Back to Blogging

Man, it's been so long since I last posted here. It's funny how I can blog twice a day during Lightseekers Camp, but can't find the desire or time to put into my own blog. Someone recently asked if I blogged and was surprised to hear that I actually had one. What can I say? Getting my MBA sort of pushed me out of the habit and then mindless pursuits have kept me away. Perhaps I shall try the shorter, more pithy sort of blogging that Laura uses, however I'm not nearly as prosaic as she is. Maybe I should just comment on how the world is behaving these days (not very nicely, I'm afraid) or even relate about my current reading assignments. I need to ponder this, but hopefully, I'll be back again soon.

Closing Out 2010

As I sit here in the mountains, watching an old movie, I pause to reflect on this past year. Yes, this will be my one and only post for 2010, but I promise to begin blogging on this site again. For one thing, I am now done with school, finishing my MBA in late October. It had been the sinkhole for nearly all my creative writing; in all my years of primary, secondary and undergraduate education, I hadn't written as many papers as I did these past two years. Even though my last assignment was done over two months ago, it's taken me a while to shake the feeling that some assignment is due in the coming week. Perhaps once I finally see my diploma, it will truly seem real.

School was not the only great thing on my mind; work has had its moments of joy, but there have been far more moments of frustration and anxiety. The remaining 57 months before I reach retirement age cannot come too soon, I fear. The state of the economy does not help, but adds to the pressure.

The good news is that I celebrated my 50th birthday this year, bringing me that much closer to the day I can retire. It was a wonderful party, attended by nearly forty of my friends and family. My family too is growing - my brother got married and now he and his wife are expecting a son.

There have been many births this past year in the lives of my friends as well as those friends who are no longer with us. The world changes, yet the one constant remains is the Lord who created it all. He is our peace, our hope and our life. When things seem to crumble, He is there; when we experience joy beyond reason, He is there too. As we move into a new year, may we know the comfort of His presence and the strength of His righteous right hand.

Mountain Quiet

I'm sitting here at Lake Arrowhead on the sofa in front of a crackling fire (I wouldn't say roaring - I've been struggling all evening to keep it aflame because the wood is wet from today's light rain.) Except for the sound of the fire and the motor of the refrigerator in the kitchen, it is completely silent. Laura is already asleep outside (she likes to sleep in the cold weather) and the neighbors who were bustling about earlier have all settled in. I've always liked the winters here because it is so tranquil and I have tried to spend my yearly break between Christmas and New Year's in the mountains. Most often I've been successful in getting away to this place and frequently I've had the pleasure of having friends join me. Yet this year, Laura and I are the only ones at the cabin; plus, there have been no phone calls, no emails, no text messages or pages. My cell phone died and I didn't even notice. I AM GLAD! After the stressful last few months of work, school, even ministry, I am delighted to just be by myself and rest. I have slept like I haven't been able to in months. Oh, I have the internet to keep informed of the outside world, but there's no live TV with the talking heads telling me what they think I need to hear.
I know that soon enough the quiet will be broken and that I will return to the everyday routine that is my life for the other 50 weeks of the year. For now, I will enjoy the time the Lord gives to restore my soul, body and mind. See you soon.

The Frog and the Scorpion

It's been a while since I've blogged here - I've been relying more on the short blast messages of Facebook and Twitter, plus I've been focused more on school. However, with all the interesting things happening in the political world, I thought I would make some comments.

I've noticed that a lot of people who were previously uninvolved with politics have become quite active due to what they see as a government growing at an alarming rate coupled with elected officials who seem to ignore or belittle their constituents' protestations. I myself am somewhat of a political junkie in that I love to read various websites on a daily basis and political best-sellers but, I don't write letters, attend rallies or protests, nor do I involve myself in campaigning for issues or candidates. I also have a fairly consistent political philosophy - one of limited government,low taxes, strong military/national defense, free-market economics and conservative social values. Consequently, I tend to judge and vote for political candidates on their conformity (or lack thereof) to my own philosophy and while I obviously don't agree with the folks across the aisle from me, I would expect them to vote according to their core beliefs. I respect them at least for their loyalty to principles, if not for the beliefs themselves.

