Monday, April 13, 2009

Monday April 13, 2009

7 great tax refund vacations

FOR FAMILIES

Philadelphia
Because its reputation as a family-friendly city is well deserved.

The Audit: 3 nights + a "penny" tour + kid-friendly attractions + meals + transportation = $895 per family*

Shelter: Base your brood at the centrally located, 48-room, art deco–style Alexander Inn. Ask for one of the half-dozen Double Your Pleasure rooms, each of which has a pair of double beds, a seating area, and bay windows. These rooms start at $169 per night in July and include breakfasts.

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Sunday, April 12, 2009

From the Webmaster

Blessed Easter and Good News!

Our site is back up! We love the blog so much we plan to keep it active. The blog will feed on Sunday Evening and Wednesday Evening.

We will be posting our favorite topics on the blog.

As a reader you are invited to post stories on the site. Sign in. If you aren't a member sign up. Then click to submit and share your good news.

We particularly would like to know what your faith community is doing. These stories go in the Faith Issues, Ministry Focus or Event category.

Let us know your good news!

Sunday, April 12, 2009 Good News Now Stories

Dandelion

"Dandelion is an herb that is beneficial from root to blossom. It is one of the most versatile and important herbs to learn about."


Click here to read more.




The Resurrection: Reason to Rejoice

"I remember several years ago standing behind the curtain during our church’s Passion Play. At the end of each performance, I would step out and explain how to be saved by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior. Onstage, Jesus had just risen, and the disciples were running back to look inside the tomb. I got so caught up in their excitement that for a brief moment, I wanted to go out on stage amidst all those characters dressed like people two thousand years ago, so that I could look inside with them and see the empty tomb."

Click here to read more.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Good News for April 11 (posted by Mary Beth)

Easter Saturday

"Today we wait: having faced the sorrow of Good Friday, we eagerly anticipate the joy of Resurrection Sunday. We have the benefit of knowing what happened on that glorious day. Pity Jesus’ followers who were waiting with all of the doubts and fears and pains brought on by the previous day’s events."

Click here for more on Easter Saturday.


Resurrection pastors rely on Mark to tell Easter story

"When pastors gaze upon their flocks after sunrise on Sunday, many will see congregations cast in shadows—haunted by diminishing investments and the prospect of losing jobs and homes.

Amid this fear and doubt, the clergy must lead the faithful to a message of hope—the miracle of the Resurrection commemorated at Easter.

To do it, many will rely on the Gospel of Mark, a tale that embodies the anxiety of confronting the unknown."

What can Mark say to you in these times? Click here to find out.


Live Stations of the Cross: Houston worshippers gather to witness re-enactments of Christ’s last hours

"Join St. Phillip of Jesus Catholic Church parishioners as they portray the Stations of the Cross."

Visit the slideshow here.


Chocolate masterpiece: Snook’s Candies a popular spot for Easter supplies


"Just call him Folsom’s Michelangelo, but instead of marble, he works with chocolate.

Snook’s Chocolate Factory on Sutter Street, which was founded in 1963, is offering a wide variety of Easter treats including various chocolate bunnies. The store’s classic surprise bunny has a chocolate coin and a coupon for a chocolate-dipped waffle cone sealed inside its hollow body."

Click here for the sweet story!


Mom's job: Driving kids ... everywhere

"This week alone, my four boys had basketball practices and games, tae kwon do classes, religious education classes, floor hockey games, piano lessons, a Japanese class, chess club, a violin lesson and two birthday parties.

Like parents everywhere, my husband, Pat, and I struggle to manage the schedule of our four boys (ages 11, 9, 7 and 4). Including trips to preschool and the elementary school, we made 26 round trips and spent about seven hours in the car."

For tips on managing a schedule full of chauffeuring, click here.


Having a ball: Bowling is still the family sport

"As a kid in the '70s, I occasionally watched the Pro Bowlers Tour on ABC. It was appealing in an old-fashioned sort of way. I dug the players' double-knit pants, the special shoes, and, of course, announcer Chris Schenkel's even-keel call of the games.

Bowling is anything but dowdy these days."

Click here to read more on a real family outing.



New apartments open for seniors in Lower 9th Ward


"A new Lower 9th Ward apartment complex, built with financial help from the city and the federal government, is giving some senior citizens a chance to return to the part of the city they called home before Hurricane Katrina.

