John Piper's Rain Dance Elicits Tornado

After one light post let's go right back down into the pit, shall we?

I was thinking lately about how much I blog about the news. I really enjoy being current on world events and think, possibly self righteously, that everyone needs to have a wide, educated world view. It may keep us from WWIII or get us to start recycling. Who knows.

So when the tornadoes hit Oklahoma this week, I thought, "Should I blog this?"

I usually blog on things in the news that have an angle. Two sides. A stance I can take.

Aside from launching into global warming and the need for us to care for the planet, I didn't see how I could take a side that wasn't implicit. Of course these tornadoes are terrible. Of course we are sadden by all of the loss. I'm not trivializing it; I'm saying I thought that reaction was universal.

After a long lunch in the sun with a particularly progressive, politically minded, and religiously skeptic friend (who went to school in OK and has friends there that were affected), I read this post and was immediately thrown into head-nodding agreement and heart-pounding disgust.

Rachel Held Evans wrote:

"Then, before I could stop it, an awful thought popped into my mind: “Oh no. How long will it take John Piper to get on the radio, TV, his blog, or Twitter to explain to the world that this was God’s judgment on sin and tell the parents who lost children in this tornado that they got exactly what they deserved?
"Because this is what John Piper does whenever there is a tornado…or earthquake…or shooting…or war. While the world is still in shock, while we struggle to find the words to convey our grief and compassion and to weep with those who weep, he jumps in with an explanation, and it’s always the same: Bad things happen because God is angry. This is God’ judgment on undeserving, sinful people. Repent. We brought this on ourselves.
"That’s because Piper and many in the fundamentalist neo-Reformed movement are working off of a perversion of the doctrine of total depravity that not only teaches that human beings are depraved—that is, that our humanity is marred by sin—but that this depravity renders the world’s men, women, and children into valueless objects of god’s wrath, worthy of nothing more than eternal torture, pain, violence, and abuse."

If you're interested, read the whole post. Or to skip it. It'll really only make you mad at some sad man mongering "just desserts" on Twitter. 

And if you need to get out of the downward hate-spiral, be sure to read the end of Rachel's post:

"God is patient and kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered. God keeps no record of wrong. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails."

LinkedIn Sent Me A Gift to Get Me Through Wednesday

Peter wants to be friends on LinkedIn.

Or he wants to make love to whatever is off to his right.

I want no part of it either way. Sorry, Pete.

Salespeople of the World, Stop Following Me Around Bed Bath and Beyond

Overall, I don't jive with people in sales. Some of my good friends have sales jobs and other good friends have the knack for sales. And I love these people. I just don't like whatever gene makes someone sales-y.

Allow me to explain.

Last night I got up the courage to go to dinner with friends. Anymore I find myself forcing it to just go out in public. I'm just going through a hermit phase/lifetime.

I knew that this dinner with friends was at a healthy restaurant and that there would be a little presentation about how some of the girls in attendance were doing a healthy cleanse with a few key products.*

I put that aside when I tromped out in the rain to a clustered part of the city for dinner. When I walked into the restaurant I found that the rain** had deterred many of the other ladies so I was front-and-center for a no-formal-pressure-but-really-there's-social-pressure presentation on the healthy products. Think Mary Kay but for fiber chews and protein powder.

I did my best not to grimace from the gross vegan food*** and the overly obvious sales discussion as the nice girl who was presenting was right in front of me and looking into my eyes often. I alternated between being mad at her for pretending to know me**** and pitying her for having to win over our small crowd.

You know how you sometimes duck into a Bed Bath and Beyond in an outside mall just to escape the summer heat or see what Yankee Candle is on sale but it's their policy that at least 3 sales people have to ask you if you need any help by the time you make it past the sheet section and by that time you are worried that someone thinks your stealing milk duds and who buys milk duds at BB&B, let alone steals them and you get so flustered you walk out...

What was I saying?

I hate sales people because I feel pressured and that assumptions are being made about me. I don't like feeling like I'm being sold anything. I want to make my own decisions at my own pace and I want to be informed about the products through my own research, not just take someone's word who's seeking commission.

But I did have a free, vegan chocolate protein shake this morning and it wasn't half bad.


