blog stuff | Permission to Peruse

Announcement

September 1st, 2010 at 8:00 am / Amy Bennett / 1 Comment »

Let me point you over to OneTreeHillBlog.com this morning where I’ve made a big announcement for the site. There is a lot of training and planning going on behind the scenes and that’s what I’ve been absolutely swamped with lately. It’s amazing how much I’ve been doing on autopilot for almost 3 years. Putting what I do into words and instructions has been fun (I love CamStudio!) but quite eye-opening. I’m really excited for this step and loosening my grip is already quite freeing.

While we’re on the topic I’ll say that Kaitlin and I have closed NBCParenthood.com for the foreseeable future. I think we’ve decided that the audience just doesn’t have a fan site presence at this point.

Yesterday I had an exciting meeting with Danny Gokey’s manager and looking forward to the future of that site.

And I guess I can’t leave out our FNL site. The fifth and final season will be starting next month and then we’ll have to say goodbye to that show. I’m going to enjoy the last leg of that ride. Texas Forever!

Through all this I’m looking forward to putting more time and attention into THIS site. So if you’re reading this THANK YOU.

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Introducing MotherofFashion.com

August 26th, 2010 at 3:44 pm / Amy Bennett / 1 Comment »

I knew there was one more thing for my list today. This deserves it’s own post anyway!

I have been saying for years that my friend Dani needs to start a blog but we could never quite settle down and get to it. I finally wrangled her to my office and thus, MotherofFashion.com was born. We’ve been working several late, Starbucks-laden nights (why yes, I do work for coffee) working on the design and I’m super happy at how everything has turned out. Dani is a fashionista at heart and always looks her best but just under those cute clothes is one of the biggest hearts I know. Through the site, she wants to share her fashion secrets to help us all look and most importantly feel our best. The best thing I can liken this to is a Mommy version of What Not to Wear.

She’s just getting started but has caught the blogging bug and has lots of plans oozing out of her creative mind! I simply can not wait to see where this goes! So hop over there and first tell her welcome and second, give her a big Happy Birthday message for today!

Love ya, Dani!

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BlogHop ’10

August 4th, 2010 at 9:52 pm / Amy Bennett / 18 Comments »

If you’re from the BlogHop, I am SO EXCITED you’re here! I know you have a lot of hopping to do so let’s get to it.

First and foremost, my faith is most important. I’ve been a Christian since I was 7 and love God with all my heart! I’ve been married for 12 years this week to my high school sweetheart and we have two girls that are 5 and 7. By day, I’m a programmer for a large bank and am thankfully able to work from home. It gets a little crazy around here because after work, I run OneTreeHillBlog.com, IHeartDannyGokey.com, FridayNightLightsFan.com and NBCParenthood.com. Yes, TV is my guilty pleasure and I love to blog about it! And this blog you’re on is my personal one that I’ve been running for over 8 years where everything and the kitchen sink goes. If you stick around you’re gonna find posts on….

books, movies and TV

cooking (I cooked through Pioneer Woman‘s entire cookbook!)

Hopefully a few of those stood out to you. I’d love to connect with you on Twitter or Facebook and would be thrilled if you subscribed and tried Permission to Peruse out for awhile. Leave a comment to say hi and I’ll hop over to your blog!

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Posting to Your Blog When You Can’t Get To Your Blog

May 31st, 2010 at 1:44 pm / Amy Bennett / No Comments »

So for whatever reason you can’t get to your blog (or Twitter or Facebook). Yourworkhasprobablyblockedit#ahem. But don’t worry! You CAN still post to it…even on your cell phone!

Posterous.com to the rescue! My posterous.com site is pictured below. As you can see, it looks like a very simple blog. And if you’re really paying attention, you’ve seen that post on here already. So why do you need another blog to post to your real blog? Well, Posterous.com is an online blog BUT with a lot of bells and whistles so yes, your content may be duplicated in some cases, but that’s ok! No one even needs to know you’re posting from posterous! Let’s see how this works!

Click in to see!

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Trading Spaces: Bloggy Style: Love

May 17th, 2010 at 7:58 am / Amy Bennett / 4 Comments »

I’m back from Austin and have tons to talk about but first thing, I’m participating in Trading Spaces: Bloggy Style through Heather at Desperately Seeking Sanity. We “trade blogs” with a group of people. Suni is my chosen partner so here we go!