This brings me to the subject of this blog post - people, who for whatever reason, voted against their own philosophy or political bent in the last election and are now complaining that things didn't turn out the way they wanted or expected. This is very unrealistic - in what universe do human beings, particularly elected officials, consistent act contrary to their stated platform or core values? I am particularly amused at "so-called conservatives" who voted for Obama because they believed that he was "post-partisan" or that he really couldn't be as liberal as his legislative voting record indicated he was. Some conservatives and independents voted for Democrats because they wanted to teach Republicans "a lesson", naively assuming that a left of center Congress couldn't do much worse or muck things up too badly. Boy, were they wrong!It's interesting to read their comments on the websites lamenting their 2008 vote, praying that Obama, Pelosi and Reid don't inflict too much damage on our Republic before the citizenry gets a chance at a do-over in 2010 and 2012.

I guess these folks have never heard of the parable of the Frog and the Scorpion. The scorpion tries to convince the frog to ferry him across the river on his back. The frog initially rejects the scorpion's plea. "You are a scorpion and might sting me, killing me if I let you get too close." "No, Mr. Frog," said the scorpion, "I will be grateful for your kindness in granting me safe passage across the water and would never sting you. Besides, to sting you while crossing would mean the death of us both." This promise seemed reasonable to the frog and so the two commenced out across the wide river. Halfway through their journey, frog felt the sting of the scorpion's tail. "What have you done?" asked the frog as they started to sink as the poison began its deadly work, "now we will both perish. How could you break your promise not to sting me?" To which the scorpion replied, "You know what I was before I ever got on your back; I cannot deny my nature."

When those on the right side of the political spectrum decide to either vote for their foes or sit home on election day to spite members of their own party for their lack of ideological purity, they are extremely foolish, like the frog was. The two, four or six years plus that the leftists possess the reigns of power will not be pleasant, laws and policies will be passed that will fundamentally change this country forever ala FDR and the New Deal - not in a way true conservatives would find acceptable. My suggestion is that they not vote while holding a misguided "hope" that these politicians would somehow "change" into something they are not. We may not have liked the Republican alternative, but at least he was reliably pro-life and definitely not influenced by radical or Marxist heroes (Ayers, Alinsky, Wright, et al). Even if some conservatives believed that the damage caused by a leftist President's policies was minimal or recoverable, having the opposing side control all three branches of government along with the mainstream media would not be an environment in which government would get smaller, taxes would be reduced or strict constitutionalist judges would be appointed. How are these voters surprised now that they are being stung?

Stuck on Stupid

A few years back, during Hurricane Rita, there was a military commander (LTG Honore) who coined this phrase when answering reporters' inane questions about the relief effort -the reporters kept asking why such and such was done in the past while the general was trying to give out information that would be helpful to the survivors. He chided them for being "stuck on stupid" for focusing on irrelevant details that could not be changed while ignoring potentially lifesaving info that needed to be broadcast.
I commented on a similiar phenomenon in post (Not All Gloom and Doom) three years ago in which I talked about people who were "stuck" in some trauma that had happened years ago. I know a couple of people who are frozen emotionally at the point of their marriage break-ups over forty years ago. They are almost like the character of Miss Haversham in Dicken's Great Expectations. Miss Haversham had been jilted on the day of her wedding many decades before, but had shut herself up in her house wearing her dress with the cake and flowers still laid out as though expecting her tardy groom to show. Her disappointment had turned to bitterness and bitterness into hatred for all men as she trained her young ward, Stella to exact revenge on males by breaking their hearts once they had fallen in love with her.
These real Miss Havershams continue to relive their moment of pain, sometimes crying their hearts out as if the trauma occurred yesterday. Like Miss Haversham though, their hurt has turned into bitterness and over time they have become quite unpleasant to be around, save for a select few that they allow in. The ones who are even worse are the ones who seek to settle the score -not with the actual object of their victimization (the villians themselves might be dead or out of the picture), but others that these Havershams view as apt surrogates. On more than one occaision, I have been unwillingly selected as their foil. I really want to say to them,"I am not X, get over it."
I've had a Miss Haversham in my life; I wish I knew what her problem was -she definitely seems stuck in what may have been a happier time for her when she was a teenager, but that was a very long time ago. She also doesn't seem to want to have "grown-ups" around who might frown on her childish ways. In her mind, I am the evil one -the one that ruined her blissful return to her youth (or perhaps I just remind her of the one) and so she attempts to "get even with me". How silly and pathetic! Her lack of forgiveness and lack of desire for healing only hurt her, not me. Her heart, like Miss Haversham's wedding cake, becomes dark and moldy, full of the sin of bitterness.
You might say, "Aha! I know exactly of whom you speak." No, unfortunately, you may guess wrong because there are more than one Miss Haversham-types around these days. However, if you see yourself as one who is stuck on stupid and is bitterly reliving the past in order to try to feel right about yourself, get some help. We all can get in a rut every once in a while -the Miss Havershams though, end up living there.