* Writing on the gee-dee wall.
** And possibly the sales presentation
*** I usually like this kinda stuff, but I didn't like this place.
**** Girl, I watch more documentaries on how food is produced in our nation than you've got time for and have already cut waaaaay back on diary, red meat, meat at all and know how to bake gluten-free.

Common Sense Wednesday: You Down With CSC/DoD? You Know, Conspiracy!

I watch enough documentaries and political/government dramas (hello Scandal! hello Homeland!) to make me a nut job when it comes to trusting the government, but hear me out.

A few weeks ago the NBC Nightly News (whadup, Bryan Q. Williams!) featured a story about how the Department of Defense fleeced American taxpayers by conducting a runaway $1 billion dollar technology project that produced zero results or usable product (or some results if you count "lessons learned").

Today I was Googling to find this article and reference it for work. I looked on several news sources, including NBC, and even calling the Mr. to have him look it up got me nothing.

The story was nearly nowhere. It had either been taken down by NBC because, at two weeks old, it's now old news OR... the main contractor on the project, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), put some lawyer muscle into this and asked that the tracks be wiped OR...

Conspiracy!

How else would the story have been wiped from all other news sources too?

I'm not sure what the truth is, but I know that if you somehow read of me being locked up for insanity or killed in a freak accident, know that I was right!

Who am I kidding. You won't read about it. They control the papers!

Well, you might read about me in the IEEE Spectrum because that's where I was able to find the real story about CSC and the DoD.

Source: retrocampaigns.tumblr.com via Retro Campaigns on Pinterest

When I searched for "Bryan Williams" on Pinterest, I got this image. I was immediately sold on it's incongruity and turn-of-the-century sex appeal - HA!

Mobs, Cattle, People in Groups

Penn State came up in my morning conversation with my boss (we were talking PR moves) and the morning headlines on MSNBC. I got to thinking about how the students handled the news of the scandal months ago. How so many students could stand faithfully alongside figureheads they revered who, eventually, would be shamed.

Then I also thought about my conversation with my uncle about the stock market. How one can predict a bull market from a bear market just by reading the pulse on rock music or skirt length at the time. Are perceptions prescriptive or symptomatic? The chicken or the egg? And if a perceived bear market causes cyclical panic and withdrawal, doesn't that mean that our emotions/opinions dictate the economy as much (or more so? shudder!) than the actual numbers?

Bottom line: Individuals can be brilliant. Groups of them are stupid.


If you are blessed enough to be a brilliant person, don't be swayed by the masses. Look hard into the face of fact and question it, poke it around, sniff out it's origin. Even if you are unpopular for doing it, you might regret less.

I've been victim of the mob-mentality. I'm a sucker for crusade. Wanna see all of the mobs I've been sucked into only to regret my loud-mouth, ignorant, one-sided opinion later? (Embarrassment time)

- Kony 2012
- No-exception Republicanism
- Religious Righteousness
- Bullying (from roughly age 12 to ... current? I can be very judge-y)

Nothing is black and white. If you think it is, chances are you are only seeing the black or the white. Life it complicated. A well-thought opinion shouldn't fit on a banner or into a nice slogan. But, you should be able to explain it simply, in fewer than 100 words.

Put down the pitchforks and torches. Keep learning about people around you. Read more. Be open to adaptation. It's ok to be a part of a group, to find like-minded individuals. Just make sure that you would stake your life on what you, as an individual, believe.

Take risks you can afford. Google the opposition. Seek empirical evidence. Ask someone what they think, listen to the answer, and then consider not telling your opinion until you've slept on someone else's. Be comfortable saying, "I don't know."

Have you ever jumped on the bandwagon to realize you were wrong? Have you ever regretted stating an opinion?

---
To thank you for reading/skimming the ramblings above, I'll let you decide what to do with the artwork in my office:

This is where the art hangs now. It's on the wall in front of me and slightly to the left.

This is where I used to keep The Bean poster:

And this is where I had kept The Bunnies print:

Both locations are now taken up by the former wall-art. They are nicely framed, but they're also boring, old marketing sheets with retro stock photography.

Nothing looks right like this. I could get rid of the old marketing art by putting it in a vacant office, but then the spots near the tea set and on my desk extension would look bare.

Thoughts?

Chart Roundup

This last chart is actually a t-shirt made by my mentee, Sam, from POA (my scholarship program in college that afforded me the chance to attend Purdue with lowered financial strain). So proud of this guy!

