About a month ago, the DC Roomie adopted a second dog from the Washington Animal Rescue League. Little Zeke is a pure-breed Jack Russell Terrier that was rescued from a puppy mill (she get’s Oprah’s seal of approval). Little Zeke has settled in great and is on the calm side for JRTs. His big sister, Miss Daisy acts like a bratty older sister but secretly adores him.

While discussing getting Zeke, we joked about starting a dog blog. It was meant to be a satire on baby blogs. I love seeing cute pictures of babies, but some people go way over the top with details about poop, throw-up or breast feeding. I want to remain ignorant of the gross details until I have kids. (For the record, I think Vol Abroad does a great job writing about Buddy).

DC Roomie started www.DaisyandZeke.com and began covering all of Zeke’s “firsts.” We thought it was hilarious. Everyone else just thought DC Roomie was a crazy dog owner. Then she found out that WARL is giving the link to new pet owners. It’s gotten slightly more educational now but then not everyone gets satires.

Longtime readers may remember that Daisy and Zeke are hardly the first ones to dogblog. Coco, the dog from the South, briefly had a blog several years ago in order to obtain a gmail account. (Amazing isn’t it, that a dog needed email?) However, like most things that Border Collies do, he quickly lost interest. He also found it hard to type without opposable thumbs.

There are a lot of blogs in my reader. Probably several hundred. Sometimes I get through them. Sometimes I don’t. It usually depends on time and my tolerance for the echo chamber, especially for the political and tech blogs.

Oddly enough, Dana occasionally links to Pastor Mark’s blog at NCC. Sadly, Pastor Mark is usually one of the weekly reads for me. It struck me as odd that a friend in Chattanooga had to direct me to my own pastor’s blog today.

This resounded with me today:

Noah wasn’t qualified to build the ark. Nehemiah wasn’t qualified to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. David wasn’t qualified to fight Goliath. Moses wasn’t qualified to lead the Israelites. And Peter certainly wasn’t qualified to walk on water.

It is our incompetence that keeps us humble and keeps us dependent upon God. But that awareness of our own incompetence needs to be coupled with the awareness that our competence comes from God. So the locus of our confidence isn’t in our ability. The locus of confidence is God’s ability. It’s not self-confidence. It’s God-confidence! It is the faithfulness of God that fuels our faith!

II Corinthians 3:4-6 is a new favorite verse.

I heart NCC. It’s probably the only reason I survive in DC.

I meant to post this a while back, but forgot until today. Mrs. M likes to babysit in order to fulfill the need to have her own kids. I like to fawn over other people’s dogs and dogsit to fulfill my desire to get a dog until I have a fenced in yard. I’m happy that several of my close friends now have furry babies for me to spoil.

I now present the cutest puppy that I’ve seen in a very long time.

Over Christmas, the Bekna dynamic duo adopted a pug puppy and named him Biscuit. I got to visit him before I left, and he is absolutely adorable. His little bark sounds like a squeak toy. This post is an appeal to Beka to post more pictures of him on Facebook. I know that you’re taking them!

It’s my first day back in DC after a wonderful fortnight in Chattanooga. Honestly, it gets harder to leave Tennessee each time I go back. The cost of living is cheaper, people are nicer and the pace is slower. Not to mention that I miss seeing mountains every day.

Saturday, I drove up to Knoxville for a short visit with Mrs. M on the way back to the District. It’s always pleasant to visit her domestic bliss. Not only was she married at 24, but the Ms own a house! A house with 4 bedrooms and yard! Those things are unheard of in DC. She lives in an alternate universe.

I also met up with John Brown and Piho for dinner. Of course John wasted no time at all in calling me a “cosmopolitan conservative.” (Thanks Kleinheider. John didn’t have enough dirt on me from college to fuel his mockery. He needed new material. Although that is a good idea for a blog name.) It’s also sad how our group in Knoxville gets smaller each year as we spread out around the world. Soon there aren’t going to be any College Republican veterans from my era at UT.

The rest of the trip is a blur of shopping with mom, visiting friends, driving around the Scenic City and enjoying the holidays. On Christmas Eve, I sprained my ankle. The next week was primarily spent watching a lot of TLC since I could barely stand up. TLC’s programming now only consists of gastric bypasses and documentaries of families with lots of kids. It’s the same themes over and over, but they suck you in.

During my convalescence, I noted how the commercials changed from Christmas-oriented, buy this car/diamond ring, and they’ll love you forever” ads to weight-loss programs. Around the 28th, Nutri-System alone must have taken out several million in ad buys. There seemed to be a lot more quick fix products than exercise programs, which is sad. If people are going to start exercising, it seems like the new year would be the time to advertise.

