mormonism 6 Comments

Mormons and their Holidays

Sheryl said:

do mormons have special holidays? or do they just have the weird underweartraditions?

Good question, Sheryl. And, before I go upstairs to wash the massive amounts of dishes that pie-making has dirtied, I will answer this good question.

I think Mormons may actually celebrate fewer holidays than “normal” Protestant religions—at least, I know we didn’t do funky things for Palm Sunday or Lent or any of that. We had celebrations like Pioneer Days and attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant in upstate New York, but those weren’t really religious holidays as much as festivals.

As far as holidays are concerned, Mormons are pretty much like the rest of the Protestants. Easter and Christmas are the biggies, as with any other Christian religion, although Mormons believe that Jesus wasn’t actually born in December—I think they said it was actually in the Spring. I think that’s actually a Bible scholar thing more than a Mormon thing, now that I think about it. Has something to do with the fact that Mary and Joseph were trucking along home to be taxed, and when that happened during the year, and all that.

But, anyway, that’s not to say that Mormons don’t have their share of weirdness. It just doesn’t happen to be in their observance of holidays.

Weirdness of Mormons in a nutshell:
(in case I haven’t harped on it enough in the past)
– sacred undergarments protect Mormons
– hot drinks (coffee/tea) are not for the body or the belly
– native americans came from jerusalem on a boat
– magic glasses helped to translate the book of mormon
– the dead sea scrolls are actually lost writings of moses
– the second coming of christ will happen in america
– god lives on the planet kolob

Please feel free to comment on your confusion and amazement on any of these topics. I will gladly rant for your reading pleasure.

food 1 Comment

Butternut Squash Pie

I just finished baking a pie. It’s my first attempt at pie-baking from scratch (OK, the crust was store-bought), so I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to turn out… but it sure smells good. Since I have such faith in my wifely kitchen abilities (note sarcasm), this pie is NOT going to Westlake for Thanksgiving.

However, the three pies Aaron plans on baking later this week will be.

We got volunteered to bring dessert for about 15 people or so. *rolls eyes* Aaron had been hoping we’d get asked to do rolls or green bean casserole or something. No such luck. 😉 And, get this: Uncle Pete (who’s hosting Thanksgiving this year) is apparently going to call ME about the pies later.

Riiiiight. Let’s wait until we see whether the butternut test pie comes out OK, then we’ll talk.

…If this pie ends up being pretty good, would you like me to post the recipe?

Edit, 10:30pm: The pie is quite yummy. More along the lines of sweet potato than pumpkin, and distinctly squashy, but still quite yummy. I’m content.

site-related 5 Comments

I *heart* Stylesheets

Did I happen to mention that, with my all-CSS layout, a minor full-site redesign (color changes, slight positional tweaking) would take considerably less time?

How about one evening?

Everything looks the same right now, but you will all get a Happy Hannukah surprise in a couple few weeks. (Hannukah, Chanukkah, however you Romanize it… I’m taking my spelling straight from the Jew myself.)

I’m also planning a Christmas theme, maybe a Yule theme before that (Dec 21), and afterward… Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s, Independence Day, blah blah blah. And, in case you were wondering how I’m managing all this (which I’m sure you were), I’m writing new stylesheets for each holiday theme, then writing some PHP code to plug in the right stylesheet on the right date. There’s only a few things—like those fancy horizontal rules—that I’ll still have to change out manually, if I get a bug up my ass about it.

And, of course, I’ll include posts giving the history and significance of the holiday and of the symbolism I’ve incorporated into my design. I’m also going to make a valiant attempt to actually do some real research into each holiday for which I design, and not offend anyone by my ignorance. For example, for my Hannukah theme, I wanted to use a real Hannukah quotable in the masthead—but I didn’t want to use the name of God, 1.) because Jews don’t write the Name of God, and 2.) because I’m agnostic-bordering-on-atheist myself, and don’t want to give prospective visitors the wrong idea (that is, that I’m proselytizing). So, I did a decent amount of researching and looking around online, and ended up quoting only part of the prayer said after the candles of the menorah (hannukia, whatever) are lit.

Not that Sheryl would be offended if I put every single Name of God I could find up on my webpage. Elohim! ELOHIM! (Mormons call Him that too, by the way. We—well, they, I guess—also know the Four-Letter Name, and also don’t write or pronounce it.)

You’ll all get a Diana-style crash course in Hannukah and Judaism (sp?) in another few weeks, complete with quotables from the inimitable Sheryl and many lovely links.

I like my new Hannukah theme better than this yellowy-green thing I’ve got now. I can’t wait to switch it out…!

site-related 3 Comments

Still Tweaking…

I’ve got my Backlog going on, but it’s not very pretty yet. I can’t figure out how to change the separator from a dash to a colon, like in the current tune. And, even so, it’s still pretty long for my sidebar width. I may see if there’s some way I can make it only read the title, then link to Amazon for the artist. That would be sweet.

Er, wait. I figured it out. Let’s hear it for figuring out how to cut-and-paste the correct lines of code, and to change them appropriately. Now I just have to see if I can make it remember and display my backlog while I’m not listening to WinAmp.

I kind of wanted to play with this more, but I want to check out the Nightline about the Clinton Presidential Library. Sounds interesting.

Edit, 11:30pm: I just did something pretty damn cool, IMHO. No, I didn’t manage to make my web page remember my backlog after I quit WinAmp—that would involve more programming than I know or care to get into at this particular point in time, as I think I’d have to export the songs to a file or database.

No, I made it so that my backlog 1.) doesn’t show blank lines when I haven’t played five songs yet, and b.) isn’t quite as ugly and wrapped around funny. Next I’m on, mouse over one of the song titles in my backlog. It should pop up with “search for U2 on Amazon,” assuming it was U2 I was listening to, and the link searches for the artist on Amazon. w00t!

Maybe I *should* try studying Computer Science sometime, maybe get a certificate like Amy… I’m really getting off on this coding thing. I’d forgotten that a.) I know enough logic to do basic programming, and b.) I enjoy it.

site-related

I Made It Go!

Holy fucking shit. I learned myself enough PHP to make the Currently Hearing plugin work.

Almost.

I’m still working on making the archives pages display it properly, as they’re in a different directory. Any ideas, web gurus?

Oh, and something else that’s entirely supercool: HostRocket allows PHP parsing for HTML file extensions. I just had to add a line into my mime-type list in my HostRocket control panel, and whoosh! My stupid archives.htm page is suddenly PHP-ified.

I’m going to go scour the HostRocket FAQ page now and see if I can find a solution to my little PHP nested directory issue.

I’m stoked!

Edit: Yeeeeeah! I just wrote my first Else statement in PHP! And it works! Check it: if you’re on the main index or on the main archive list, then you’re in the public_html directory, and the sidebar displays my Currently Hearing info. If you’re in another directory—say, reading an individual entry or posting a comment—you’re in a different directory that’s not public_html, and you see my driving tunes.

I am such a geek. But I’m OK with that. Next step: PHP-ifying (and possibly MySQL-ifying) the rest of my site so I don’t have to rebuild MT so often…