I saw all of these charts on ilovecharts.

Scared of Social Media? [a.k.a. Bullsh*t]

10 Reasons Employers Should Block FaceBook

1. Productivity. This was briefly mentioned above but the reality is you can quickly get lost in FaceBook where minutes turn into hours and all of a sudden your work just doesn’t get done.  Remember you are at work for a paycheck, but the company pays you to do your job not to keep up with relatives that are miles away.
2. Malicious Malware. Social networks today are known for malicious malware from spyware to viruses. When it comes to these threats, a business network can be a gold mine to hackers, costing an organization millions. This can be a real headache for system administrators and eventually the whole company. 
3. Illegal Content. Facebook isn’t known for the cleanest of content.  In fact, part of what makes it so much fun is that you can say just about anything you want to there (whether you should or shouldn’t).  This can lead to all kinds of problems in the workplace and can easily offend the other employees.
4. Discrimination. Unfortunately, discrimination is still prominent in the world and therefore on FaceBook.  While that may be just distasteful in the comfort of your own home it can lead to very real discrimination and harassment lawsuits that the company just doesn’t want to deal with.
5. Illicit Images. Okay we aren’t necessarily talking about all-out porn though that could exist.  We are also talking about that picture that your friend took last night after having a little too much to drink and felt like flashing the camera.  Hey, we’ve all been there…
6. Network Use. While most networks have tons of bandwidth, there is no reason to let the network get bogged down in any way with content that is not work related.  You never know what may be posted on FaceBook nor how much bandwidth it might take to show those flip videos.
7. Employees Are Paid To Work. Sorry if it seems repetitive but it’s really important to point out that you are paid to work and unless you are in social media yourself, not to be on FaceBook.
8. Time Consuming Activity. I have spent literally hours on FaceBook playing games and/or tracing down all of my high school classmates.  There is just so much there that is interesting that before you know it you have shot a whole day.
9. Confidentiality. Confidentiality is an extremely high priority issue within any organization in all industries. Especially when it comes to HIPAA within health care organizations, there are tough measures that must be taken to ensure that confidentiality is upheld at all times. Getting on social networks like Facebook could definitely lead to information from work ending up on the net.
10. Networking Between Companies. When you employ people, you are competing with other companies. You definitely don’t want your employees on Facebook networking between companies, sharing information and giving away all your secrets. Even if this isn’t going on while the employee is on Facebook, it is a risk that you shouldn’t have to deal with.

My take:

People can waste time without FB.

Malware can be found anywhere and clicked on through various sites.

Illegal content? I bet Victoria's Secret is blocked at your workplace too.

I don't even understand the point on discrimination.

Number 5 is number 3 all over again.

Network use... how about the use of the time around the water-cooler? How about we just chain people to their desks!

7 is number 1 all over again.

8 is number 7 and 1.

If you're worried about confidentiality either hire professional people or literally gag them and go through their mail.

10 is a problem with LinkedIn... or anyone with a thumb drive... or anyone who's ever belonged to a country club.

---

The ignorance in this article reminds me of this amateur high school reporter writing on why women don't need to go to college.

via

99 Problems and B*tches Be All Of 'Em?

Here's a map of the female heart to help you.

BTW, I love this print.
Originally seen on I Love Charts.

Common Sense on a Blogroll Wednesday: Shout Outs for Makin' It Rain Pennies

Do you hate fun, creativity and the internet? Then you are probably the company for which I work. They just blocked Pinterest. Get ready for some terrible stock photos via the internet on this blog instead of fun inspirations from P--terest. (It hurts too much to say its name.)

Do you love fun, creativity, individuals (not people, people in general are terrible, individuals can be great), reading, blogging, fun (yes, 2x) and the internet? Then maybe Pay a Blogger Day (Nov 29th) is for you.

No, I'm not asking you to pay me. Not anytime soon anyway!

I blog because I like it and its good practice and a resume builder for me. I spend no money to make my blog (unless you count the money I spend on the things of which I take pictures- drinks and toys for children), so I need no money from it. To be honest, I was sorta scared to ask for sponsors or hock my blog on other sites. I just want to love it and not be worried about tying it to a PayPal account.

