My new favorite blog: Women in the Scriptures. This is from a Mormon/LDS perspective, but I think would be of interest to anyone in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I’ve seen a lot of Old Testament meditations so far, and when I first discovered it, I thought: Wow, so you could, like, research and think a lot about one relatively narrow topic and then post on the Internet? It is rare (to me) that something is so theologically thought-provoking, and yet so immediately relevant to my daily life at the same time. And we could always use more discussion of the women in the scriptures.

LDS Reader Survey: Rebecca Irvine, author of Family Home Evening Adventures and Adventures with the Word of God has a quick (8 question) survey up. You should totally go take it if you’re LDS or read or have a pulse.

A Writing Contest: Rixa sent me the link to that blog (because it has fascinating thoughts on the importance of birth, something I was thinking of last Sunday, talking about Rebekah/Sarah/Leah/Rachel/Hannah/etc), and she (Rixa) is having a writing contest on her blog right now, with some fabulous prizes. The topic is Becoming a Parent, Becoming Transformed, so that’s pretty open-ended. Rixa also sent me the link to a blog called The Gift of Giving Life (also LDS and focused on birth) but I got stuck on the Women in the Scriptures one and haven’t done it justice yet.

Family Engineering Night: Thanksgiving Point is working with BYU’s engineering students to put on these family engineering nights. They’re actually half over, but we haven’t been yet, so it’s like those other ones didn’t really happen. When I got the flier from my PR contact (who was a friend at BYU) I had just finished reading The Female Brain, which my father-in-law sent me because he is under the pleasant delusion that I am a Serious Reader. I highly recommend The Female Brain, because it doesn’t try to say that women and men are exactly the same or any such nonsense. Instead, we are equal, but quite, quite different, and I learned a lot about why my three daughters make me so crazy sometimes. The book pointed out that women and girls are just as able in the sciences and math, but that they often at some point decide to enter a field that allows for more meaningful, daily interaction with others. Either way, I want to expose my girls to engineering-type things, so we’ll be going on March 15th (6 pm). There’s also one tomorrow (Thursday, 6pm).

More About that Book: In The Female Brain is this passage:

Baby girls are born interested in emotional expression. . . . You can imagine, then, the negative impact on a little girl’s developing sense of self of the unresponsive, flat face of a depressed mother — or even one that’s had too many Botox injections. The lack of facial expression is very confusing to a girl, and she may come to believe, because she can’t get the expected reaction to a plea for attention or a gesture of affection, that her mother doesn’t really like her. She will eventually turn her efforts to faces that are more responsive.

This isn’t new (the idea that girls are promiscuous sometimes if they don’t get attention/affection at home), but I thought about this a lot, since I read it during the month I was completely listless from pregnancy sickness (let’s not even talk about the disastrous afternoons I tried phenergan, which is completely depressing of all systems). But this book isn’t judgemental or anything (ok, maybe of “too many” Botox injections, but the depressed mother needs help for her sake first, for her kids’ sake, second). It examines the hormonal and neural changes that take place in a woman’s brain at each stage of life, and I will be re-reading it in coming years, as my daughters become teenagers, and as I go through the change.

Beautiful Bloggers: Stephanie was kind enough to award me this award (after I kind of shamed her into it), and I want to pass it on, but I always get award-forwarding-block. What if I forget someone? What if other people are as fragile in the ego as me? I was going to copy Charlotte‘s method, but then that seemed too plagiaristic.

I stopped doing buttons and a blogroll at least a year ago, and then I feel guilty when I see someone else has my button up. So then I took down my cute buttons that Alma made for me, and now I can’t remember how to write the stupid code for one of those dumb scroll boxes and even for the code that would link you back to here if you were so inclined to put up my button. Which I’m not really expecting, because I already told you I don’t put up buttons in return. And even when I had the buttons up with code it didn’t work because I am code-impaired, so I don’t know what to tell you.

But I do have cute buttons. Here they are:

And you should, like, totally put them up on your blog and I will love you forever, especially since you have to make up your own code, and I may never reciprocate.

Hair Envy: Unless you have some physical or mental attribute I super-covet, in which case I will hound you for pictures or scientific proof and then never do anything with the pictures I told you I so desperately needed. Friends, my hair is in such a dark, dark place right now. I have two-inch dark brown and gray roots, faded highlights, bushy mullet and a wavering commitment to growing it out. So far I am standing strong, because the only way I would look as awesome as Emily with her short haircut is if I lost 50 pounds and learned to shop at Forever 21.

Doesn’t she have the best hair (long or short, but especially short) ever?

And Finally: I’m probably supposed to being doing more to pimp out this Casual Blogger Conference happening in Utah on Memorial Day Weekend (that Friday and Saturday), since I’m speaking at it. I’ll be honest — I love speaking in public. I might get a little butterfly-y right before they clip on my lapel mike (or even better, hand me the heavy, important microphone), but I can’t claim humble nerves or anything. I might not be the biggest (or seven-millionth-biggest) blogger in the world, but, dude, I have opinions on just about EVERYTHING. So, maybe that’s why they haven’t been after me to pimp more? I don’t know, but it’s too late to un-invite me! Ha! ha-ha! huh.

You should, like, totally come and stuff.

Dad: I’m betting you didn’t read to this point because this is one of my “business”-type posts, so I just want you to know that if you ask me anything that’s already been covered here, I reserve the right to not repeat myself. Love you!