A Small Pause to Reflect

As I have mentioned earlier, my MBA coursework has been grabbing all the attention that would otherwise be reserved for blogging. In a sense, the weekly Blackboard discussion boards that we do for our classes is a form of blogging, just not readable by the general public. I probably could re-post some of my thoughts from the Ethics discussion, but it is like listening to one side of a phone conversation -you miss the whole back and forth that defines the dialogue.

This term is somewhat different in that we are having a dialogue not only with our fellow classmates from work, but also with classmates we haven't met from the main campus. It was interesting to imagine what these other students were like based on their writing styles and thought processes. However, on Saturday the two classes came together for an ethics panel in Riverside, sponsored by the University. Although we were not introduced to the others, I observed some familiar names on the name tags. There, just two tables over, were a collection of a half-dozen twenty-something males - bright and shiny MBA students.

I shouldn't have been surprised that the MBA students from the main campus were youngsters, fresh off their undergraduate programs, but I wonder if they were surprised that most of their off site counterparts were more than twice their ages. Perhaps they even felt an air of superiority over their elder classmates. I remember the cockiness of my own youth -the feeling that I and my companions had the world by the tail. We just knew that we were that much smarter than "older ones" who either had never learned what we just did or who had forgotten it many years before. Yet with age comes experience and with experience,wisdom. It is a wisdom gained not by textbooks but by living life. That life has caused me to stop form time to time and reflect upon how I got here. Hopefully, my young classmates will begin to do so as well.

Tripping Up the Gender Analyzer

There is this site that takes the content of a blog and "uses Artificial Intelligence to determine if a homepage is written by a man or woman."
The results?
"We think http://thruaglassdrkly.blogspot.com/ is written by a man (63%)."

Wrong, AI, I am definitely a woman. Maybe it's the high concentration of engineer-speak in my writing. My friend Laura comes up as a woman on hers. Maybe she uses more feeling-oriented language.

Reflections on 2008

Now that we have finished a full week of the new year, I have decided to blog about some of the events of the past year. It was a year full of change - both for our world and for me personally. It gaves us an election season that ushered in a leftist president and equally liberal congress, propangadized for and abetted by a MSM intent on demonizing anything right wing, conservative or evangelical Christian. We saw the collapse of the financial system along with the loss of our retirement and investment assets. Gasoline prices skyrocketed only to plunge to levels of a decade earlier. All of my favorite sports teams made it to the playoffs only to lose out on their championships. Even the Beijing Olympics were more frustrating to me for what didn't happen for the USA athletically (US Women's Softball, for example) and for being the showcase for a hardline communist regime than for the truimphs of Michael Phelps.