Suni Heflin is a God chaser, loving wife, compassionate sister, daughter, and sometimes hard-to-reach-on-the-phone friend. She works by day executing, planning and organization in her corporate non-profit Marketing position. Suni has been married to Cameron, a Firefighter/EMT, for almost 6 years. They have a lovely black lab/mix, Tigger, who is one of the loves of their lives! What is Love? What do I love? How is love expressed and evident in my life? We’ll start with the everyday things of life and work our way up, shall we? Please visit her blog at http://lifeloveandahappyhome.blogspot.com/

I love, love, love coffee. Every morning I wake up to this insatiable desire for a cup of the most amazing beverage on the planet: Coffee. It wakes me up, makes me smile, keeps me from getting a migraine (yes, I’m an addict), and just plain makes me happy.

Shopping! This is the most precious picture to me some days . . . .the entrance to an Ann Taylor or LOFT. I get crazy satisfaction from shopping . . . Hubby doesn’t get that same warm fuzzy feeling from the bill. Which leads me to my next love . . . .

My Husband I never dreamed or imagined I would find someone so wonderful. Girls, it came after kissing A LOT of frogs, believe me. Cameron is the most grounded, rock solid in his faith, loving, compassionate and considerate person I have ever met. I am so lucky to be called "Mrs. Cameron Heflin".

My Saviour I believe the highest, and purest, form of love comes from our Heavenly Father and my Saviour, Jesus Christ. Because He loves us so much, we can live. Because He sacrificed everything out of love for you and I, we can live. Because has prepared a place for us called Heaven, we can live. Eternally. Eternally . . . . Love is wonderful thing.

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Parenthood…WATCH IT

March 2nd, 2010 at 3:40 pm / Amy Bennett / 3 Comments »

Kaitlin and I are taking another leap of faith on a TV show: Parenthood. Jason Katims who produces the awesomely awesome Friday Night Lights is now a writer for Parenthood. Ron Howard, Craig T Nelson, Lauren Graham, Dax Shepherd…the list of cast members and crew just goes on. The show is a family drama inspired by the Parenthood movie from 1989 with Steve Martin and Dianne Wiest. I’m not sure how else this show could be set up to be golden.

The best part is we got a head start and created the first fan site.

Watch it. Tonight at 10 on NBC after American Idol.

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As You May Have Expected…

January 18th, 2010 at 4:40 pm / Amy Bennett / 3 Comments »

So, I did it. CW’s new Life Unexpected that premieres tonight at 9 has a new fan site. It really looks good and I have high hopes for it. For a short version, it’s about a girl that spent her life in the foster care system and then reunites with her birth mother and father and all the drama that ensues from that. Come check it out!

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Monday Mentions

October 19th, 2009 at 9:15 pm / Amy Bennett / 2 Comments »

I read this post and thought man, I wish it was Monday so I could post this right away! And hey look, it’s Monday! So go read this post. And I really shouldn’t need to post this because you’re all reading Billy’s blog by now, right?!
These ornaments are so cute. I feel like playing Bingo when I see them! Did you know I like playing Bingo? I really do. One time at band camp I went to a “real” Bingo place with a friend. I didn’t win anything but my friend had won $500 there once.
I loved this post. As I commented there, God has brought the theme of obedience to me so many times. Feelings don’t matter…obedience does! And sometimes, it makes miracles happen!
Bill Cosby is on Twitter. I have it marked to follow him this Friday!
I think this scarf is pretty.
This post made me laugh.
As a devoted fangirl of many things, it made me all sorts of happy inside to see another fangirl meet whom she fangirls over (that was probably all sorts of grammatically incorrect). Seriously, I almost cried.
And lastly, have you subscribed to our Friday Night Lights podcast yet? And you still have 9 more days to catch up!
Oh and I just saw this…new New Moon clip!

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Lexi-isms in Bitstrips

October 18th, 2009 at 9:51 pm / Amy Bennett / 2 Comments »

Ok, so my friend Denise pointed me to Bitstrips, a site to create your own characters and comic strips. The only thing I could think of to do was pull out some Lexi-isms. Not all of them fit the length/format of a strip but this one I thought would do. Seems to be more funny to me in the blog post but it’s really cute seeing us in comic strip form!

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Meeting Mr. Wrong: The Romantic Misadventures of a Southern Belle Review

October 13th, 2009 at 10:33 am / Amy Bennett / 5 Comments »

Reading Stephanie Snowe’s book Meeting Mr. Wrong: The Romantic Misadventures of a Southern Belle has been on my to-do list since it came out. I started following her on her blog several months before it came out and I knew I’d enjoy it. And enjoy it I did. I finished it in two nights. And I laughed out loud on more occasions than I can count. And not just a “heh” but a lay-on-your-bed-and-kick-your-heels-into-the-mattress-type of laugh. In some cases, it was a drop-your-jaw-cover-your-mouth kind of shock of her “misadventures” which I think should have been more aptly named Dating Disasters. I had no clue people act like that.

