No more car-kabob
This just makes me sad. Today, Berwyn is less Berwyn-ish.
The domestic things I will and will not accomplish today
I’m back to Friday as my day off. A Friday off feels more like a Saturday off to me.
Today, I plan to sabbath in a domestically oriented way, but not put myself under too much stress about getting all of things done. And, the list of things I could do sounds pretty nice:
- Take a long run (nevermind…the impending thunderstorms just hit us hard).
- Mix up some batches of bread dough from this particularly amazing book. (Already done while Zora was eating breakfast!)
- Interview another potential childcare person, and hope that it looks more promising than yesterday’s interview.
- Dishes and some laundry.
- Get to work on some mittens that should look something like this and are due to be given as a gift in the next two weeks.
- Continue to think about what on earth to get my hard-to-shop-for sister whose birthday was last week.
- Bake a pizza for Zora and the babysitter. (We made one from the above-mentioned book last night and it was incredible.)
- Color with Zora.
- And, yes it’s my day off so I shouldn’t, but this weekend is going to be back-to-back craziness an I’ve got an event tomorrow morning for which I need to produce a final agenda and a number of documents.
Open mouth, insert…cheese
Reason number 27 why I should be more careful when I get chatty:
I visited a local coffee shop I’ve never been to yesterday afternoon, and got a little chatty with the purveyor while she made me a really wonderful iced latte.
The register rang it up at $35.29, and we were joking about the mistake, “Ha, ha, with the way food prices are, it could get that expensive…” Then I continued on that with a little riff about how I just read an article about foodies in crisis over rising food prices, “I mean, if you’re paying over $20.00 for a pound of cheese, you might need to get your priorities straight.”
As I was leaving, I noticed on the storefront sign that in addition to coffee and lovely pastries, this establishment also sells, “Fine imported European cheeses.”
Broken Crayons
I found out something important about my childhood.
Growing up, we had this huge tupperware carton of crayons. Everyone was broken and wrapper-less.
I attributed this to two things: (1) We were a bunch of messy little hellions who broke all our crayons; (2) our parents were too cheap to buy us a nice new set of crayons.
Yesterday, I found out that this was actually an intentional act on the part of my Dad. Apparently, one of his college art professors told him that the first thing to do when you brought home a package of crayons for your kids was to rip off the wrappers and break them in half. This gives children permission to use the crayons more creatively–use the sides, use the dull ends, shading, etc.
When I got home this afternoon, I took out Zora’s crayons and started breaking and unwrapping.
Thanks, Dad.
No no no no no…it’s almost May
Of the May (and late April events) here’s where I now stand:
Done: Youth Sunday; Erik has a job; met with speaker for adult leader mission trip orientation; submitted worship service to worship magazine
Yet-to-be-done: Adult leader mission trip orientation; confirmand dinner with session and all its trappings (ice-breakers, video editing of faith statements; display of scripture-engagement projects and argh 20 other things); finish mission trip recruiting; revise and revamp mission trip permission slip packets; order supplies and furniture for new 3/4s Sunday School ministry; youth car wash; all the crazy details of confirmation (like the cake which was a nightmare last year…the Lutherans stole ours from the baker!!!); find childcare for Zora, and take her to work with me until I do; figure out how to work more efficiently with Zora around; clean my desk (as always); figure out what to do with that government rebate check; spend time getting reacquainted with my much neglected PDA calendar (or decide to scarp it and go back to paper); find a conference to replace the April one that I had to cancel my plans for; lose another 5 pounds (I’d say 10, but I ate too many cookies today for that to be realistic); find a 5k to run (how come they’re all on Sunday during church?); buy pants that fit skinnier me (OK, that’s a good problem to have); buy birthday present for my sister whose birthday is already two days ago; finish knitting project in time for mother’s day; sermon for Memorial Day weekend, apparently…
Oh, and the article I’m supposed to be writing right now. Gotta get that done, too.
This is worse than Easter or Christmas.
Noah’s Ark
It’s not every animal on the ark, but I still think she’s one smart cookie, and the kitty sound is particularly good, isn’t it?