Personally, there were also a number of highs and lows. I became an aunt for the first time just a few months before my uncle died, my mother's only brother. While I was not particularly close to him recently, it still reminds me of how small my extended family is and how my only remaining relatives from her side of the family are all only cousins now. I realize how old my father is (83) and remember that his side of the family is not long for this world either. I became re-acquainted with an older cousin who has supplied some family history but there is so much more that is unknown than known about my ancestors. I have gone back to school for the first time in over 20 years while my education-loving roommate deferred starting her doctoral program for the whole year. I have stayed in the same job and same office but now have a new boss. One of my nemeses was finally exposed for being a cad while another one who seeks ill for my life has only partially been revealed (I must say that this one will probably suffer a similiar fate, perhaps this year - people who sow discord and attempt to rip others down in order to build themselves up emotionally or further themselves along in life, work or ministry tend to reap their own destruction. Since I know this particular evil one reads this blog, I must say to them, consider yourself warned. The Lord will repay you for what you are doing; no amount of self-justification by you will make your deeds right.)

Yet in the midst of this disappointment I have mentioned, I am more at peace than I've been in a long while. This is because I know that God is on the throne and in control. Those who do evil (to me or others in the world in general) will get theirs, either in this life or in the world to come. Those who follow Jesus closely will receive great reward in heaven one day. God is Judge and rules in righteousness. As I discover the reality of this truth and apply it to my life, I can have confidence even as the world goes crazy.

School Days

So if you've been wondering where I've been instead of blogging, I have gone back to school. Yes, for the first time in more than twenty years, I have re-entered the world of academia to begin an MBA program from the University of Redlands held at my worksite. I'm more than half-way through my first class and it has been a real adjustment to have to do so much writing - afterall, as an engineering major, I never had to do much written work except in my G.E. classes. I will say that my blogging over the past few years has helped to enhance my writing skills and the websites that I regularly read help to challenge my thinking, both reading and writing being essential to doing well in this course.

Anyway, I'll try to come for air from time to time to blog about how things are going.

To Bee or Not To Bee

Yikes! Two months since my last post. Bad Ann. Anyway, it's not like I haven't been meaning to, I've just not made blogging a priority. One reason for the lack of posting is that I'm instead trying to be more diligent with my "gardening". Now if you know my living situation, you know I live in a condo without a yard. I do have a balcony but most of the plants there are of the cactus variety. Although I am a farmer's daughter, I have a tendency towards a brown thumb -it's hard for plants other than cactii to be healthy when you forget to water them for over a week. For the past few years I have been practicing my horticulture skills on the plants in my office at work.

After killing the first few potted plants I tried, I have been having more success in the last two years with my pothos (devil's ivy) and my peace lillies. (I also have an orchid that never blooms because the temperature is not variable enough inside). This success emboldened my to try at home. Using some empty pots from the last failed attempt at growing herbs, I went out and bought some more seeds -basil, thyme, parsley, chives, sage, rosemary to plant. The basil, parsley, chives and sage grew right away while the others faltered. I went out and bought some already young plants to replace the thyme and rosemary. I also bought a small grape tomato plant to grow in my kitchen along with the herbs.

While I'm still having problems with the thyme, rosemary, oregano and now, unfortunately the chives (all are dead as I write this), the tomato plant outgrew my kitchen and had to be moved to the balcony where it began to produce a few tiny tomatoes. "Hooray", I thought, "success!" That was somewhat short-lived because my homeowners association made me clear my balcony for powerwashing which they claimed was only for a few days. The few days became a few weeks and although the tomato plant had plenty of blossoms, there was no fruit on the vine.

My dad said I needed to play bee to get it pollinated properly but he never explained exactly how I was to do this other than brushing the flowers. That gave me all of about three tomatoes. Consulting the internet for help told me that yes, I needed a bee or a least a wind to blow the pollen around (not things you find indoors, BTW). Well, finally the tomato vine went back outside but even then the flowers would drop without fruit -no bees were coming to my balcony. One more visit to the internet told me the proper technique to play bee; I needed to vibrate the tomato plant behind the flower, perhaps using an electric toothbrush, to simulate the bee vibrations and to drop the pollen out. While I do have an electric toothbrush, I thought I'd try tapping rapidly with my finger first and shazam! I'm starting to get tomatoes. So when I step out on my balcony every other day between 9am and 4pm, it's just me playing bee.

