Pascal in English, either.)

6. I wish all catechisms came with flip-book animation on the bottom right corner.  Sometimes I just watch the guy doing cartwheels in Spanish.

7.  What I want to do is phone my Spanish-speaking catechist friend and arrange a play date for tomorrow.  What I should do is start on my taxes.  I think?

Mid-Month Updates

No Children Left In Ditch.

We made it to Naples and back with exactly the same number and kind of children with which we set out.  Thank you St. John Bosco, whom I did ask for assistance from time to time.  St. Augustine, by the way, is completely awesome.

UPDATED to clarify: Both the saint and the city in Florida are awesome.  Where they each rank within the category of People, Places, and Things Called “St. Augustine” I leave to the reader’s discretion.

Bookstore Management Tip:  Consider not charging admission to your retail venue.

At Castillo de San Marcos, you have to buy admission before you get into the fort, where the bookstore is located.  (This did not stop me from buying books, but not everyone feels the same way about books as I do.  Also, we were going to see the fort anyway.)

In contrast, the Pirate Museum has its gift shop built into its entryway.  Which is handy for parents who do not want to pay admission to the museum, but feel pretty lucky to get off with just looking at the Pirate Merchandise and buying one small pirate book for the trip home.

On the other hand, if early-modern marauders attempt a raid on the seashell-identification books at San Marcos, there are three lines of defense to keep them at bay.

Digital Devices = Road Trip Fever

What with recorded books, DVD’s, and iPods, twenty hours in the car was really quite peaceful.  Causing me to come up with the ridiculous, husband-exasperating plan of going to the national March for Life next week.  Friends with ulterior motives are aiding and abetting.  So I think we’ll go.

And look at this:  Pro-Life Feminist Hot Chocolate. It’s a super-bonus . . . and I get a glimpse of the reportedly lovely and delightful Helen Alvaré, and the kids get hot chocolate?  See, if that doesn’t convince you of the worthiness of the pro-life cause, I don’t know what does.

A Missal.

I’m beside myself with excitement, because MTF slipped a shiny new super-gorgeous Daily Roman Missal in with the other review book I was expecting (Introduction to Catholicism).  You’ll recall I had to glue the old one’s cover back together.  But I’ve been virtuously resisting shelling out for a new edition, even though every time I hear the elegant, poetic lines of the new Mass translation, I’m dying to get my own copy.

The new book is about twenty-time awesomer than I had guessed, because the new edition is beefed up with a pile of handy tables and indexes and bits of mini-catechism. So soon very soon I’ll have a post up at AC reviewing the new Missal, and explaining why exactly my old one needed to be glued back together, because I always, always, shove it into my bag on the way to religious ed, because if you have that one book, you can teach the Catholic faith to anybody at all, ever, no matter what weird scheduling surprises come your way when you arrive at class.

Virtue.

I did not make a single pun on the word Missal in those previous paragraphs.  We’ll just mark that down on in the big white space where my virtues are tallied.  I am the picture of self-restraint.  The St. Therese of resisting bad puns.  Or something.

Science.

The irony is not lost on me. I wrote this great column on winter snow-n-ice appropriate science activities for CatholicMom.com, then promptly spent a week lounging on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.  And swimming.  Outdoors.

This photo taken a different, icier year. And yes, the power was out. For a week. I did not like it. I prefer the beach.

So here’s my experiment: I’m going to write a column for NE (due this week, runs next week), and I think the topic is “Things You Can Do To Evangelize When You Think You Can’t Evangelize”.  Will this cause me to suddenly have many opportunities to evangelize?

You Might Be An Accountant If . . .

You’re goofing off browsing the Mid-Atlantic Congress catechetical conference page (which you are not planning to attend), and you notice all these financial management sessions:

Are you not dying to attend?  I am.  Seriously.  Has anyone sat in on any presentations from these speakers (John Eriksen, Peter Denio, or Dennis Corcoran), and have an opinion on how good the workshops will be?  For all Darwin doubts the use of an MBA, I begin to think that pastoral associates are the one class of people who might could benefit from such a course of study.  Some reputable seminary ought to make a joint MA/MBA program.

