This weeks round of celebrity sightings

Yesterday, I was going insane at work and needed a break. Usually I run to the Coffee Bean which is just a couple of blocks away. On the way over there, I came across Holly Hunter getting a star on the Walk of Fame. I stayed and watched because she's a pretty dang big star and I figured work could wait. Luckily, the ceremonies are pretty brief. As I was standing there listening to her thank everyone, I started to look around to see who showed up to support her because there are always a couple of other celebs there. And guess who I saw? Steven Spielberg!! That might just be the coolest celebrity sighting I've had so far. I also saw Ed Harris (who I was also very excited about, but not everyone knows who he is) and his wife Amy Madigan (who you would most likely know as Meredith's psychiatrist on Grey's Anatomy), Kate Capshaw (Spielberg's wife), Billie Jean King (not certain why she was there exactly), and Laura San Giacomo (Julia Robert's friend in Pretty Woman and the girl from Just Shoot Me). I tried to take some pics with my camera phone, but it's a pretty cheap phone so the quality is not very good. Anyway, it made for a pretty fun break!

The rain stayed away!

I know everyone is wondering (please note the sarcasm), so I'm doing something unusual and posting before I go to church. It didn't rain at all yesterday! It was kinda cold, but I bundled up with leggings/long johns underneath and made my way to Dodger Stadium to watch the Cardinals stomp the Dodgers 4-0. It's always fun going to the game out here because there are a lot of Cardinal fans here. So you don't really feel like you're in the minority when you're cheering for them. Some of the Dodger fans can be jerks, but for the most part they're pretty good sports. All in all, it was a fantastic evening and I can't wait til next year when the Cards come back to SoCal. I'm thinking I may have to road-trip it to San Diego next year to change it up.

Please stop raining!!

Normally I love the rain, especially since we get so little of it out here. It started raining last night and has been raining off and on all day with a pretty steady rainfall coming down since about 9ish. The rain has already put a damper on the church picnic tomorrow. Even if it clears up now, it's still going to be a soggy mess. But most importantly, I absolutely cannot have it interfere with my plans for tomorrow evening. Once a year my beloved Cardinals come to town to play the Dodgers and I look forward to it all spring. This is that weekend. I almost got tickets for tonight's game, but thankfully I decided I wanted to go Saturday night instead. Now I'm just hoping it clears up early enough and the sun comes out and dries the stadium. It's already supposed to be cold tomorrow night, and I can't handle wet, too. It's going to be more similar to a fall football game in Fayetteville than a spring baseball game in Los Angeles. I don't even know if I have the proper attire to bundle up. I'm going to have to go digging through my stored stuff. Argh you rain! Please, please, please go away!

Too funny!

Gay Marriage

This has been a huge topic of discussion out here given the California Supreme Court ruling last week. I almost typed about it then, but for some reason didn't feel compelled. But now I do. Let me first state that I probably have an opinion about this that a good chunk of you won't agree with. And I didn't develop this stance after moving to liberal California. I started developing this stance in college in the hippy town of Fayetteville where I for the first time in my life encountered openly gay individuals.

My stance is this - I'm anti-gay marriage, but pro civil unions. Many of you have I'm sure gotten the sense of my annoyance with the Christian church in regards to gay marriage. I grew up hearing the rhetoric that homosexuality is evil, then I got the message of love the sinner hate the sin. But I never saw that in action. I was being told that by people who had never encountered a homosexual in their life. My basic feeling is it's so easy to preach how horrible homosexuality is and how we should never allow gay marriage or civil unions when you're dealing with it at arms length. Meet someone who's gay, befriend them, truly get to know them as a child of God, then come talk to me about your stance on the issue.

I'm not ashamed to say that I was one of the minority who voted against the marriage amendment in Arkansas. And frankly, I never will vote for any amendment to define the act of marriage as only between a man and a woman. But aren't you anti-gay marriage, you might be asking yourself? Yes, but my vote is still reflective of my belief. I believe marriage is a Godly institution. When/if I get married, what solidifies it in my mind is the Biblical sanctity of joining two souls (a man and a woman) to become one. What doesn't solidify it is the piece of paper I have to fill out to have my marriage recognized by the state. That is simply completed for purely contractual purposes - I can file my taxes jointly, I can be on my spouse's insurance, my spouse will inherit my stuff when I die if a don't have a will, so on and so forth. I believe that homosexuals should not be denied this right. By denying it, we are discriminating against them on the basis of their sexuality and this is just unacceptable. By allowing them to enter into civil unions, we are not condoning the practice. We are simply allowing them basic rights that everyone should be able to enjoy (for lack of a better word). I do not believe, however, that they should be allowed the classification of marriage and the church should absolutely not perform gay marriage ceremonies as this goes against Biblical teachings.

I have more detailed thoughts about this, but you get the general idea. The bottom line is I believe Christians have approached the topic of homosexuality in completely the wrong manner. It is my hope that God changes the hearts of fellow Christians to think about homosexuality in a new light. Maybe it's time we actually practiced what we preached and truly loved the sinner, while still disapproving of the sin.

Thoughts

Hello everyone. It's been a whole week since I blogged! What is going on here? As usual, I don't have much going on to report, but I thought I'd share some random thoughts.

It's officially time to break out the sunscreen. I hate the summer with a passion. When you have pasty white skin you come to loathe this time of year. I'm the girl walking around in pants and a jacket even when it's 100 degrees outside because I'd rather be temporarily uncomfortable than risk the wrath of the sun. I usually slather on SPF 50, but the kind I have is so greasy. Does anyone have any suggestions of a light sunscreen that's preferably an SPF 50?

