The Weekly Mailbag

As many of you have noticed, I'm running a day late (thanks for keeping me honest) so let's just hit the ground running and get to reader e-mails without further delay.

Question 1: "I noticed that the time stamp on your September 7 entry was 6:35 a.m. Are you really blogging at 6:30 in the morning?" In that particular case, no. The blogger software automatically time stamps my entries, much like when you send an e-mail. But about two weeks ago I noticed that the time stamps are never correct, nor are they ever off by the same amount or even in the same direction (early or late). I thought about resetting the dashboard to see if it would clear the bug out of the system, but then it seemed both more prudent and more amusing to me to keep y'all guessing about the hours I'm keeping.

Question 2: "Are you sorry you caved after two weeks and went back to watching TV?" First of all, it was two weeks and two days, thank you very much. I know our salvation isn't dependent on "works righteousness", but just in case the Apostle Paul is wrong, I want to make sure I have those two extra days on my record. No, I don't regret my return to television, but I also don't regret my time away from television. The truth is, a girl with even a moderate amount of ingenuity (i.e., me) can find countless ways to waste time even without the assistance of television (browsing Pottery Barn catalogs, smelling all the different flavors of coffee beans at the HyVee, putting new bookplates in all my books - cripes, I'm such a nerd). TV is just the path of least resistance; plus, it helps me keep up on my pop culture references. However, I find that I'm now much more intentional about what I watch. I never have the TV on just for the sake of having it on, nor do I turn it on and surf the channels. I look at the TV listings, see if there is something I actually want to watch, then turn on the TV.

Question 3: "Are you really writing letters every day?" Well, as you may have heard, I had to take an injury time out. While the thumb is coming along nicely, I had to suspend all non-essential writing and typing commitments for several days - in other words, everything but signing my name to a receipt. So I asked the officials to restart the game clock yesterday and got back down to business. My apologies for having to delay the saving of the world for a few days. Boy will my face be red if Jesus comes back before I've written all 30 letters.

Question 4: "How's Hebrew class going?" I have two words for you: oy vey.

Okay, the little clock on the wall says that it's time for Iron Chef America which I ALWAYS choose to watch! (Hooray for TV!) Time for me to jet so I can go spend the next hour of my life with Mario Batali. Have a super swell week, everyone!