Oh That Homeschooling Book

I printed out the whole giant nasty sprawling draft, stuck it in a binder, and it’s waiting for me attack it with my tin of magic markers. So I’m making progress. Slowly.

 

Castello San Marcos:By National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Busy not blogging. And blogging.

What I’ve been up to so far this Advent:

1. Acquired a cold just strong enough to plant me in front of the PC and get some writing done for a change.  I’d complain, except it’s really not that bad. For me.  My family wishes I’d start making dinner again.  I think.

2. Posted my book review of the Didache series of textbooks up at AmazingCatechists.com.  These are awesome books, and the new parish editions bring serious theology to high school and adult faith formation.  Long-needed.  Don’t cry to me you don’t have priests, but refuse to teach theology.  How exactly is a boy supposed to fall in love with a something he’s never met?

3. Guessed at my login information for the Happy Catholic Bookshelf enough times that I finally broke in.  And put up my review of Walking Dickens London. Verdict: I still don’t like Dickens all that much, but the guide book is awesome.  Of course I had to put a reference to Rerum Novarum in the review.  Only logical.

4. I cleaned out my inbox.  If I still owe you an e-mail about something, you’d better tell me.  Because I’m under the mistaken impression I’m all caught up.

5. Planted the potatoes that were sprouting in the cardboard box in the living room.  Ditto for some garlic in the bottom of the fridge.

6.  I’ve written about 5,000 words on the homeschooling manuscript. Also pre-wrote my January CatholicMom.com homeschooling column, because once you get school on the brain, and a cup of coffee, these things just pop out.

7.  I got all vice-presidential over at the Catholic Writers Guild.  Being VP is almost exactly like being the blog manager, except that instead of plaguing the officers all month long with bad ideas and unhelpful suggestions, you also get to do it during the monthly officer’s conference call.  I think someone nominated me because the existing officers were already practiced at telling me, “No!  Quiet! Sit!  No Biscuit!” so it makes their job easier.  So mostly as VP I amuse people with my ridiculous ideas, and about 1 time in 10, I think one up that someone makes me go do.  And then I regret it, and don’t think up any more ideas for at least 10 minutes.

Also, I goofed off on the internet more than I had planned.   It happens.  I was sick.

7 Takes – Home on the Range

What I’ve been doing instead of posting on the internet:

1. Child with bronchitis.

2. Same child with Chicken Pox.

3.  Or is it an allergic reaction to amoxicillian?  We may end up back at the doctor again.

4.  Building Chicken Prison.  It’s still not complete, but almost.  I like having free range chickens.  Some (by which I mean: All) of the people I live with do not like sharing their backyard with chickens.  Who are maybe not the most fastidious creatures you ever met.

That’s not strictly true.  Our chickens, given the space to do so, were quite particular about housekeeping.  They roosted in one part of the yard where they otherwise spent no time, because what chickens do at night is:

a) Sleep
b) Poop

Yes, they poop and sleep at the same time, it appears, just like your very small children sometimes will.  It is not endearing.  Where chickens sleep is not a clean place.

But here’s the interesting part: They spend their day avoiding the place where they roost.  And note, the chickens avoid a path into the roost that would require them to walk through the muck.

Double interesting: So we went to build chicken prison, and our first location was near the shed, at the time being used to store miscelleanous items that clogged up the around-the-shed area, making it a quiet, dark, and virtually impassable place where no human ever trod.  Turns out chickens like this.  We moved the old boat stuffed behind the shed, and discovered eggs!  We thought the hens weren’t laying yet.  But there were eight perfect eggs, neatly layed in an impeccable pine-straw nest.  Not a sign of chicken droppings anywhere.  The kind of place you could, say, raise a baby.

