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Living the Upstream Life

Launching tomorrow with 2013

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a New Year. Crazy how time flies. It also marks the beginning of a new blog site for me.

Livingtheupstreamlife.com will be launched tomorrow! I am excited about this new site and the opportunities for expansion that it will allow. I will be launching a facebook site to go with it, that may be up tomorrow. Either way, it's going to be a work in progress for a little bit and probably changes will  come slowly.

Visit my site tomorrow and you will have the chance to win a great Christmas cd.

Bookmark it, check back often. Look forward to seeing you there!

Happy New Year!

New Site Coming Soon...

I am in the countdown to the launch of my new site. With the New Year I will be launching a new site for my blog. Stay tuned to find out more info and how you can stay updated. It's exciting though...now I have to get back to work.

Book Review: Life of Pi

Image Credit

Life of Pi
by Yann Martel

What a unique read! I say that because I can't quite say I enjoyed all of it, nor did I dislike all of it. So I am stuck with a paradox of a story that is quite different from any other I have read. I feel I know more about zoo keeping and the animal kingdom than I ever have before and am more acquainted with guts and gore than ever before as well. Reading the book did not make me want to see the movie, let's put it that way. Too much animal entrails involved to make me curious enough to see what the movie shows and doesn't.

The premise of the book is that a boy, Pi, ends up on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It is his story of survival. Keep in mind, he grew up in a zoo, so he had a great deal of knowledge and understanding of animals. This helps him tremendously. If you have any interest in learning about zoo-keeping or animal training, there are some helpful tidbits.

On a theological level, Pi is extremely mixed up and does not know what end is up. He considers himself Christian, Hindu and Muslim, which despite what he says, is really not possible. This is explored much in the beginning of the book, but then sort of takes a back seat to the survival story.

I don't know how to rate this book. Read it if you are curious and it's laying around. But I would say you're not missing anything if you skip it.

Has anyone else read this? What were your thoughts?

And If anyone sees the movie, let me know what you think about that too!

Advent Verse: Week 4

Advent Wreath by Petr Kratochvil 

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14

God with us. Amazing.

Moment of Silence Today

IJM Campaign Update

Thank you to all of you who have donated to my campaign page for International Justice Mission. I still have a few weeks to go before my deadline, but we have reached the goal! 

I am so excited! Now, I know that we can surpass my goal, because only 15 have donated. That's alot of money raised from 15 people. If I could get 20 more people to give just $5 then we'd raise an extra $100 just like that. So I am asking again. Check out the campaign page for more info on International Justice Mission and the great work they are doing around the world.

Campaign Page