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Plow Forward
You may have noticed the last two articles seem a little contradictory. After all, the moral of Cooking Tip #1 is to consider your actions before you leap; the moral of Non-Newtonian Fluids is to leave the pondering to someone else. Leap out of the boat and go with gusto! So wait, aren’t those contradictory?…
Non-Newtonian Fluids
I had a friend recently introduce me to the wonderful world of non-newtonian fluids. (Stick with me here; this is cool.) Non-newtonian fluids are fluids that change their properties when presented with different forces. One classic example is a mixture of corn starch and water. Try this at home: mix 2 cups of corn starch…
Cooking Tip #1. Do Not Microwave Cool Whip
I had a friend in college who used to microwave her ice cream. Apparently it was too cold straight out of the freezer, so she warmed it up a bit. We laughed at this idiosyncrasy for weeks… until we all started doing it too. Such is the nature of friendship. Now it seems to me…
Cooking Tips I Learned the Hard Way
I am the last person on earth you should ever take cooking lessons from. Except for one simple fact. I’m a survivor. This in itself is proof of God’s divine intervention in my life, as anyone who has ever witnessed my cooking can attest. Cooking, for me, frequently involves large flames, explosions, billowing smoke, and…
Cracking, Part III
Click to read Part I or Part II. Paul literally wrote the book on human weakness and God’s strength – or at least one of them (2 Corinthians). But he is certainly not the only example we have. Nor, you will be happy to know, is weakness necessarily synonymous with suffering. The “cracks” that allow God…
Emotional Trust
Sometimes I wonder: If I have faith in God, why do I still feel afraid or angry or overwhelmed… or all three? Shouldn’t faith mitigate all these negative emotions? My impulse is to think of such emotions as bad, as though my faith must be weak if I am scared or sad. But when I look…
Mystery Rental
Don’t you hate it when you’re walking across a giant parking lot and suddenly realize you have no idea what your rental car looks like? Or does that just happen to me? Ironically enough, I was just listening to a story on the radio about the world memory champion who secured his second straight title…
God’s Letter to Me
I wrote a similar idea on the new resources page, but I keep thinking about it. And thinking for me is one step short of writing. Which brings me here. (Lucky you.) One of the habits I try to uphold is to read something Christian every night before I go to bed: the Bible, a devotional, an…
Cracking, Part II
Click to read Part I. It paints an interesting word picture to think of ourselves as shells of dust with the Spirit of God shining through the cracks. But what does this actually mean? What does this look like in the tangible? As I think about this image, I think about Paul, who suffered a…
Rotten Bananas
My apartment currently smells like bananas. This is because I have a banana languishing on my counter encased in an increasingly brown skin. It has passed the point where I actually want to eat it, but it is not quite so far gone as to be demoted to the compost bin. What it really needs…
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Meet Janet!
Janet Beagle, PhD is the founder of The Mustard Patch. She divides her time between the Midwest and New England, and if she’s not writing, she’s probably out hiking with her 2-and 4-footed friends.