I was impressed with the chicken hygiene.  Who knew?

So . . . in building chicken prison, one of my goals is to try to create spaces suitable for a hen-approved separation of sleeping, laying, eating and lounging areas.  Soon as SuperHusband gets the gate and a few pieces of chicken furniture built (kitchen, living-room, nursery) we’ll see how it goes.

Also we’ve been:

5.  Making beer.  Jon likes this supplier for kits and equipment.  Combine orders with your friends to get enough of a bill to get free shipping. While the wort was boiling, our brew partner pointed us to this very cool video of a free-range child left to his own devices:

Viewer Discretion Advised: Not All Homeschooled Children Spontaneously Take Up Arts Like These

6. Top-Secret Catholic Writers Guild Projects.

Okay, not really top-secret, just stuff you don’t announce until it’s done.

Terrifying news, guaranteed to bolster my prayer life: Our current guild president used her mind-rays to talk me into letting them put my name on the ballot for Vice President.  So unless “No” defeats me in the guild elections, come December 1 I will be praying every day for the health and vigor of our new president, because basically as long as long as she’s well, the VP’s job is cush enough even for someone like me.  I’m kickin’ God in the shins if anything happens that causes me to have to temporarily assume real responsibility.

7.  Yes, God has shins.

 

What you should be doing while you’re wondering when I’ll ever post again:

a) Go ahead and register for the Catholic Writers Conference Online. It’s free, no-commitment, and you don’t even have to be Catholic to attend.  Actually, only register if you like to write or have to write, and want to get better at it.  Otherwise, do something else those weeks.  The world needs chicken prisons built, all kinds of other non-writing work, you reading-only-never-writing people can go do that.

b) Pray for the Hathaways, of course.  Hardly need me to remind you at this point.

c) Prepare yourself to say “Yes” if you one of the two or three readers here who I’m going to e-mail and ask you to present a short talk at the online conference, because you have something cool to say to aspiring Catholic writers that will help them do their work better and not make all the mistakes you made when you first started out.  Or, since I am probably going to forget to e-mail you, but you’re a great writer who wants to help other new writers, you can just volunteer straight-up.  Here’s the link.  E-mail me if you’re not sure you really have anything to present, but you kinda want to, or you have this nagging feeling you should e-mail me just ’cause.  Blog @ CatholicwritersGuild.com goes all the same places my other e-mail addresses do, any of ’em will work.

–> For the record: I am not queen of the conference.  I’m a helper-bee rounding up potential presenters.  But round up I will.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you when I’m out from the tunnel again.

7 Takes – Edited

1. What I’m doing this weekend instead of everything else, ever? Looking through my freshly-edited-by-my-editor manuscript (catechist book), and seeing what’s there.

2. First thought: It is helpful if you spell the names correctly on your acknowledgements page.  People will like that.  If you are like me, I advise you to only ask for help from people whose names are very easy to spell.  Or else you will have to have an embarrassing conversation with your publisher.

3. Thank goodness we are having this conversation now, and not after the thing is actually published.

4. Dorian Speed, not difficult to spell, is doing her annual tour of duty saving me from making very, very dumb mistakes.   What will it be next October?  I try not to think about it.

5. Before I descended into the pit of despair my annual DSpeed Humility Training Session, here was what I was thinking as I read through the manuscript, which I hadn’t looked at since the end of August:  Wow!  This is a really good book!  As in: I should read this more often!

6. Because, yeah, it’s basically a big long note-to-self.  All the things I forget to do, but am always glad if I do manage to remember them half the time.

7. I had something else completely unrelated to post about.  But I can’t remember what is.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you when I’m out from the tunnel.

3.5 Takes: Halloween Wedding

Thanks once again to our host, Larry D., who is no doubt terrified by this post.