The July That Was

When I last blogged, I was sitting in my dorm room at High School camp. Now, a month later, I am finally able to get back to it. As soon as camp was over, I drove from San Diego to begin my vacation in Lake Arrowhead. (perhaps I'll get around to putting those pics on the flickr badge). There it was family (both my brother and sister were there for the 4th), fireworks, food and fun. Oh and Laura and I did manage to do some work projects around the house -she has fully documented them on her blog.

I was back at work for only two weeks before I was off again to Lightseekers Camp from which I just returned yesterday. Lightseekers is our children's camp that I have been a part of now for the past five years; I do all the audio visual tech stuff (sound, video, pictures) for worship and host a blog describing our events so the parents can read about their kids. You can read my daily postings here.

Blogging From Camp

Here I am sitting in the dorm at Point Loma Nazarene University, able to liveblog about my experience as a counselor at HumeSD. The girls are all in the room next door talking about "stuff."

Here's my observations so far:
Our dorm rooms, the campus atmosphere, the speaker (Darren McWaters) and musical worship have all been excellent. Darren, particularly has been able to communicate basic theological truths in a way the students could understand. Hume does know how to put on a program camp quite well. The things that haven't been so great are the activities offered (while very cool to go surfing, sea kayaking and skatepark; all of these are fairly expensive -$20 mostly and limited to a certain number who had parent permission, money along with the ability to do these things). Some of the students complained that there wasn't much to do if you weren't into the beach (the weather has been cool the past two days too.)

The food in the cafeteria was okay (I must say Biola's cafeteria is much, much better -I have eaten there with Laura), a step just below the cafeteria at work. I don't think offering pizza and burgers as an option to high school students every lunch and dinner is a wise thing nutrition-wise.

My pet peeve though is recreation. It is very well-planned and executed here. But it has the same problems with rec back when I was a youth 30 years ago -the very nature of the competition -it's very competitive. It's not just Hume -TFB never did much Hume Lake Camping until I was in college/young adult age. We often did our own camps at Lake San Antonio, Bass Lake or caravaning, yet we still had these competitions that brought out the worst in people, including leaders. Forest Home and Thousand Pines were not much different back in the day. The points scoring always seem subjective and arbitrary -for example, my students complained that it seemed they won most of their team games yesterday, but somehow they slipped from 10th to 14th place. The girls' attitude was why even try, why bother to memorize verses if they may or may not improves their standing (No, Bible memorization does not have value for them by its own right, although it should.) And although, it hasn't happened yet here, I remember the "creative scoring" that was used to boost teams that have fallen behind so they could come from behind and win on the last day (not because they said all their verses either.)

I'm not saying to do away with rec, but there has to be some way of rewarding achievement without rewarding bad behavior (the cheating that is perpetuated in the games -one boy today through a ball from the sidelines, hitting one of our girls who assumed that meant she and her partner were out. Since they were in a race, they stopped playing and our team lost. There was no deduction for the boy's team that played foul.) Then there is the "spirit points" that seem to help those teams that have HS cheerleaders on their teams. Pity the squad that lacks cheerleaders and jocks while instead populated by the asthmatic, awkward and "geeky". (The memory verse requirements are there to "even things out, unfortunately, there are no spirit points for cheering on the memorization wiz.) I know that camp recreation is a big part of the summer camp experience, but it really should look less like one of those teen summer camp movies where the teams play dirty tricks on the other side. We aren't there, but the temptation seems to be great.

But even with these concerns, I feel overall, it's been a wonderful week. I'll blog more later, especially on what we've been learning.

The Adventures of Me

Well, it has been a really long time (six weeks) since my last post and this time my lack of posting has been due to busyness. I've posted pics of some of my adventures/activities on Flickr (see bottom right). We celebrated Laura's ThM baccalaureate (at Knott's Berry Farm) and graduation at Biola, both outdoor events in the rain;I've been camping down near San Diego. Celebrated Father's Day with the family, including my new niece. Now I'm getting ready for High School Camp, my vacation, Vacation Bible School at TFB, Lightseekers' Childrens Camp- all events happening in the next two months. Of course work is as busy as ever for me so time off from work may be necessary even if not convenient to others. Other things have been happening as well which should provide lots of posting material. Just wait.

