This Classical Life

“To know that I am ‘a white male American human,’ that a red bird with black wings is ‘a scarlet tanager,’ that this is ‘a riparian plant community’–all that is helpful to a necessary kind of thought. But when I try to make my language more particular, I see that the life of this place is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, that it is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated. And then is when I see that this life is a miracle, absolutely worth having, absolutely worth saving….Perhaps we should wish that after the processes of reduction, scientists would return, not to the processes of synthesis and integration, but to the world of our creatureliness and affection, our joy and grief, that precedes and (so far) survives all of our processes.”

Here are some websites I use, love, and recommend.

Goodreads is where most of my book reviews have found themselves these days. I love being able to instantly see the rating several friends have given a book when I look at it, many of my choices for new books to read come straight out of Goodreads. Keeping track of the girls’ books on their account is helpful and a category for books I own and haven’t read on my own means I don’t even have to go scan the shelves for that information. Literary laziness is a lovely combination.

emusic.com downloads are much cheaper than itunes or amazon, about $.50 a track. Sign up for a subscription and you can add extra credits via booster pack when you want more and freeze your account without deleting it when you are well stocked up or don’t want to spend money that month.

PaperBackSwap is a great website for those building home libraries. If you need a book next week, it may not come through for you, but by being patient and using the wish list feature well, we have accumulated almost 200 books in the last three years, each for the price of outgoing postage on one of our old books (or $3.50.) Almost all of the ones we have received have been in excellent condition, many like new. If you sign up and post 10 books you are willing to part with, they will give you 2 credits to start out with (worth one book each.)

Both Michael and I are now twittering tweeting using twitter.

Find us at http://twitter.com/michaelstewart and http://twitter.com/kristenmstewart.

If you sign up for Revolution Money Exchange, an FDIC insured alternative to PayPal, before April 15th you get $25 absolutely free. And you’ll be able to send and receive money between users and transfer money to your bank account without any fees.

I was reflecting this week about how much I love my iPod. I love driving around alone in silence (silence is at a premium when you have two toddlers) and having a song pop into my head, a song that was my favorite in the fall of 1999 but haven’t listened to in a year, and being able to have that song coming through the speakers in fifteen seconds or less. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.

Mike got his ginormous Mac Book Pro from school the other day. It’s hard not to have Mac-lust when you’re sharing your home with one of those. I covet. Wishing, hoping, dreaming…

I know there is one person who cannot comment right now, but I’ve got a few spammers and a few regulars who’ve commented in the last two days, if you also have tried commenting and failed, drop me an email at kristen at TCL.com (type out the words for TCL) so I’ll know it’s not just something with her browser.

Yahoo! recently updated the My Yahoo! personalized homepage. It is now more AJAX-y and looks more web2.0 than their previous web1.0 browser.

On the interesting additions is the ability to share your pages (e.g., like netvibes) and it also offers pre-packaged pages. When I saw the ‘Bible Study’ page, I had to give it a shot.

It contains:
ESV One Year Bible Readings
Daily Bible Readings from KJV
Bible Study Reflections — looks like a daily devo.
Pastor Jon’s Blog
Christian Links:Bible
internetmonk.com
Christian Blogs

I found it interesting that Internetmonk.com made it onto Yahoo!’s radar, and that the ESV is the top module, set to get some major looks. I guess it helps me to feel more ‘mainstream’ in the Christian world.

I never would have made it to China. But this nifty tool told me where I’d end up. Thanks, Anne!

For some reason, our Akismet spam filter has gotten a little overly aggressive lately. Please don’t get offended if your comment spends a while in filter purgatory. :o/

I know that the ESV isn’t the perfect bible, but I like how ESV is trying to use technology to help Christians in their devotional life. Through the ESV website, you can get the readings for most popular bible reading plans in a fairly manageable format.

They are now making the BCP readings available online. You can go to their website or subscribe via RSS, web page designers can integrate it into church websites, etc…

Anyhow, if this is up your alley, read ahead …

MLS

A few nights ago Mike and I were talking about how he exaggerates and teases much more than I do. He was even having trouble coming up with examples of me using hyperbole. That led him to exclaim, “I can’t wait ’til they come out with Google Brain!” “Google BRAIN? You have totally sold out to the man.” “No, it would be really great. You could tell me a grocery list: milk, eggs, bread, yogurt - starred. I’d remember. And all the things I read and hear and…”

Yeah. He’s got it BAD.

You can now listen to two of Andrew Peterson’s albums in their entirety online–

Behold the Lamb of God