When my friend real-life friend Sandra told me she was planning a Halloween-themed wedding, let me assure you: I was skeptical.  But it turned out absolutely lovely!  Which you would expect, if you know Sandra and her beloved Larry L..  Here’s the tour, in 3.5 parts.

1.  The Dress.

The event was held at the Robert Mills House (civil ceremony), so you’ll recall Sandra was thinking of a regency-era theme.  She raided the silk remnants at the upholstery shop, and put together this:

Awesome period touch: detachable sleeves.

2. Ceremonial Innovation Done Right.

Recall also that I am a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, and if you tell me that as part of your ceremony you’re going to do some groovy sand-art activity with your children, I’m going to be very, very skeptical.  But Larry L. came up with an idea for including the boys in the ceremony, and it went over beautifully.  I was impressed.  Not many people can pull that off.  Well done.

 

3. Reception = Costume Time.

I think the key to making a Halloween wedding work is to not have a Halloween wedding.  Normal wedding, costume-optional reception.  Tons of fun.

The decorators-in-law used a deft touch in decorating the reception hall.  There were spider webs and all that stuff, but it didn’t pop out like I’m Back In Elementary School For Orange Cupcakes And Candy Corns.  The wedding cake was probably the most Halloween-y moment.  Which is about right.  Wedding cakes are supposed allowed to be fun.  Is a giant hairy spider really that much goofier than a chintzy plastic bride-n-groom?

I wish I had a picture of the buffet table, but I’ll just tell you that the secret to a tasteful theme-wedding is to put out a fantabulous spread of good food.  Then all the stuffy friends and relatives who might otherwise complain about the decor are too busy noticing the hummus and the curry and the peanut sauce, and the rest is just background.  But if you want to put on a Sponge Bob costume, you can.

Or, if you’re a young groomsman, add sunglasses, earbuds, and a suitable weapon, presto-chango, Secret Agent Boy:

(Shown here posing the following day, before we rushed the tux back to the rental place.)

3.5  SuperHusband went medieval for the reception, which is the most comfortable thing you wish you could be wearing anyway.  Girls and I stuck to our ordinary wedding attire, but added

 

***

Well, that should give you something to talk about for this week.  No, I haven’t finished started my sidebar renovation, so I’m still taking link suggestions.

Hey and while we’re on the topic of good things worth doing right: This week my editor at Liguori is doing her edits on my Classroom Management for Catechists manuscript.  So you could say a little prayer that she gets it all cleaned up so that it’s as helpful to readers as possible.  Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

Catholic Mother’s Companion to Pregnancy – Book Tour & Giveaways

Welcome to Sarah R.’s stop at my place on her book tour!

Click to Enter the Nook Giveaway

We’ll start with some info from the publisher and from Sarah:

To celebrate the launch of her new book, A Catholic Mother’s Companion to Pregnancy: Walking with Mary from Conception to Baptism, Sarah Reinhard invites all of us to spend her blog book tour praying the rosary together. Today, she shares this reflection on the Nativity:

The cave in Bethlehem probably isn’t what Mary had in mind for her Son’s birth. Straw as bedding and oxen as companions, with shepherds and townsfolk dropping in to wish her well?

Maybe it wasn’t so shocking to her, after being told she would be the Mother of God, that it didn’t go at all how anyone would picture it. Even so, I’m sure it wasn’t that comfortable even by standards of the day. She gave birth with animals all around, in the chill of winter, in a town far away from home.

So often, things don’t go the way I plan. I struggle with my knee-jerk reaction to the wrenches in life, to the natural temper tantrum I want to give in and throw. It’s hard to see God at work in the up-close of a situation turned differently than I think it should be.

But he is at work. Jesus being born in the most humble of circumstances made him accessible to all of us. It also makes Mary someone we can all turn to for comfort: if anyone knows what it’s like to go with the flow, it’s Mary.

