I’ve lived in the south all my life, but I have several friends who are northern transplants, which always gets extra funny around this time of year when southerners go crazy over a little snow and ice. I was trying to explain to someone in the office the other day and one thing turned into three, then I thought, what the heck…

Ladies and gentlemen, A Newcomer’s Introduction to the South:

1. Southerners are friendly. I know a few people who have thought this was an exaggeration or fake, but no – it’s really real. When we say “Let us know if there’s anything we can help you with,” in general, we really mean it. Need the 411 on where to buy the best groceries? Finding good childcare? An explanation of the lay of the land, which parks allow dogs or are safe for single female joggers? If you have a question, four people will dive on it and you’ll have an Ask Jeeves debate on your hands before you know it. Continue reading…

Happy Valentines Eve! Just for Friday fun, here are some of the er…worst valentines I’ve seen.

Just don’t be this guy:

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If I’m writing about topics I love, I think the joy of reading deserves at least one blog post. To this day, the best gift my mother ever gave me was teaching me how to read at 3. The best gift my dad ever gave me was teaching me how to swim around the same age, but that’s another blog post.

I was the firstborn in my family, and when my mom found out she was expecting, she checked out all the books on childrearing she could find from the Auburn library. Among them was Glenn Doman’s Teach Your Baby to Read.

For my friends with children who want to know the details, the method was fairly simple: start off around 18 months with 20-30 words – Mom, Dad, juice, baby – and write them on white flash cards. There was an exact science to this – lettering had to be red and the cards had to be a certain size, etc. Twice a day you spent about five minutes (when the child was already captive in the highchair) reviewing select words. There was a science to this too – you had to stop before the child got bored, leaving them always wanting more, etc. You gradually increased the vocabulary, the thought process being when the child learned to say the word, they learned what it looked like in print on the card. As a result – thanks to my mom and no genius on my part – I could read by the time I was 3.

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Today’s post is a little motivation from one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis. Most people know of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters, but Lewis wrote more than 30 other brilliant but lesser-known books and essays.

Below is an excerpt from “The Efficacy of Prayer,” taken from Lewis’s The World’s Last Night and Other Essays:

Some years ago, I got up one morning intending to have my hair cut in preparation for a visit to London, and the first letter I opened made it clear that I need not go to London. So I decided to put my haircut off too. But then there began the most unaccountable little nagging in my mind, almost like a voice saying, “Get it cut all the same. Go and get it cut…” Now my barber at the time was a fellow Christian and a man of many troubles…the moment I opened his shop door he said, “Oh, I was praying you might come today.” And in fact, if I had come a day or so later, I should have been no use to him.

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Today’s post is just for fun. Can you really read people’s emotions in their eyes?

From The New York Times:

Studies show that certain types of reading can actually help us improve our sensitivity IQ. To find out how well you read the emotions of others, take the Well quiz, which is based on an assessment tool developed by University of Cambridge professor Simon Baron-Cohen.

How well can  you read other people? Click here to find out.

Happy Friday!

Note: The average score for this test is in the range of 22 to 30. If you scored above 30, you may be quite good at understanding someone’s mental state based on facial cues.

( I scored 30 — how’d you do?)

Happy New Year! I love January – I know it’s crazy, but I love the cold weather and gray winter nights that are perfect for settling down with a good book.

Several months ago, I posted my list of Top 5 Christian Books. In case you are thinking of doing some new year’s reading this winter, here is my list of Top 10 Fiction Books.

I’m a bit of a book snob, so it was hard to come up with just 10, but most of these have been favorites of mine for decades:

1. Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. This is one of the most sweeping, epic works of fiction I have ever read.  Men, it’s not just a ladies book about catching Rhett Butler. Packed with Civil War culture, excellent character development and a plot spanning several decades, it’s one of the few books that truly deserves the title of  “Great American Novel.” If you haven’t read it yet, you should.

2. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Few times have I put down a book at its conclusion and thought, “Dang. That was brilliant.” At the same time that I’m weeping, no less. Khaled Hossini deserves these words and more, for a tale so beautiful – so unique and firmly crafted, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t real.
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I’m sitting here on Christmas Eve, listening to one of my favorite carols, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (Peace on Earth), with its mournfully sweet chorus and haunting refrain:

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet their songs repeat
Of peace on earth good will to men. 

And the bells are ringing
[Peace on Earth]
Like a choir they’re singing
[Peace on Earth]
In my heart I hear them
Peace on earth, good will to men. 

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said.
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
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“My soul doth magnify the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…
the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”

Luke 1:45-55

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them…to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.    Zechariah

Somewhere in the past few years my sister and I picked up the habit of watching Christmas Hallmark movies. I know, I know…it’s cheesy, but you can only watch White Christmas so many times.

Faced with the delimma of watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the 4,067^th time and catchy Lifetime titles such as Annie Claus is Coming to Town, the DVR eventually won out.

For amateur viewers out there, these movies tend to have one of a few main themes:

• Switching places
• Someone needs a fake fiancé for Christmas
• A town who has forgotten the meaning of Christmas
• Someone is about to marry the wrong person
• Workaholics get a visit from Christmas ghosts
• A an animal saves Christmas

Moms on strike, people being hit on the head with snowglobes, people kidnapping reindeer…really, what’s not to love? Continue reading…