Celebrating Advent

advent – n. arrival that has been awaited (especially of something momentous)

I regret to admit that I have never really recognized (observed?) Advent – and I’m realizing I’ve missed out.  This year, I picked up a great Advent devotional compiled by Nancy Guthrie and I highly recommend it.  I guess I’ve always thought Advent was just a weird element of liturgy or something mysterious…but it’s this entire season of awaiting the birth of Christ, and I’m seeing that taking part in the process of awaiting this uber-ultra-mega-ultimately-momentous arrival is a gift of grace.

I’m about to go buy candles and a wreath.  (0h – gift idea )

I am prepared to tell you that it will utterly change your Christmas season and that it’s not too late to start celebrating the Advent season.  Even if you don’t rush out and purchase this devotional, I’m confident you can find readings online or through your church, and it will be for your joy however you go about it.  If you’re not convinced, here’s a little snippet of what I’m reading and enjoying and celebrating:

Christmas is the end of thinking you are better than someone else, because Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own.  God had to come to you. (Adapted from “Mary,” sermon by Tim Keller, 2001.

(on the Holy Spirit)… Christian spiritual experience is not a vague religious emotion.  It is an emotion with objective content, and the content is Jesus Christ.  The shy member of the Trinity does mighty work, but he never puts himself in the limelight.  You might say he is the limelight that puts the attributes of God the Father and the person of Christ into sharp relief.  (Adapted from “Christ conceived by the Holy Spirit,” sermon by John Piper, 1984).

I just thought you should know what you’re missing.  This is big, and lovely.

How will you celebrate?

How many people can I alienate in one post?

Like it or not, these issues are important.

Thank you, Linda Ellerbee, for your article that states:  

The U.S. media tend to lump all of Mexico into one big bad bowl. Talking about drug violence in Mexico without naming a state or city where this is taking place is rather like looking at the horror of Katrina and saying, “Damn. Did you know the U.S. is under water?” or reporting on the shootings at Columbine or the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City by saying that kids all over the U.S. are shooting their classmates and all the grownups are blowing up buildings. The recent rise in violence in Mexico has mostly occurred in a few states, and especially along the border. It is real, but it does not describe an entire country.

I did it.  I brought up immigration, or well, Mexico, which to the general public is just as bad a word as immigration.  I spend a lot of time working on this issue and I think it’s vital.

So right now, I’m coming across as very tolerant, forward-thinking, and based on many people’s (mis?)conceptions of this issue, quite left-leaning.

Now, watch this:

This video is from the Desiring God blog.

We can NOT just accept abortion as a sad reality.  And here’s why it’s timely – take a look at this headline:  “More Abortions in a Recession”. The article states:

Planned Parenthood of Illinois clinics performed an all-time high number of abortions in January, many of them motivated by the women’s economic worries, said CEO Steve Trombley, who declined to give exact numbers. Abortions at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis-area clinics were up nearly 7 percent in the second half of 2008 from a year earlier — ending a stretch in which the numbers were dwindling.

Planned Parenthood said it has no up-to-date national abortion figures, nor do other private or government agencies. However, Stephanie Poggi of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which helps women in need pay for abortions, said calls to the network’s national helpline have nearly quadrupled from a year ago.

“A lot of women who never thought they’d need help are turning to us,” Poggi said. “They’re telling us, ‘I’ve already put off paying my rent, my electric bill. I’m cutting back on my food.’ They’ve run through all the options.” (By Lisa Belkin)

I urge you to think about these issues with me, and to think about what should inform our stances on them.

Buy, return, repeat.

Today I was driving home from some errands after work and it occurred to me how truly recession-chic I am, and I just HAD to share my secret with you.

See, it’s quite simple really.  It starts with a good, old-fashioned impulse buy – you know, something you probably don’t need but might could use/wear/gift/etc.

tempting, I know.

It has lots of potential as well as a bit of risk.  Maybe it’s a purse that doesn’t actually match anything you own, or a top that you didn’t try on or have anything to match. These items are often from Target and are priced somewhere in the $15-35 range.

Now, once you’ve identified your item, you buy. Yes, the first step to real recession-chicness is buying -(bear with me here).  Go ahead, make the purchase.

Here comes the real genius.  Take it home, put it in a spare room, closet, or on the kitchen table – you might even leave it in the trunk, while you take in your actual staple items.

Let 10-25 days pass.  Walk by your item, consider its potential, but keep considering.

And here it is – the key to paying yourself first in the most instantly-gratifying way I have found yet – RETURN IT!  Come to your senses, realize you have no use for that ridiculous trinket, and hustle on back to the store where you found it.

I just love returning things – it’s such a quick way to ‘make’ $20 to go back into your pocket and sit tight until your next pedicure.  It’s as simple as not wearing/using your item, and holding on to your receipt (preferably in the bottom of  your colossal purse).

The proof is in the pudding – Yesterday, I made $17 at Target, and tomorrow I’ll be heading to the mall to make some real money.

A good reminder

If you haven’t seen this, I recommend taking a gander.

