This is late again but I have another good excuse. THREE good excuses. This week I was sick and busy (that’s two) and our internet keeps cutting in and out. This week was also Semana de Chispa (Spirit Week) at school and our last week of tutoring until 2014. This week I went to my last baseball game of the season and blew my nose A LOT. This week Mary came back for a visit!! And the Griffins came back home!! Also, heads up – This coming week (Thursday) I will be heading to the States for the holidays and I’m sure my blogging will be even more sporadic than it has been.

Articles/blog posts:
- It’s Thanksgiving So We Asked Some Brits To Label The States – We’re So Sorry, America at BuzzFeed – The sad thing is I would do a much worse job labeling Europe.
- Five Things You May Not Know About Child Marriage at NPR – This reporter talked to several different child brides and compiled this list. Education is power.
- What you do for the “Lazarus” of these at Consuming Fire – My friend Brittany is so smart! This is what she says about giving: “I’d rather get to Heaven and see Jesus and say, “oops, I got scammed. Not just once, not just twice, but all over the frigging place.” Than say, “Jesus my walls were up, I tightly held my money. Fear not: NO ONE got the best of me!”
- What People Are Really Thinking When They Invite You To Church at Huffington Post – The title kind of says it all.
- I don’t wait anymore at Grace for the road – “Christ is the source of everything we need and the giver of all good gifts … but in telling people about Him, it’s possible we’ve sold them on a solution for life’s problems and not life itself.”
- My kids don’t make me happy at The Matt Walsh Blog – What if kids aren’t intended to make you happy, but to make you holy? (I stole that quote from Sacred Marriage but changed marriage to kids.)
- Singled Out: How Churches Can Embrace Unmarried Adults at Christena Cleveland – We are all part of the body.
- The Most Eligible Christian Bachelor at Critique by Creating – “We stack more and more upon marriage and have held marriage as the prerequisite for maturity, success, stability, and even minstry. Marriage is increasingly seen as the panacea for all of our problems – that if we were married then everything else would just fall into place, or that certain goals should be put off until after we are married. How can anyone reasonably think like this. Have you ever met a married person?”
- The 28 Most Flawless Responses To A Wrong Number Text at Distractify – Just some fun.
- This Is Why Poor People’s Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense at Huff Post Politics – Listen to people’s stories.
- Why Switchfoot won’t sing Christian songs at CTK blog – The pastor of my university always used to say, “Universities can’t be Christians. They don’t have souls.” Switchfoot says the same thing about songs.
Movies/TV:
- Timeline on Netflix – I fully intended on dedicating this week to Paul Walker in honor of his death, but this movie was boring and I didn’t even finish it. Then I never actually watched any other Paul Walker movies because I was too busy watching Sister Wives.
- Sister Wives on Netflix – I just love this family!
- The Fighter on Megashare – Christian Bale never disappoints! This movie was a wonderful portrayal of a true story and also a great example of the negative effects of drugs.
- Will and Grace on DVD – Our internet has been cutting out lately and I’ve been sick. These two facts equal seasons six and seven of Will and Grace on DVD.
(YouTube) Videos:
- Amazing A Capella Group Sings a Christmas Classic That You Will Love at GodVine – Pretty!
- We Found Love – Lindsey Stirling (VenTribe) by Lindsey Stirling – Celebrating how these people live and love. Beautiful and fun!
- Radioactive – Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix (Imagine Dragons Cover) by Lindsey Stirling – So cool!
- Somebody That I Used To Know – Pentatonix (Gotye Cover) by PTXOfficial – I was on a roll.
- Carrie Underwood Parodies Miley Cyrus’ AMA Performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon at Huff Post Celebrity – This is a little late, but this holidy parody featuring Jimmy Fallon, Rashida Jones, and Carrie Underwood is genius!
- The Piano Guys Will Blow You Away With ‘Angels We Have Heard On High’ at Huff Post Entertainment – Holy poop! These guys are amazing!
- Bully Calls News Anchor Fat, News Anchor Destroys Him on Live TV at Upworthy – Like a boss, like a lady.
- 5 Minutes Of What The Media Actually Does To Women at Upworthy – And also an amazing and inspiring Kate Winslet quote. She’s the bomb.
General good finds:
- “Often, our dreams are thick and bright and heavy to hold – maybe even scorching to the touch because of their intensity. We leave them at arm’s length, too afraid to get too close because just breathing in the fumes may cause us to crumble.” – Elora Nicole
- “If you had seen the Red Sea part or you had seen the Jordan River stopped from flowing, or if you had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, if you had smelled that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, if you had been there in the moment when the nine inch thick curtain that separated everyone from the Holy of Holies had ripped from top to bottom, or when Jesus had died, the earth shook, tombs broke open and dead people walked the earth like zombies..do you think you would ever doubt God’s power? Yeah! The Bible is peppered with stories of people who were there when that happened and two days later were like, ‘God never does anything for us. This is stupid. I wish I was in Egypt. At least they had cake.’ I think some things we just have to decide we’re going to believe because…even if there’s proof, that doesn’t always do it for us anyway.” – Jennifer Fugett