But if you are looking to put a few dollars in the caps of some virtual street performers, you can do so through Flattr. What a neat concept.

And who could you flatter? How about some of my favorites who are NOT making a living from their blogs, but who probably could if they had the right support:

Waiting for Sunday

Newlyweds on a Budget

Sense and Stilettos

None of these people asked me to share their links. I just like their blogs (for content, relatability and honesty) and they're not famous people (as far as I know).

There are tons of good blogs out there, but some are just on the cusp of fame! Who are you loving that is an up-and-comer? I'd love to add them to my blogroll.



Mo Money Mo Power Mo Pie

If money is power and time is money wouldn't you think the unemployed would hold a LOT of the power?

Wrong.

Money IS power. However fortunate or unfortunate that is.

Think about how you spend your money. (Or see my pie charts here.) But seriously, think about how you spend.

The money you spend votes more than any marks you make in a ballot box.

Like Gavin Degraw's new song? Buy it instead of pirating it.

Think Kanye is an ignorant racist? Pirate instead of buy. (I wouldn't really encourage pirating... or would I?)

Think Southwest is a fair airline? Fly with them instead of giving your business to United leave-you-for-dead-in-a-foreign-country Airlines even if UA gives you points on your credit card.

Think kids in 3rd World Countries shouldn't be put to work at age 5 to making your clothes to support their families? Do like my friends at Retell Retail do and buy used, local, fair trade, organic and/or conflict free.

Think a politician is out of line? Don't feed into their sensation by not watching their debates.

Think before you buy and make every dollar count. Policy isn't made because some big wigs in Washington had their tin-man hearts removed. It's made because we ask for it. We vote for it. We want our cake and we want to eat it too. Educate yourself and make informed decisions. Nothing in this world is free; always look for the total cost of your decision.

Drink pairings? Whatever goes with humble pie. Or a candy-tini made with frangelico, buttershots, amaretto, captain morgan, root beer smirnoff (100 proof - get it), homemade whipped cream from the shaker to top and a butterscotch sucker to garnish. Trust me, you only need one.

This one isn't mine, but mine looked sorta like this. Via Pinterest.com.

Common Sense on a Roll Wednesday: Be Sloppy, Be Thin

As I struggled to eat my zucchini bread for breakfast this morning (thanks neighbor/landlord/friend!), I dropped numberous crumbs and even one whole bite on the floor.

And I dropped a whole bite yesterday too.

I guess that's the expected casualty of eating a baked good with a fork out of a ziplock bag while typing with one hand.

At first I swore at myself, but then I thought, "Hey, on the bright side, its one less bite in my mouth and one less bite making my pants tighter." Silver lining, I tell ya.

So cheers to your mulititaskers. You eat-on-the-run workers. You just plain sloppy kids (I think that's why my husband's so thin). Raise your glass and wear a bib!

Tipsy Tuesday: Cha-ching and Womp-womp.

It's Wednesday. I know. Let's just deal with it.

I did have a tipsy Tuesday, though, over a bottle of white wine with S. The wine last night was quite in-line with this wallet-friendly post in that it was:

a) cheap to begin with;
b) on sale;
c) bought in bulk because it came with a reusable wine-carrier (think reusable grocery bag but with dividers to make carrying 6 bottles must less noisy);
and
d) we drank white instead of red because we turned off our AC for the past few days to try and cut back on our energy bill and it was too HOT to drink anything that wasn't chilled.


Turning Leaf. The Pinot Grigio (I think it was) was good.

We also had fish sticks, a Bertolli insta-meal and chips & guac for dinner. That has nothing to do with anything except that meal planning has become a liberated adventure in our house. Themes and consistency be damned.

So let's talk budgeting.

I used to just do some quick rounding math in my head when I was single to try and budget myself. $50 here on a dress for work - justifiable. $25 here on cover and a drink at a bar - gulp *for the drink and the price tag. $7 for lunch with a friend once in a while - necessary to keep up on my ignored social life. I didn't know where all of my money was going exactly, but I wasn't breaking the bank. I didn't have debt (praise Je-sus) and I was building some small savings. So who cared?

My future self, that's who.

Turns out it is wickedly hard to keep track of money and investments when you add another person to the moola-mix. But regardless of how many people are in your financial household, no post-college person should be without a working budget. I mean a real one. Not a mental one that you compile while in line at H&M.