Also find out more here:

http://www.mercystreetdallas.org

Have ipod, will travel

My brother and sister-in-law give GREAT gifts, and a few gift-giving holidays ago (I can turn most days into one), they gave me an ipod adapter for my car.  As I was about to begin what’s now been over a year of regular 3-hour drives to Houston, this thing has been a lifesaver.  For your listening pleasure – here’s what I’ve been listening to the road.

I am not the music junkie that my brother is, so while I have a decent music library, the true treasures on my ipod are in the form of podcasts.  I’ve been listening to This American Life for about 3 years since a friend in Charlottesville introduced me to the joys of those human interest stories.  However left-of-my-center the stories can be at times, I think it’s important to learn the complexities of any issue, and the sentimental value of the less-polarizing segments are well worth a bit of light rhetoric.  I usually cry and then tell someone I love all the high points of the episode and then make them listen to it with me.

In short, I’ve found that listening to the right podcast can really improve your quality of life.  I recently discovered a shorter podcast I really love – and the perspective is really valuable.  World magazine’s podcasts by Andree Seu are honest, dry, poignant, convicting, and calming at the same time.  What a joy on the way to work!

I also like NPR’s story of the day…quick, painless, and they say it’s “the NPR story everyone will be talking about tomorrow”, so you get to sound in-the-know (if you listen to them on time, which I don’t).

Equating Alcohol Consumption with Abortion? Way to elevate the discourse…

I think you should read this excerpt (well, you should actually read the entire article), from Op-Ed Columnist Frank Rich, entitled “The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off”- NYTimes.com.

Much as Obama repealed the Bush restrictions on abortion and stem-cell research shortly after pushing through his stimulus package, so F.D.R. jump-started the repeal of Prohibition by asking Congress to legalize beer and wine just days after his March 1933 inauguration and declaration of a bank holiday. As Michael A. Lerner writes in his fascinating 2007 book “Dry Manhattan,” Roosevelt’s stance reassured many Americans that they would have a president “who not only cared about their economic well-being” but who also understood their desire to be liberated from “the intrusion of the state into their private lives.” Having lost plenty in the Depression, the public did not want to surrender any more freedoms to the noisy minority that had shut down the nation’s saloons.

I found this article to be absurd, ridiculous, frightening, insulting, and more.  I need to think through it a bit more before I really dive in, and I invite your thoughts in the meantime.

Note:  I don’t know how to remove the automatically generated links below, but they are not from me

Dallas giveaway: TIN STAR

I am beginning to realize that a benchmark for any blog worthy of it’s quips is the giveaway.

Some people give away really glamorous things with designer labels, while others are plotting to get rid of a spouse’s tacky trinkets.  Today, I bring you a giveaway you will not find elsewhere.

This will change your life.

All you have to do is click on the link below to find a magical coupon for HALF PRICE NACHOS at Tin Star in Preston Center.

Magical Coupon

And, join our facebook group to receive additional coupons and other special perks.  You will not be disappointed – or my name is not Marsha Garbage.

Pinching Pennies at the Garbage household.

A few months ago, I saw a short and very cheesy tv news story (probably 9 o’clock news which reinforces the low caliber),  on Ebates – a website that basically compiles all the existing coupons or special offers from major online shopping sites, plus gives you cash back for shopping through their portal.

I am not sharing this with you simply because they told me to or because I look forward to reaping all the benefits in kickbacks I will get when they find that their traffic and membership is growing exponentially thanks to a gal named Marsha Garbage and all four of her blog posts (which likely outnumber her monthly visitors).  I am telling you because I used it one time to buy a book at Borders online, and then I got a Sephora gift card in the mail and I love looking in my wallet and seeing that thing just waiting to buy me more beauty.

And now I have $4.67 coming my way soon because I bought a magazine subscription for a friend!

Trust me. Or don’t.  But do.

Controversial = important. (not sure that’s a general rule, but work with me)

Something to think about…I’ve been learning lately how what I once considered an issue I was too ‘enlightened’ to focus on because it was just a reality that we’d have to deal with, is actually quite a slippery slope.  Look where it’s headed now:

“We hear a lot of rhetoric from abortion advocates about the government not interfering with the physician-patient relationship. Why is this argument no longer employed when the physician and the patient disagree with abortion on demand? It would appear that for all the abortion “choice” rhetoric, “choice” is really a one-way street. When it comes to pro-life individuals, abortion choice quickly turns into abortion mandate.”

via Statement by the Christian Medical Association on the Obama Administration’s Move to Scuttle Civil Rights Protections in Healthcare.

The interesting factor is climbing.

So this week I got to visit Mexico City for work and during the course of one working lunch I became a significantly more interesting person.

I tried Gusanos de Maguey – Maguey worms, described by wikipedia as: the larvae of the moth Hypopta agavis. These infest the core and roots of the maguey plant, often in a glutenous mass. Along with agave snout weevil larvae, red maguey worms are one of the types of gusanos found in bottles of mezcal liquor from the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Our second course was Escamoles, which are the larvae of ants of the genus Liometopum, harvested from the roots of the agave (tequila) or maguey (mezcal) plant in Mexico. In some forms of Mexican cuisine, escamoles are considered a delicacy and are sometimes referred to as “insect caviar”. They have a cottage cheese like consistency and taste buttery, yet slightly nutty.

The escamoles were actually quite good, the worms…eh.  But hey, now I’m a renaissance woman.