As we pray this decade of the rosary, let’s hold all those brave women who have said yes to difficult and challenging motherhood in our intentions in a special way. Don’t forget, too, that we are praying for an increase in all respect life intentions as part of our rosary together this month. (If you’re not familiar with how to pray the rosary, you can find great resources at Rosary Army.)

Our Father . . . 

10 – Hail Mary . . .

Glory Be . . . 

O My Jesus . . . 

You can find a complete listing of the tour stops over at Snoring Scholar. Be sure to enter to win a Nook (and any number of other goodies) each day of the tour over at Ave Maria Press.

***

And a few quick comments from me:

  • This is an excellent book.   (Yes, I wrote five paragraphs of it.  But all the paragraphs are good, not just mine.)
  • When you’re pregnant, you naturally turn towards spiritual things.  This is the book that meets that need for Catholic moms.
  • It’s absolutely devoid of the drivel-n-feel-good nonsense of other pregnancy books.  Tackles the hard topics with maturity and clear thinking.
  • From here on out, it’s my go-to book any time I know a mom who could use it.

And for those of you local to the Diocese of Charleston, SC, we’re up to four copies for the giveaway from the Office of Family Life this coming Sunday, October 14th, at the Blessing of the Unborn Mass in Columbia, SC. See you there!

(For internet friends, check out the other stops on the book tour, there will be giveaways all over the place.)

 

More Dark Side – Another Place to Read the Same Review

Look at me! I’m in the Borg!  Just barely.  Is it a coincidence that the same day I have reason to remember my review of The Rite, Julie D. invites me to her little den of bookishness at Patheos?  She said reprints were good, so I cleaned up my Rite review and stuck it there. Now Larry D.’s going to have create a portal called PathMagistra.  It’s the only choice.

Dear Larry D.,

I promise I have not gone over the dark side for mere money.  (Which I won’t be getting.  HCB is a non-paying gig.)  I did it to annoy you.

Okay, actually I did it because Julie asked me, and she’s super nice and she even fed me dinner, twice. My independent investigation confirms her cooking blog is not merely a front for some shady side-enterprise.  And it turns out I write a lot of book reviews, so I figured I’d have material for it without too much work.  And because it was either that or clean my desk.

Like all good underlings, I promise to sway with the winds and follow which ever dark lord is nearest.

Sincerely,

Jennifer.

[Note to readers, is it just a coincidence that Larry “D.” and Julie “D.” have the same last initial?  Hmmn.  Presumably their writing all just flows from the same “D.” source.  The apparent contradictions in their work are no doubt proof of their mythological origins in the oral traditions of the platform so-called “W”, the scholar’s abbreviation for “WordPress”.  Give that parts of the “D.” tradition can also be found on the platform referred to in some texts as “Blogspot”, scholars debate whether those works should be labeled platform “B”, or whether “B” is just a linguistic variation on “W”, or perhaps a separate platform “G.”  Research is underway with select people-groups to determine whether “Julie” and “Larry” are different names at all, or merely regional appellations for the same person, variably represented in the Texan and Northern-Midwestern cultures.]

3.5 Time Outs: New Things

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who’s also doing a time-travel edition today.

Click and be amazed.

1.

Blogging Popes.  That’s my topic for today.  Not the kind you’re thinking of, though.

2.

See, here’s what happened:  Saturday night I was bored, tired, and itching for something to read.  Something fun and relaxing and novel.  Meaning, new-to-me.  I usually grab one of my daughter’s library books for this purpose — just enough entertainment to get me through a non-digital Sunday, but not so much that I’ll be out of service, glued to a book, for 10,000 hours waiting for Br. Cadfael to tell me who did it.  But I needed novelty.

So I went to Papal Encyclicals Online.  I’m sure that’s what you do, too.  But before you get too impressed, keep in mind that the three reasons this was a possible source of reading material were:

  • I’d never read most of them before.  Strike one against my Catholic-nerd credentials.
  • They’re usually very short.  This is why I’ve read the minor prophets, but *still* never gotten through all of Isaiah.
  • There was no chance I’d let the cat starve, or grouse at my children for interrupting me during an especially gripping scene.