Tools:
There are some great tools for keeping your budget transparent and on track. Our parents had to balance a checkbook and keep bank statements. Our lives are easier with online banking and budget tools like Quicken and free budget tools like Mint.com. (We use Mint and LOVE it. Easy to use, safe and free!)

Set up:
Be honest with yourself and your tools (be it Mint, your checkbook, your online banking or your significant other. Did I just say your significant other is a tool? Hey-o!). You'll have to set up budgets and be real about it. If you "need" to spend $200 a month on clothes, put it in the budget. If you want to get serious about your debt and will choose to skip a meal once a month so you can make that happen, put it in the budget! (I have a friend who skips a meal once a month to make ends meet. That's dedication!)

Keep with it:
Track your progress. Make appointments to talk to your financial players (the bank, your family, your budgeting tools) and adjust spending, income and investments to reflect what you can do. Take pride in your growing bank account. Remind yourself that you brown-bag your lunch so you can afford the ski trip in March. Live within your means and find joy/peace/existence in that. Hell, make the ski resort your computer background.

Reward and reprimand yourself:
Did you do well this month? Have a latte. Did you compulsively wander the aisles of Target and end up with a cartful of "not in the budget"? Cut back next month, sell some of your stuff on Craigslist or try and pick up some extra hours at work. Make sure you hold yourself accountable to your actions. When you reward yourself, you are less likely to fumble when you feel weak (this works for diets too!).

Here's to some good company in the budget blog-o-world (Not to be confused with the Blago world. Another zing, I'm on fire! Fives!).

Newlyweds on a Budget
The Budget Babe on fashion
Etsy for the budget friendly and socially minded ~swoon!
Broke and Healthy on food and fitness

Happy hump day. S and I are off to Jazzin' at the Shedd with BLill. Budget friendly because we get the aquarium AND the fireworks AND time with B.a.M. :)

Common Sense Wednesday: Money for Nothing and the Perks for Free

or Build, Contribute, Reinvent
or Have Your Cake and Eat It Too (although a Brit said it first)
or The American Way - Fat, Prickish and Broke
or Yet More Evidence One Should Live Within His Means
or Watch This Video and Turn Your Brain on:



Mary Meeker of KCPB narrates a fascinating piece on the economy through the lense of "America, Inc" and on the heels of a heated debate about our country's budgets, spending and debt. It's a bit of a long video, but worth your time. Take you lunch break to view and mill it over if you can.

It provokes many questions, and appears to be non-partisian in pointing blame at all of us - consumers and politicians alike - for being such a greedy, spoiled nation with a muffin top (my words, not Mary's). Pretty picture, huh?

Without even tipping a toe into the partisian debate on spending, let's think about the extremes for no other reason than to answer some obvious questions:

For those that say they don't want to pay higher taxes, that we should purely cut spending because "I don't use the public library, nor am I on welfare, and I don't like war", I ask you -

Do you live in a jungle? Where lion/tiger/bear law reigns? Where you scavenge for your food and answer only to the call of the wild? No. You live in 'merica and you may think that you have a right to retire when your knees go bad.

For those who say that they'd prefer for the rich to pay higher taxes to support programs that help keep Grandma healthier, longer, but think that they, themselves, need to not cut back on the cable bill and pitch in for G-ma's expensive vitamins, I ask -

Would Grandma appreciate that? What if when you get older, your kids shipped you to "the home" to take care of you and give you what you needs to survive, nevermind your quality of life? Isn't that passing the buck?

For those who support higher taxes for everyone in favor of keeping all of the programs the help the poor, downtrodden, sick, elderly, and homeless, I say -

Are the programs for which your tax dollars are paying working? Do you know where your money's going? Is it going towards the program's overhead? Their travel expenses? Is it even going towards providing drug users with clean needles?

For EVERYONE -

What do you think about the budget deal? What changes would you make to the way our country handles its finances? What are you going to do as a citizen to make a difference?

Ten Tips Tuesday: Must Read Shout Outs and Breaking Rules

So I give shout outs a lot. Maybe I'm lazy with my own thoughts. Maybe you should just follow/read/do as I say. I'm feeling bossy today. And my bossiness is letting me call this a "Common Sense on a Blogroll Wednesday" post too because I am including a portion of my blogroll! Broken rule #1.

