I love Jesus, but I drink a little.

This will bring you joy, I promise…

The Gender of Blogs

Got linked by a post from TSK to a pretty questionable (not dirty, just questionable) website that tries to guess the gender of different blog writers (questionable because the criteria is unclear, but the results are funny all the same). Proud to say (I think) that our blog is gender neutral (but the site would guess female by 55%, which means that by default we are 45% male), which makes sense since I (a woman) blog the lives of a male and female pair. Obviously it would lean female, but I’m proud that I can represent the two of our genders. Or is the Brian part of it irrelevant, and I’m just masculine in the way I blog? But what is masculine blogging? What are their criteria for masculine and feminine period? What are mine? What are yours?

The results of this site are really funny with male blogs leaning female and female blogs leaning male, so what does that say? Mark Driscoll’s blog was only 83% male, while the blog of Emerging Women was 90% male. Does this mean that gender stereotypes aren’t accurate, since based on these stereotypes, blogs are labeled with an incorrect gender? If that’s the case, these stereotypes should be tossed out. What use are they if they are wrong? Obviously, the bloggers of Emerging Women are female, so they can’t be 90% male. So, whatever attributes we think make males male and therefore make these women 90% male can’t necessarily be attributes that make males male, because these females aren’t male and they have these attributes too. Or is writing/blogging a gender ambiguous medium that doesn’t follow the same gender rules that other parts of life find useful, therefore, causing the funny results on this website? Any thoughts?

Creamy, Bacon and Green Onion Potato Soup with Goat Cheese

Great original recipe, if I may say so myself. I’ve really been loving anything potato since I’ve been pregnant, and this soup hits the spot (also, with bacon, you can’t go wrong). 

Ingredients:

-1 package cooked and crumbled bacon

-1 five pound bag of Yukon gold potatoes

-1 bundle of fresh green onions (about 8 or 10 stems), chopped

-1 3.5 ounce package of goat cheese

-2 cups heavy cream

-3/4 stick of butter

-1 tablespoon minced garlic

-Salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Cut the potatoes (peeling left on) into 3/4 inch cubes, place in a large pot and cover with water (about 1 inch over the potatoes), begin to season with salt at this stage. Put on high heat and bring to a boil. Let the potatoes boil (stirring so as to not let them stick) until they start to fall apart when slightly pushed. Then, add the bacon, cream, butter, garlic, goat cheese, three additional cups of water, and more salt and pepper. Once the potatoes have really started to fall apart and the soup starts to become creamy (though there should still be chunks of undesolved potatoes in the soup), add the green onion. Then, season more with salt and pepper if needed, let cool and serve with oyster crackers. Serves 10 approximately, tastes dang good.

Starting Missional Futures Study Group!

I’m really excited about being a part of a 2-year learning community put together and lead by Brad Sargent (a.k.a. Futuristguy), which is the  final part in research and study that he has been working on for nearly fifteen years (on healthy ways to move the church into the future, and being able to interpret current ministry situations in order to do this). I can’t wait to get started, I know I’m going to learn a lot. Thanks, Brad, for letting me be a part of this, and for your brilliant mind and the decade plus work that you have put into this. This is going to be great.