The book initially reads like a collection of short stories, each chapter providing a misadventure of its own. Towards the end of the book it begins widening the angle and you see what else was going on in her life at the time. Neither misadventure nor disaster seems to cover THAT part. The book ultimately culminates to the email where she meets her future husband. My understanding is the next book is more about their relationship. But this book? Oh my word at the funny. You don’t have to know Stephanie or her blog to enjoy this book. If you’d like a good laugh and probably a little more appreciation for your dating or married life, definitely check it out.

You can read the first few chapters here. And when you realize how funny it is, I’ll do you a favor and give you the link to Amazon. I would give away my copy but I intend to shove it in the hands of those around me

Disclaimer: I was neither paid nor asked to write this review. I just really enjoyed it! But yes, the link is an affiliate link

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Monday Mentions

October 12th, 2009 at 11:57 am / Amy Bennett / 1 Comment »

I’ve seen this up and down the Internet, but I love these Family Rules.
This was a great reminder to pray for my children’s future spouses. And yes, that sounds funny.
I love, love, loved this story of a family that Said Yes to something crazy.
Back in my post about Crazy Love I mentioned a video I had watched and couldn’t remember the name. Well, here it is.
For some reason it made me a little sad to see Geocities go. I don’t know if I ever had a site there but I do remember when every single personal site was hosted there.
I really love these Pumpkin Families. Let’s see if I can get it together and do one this year. The girls would love them!
Megan Joy recently sang in Salt Lake. People, including me at times, gave her a hard time during Idol this year but I really do enjoy her voice sometimes.

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Monday Mentions

October 5th, 2009 at 11:35 am / Amy Bennett / 7 Comments »

I know I said it before, but I highly recommend Crazy Love by Francis Chan. My relationship with this book has a story on its own. I plan to tell it soon.

And now that I’ve mentioned Francis Chan, he’ll be speaking at Verge Conference in Austin, Texas in February . And oh, did you know that’s where Friday Night Lights is filmed? I feel a road trip brewing.

Allison Iraheta debuted her single today. I think it’s so perfect for her. Unfortunately I don’t like Kris Allen’s enough to buy it It’s just too much of the same thing. Sorry, Kris!

I watched the only existing video of Anne Frank several times. I just love seeing the old film footage knowing that was actual life, not a movie. I would love to see more of that.

I loved this post and the idea of a family tree.

I fully intend to try this crockpot lasagna, this hummus recipe and this granola bar recipe.

I really love this idea of making your master bedroom more like a B&B.

I’ve been using some new software. First, Jing is great for screencaps. Audio Hijack has been awesome for recording Skype conversations on my Mac among other input sources, Switch has been a great audio file converter (they have some other great software too). I also hear Audacity is great for both Mac and Windows as an alternate but I haven’t tried it yet.
I’m very much enjoying the Scrabble app on my iPhone to pass time instead of Twitter.
And lastly, lets end with some Dilbert gold. I cracked up laughing when reading it at my ILs yesterday, Heather called me yesterday just to see if I’d seen it and now I’m seeing Mashable has highlighted it.

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Twitter: I miss you, Facebook: not so much

September 18th, 2009 at 4:19 pm / Amy Bennett / 5 Comments »

I’m on the 5th day of my 40 day fast of Twitter and Facebook. Facebook was becoming something I used less and less so I’m not missing it too much. Twitter, however, I miss a lot. Or at least I do sometimes.

Sometimes, I enjoy the increased time and freedom away from it. I don’t feel like I have to keep up so I don’t miss something. I don’t feel pressure to start a show at its showtime so I can tweet and read relevant responses. My family doesn’t miss me being glued to my phone . I don’t either.

But there are things I miss. I miss sharing great links. I miss sharing funny things my kids say. I miss venting. I miss reading about current events. I miss tweeting about current events. Most of all I miss finding out about everyone’s day. I don’t care what people say, you can find find friends on Twitter and you can keep up with friendships there. And I miss it.

Back on the flip side, the point of it is working. I’ve spent more time studying God’s word and in study materials this week than I have in a long time. It’s been good. I’ll be thinking through how to balance it all in 35 days. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t miss it. Cause I do.

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