And the thing is, they tend to cover that same juicy ground as your average Catholic blogger, only you get bonus credit for not being stuck to the computer all day while you work up your angry frenzy at the injustice in the world.  Of course, no Star Trek screen shots for illustrations, but look, I was desperate for entertainment.

3.

And the one I picked was Rerum Novarum.  Which is basically a series of blog posts on economics.  Perfect.

(Let me just say right now, JPII’s follow-up work is not blog-genre.  Waaay more wordy.  Waaay more.  I haven’t finished it yet.  But I’m half thinking, “What more is there to say?  Leo.Encyclicalpress.com already covered the whole territory.  But you know how it is, people need to explain the obvious.  Or maybe people needed the obvious re-explained.)

Here’s a sample snippet of the Leonine goodness:

Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition.

And this:

The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men.

Followed by this:

To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.

 

See? I spent my weekend reading 64 Cath-Econ-blog posts, 19th century edition.

3.5

And although I could pretty much shut my eyes and point my finger anywhere in the document to find a good quotable quote, one of my underlined favorites is

***

Well that’s all for today.  Still accepting suggestions for additions to the sidebar, so tell me who to add.  But do just one link per comment, because otherwise the robotic spam-dragon will consume the whole lot of them.  Thanks!

3.5 Time Outs: Back to Civilization

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who persuades me to write whether I ought to or not.

Click and be amazed.

1.

I’m enjoying being home again.  No more book-craziness for a while, kids are back to school and so far it’s going well, and I’m 10% less jet-lagged every day. If life stays normal, I might be a civilized person as soon as 2014.

2.

This past week, Julie Davis kept using the word “economics” in sentences directed at me.  I remembered vaguely something about having studied these topics in school, and maybe even having some marginal qualifications, and that I had initially started this blog to be about economics and history . . . sheesh.

But the weird thing:  All the whole time I was writing the catechist book, I was thinking, “I just need to knock this thing out so I can get back to my *real* project,” which is the homeschooling book.”

[Not on a topic that competes with Rebecca’s topic, by the way.  The two books should go together great, so buy hers first.]

And here’s what . . . I realized this weekend that now the homeschooling book has become the “gotta get this outta the way” project.  ‘Cause yes.  I wanna write about some Christian money issues.  So maybe I give myself a week or two to breathe, then do the homeschooling book and just get it done, and then maybe, maybe?, Julie can have an economics blog back?

I dunno. I don’t predict the future with any reliability.

3.

Over at AmazingCatechists.com, I posted about using Christian LeBlanc’s new book as teaching resource for catechists. (Some people were asking when I’d post the catechist-version of that review, so now you know.  I cover different topics than I did here.)

I came home with a pile of review materials from the Giant Catholic Conference Thing-y, so it’ll be review-city for a while here.  Or there.  Somewhere. Did I mention how much I love getting new books?  Love it.  Love it.

3.5

I was tooling around the Pauline Media booth, and found this book, which looks very handy to keep in stock at crisis pregnancy centers and the like.

And I was thinking, “Wow, my Spanish has gotten much better, because I can read the whole back cover pretty easily.”  Also, I considered the fact that I could read it to be a reliable signal that the reading level was very accessible, which is always a plus in my book.  But then my plane was very very late getting home Saturday night, so Sunday I went to

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Oh, hey, about those links: It came to my attention that my sidebar is due for some updating.  If you read here, leave your link in the combox.  I’m going to set a goal of doing the update, let’s say . . . September 23rd?  Nope, that’s a Sunday, make it the 24th.

–> FYI I’d love to include not just your personal link, but any recommended sites you think fit with the multitude of themes here.  But do just one link per comment, because otherwise the robotic spam-dragon will consume the whole lot of them.  Thanks!