Here are some internet must-reads with which I have some things in common and therefore feel charged with spreading the word. It might go along with my desire to have all my to be friends be friends with each other.

First of all, the person who got me into blogging (and my best friend, Google Reader) and spur me on to keep blogging:

1) Maddison
2) Makenzie
3) Amy and her husband.
4) Becca
5) B.Lill (love the pen-name)

And then there are the surprising amount of wonderful Jen/Jenny/Jennifer bloggers out there: (or as my brother would call me/address my mail: JenJenJennyJen)

5) Jen at MadeByGirl
6) Jenny at MFAMB ohmywordshejustkillsme (warning, adult language... hilarious adult language).
7) And hilarious author Jen, who, I think, got in my head and named her blog after my childhood invention of a new country called "Jennyslavia".

And then there are those who live in Chicago, like me (some of the previous fall in this category too and therefore intrigue me more):

8) Malori
9) Sara

And then there are those with whom I have a sense of humor in common:

10) Cake Wrecks
11) Natalie Dee



And yes, that was 11 tips. Broken rule #2!

Photo via

Common Sense on a Blogroll Wednesday: Bitches Be Crazy

Noteable notes from the blogroll:

Milk may help with PMS.

The aforementioned point may help the dairy industry.

The dairy industry gave us this website.

This website is funny.

Humor helps cure bad moods.

PMS is a bad mood that lasts for a week and makes you mad/depressed/fat/sad/apathetic/hypersensitive/overreactive all at the same time.

So... transitivly, even if milk does nothing chemically for PMS, at least the website will help PMS sufferers (both first and second hand) feel less like punching a wall.

I found this website and photo from this blog.

Common Sense on a Blogroll Wednesday: If One Can't Say Anything Nice...

... Then one should go sit by Jenny of MFAMB blog.

She. Is. My. Blogcrush.

Funny, blonde and sassy. Love it. And her written slang is so on-point that I breeze right through the "err-body"s and the overuse of ellipses as if I were thinking her thoughts at the same time. She's vulgar. She's expressive. And she watches TV so I don't have to!

Oh and her name's Jenny. Wouldn't we make a cute, albeit redundant, couple!?

Common Sense on a Blogroll Wednesday: It's not a Wedding Proposal, It's a Marriage Proposal

A cute NY blog called Cup of Jo featured this article on a special marriage proposal. Problem? She called it a wedding proposal.

Pleeeze, people. Marriage and weddings do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. People can have a marriage without a wedding and, sadly, people can have a wedding without ever really participating in a marriage.

I Googled the difference between a marriage and a wedding. Top rated answer on Yahoo answers (funny that I Google and got Yahoo...) was: a wedding lasts a day and a marriage lasts a lifetime.

Well put.



I wish them a happy marriage.

Common Sense on a Blogroll Wednesday: Coffee

Well it appears I can only bring myself to blog once a week. In my defense I've had a busy work life and busy weekends. This weekend I hope to finish my thank you notes and get some R&R in and maybe run a few miles to work off the fish and chips I had for lunch yesterday. I'd like to thank my new company for giving me lunch yesterday at Haymarket because those fish and chips were darn worth it!

Back to business.

I'm sure you've all heard that using a cell phone could kill you. It, apparently, has the same carcinogenic power as drinking coffee. Sooo deadly!

I'd like to call upon a coffee blog to help me stand up for our rich AM jolt.

1. It protects your heart:Moderate coffee drinkers (1 to 3 cups/day) have lower rates of stroke than noncoffee drinkers, an effect linked to coffee’s antioxidants. Coffee has more antioxidants per serving than blueberries, making it the biggest source of antioxidants in American diets. All those antioxidants may help suppress the damaging effect of inflammation on arteries. Immediately after drinking it, coffee raises your blood pressure and heart rate, but over the long term, it actually may lower blood pressure as coffee’s antioxidants activate nitric acid, widening blood vessels.

2. It diverts diabetes: Those antioxidants (chlorogenic acid and quinides, specifically) play another role: boosting your cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which helps regulate blood sugar. In fact, people who drink 4 or more cups of coffee each day may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to some studies. Other studies have shown that caffeine can blunt the insulin-sensitivity boost, so if you do drink several cups a day, try mixing in decaf occasionally.

