Six Degrees of Separation

I'm not fond of Facebook. I think it's a mess, to be quite honest, and it doesn't seem that most people use it for anything more than sending invitations to any number of silly applications that force you to invite 12 more people to be able to do anything with it and taking a bajillion quizzes that tell you essentially nothing. However, I'm there nonetheless, and last night, I discovered an interesting feature.

Facebook informed me that it had a list of people that I might know and wish to add as friends. It listed 30 people. Strangely enough, I really DID know about 25 of them, and I have no idea how Facebook figured out that I knew them. Most of them were on the "friends list" of people who are on my "friends list", but even so, there are hundreds of people on the friends lists of my friends, most of whom I don't know. How did Facebook guess with such a high accuracy which ones I did?

Well, you can't see the profiles of people until you add them to your friends list, but you can see who is on THEIR friends list, and by doing exactly that with some of these people that turned up on my "People you might know" list, I was fascinated to discover all the connections that I never knew existed.

For example, I clicked on the name of a girl that I knew from my old church. (How Facebook knew I knew her has me floored. We don't live in the same city. We didn't attend the same schools. I have nothing about the church on my facebook account to indicate we knew each other from there. She is not even on the friends list of any of my friends. How in this world did Facebook know I knew her? Kind of eerie.) So I look at HER friends list, and I see a little girl that I used to watch when she was in kindergarten, of course not a little girl anymore. I look at her list and find the son of a missionary I knew as a child. I look at his list and find the little brother of a friend I had in junior high. On his list I find... my cousin that I didn't even know was on Facebook. Who knew! On his list, I find a 2nd cousin... on my OTHER side of the family that THIS cousin is not related to. I link from there to another 2nd cousin, and what do you know, her list contains the name of a little boy I babysat one summer when I was in college, as well as one of my sister's best friends. The connections go on and on, no matter whose name I click on, I find SOMEONE on their friends list that I also know, and in most cases, had no idea that those two people knew each other because I do not know them from the same place.

It really makes you realize what a small world it is. If you have a Facebook account, I encourage you to try this experiment for yourself. It's a lot of fun to see who knows whom, and you can find people you haven't even thought about in 20 years. :o)

We interrupt this blog for a special promotion...

Let's be frank. Household products do not enthuse me. I know some people rapturously extol the wonders of this product or that, but I just don't get into that. Sure, there are products I like, products I prefer, but it's nothing to get excited about. At least for me.

But today I made a discovery. A household product that I can get excited about.

Dusting is not a particularly hated chore, by any means, for me. I hate washing dishes. I'm not fond of scrubbing bathrooms. But dusting is fine. I don't know how often one is "supposed" to dust, but I probably don't do it frequently enough, because I'm not a scheduled housecleaner. I clean things when I notice that they need to be done, not once a day, once a week, once a month, etc. And therefore it's not likely that I am going to dust unless I notice a layer coating some shelf or knickknack or piece of furniture. But then I dust everywhere. As I said, it's not a dreaded chore, but it's not a chore to get excited about either.

Well, all that is in the past, ladies and -- well, I guess it would be a stretch to think that a gentleman would have read this far in a post about cleaning the house... However, I discovered a product today that has entirely changed my viewpoint on dusting. Dusting has instantaneously become my very favorite chore ever and one I will greatly look forward to each day... for I can't imagine not dusting every single day now, knowing that I will get to use this product each time I dust.

What is this amazing product? Swiffer cloths... but not just any Swiffer cloths... those are pretty nice in and of themselves, but goodness, I've been using them for years and they aren't anything I've gotten overly excited about once the newness of their initial discovery wore off. These are very special Swiffer cloths... they are scented with febreze. Now I noticed at least two fragrances available on the shelf, and perhaps there were more. I typically don't buy fragranced products -- first, I usually would prefer to skip the fragrance and spare my nose anyhow, and second, I figured the added fragrance is just that many more toxic chemicals to inhale. However, there did not seem to be any unscented ones available, and I was completely out, so I was stuck buying the fragrant swiffer cloths.

I don't know about the other fragrances, but the lavender vanilla scent has got to be the most lovely scent I have ever smelled. I wish I could buy a perfume that smelled exactly like this. Seriously. I guess it's not really a perfume type of smell, but then I could smell it ALL DAY LONG. At a minimum, I wish it was a fragrance that could linger around my house long after I finished dusting. I might just have to leave some cloths lying around in each room. :o)

Perhaps I should just look for Febreze in this fragrance and spray it on all my clothes. I suppose that would work.

In the meantime, dusting is now my favorite chore, because I get to inhale this lavender vanilla fragrance that is better than any lavender or vanilla I have ever smelled before. So if I don't blog for awhile, you'll know why... I'll be dusting. :o)

Happy Spring

I intended to post a "Happy Easter" entry, but it just sneaked up so fast this year!! And it didn't feel terribly Eastery, because there was just no evidence of spring in the air yet. It looks like spring is finally starting to approach, so I'll post about Easter now.

Easter and spring signify new life... another chance to start fresh. Very timely for me, as just days before Easter, I officially began a new life of sorts.

I love all the pictures of the resurrection that God paints for us in nature. Baby birds hatching from their eggs to say, "He is alive and so are we!" and leaving those empty eggshells behind them like that empty tomb. Flowers and trees blooming represent to me the beautiful new lives we have in Christ after a dead dark winter of the soul. Spring offers hope after a season of death and despair, and the resurrection offers hope and abundant life as well.

Update on the wee ones: I saw Little Girl and Baby Boy for Easter, both as cute as they can be. We went to see the Easter Bunny, and thankfully, Baby Boy didn't cry, although he intently watched all the other crying babies. :o) Baby Boy is making a few sounds but still not really talking much, but he's so bright and understands so well that I'm not too concerned yet. He signs, though, and it's so cute. He has about 20 signs he uses consistently.

Little Girl is reading. I gave her an "Early Readers' Bible" for Easter, not sure if she'd be able to read it as it was a harder level than I expected it to be given its title, but she plowed through it and with only a little help on the biggest words was able to read me a whole story. She likes to write far better than she likes to read, and she also loves to draw, so she is constantly busying herself with drawing pictures and writing stories. She adores Baby Boy and he thinks pretty highly of her too. They are so cute playing together. :o)

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter, and is ready for spring! I know I am!