Rising Sun Homes, a 34-unit complex at 1420 Charbonnet St., offers efficiencies that rent for $375 a month and one-bedroom apartments for $475 to people 55 and older with low incomes."

Learn more about this bright spot on the New Orleans map by clicking here.


Backstory: How rapper Lil Wayne was saved by alert off-duty cop

"Lil Wayne never would have made it had it not been for big Robert Hoobler.

The celebrated New Orleans rapper would have bled to death on the floor of his mother's Hollygrove apartment the afternoon of Nov. 11, 1994, at just 12 years old, after accidentally shooting himself in the chest while playing with a 9 mm handgun."

Click here for the story of a big-hearted man and a future star.


Artwork from Hearst Castle returned to heirs of Jewish couple

"The grandchildren of a Jewish couple whose artwork was taken by the Nazis in 1935 received three of the paintings back from the state of California this afternoon at a ceremony in Sacramento attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger."

To read more on the story, click here.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Good News From Mary April 10, 2009

You're Never Too Old To Come Of Age

On a normal day at the Menorah Park senior living center in Cleveland, it's pretty easy to get an appointment at the beauty salon.

But when CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman visited, it was no normal day.

Women were lined up to be jacked up and dolled up. They each got new lashes and lips and enough hairspray to down a bird in flight.

Why the fuss?

Residents were getting ready for a Bat Mitzvah -- their Bat Mitzvah.

Click here to read the rest of this story.

Paying More For Music -- And Liking It

The price of music on CDs is going down -- way down. As in, dying. Case in point: The Virgin Megastore across the street from the Apple store in San Francisco is closing for good. You can get some nice going-out-of-business prices there.

And make no mistake, it's Apple, and its iTunes online store, that is nailing the coffin shut on CDs. So what is Apple doing now that they've won? Raising prices, of course.

Click here
to read the rest of this story.

From the Bronx to Germany and Dachau

Johancy Torres had never heard of the Holocaust before last fall, but she will soon be tracing the footsteps of Jews at the Dachau concentration camp during a trip for fifth- and sixth-grade students at Public School 86 in the Bronx.

“I think I may cry when I see the ovens,” said Johancy, 11, adding that she planned to take a copy of “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” when she leaves later this month.

The Holocaust lessons are part of an unusual effort by P.S. 86’s teachers to expose students to a world far from their Spanish-speaking neighborhoods near the No. 4 train in Kingsbridge Heights. About 95 percent of the school’s 1,700 students are Hispanic or black. More than three-quarters of them are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Click here to read the rest of this story.

UFOs? Aliens? Area 51 Revealed


It's the centerpiece of virtually every modern UFO theory and a symbol for everything the government doesn't tell us.

About an hour's bus ride northwest of Las Vegas, Area 51 is one of the most famous military bases in the world, in part because the government barely acknowledges its existence.

Click here to read the rest of this story.

Report: Amazon At Work On Larger-Screen Kindle

The second version of Amazon's Kindle e-reader hasn't been out two months, but Kindle 2 may already have a big brother on the way. According to a late Friday The Wall Street Journal report, Amazon is working on a new larger-screen version of Kindle that could be available before the 2009 holiday shopping season.

The Journal cited unnamed sources who said they had seen prototype versions of the new Kindle. Amazon itself wouldn't comment except to tell the Journal that it wouldn't speak to "rumors or speculation."

Click here to read the rest of this story.

Good Friday, April 10, 2009 Good News Now Stories

It's Easter that makes eternal life worth it

"If a scientist offered you a pill that could keep you from dying, would you take it? Many people would say, 'Of course' without hesitation. But let's think about this for a moment!"

Click here to read more.


Extreme Love on the Cross

"It may be a singular Catholic devotion to contemplate deeply and often the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. These days, not even many Catholics want to keep Christ company in such a manner. Human nature begs us to move on to the glory and comfort of the Resurrection. Why stay in the ignominy and suffering of the cross when you can bask in the light and promise of Easter?

Because upon the cross hangs Extreme Love and there is nowhere else to experience such a love as this."

Click here to read more.

Shot of the Day for April 9, 2009

Finding Free

By Flickr Member Sherri Mcleod