Joining the Army -- or 7 Quick Takes Friday

Internet connection temporarily intact (this will make sense in a moment)! Joining Jen's army tonight. You should too!

• Currently composing in Word because for some reason my laptop cannot remain connected to the wifi in my tiny apartment. Could it be the PS3? My husband’s Toshiba seems to have no problem remaining connected, and neither does the PS3, but all our Apple products (both our phones, his iPad, my laptop) can’t seem to hold a connection for 2 second together. Does anyone know why this might happen?

• Asked myself in the shower if there is any way to have too little self-pity. I decided there is no such thing as “not enough self-pity,” so I can pretty much attack that ugly trait with all I’ve got. No holds barred!

•  Some days are just a gift. Today was busy to the last, but it was so good, somehow. Good moods, good vibes for the weekend, the end to a tough week, little triumphs, and it doesn’t hurt that I enjoyed a super sweet and fun date night with my husband. We went to the reception for the Credit Union Cherry Blossom ten-miler. They were revealing the new t-shirt design for 2013, and showing off their social media sensitivity (apparently they select two “social runners” each race… interesting trend you can check out on Twitter @cucb). Hubs won a guaranteed race entry AND a t-shirt, and we got some 2012 race shirt leftovers for about half price and twice the neon + reflective strips. Special, since that’s when we got engaged. Sometimes I get a reminder how good it is to marry your best friend … forever. Ok, enough syrupy stuff.

• How about this dreidel?  I mean, did we really need to make the dreidel into a plush dog toy? I put it to you that NO, no this was not at all necessary. Which is why I didn’t buy it for my dogs. Thanks, Ross. Keepin’ it weird. But okay, they did have some other stuff my dogs needed...
 

• Ross moved on to bigger and better things, and I finally acquired a selection of mis-matched frames for my big, empty dining-room-that’s-really-part-of-the-living-room wall. I don’t have pictures in them yet, but Snapfish keeps kindly reminding me that “I have free prints, what am I waiting for???!!”, so soon I will humor them and use my free prints. You watch.

• Beth Moore, in a lecture I heard this week, made a fab distinction between irritation and tribulation. I think we sum this up in our mod society by saying things like “#firstworldproblems” or “#whitegirlproblems” or something of that sort whenever we know we are complaining about something trivial as if it is devastating. Beth was talking about how sometimes we waste so much energy on our irritations, so we are burnt out when it comes time to handle the tribulations, which are ultimately for the purpose of perfecting a good work in us. And the point is, let’s not get caught up so much in our irritations so we can be prepared for the tribulations. When I say it, it doesn’t sound groundbreaking, but when she said it, it did. Anyhow, can’t stop thinking about it as I drive around in my car getting irritated with all the slow drivers.

• Exactly W H A T is NBC going to do in place of The Office and 30 Rock? "Whitney" is definitely not going to suffice. Maybe it will be a show in which Justin just raps it out about what he's going through as he tries to get over Selena. I know we're all interested.

Now go visit Jen and the rest of the QTers and keep reading for her suggestions of what to watch on TV once The Office and 30 Rock are both gone.