Death, Taxes, and the Month of May (Or, why my retreat is perfectly timed)
We’ve had a series of big days. Taxes, of course. Erik’s grandfather died last week, so travel and family. Canceling my plans for a conference (shout out to Calvin College for being fabulous about refunding the registration. I love you guys!). Good rumblings in the Erik-employment department. An earthquake we didn’t feel. Zora learned how to pull a dress over head, exposing her belly to the world. Road trip and hotel stay with a toddler. A few temper tantrums (at least one of them mine).
And there are big days coming. Next week is Youth Sunday (i.e. my youth group does the worship service. Yes, this involves A LOT of preparation.) My May includes: confirmation and all its prep; a car wash; a sermon; summer trip orientations; ending Sunday School; a one-day-multi-sensory-Sunday School experience to write; VBS planning; and about thirteen other things that I’m forgetting.
This means that the New Pastor’s Retreat I head to tomorrow is perfectly or horridly timed, depending on how you look at it. Either, horrid timing because there is oh so much prep work to get moving on. Or, perfect because I desperately need some quiet time away before the storm hits.
July, you look so calm and appealing from here. (Oh, wait…I think we are planning to move to a new place in July when our lease runs out. Never mind.)
Coming attractions: come back later this week for a fabulous video of Zora running through her entire repertoire of animal noises. The kitty is particularly impressive.
Da Mayor: benvolent dictator, always good for a quote
Mayor Daley is one of the things I love about Chicago. In theory, I think he’s a bit of a dictator. But, some of the decisions he makes, I kind of agree with.
Plus, he’s always good for an absolutely brilliant quote.
Yesterday, police shot a cougar that was wandering around Roscoe Village (a residential neighborhood on the north side). Cougars are not “normal” there. At all. I’m not usually for shooting animals, but the thing was wandering around a day care center, cruising the sidewalks, etc.
Some people are upset about the shooting. Not Daley. Speaking what might actually be common sense, he said the following (and, please, to get the full effect, imagine a thick Chicago accent):
Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they’d sue the city because the police officer didn’t do their job. So everybody second guesses, you know. So let the cougar run around and attack children. Everybody would be filing lawsuits, and yelling at the police and all the local officials. . . . Too bad that we didn’t have an animal care and control personnel. [They] were en route to the scene. But again you have to make individual decisions. I didn’t see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, ‘Oh I love you’ and bring it in the house. This is unbelievable. I mean, I just, I just. . . . Don’t worry about it.
I wish these pictures were no longer relevant
I wish this photo-essay only dealt with issues that were long past in our country, that the flag was something we could look at without any squeamishness about what our country stands for, and what we actually do and how we actually act as a nation.
Unfortunately, by the time you get to the end of the essay, the last image is just too recent.
It makes me think of a bumper sticker I saw once: “I love my country, but I think we need to see other people.”
Perservation of the Saints
I heard someone use the term “perservation” today. Is that really a word? Word’s spellcheck says “no”. Not that Microsoft is the final authority on words, particularly theological ones.
I think he meant “perseverance.”
I’m a big fan of perseverance. Mostly because I’m not a big perseverer myself. And so the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints has particular resonance with me…I interpret it to mean that God won’t let go of me, rather than me having to cling on to God through sheer will power.
Maybe I’ve been too much surrounded by Calvinists who use perseverance in a theological sense, but I wondered if this guy was using perservation because it sounded more scientific.
I think we Calvinists should stick with “perseverance of the saints” rather than “perservation of the saints”. It’s just too close a slip from there to “preservation of the saints”, which suggests long lines of Presbyterians and Reformed folks outside of Botox clinics. (Speaking of which, my gynecologist’s office now offers botox. Really? Like to make your uterus look younger?)
I did manage to do some persevering today, but it was only to visit THREE grocery stores on a hunt for fresh lemongrass. I settled for dried. I really needed that lemongrass because I’ve got the beginnings of a whopper of a cold/cough thing, and all I could think about eating today was a big bowl of really spicy Thai soup. The dried did the trick.