Congratulations Laura

I just got off the phone with my roommate Laura; this, after I read her blog relating how she won TWO awards for her ThM work at Talbot School of Theology (Biola University). One was the Zondervan Award for Outstanding Master's Thesis and the other was for best work of the year in Systematic Theology. In addition to her recognition at the awards chapel today, it also marked her last class before she receives her degree next Friday.
Seeing first hand all the hardwork she has demonstrated over the years, I'm glad that she is being rewarded for it by this recognition. I'll even cut her some slack for NOT CALLING ME to tell me before I had to read it online.
Congrats!

Mighty Musk Ox Warrior Princess

Ok, I'm just back from Women's Retreat at Thousand Pines. Our theme was Revive: Body, Soul and Spirit and our speaker was a lady named Donna Partow. I had thought that this was going to be one of those "Kumbahya, let's focus on Jesus for a weekend" sort of retreats and I must say though that I was totally unprepared for what ensued. While I won't go in to all she spoke about, her focus was to call women to action and revival, to be like musk oxen (see here for a description of their defensive behavior towards the weak and young). She really challenged us to be a participant in what God is doing, not to be distracted by life's events and to realize that we are responsible for our responses to them. For free-time, some of the ladies did the confidence course and zip line as you can see in the flickr photos below. The comments I heard from my fellow TFB women concerning this weekend were overwhelmingly positive.

After the retreat, Laura and I drove over to my house at Lake Arrowhead and took some pictures of the beautiful spring flowers also posted on flickr.

The Best Laid Plans...

When I finished my last stint in the "cave" (as I refer to working on proposals at my job), I thought that certainly I would have the chance to catch up on my blogging. take my car into the shop, catch up on some personal errands. However, another proposal (actually more than one) came along and sent me right back inside. (remember what I posted about feeling like a groundhog who popped his head out of his hibernation, saw the shadow and went back in for 6 more weeks of winter? Well, this groundhog saw the shadow and had six more weeks in the "cave".)

Now having emerged just this day, I see that there won't be such a thing as being outside once and for all. This is the pattern of my life for a while and all those things that I have laid aside until I have time will just have to be squeezed in to what time I do have to do them. It will mean just taking my car into the shop or blogging when I plan to, I won't wait until my calendar is clear to make them happen. I may not be able to do long blog posts like my series on Marriage or Biblical Equality, but there have been enough interesting things in the news to comment on plus my own personal observations of life to provide plenty of blog fodder. We'll see...

Rolled Away

Actually, I'm talking about my kidney stone -fortunately it rolled away quite quickly so I am able to spare you painful details this time. I was just trying to come up with a catchy title; I think I would blog more if I could find the right post title easily when I was in a writing mood.

I have been blogging though, just not here. You can see I added the TFB Youth Blog and so I've been busy there especially since we got back from High School camp. You can see what we've been up to including the wonderful news that we have a new youth pastor.

For those who know of TFB's history of travails regarding this, it is certainly an answer to prayer. It is scary I must admit, we have thought each time previously over the years that we had the "right one", only to discover it wasn't exactly a good fit. The search for the best fit is a difficult process, somewhat like dating, because each party is putting their best foot forward and is somewhat hiding their "warts" from the other. There can be a tendency to become infatuated with a prospect (on the church side) or a church (on the prospect side) and gloss over any flaws the other has. There has also been a bit of not "sweating the small stuff" discrepencies because we are trusting God to make everything to work out okay. (I have re-thought this approach -obviously if a young lady was dating a guy and discovered some red flags about her beloved, but was going to marry him anyway, trusting God to fix it, we would say she was foolish. So why, if a church or small body of believers made an similiarly ill-formed decision should we expect divine intervention to rescue us from ourselves? Hmmm?) But as I said, I have high hopes in a fellow that seems to be a quality guy (and I haven't thrown out that trust in God part either - see Jude 24).