How excited am I about the new 90210?! Seriously. I could not be more stoked about a new show. One of my all-time favorite shows, Lori Laughlin from Full House, and old recurring cast members? Come on! I'm in heaven. You can check out a preview here - 90210.

I'm currently preferring Facebook over MySpace. Mainly because I'm addicted to flair.

I cut my own hair Saturday night. It was a risky thing to do, but I was just so annoyed. I can't find anyone out here to cut it like I want. They always keep the back too long and the sides too thick. I usually wait so long to get it cut that I'm so shaggy that I think they get it short enough only to get home and realize they didn't. I think it's not hip to have the bottom so short or something. Maybe my wants are too conservative for their spiky blue/purple/pink/platinum hair sporting noggins. Anyway, it turned out surprisingly well.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Just want to send a quick Happy Mother's Day to all of you lovely mothers out there! But especially to my mom, who in my opinion is the bestest mom in the whole world (though I admit to being a little biased). Thanks for giving birth to me 28 years ago. Since I can't ever top my first gift to you, I just hope that my undying love and adoration will suffice! I love you!

Pics from the concert

I think I've already expressed how much I love Alicia Keys, so I'll keep this short. The concert was AWESOME! The girl is just ridiculously talented. This was an arena tour, and I will say that I think she's better suited to smaller venues. She's at her best when it's just her and the piano, though I did enjoy her attempts to quasi-dance. I will continue to go to her shows any time she tours. Jordin Sparks and Ne-Yo were her opening acts. Jordin was cute and she has a great voice, but right now I just find her kind of generic. She sounds like everyone else. Ne-Yo was absolutely the most boring set I've ever seen. Now I must say that I'm not a big fan of his music, and unfortunately he's not much of a dancer so there wasn't much for me to get excited about. I took a few pics of the concert. For some reason, they turned out kind of blurry when I uploaded them. Not certain why that happened, but at least the ones on my computer are nice and crisp.

I also filmed a little video of what happened to be her best performance of the night. I was just playing with my camera, but I'm so glad that was the song I got. The ticket said no videos, so I was trying to be sneaky. Though I don't know why because everyone was doing it. I was going to put it up for you all to enjoy, but the lawyer in me just won't let me do it! Somehow I can justify the pics, but the video just aint happening. Must not violate copyright laws!! Argghh!!

Alicia Keys!!!

Tomorrow morning I'm heading to Vegas to see Alicia Keys at the MGM Grand. I'm super excited, and I've been annoying everybody all week. I LOVE Alicia! This will be the third time I've seen her in concert. She puts on an amazing show. I never would've gone to see her perform, but saw her in concert almost inadvertantly the first time. She toured with Beyonce and Missy Elliott a few years back. I really wanted to see Beyonce, and my friend really wanted to see Missy. But we both walked away more mesmerized by Alicia. We saw her again on her last tour when she played at the Kodak. Now my friend lives in Vegas, so we'll get to experience her in a new town. If you like Alicia and ever get the chance to see her in concert, I highly recommend it. She's the perfect mix of show and just good ol' piano playing and singing.

Jon & Kate Plus Eight

Do any of you watch this show? I am in love with it! I watched a marathon of the first season show's back last year and there are new eps on now. I could not imagine having 8 kids under 6, and it amazes me how well they manage it. Plus it's always nice to see a good Christian family portrayed on TV, their faults and all. It's on TLC. Check it out if you haven't. I guarantee you will get hooked!

Happy Saturday!

It's days like this that I absolutely love LA. The sun is shining, it's about 70 degrees, and all I want to do is be outside. And that's saying a lot coming from a girl who likes the indoors! Hope the weather's nice where you are, too.

Lord, Liar or Lunatic

I know the good chunk of you that read this blog are Christians, so I'm sure you're probably familiar with C.S. Lewis' proposition from Mere Christianity. In case you aren't, in a nutshell, what he's saying is that with Jesus you have 3 options. Either (1) he really is who he says he is, (2) he's essentially one of the most evil men to walk the face of earth in making the claims that he did, or (3) he's just completely insane and should have been locked away in an insane asylum. I'd heard this argument before, but it recently popped up again. It came up in conversation last week, and then my pastor talked about it on Sunday. And it's just stuck with me for the last few days. As I chew on the idea more and more, I realize how much more profound this is to me now than it was the first time I heard it back in college.

The one thing every person has to grapple with before they die is Jesus. Either you believe he is who he says he is or you don't. Other religions (and non-religious people for that matter) pretty much all come to the conclusion that Jesus was a great prophet or a great human teacher, but not the messiah. But the bottom line is they had to address his existence. I don't have to grapple with who Mohammed was or who Buddha was, so on and so forth. Christians don't define them as prophets or good teachers. We simply define them as heretics or false Gods. If their god was the one true god, then they would have no choice but to label Jesus in the same manner we label their "prophets." But they don't!

The way I see Lewis' idea is really a matter of 2 choices. Jesus is who he says he is or he was just a complete jerk for claiming to be God and leading all of these people to believe that he was the messiah and the only way to heaven. There is absolutely no room for simply concluding that he was a great teacher! So if you don't believe that my Jesus is who he says he is, then don't come at me with your idea that he was simply a great human being because that is just not an option. Either he's the one and only savior or he's not. Deal with it.