The blogging habits of the man indoors.

My husband uses the Internet for a myriad of reasons. He emails, he keeps up-to-date with news, theology, Christian Thinking, music, he orders things from the Internet, etc.

He also uses the Internet to build and maintain his friendships. He has a group of very good and close friends, without them he would flounder and sink (especially this year!). He keeps in touch with one friend from his Bible College days. They mourn, commiserate, laugh, insult each other, tease out theological truths etc. The large bulk of their friendship is conducted via the Internet due to the geographical distance between them.

One thing they started about a year ago is to post on their blogs songs that they like - they posted 25 each. After that they have posted 15 books. They take it in turns and write a little blurb as to why they like the song or book and/or what it means to them. Apparently, they have a lot of other catergories ready for future blogging. I am quite impressed by persistence in these particular blogs.

Another Confession (perhaps I should become Catholic!)

Oh, dear. One of my daughters whines a lot. She can wake up whining. She can go to bed whining. She can whine about breakfast. She can whine about dinner. About everything. About anything. Well, you get the idea with that.

(A digression: We went to her Parent's Evening last night and spoke to her teacher who described a happy, enthusiastic, cheerful, friendly, clever, intelligent child I am pleased to report.)

Today, I picked her up from school and she was complaining of feeling ill; not an uncommon event. I have to say I wasn't entirely convinced. The little smiles (you know the ones) weren't helping me either!

We got home and the whining carried on. The monologues of 'How nobody understands.' etc etc etc. And the volume got louder. A sign she isn't feeling that unwell usually. She kept saying she was going to be sick. My children have a blue-print for being ill (one that they worked out together on a subliminal level): They go off their food, they get a slight temperature, they are quiet, listless and need to snuggle on the sofa. She had decided to rewrite the blue-print so I didn't think she was really ill. Until, that was, she was actually sick.

And then I felt really bad. The mummy-guilt kicked in at full throttle. My girl was poorly and I had ignored her. I have told her that the whining will be like the boy who cried Wolf and that is what happened today. I am hoping that we can use this incident as a way to help her out of the whining.

At the moment I feel like parenting will be added to my list of failures. I really need that holiday we are due to go on on Saturday. Ho, hum.

At a tangent: If anyone has any tips on how to divert the habit then I will gratefully receive them.

Confession

I am reading through the Bible in a year. The scheme was devised by a friend of a friend. Basically, we started at Genesis and will finish in Revelation. I have found it good but also extremely challenging. The past 15 months of my life have been full of massive adjustment, and through some of the most difficult parts I was stuck in the Major and Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. I have found them hard, I have questioned the relevance of some of the more technical sections for Christianity today and I have come through reading them with lots of questions. I found it hard to find much joy in them.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I started the New Testament the other day. Am I the only Christian who struggles to make parts of the Old Testament make sense? I can't align the parts when God calls for destruction of peoples etc with the commandment not to murder.

If anyone, has any insight I would love to hear it. If anyone, feels the same way then please tell me. If you feel I am on the verge of becoming a liberal then please be gentle with me.