Blog vs. Facebook

It seems to me that Facebook is taking over the world of email and blogging. That is, so many of my friends are on Facebook and do a type of micro-blogging with the "status updates," which are remarkably similar to Twitter's tweets, that one hardly needs a blog anymore. Everyone who's on Facebook already knows what you're doing, if they care to look. Plus people upload their photos, post notes or links to videos, etc. People message each other on Facebook rather than sending regular email. But then I suppose a weblog provides a much larger and more individual space for thoughts and stories, with fewer other distracting elements.

It's been 5 days since I last posted here, but I've been posting little status updates on Facebook, and keeping up with lots of folks on there. Since I last accessed Typepad, which is my blog hosting company, they have made a lot of changes. I am just taking in the different look of this post composing page and the options. My main issue so far is that the typing speed in this window is really slow! Annoying when I make typos and have to go back and it takes a long time, so I press delete too many times, etc. Ah, that's better - I discovered the new "light editor" which works like the old one. Much less frustrating. Apparently I have a "slow" computer. Hmmmph. I didn't think I did. Other problems are arising from the changes in the way it does links and the preview...

In any case, I highly recommend you join Facebook if you haven't already, and if I know you personally, we can keep up there as well :-) I'm not saying I'm stopping blogging after these 4.5 years, but it's making me think.

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But on to actual words about us:

Friday night was really busy - Jason got home from his 3-night trip to Wengen (hiking, biking, high ropes course, bonfire, cooking...), Emily went off to a birthday sleepover, and David and I went to the opera in Zurich (Aida). It was intriguing watching an opera sung in Italian (operatic Italian, keep in mind), and supertitled in German (literary German, keep in mind). If it hadn't been for the excellent synposis we received ahead of time from a local British composer, I'd have been lost. As it was, we followed well enough. Three words I should have looked up ahead of time: Ehre, Schicksal, and Verräter (Honor, Fate, and Traitor) - these kept coming up on the supertitles, and I knew they were something of a central theme...I eventually figured out the last two by context, but the first I found out in my purse dictionary on the way home.

Jason is home with a sore throat today. He also seems to be the editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper, as a 9th grader. Fascinating. He is getting things more organized for the 2nd edition of the year, now that it is clearer that it will be his job to do so. I pray blessings over his cheerful efforts.

Emily's been doing much better adjusting to her headgear...in time for the next orthodontic visit on Friday...we'll just keep praying her through!

Sunday afternoon we met for the first time with our new "K-group" from church (in England they called it "small group" or "cell group," in Rhode Island "kinship," in California, "home group"  or "Growth Group" and in Illinois, "housegroup"). The K stands for Koinonia (= "fellowship" in Greek, I believe). We have members from Lebanon (who are Armenian and now have a Swiss passport too, and speak Turkish, Arabic, French, English, German, and Swiss-German), Malaysia (who speak Malay and Mandarin and English), Russia, and America. Quite the intriguing mix. We plan to study Max Lucado's book 3:16 - The Numbers of Hope every other week on Wednesday nights.

I baked pumpkin cookies and zucchini bread this morning, as it is my turn to bring the treats to our ladies' study tonight - and of course I'm leaving some for the family, too :-)

It's rainy and cold here in Zurich, and foggy, too. We might even get some snow on Thursday through Sunday, as the temps are meant to be hovering right around 0-3°C Thu & Fri (that's 32-37°F). We are excited. I picked up our skis yesterday, so we're all ready for the occasion to arise to use them.

I'm really proud of my mother and her husband, who just celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary - congratulations again, you two!

Well, I'm going to hit publish and see what happens, whether there's any change in format...blessings on your day.