Here's an interesting change of subject: it seems a certain person with an AOL account has been "deep diving" into this blog, spending quite a bit of time reading page after page of archived posts. Just so this person knows, I KNOW exactly from where you've entered this blog and where/when you exit, I even know your unique ISP address. If your intentions are good and you are blessed by it, then why not leave a helpful, encouraging comment. If however, you have a darker purpose, I encourage you to get a life. (perhaps for example, you should write your own blog that is open for all to see, I would certainly read it and comment if I found it to be worthy.)

Calgon, Take Me Away!

[The title of this post was taken from an old TV commercial advertising Calgon brand bath salts/bubble bath. A woman, after a hard day of work and family retreats to her bath and plaintively cries the immortal, aforementioned quote. I have found the phrase quite useful to exclaim when having a bad day, week, month or year while alas I have never actually used the product.]

Do you ever have one of "those" days -you know, the one where everything seems to go wrong, or even if it doesn't go wrong, seems to knock the stuffing right out of you?
Well, I have had one of "those" except it wasn't just for a day, week or month. (one of the main reasons for silence in blogging lately.) It's not that it has been all wrong, but it seems that since the end of September, I've been pulled in myriad different directions with work being the main culprit. I won't get into the specifics of that, for one it would violate my self-imposed rule of careful blogging practice, however I will say my delight at being released from the "cave" was short-lived as I re-entered it for nearly the entire month of January.

December is usually a lot more laid back for me ever since I decided not to get caught up in the year end craziness. For me, this means I don't do Christmas paegents, I don't shop 'til I drop and I take the entire week before and after Christmas off from work. The plan this year took on a bit more -work demands meant only one day off before Christmas week and although I took time after to go up to Arrowhead, the extreme cold meant less rest while I tended the fireplace fire with frozen, wet firewood. My grand plan to work around my house with the rest of my time off was then surrendered to taking care of a miserable upper respiratory cold. My sickness, which prolonged my stay at home, was then interrupted by phone calls from work, asking me to come in. (Ugh!!!)

That crisis is now over, but there are more (and different ones) looming on the horizon. And of course, there are also those helpful people in my life who like to tell me to my face how what I'm doing is wrong (worse are the ones that go behind my back and complain about me to others, worst of all are the ones who try to get me in trouble with those in authority over me.) [Note to those people out there: I am acutely aware that I'm not perfect, that I make mistakes and I even lose my temper. HOWEVER, I am an adult and your "helpful words" that are beyond minor admonishment to do better, really don't accomplish anything more than succeeding in aggravating me. If you are tearing me down to build yourself up, NEWS FLASH: IT AIN'T WORKING.]

And this is why I say, "Calgon, Take Me Away!"

Christmas Is Coming!!!

Just when I thought that this year would be really slow the last few weeks before Christmas break, things at work started to pick up a bit, threatening my attempt to take 3 whole weeks off. About the best I've ever been able to stretch the annual Christmas shutdown by taking a few additional vacation days has been 2.5 weeks total.
Until I know for certain, about the best I can predict right now is to take the 3 days after New Year for a full solid two weeks.
This semi-busy period at work and church, plus the various Christmas celebrations has inhibited my blogging of late too. So in an attempt to be brief here's what's going on in bullet point form...

- I'm back to teaching High School Sunday School(since October when the leadership turned over. We are studying the Gospel of Luke.
- I won't talk about work except to say, finished one thing, relaxed briefly, now in the thick of it on another task.
- Visted the mountains over Thanksgiving. Nice!
- My Betta fish in my office died :( (Probably from neglect/loneliness while I worked in another building for a while. Yes, he was fed regularly.)
- The weather here has been really crazy -lately it's been very cold at night.

More posting later....

The Hope Project

My friend Karla forwarded me this link and asked me what I thought. If you ever wanted to get a pretty good overview of why Christians believe in God and follow Jesus, this is it. It costs you nothing but some of your time to watch it. Produced by the folks at Mars Hill, it uses some very beautiful images along with the pieces from some acclaimed Hollywood productions to tell the most important story ever. Visit and let me know what you think.