I heart my Honda! I drove the new car up here yesterday on ONE tank of gas. How awesome is that? Seeing that it took me over 10 hours to fly home before Christmas, it’s much better to drive. $45 spent on gas versus $300 for a plane ticket is a strong argument for driving. Having a working vehicle will make life so much better here. Plus, I can take off for long weekends now. This means that the Girl from the South will get to be in the South much more often!

Since I met my best friend Beka in the sixth grade, she’s wanted to work in the ministry. Throughout all our years at Berean and beyond, she trained to work in the children’s ministry and has an incredible rapport with kids.

Then she started dating Dana, and it was amazing to see God bring two people together with such similar goals. Long before they became the dynamic duo of Bekna, both of them dreamed of planting a church and serving their community.

After many years of praying and two years of marriage, it looks like their dream is coming true. Dana and Beka hope to open the doors of Embrace Church this upcoming March in Hixson, the community where we grew up.

It’s pretty amazing to see the dreams of two people you dearly love gradually fall into place.

I’m proud of you guys. I can’t wait to visit this spring!

Elyzabethe at Yellow is the Color is calling it quits. This seems to be a trend among bloggers.

Is this part of the adoption cycle? The early adopters were probably around 2004 or earlier. Then blogging hit mainstream and everyone had one. Is the fad of blogging winding down? I would have assumed that the trend of blogging was over. The only blogs around should be angst-filled teenagers, tech nerds, stay-at-home moms, people with too much free time at work and the small group of talented writers who need to be blogging.

A while back, Raee, also at Yellow is the Color, stopped posting. She told me that she was tired of the chatter. She couldn’t add anything to the discussion, and most bloggers were yelling at each other. She’s not the only one among my blogging friends or daily reads either going private or quitting the Internets completely.

Raee has a point. Blogging is amazing because it potentially gives every blogger an equal voice. While the democratization of our communications and political systems is a good thing, it also creates a lot of noise and conflict. Democracy is never a neat or polite process.

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The Anti-Croc Coalition can add another rationale in opposing this hideous footwear: Crocs cause accidents on escalators.

One of the nation’s largest subway systems — the Washington Metro — has even posted ads warning riders about wearing such shoes on its moving stairways. The ads feature a photo of a crocodile, though they don’t mention Crocs by name.

I’ve heard the announcement several times while waiting for a train in Metro Center. After listening to endless monotone speakers encouaging us to be vigilent about suspicious packages how bomb-proof trashcans make Metro safer, I ignored a silly shoe warning.

It seems my good taste has saved me from risking a nasty fall on the crowded escalators.

According to reports appearing across the United States and as far away as Singapore and Japan, entrapments occur because of two of the biggest selling points of shoes like Crocs: their flexibility and grip. Some report the shoes get caught in the “teeth” at the bottom or top of the escalator, or in the crack between the steps and the side of the escalator.

But the culprit doesn’t seem to be Washingtonians:

During the past two years, so-called “shoe entrapments” in the Washington subway have gone from being relatively rare to happening four or five times a week in the summer, though none has caused serious injuries, said Dave Lacosse, who oversees the subway’s 588 escalators, the most of any U.S. transit system.

Commuters, including me, are guilty of wearing flip flops. Thankfully, I rarely see a Croc on the commute. Instead, they’ve been added to the sloppy American uniform of t-shirts and shorts that dominate vacation wear. I’ve seen countless tourists, especially kids, not only wearing the horrid shoes, but comitting the worse sin of Crocs with socks.

You never know when good taste may save your life.

H/T Boundless Line

A girl will go pretty far for a pair of cute and comfortable shoes.

Several years ago, on my first trip back to Knoxville after I graduated, I found the most amazing pair of flip flops on clearance at Kohl’s. I almost didn’t buy them, but at $5 bucks, who can resist a pair of Yellow Box black and white polka dot flip flops?

While that trip was interesting for several reasons,* the shoes proved to be amazing. I started wearing them everywhere. Since I believe that sandal season lasts from April to October, they got plenty of use.

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One year ago, I watched one of my dearest friends, and the person most qualified to write a tell-all book about me, walk down the aisle to marry the super Mr. M.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been an entire year! Here’s to many more happy adventures in DIY, Mr. & Mrs. M!

My multi-tasking skills have been strained as of late. Too many wonderful opportunities going on and things to do. I’ve come to the conclusion that I could just sit around blogging all day, reading blogs all day and then playing with the new 2.0 toys that I read about in all the blogs. When my eyes start to glaze over, I could go and volunteer since I’m trying to pick my volunteer work back up and be a bleeding heart conservative again.  Sadly, I have to work. AU ain’t cheap, and I still have 9 expensive hours left.

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