3. Your liver loves it: OK, so the research here is limited, but it looks like the more coffee people drink, the lower their incidence of cirrhosis and other liver diseases. One analysis of nine studies found that every 2-cup increase in daily coffee intake reduced liver cancer risk by 43 percent. Again, it’s those antioxidants—chlorogenic and caffeic acids—and caffeine that might prevent liver inflammation and inhibit cancer cells.

4. It boosts your brain power: Drinking between 1 and 5 cups a day (admittedly a big range) may help reduce risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as Parkinson’s disease, studies suggest. Those antioxidants may ward off brain cell damage and help the neurotransmitters involved in cognitive function to work better.

5. It helps your headaches: And not just the withdrawal headaches caused by skipping your daily dose of caffeine! Studies show that 200 milligrams of caffeine—about the amount in 16 ounces of brewed coffee—provides relief from headaches, including migraines. Exactly how caffeine relieves headaches isn’t clear. But scientists do know that caffeine boosts the activity of brain cells, causing surrounding blood vessels to constrict. One theory is that this constriction helps to relieve the pressure that causes the pain, says Robert Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology and director of the Headache Clinic at the University of Vermont Medical School.

So go ahead, drink up and live long!

Well there you have it, folks. [My advice - afterall, I do claim this is an advice blog] I dare you order a venti skim milk latte and then talk to your grandma on the phone for an hour. I. dare. you.

Wednesday's Common Sense on a Blog Roll: Wedding Common Sense

I know, I know. I've neglected you. I've missed some important blog dates and I'm sure that all of my adoring fans have left me for other sarcastic blogs in my vein of thought. Le sigh.

I have a good excuse! I got married on Friday to, well, a boy and then took a few days off after an open house and baby baptism to recoup and try and sleep through the night. We're still working on all of those fronts.

Today's common sense inspiration comes to us via The Offbeat Bride Blog.

The Offbeat Bride has given us some brill common sense when it comes to pulling off a wedding. Some tips that I can add are:

- Pick people to help you execute ideas that are self-starters and don't need a lot of hand-holding (Thanks to my independent peeps: Mekey, Bebe, Emily, Chelsey, Kay, my mom, my mom-in-law, etc...)

- Take a few days off around your wedding. I know, this act means you are succumbing to the ridiculousness of weddings and letting them dictate your time (or lack thereof), but why not take an extra day to get your nails done and pamper yourself... or run around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to do some last minute gift wrapping or pillow sham shopping... your choice.

- Take no one's advice. Everyone has an opinion. Screw 'em (yes, that includes me... but don't screw me... I'm married...). Someone's "must have" is another person's "can't afford" so tell everyone to take a hike and do it your way. Or your parents way. Or your inlaws way. Cause really, some weddings are more about the families than the bride and groom anyway.


They had a ring BEAR!

Check out The Offbeat Bride for some hope when it comes to wedding b-sh*t. I love this blog because they are wedding-centered without being traditional (all the time anyway), closed-minded, expected or downright crazy. Weddings can be wonderful or they can be... well, nevermind.

Oh, and did I mention they swear?

Common Sense on a Blogroll Wednesday (Really Thursday, but I'm behind)

Nothing like just being behind a day all week.

Here's my common sense for the week: Just because it has a coupon, doesn't mean you buy it.

Two for one deoderant? $.50 off toilet paper? $25 for $50 worth of cajun food? yes, yes, YES!

20% off Pampers? No, I dont really need that. I can draw the line there.

In the age of extreme couponing and recession-uber-budgeting, people are getting crazy for coups. Stockpiling your house (like, even under your kids beds and the spare shower) and buying a store out of an item to make some cash are two extremes that one must really not take lightly. It may seem thrifty and cute, but what is the line between extreme couponer and hoarder? I'm not sure where it is, but I think its very thin and probably underneath a couple of 1976 toasters and a dead cat.

Its not only a sticky situation to hoard/stockpile/whatever-you-white-wash-it-to-be, but its also costly. Yes even couponing can end up costing your more money if you are just buying things for the sake of saving on them. Its like you're addicted to saving while shopping, which is just another type of shopping addiction. Is probably another TLC show... haha!

A good blog for daily coups.

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And here's one I've enjoyed using: