Thursday, February 28, 2008

45 minutes later

Staff meeting is over - and it was relatively painless! Now, a short staff meeting is a new concept for us and one I would dearly love for everyone to grasp hold of.

I have many different blogs that I read. Some of the bloggers talk to me all through the day in short bits of information. Others blog like I do, in long streams of thought. Me? I feel a little cheated when the only thing I get is one or two sentences, but then I feel a little overwhelmed when I have to read an entire missive.

My biggest problem is that I DO have a lot of words in my world. I have a ton of things to say. It's hard to limit me once I get going. But, when I'm faced with the fear of having to write a lot down on a single subject, I tend to avoid writing.

Oh ... I have no idea ... I'll just keep going and plan to be as random as possible. You'll never know what you're going to get from me!

Normal? HAH!

There's no such thing - even though I might want to believe it about myself.

Alright, I've been yearning for tater tot casserole. I went to the grocery store and bought stuff for that and some other things. Now, maybe you don't understand what a big deal this is! I haven't cooked in ... well ... hmmm ... a long time. And I've started desiring to cook again. That's a very good thing in my world. In Max's world, too. He loves it when I cook, but never complains when I don't. How's that for a terrific husband?

Anyway ... I went to the grocery store, bought food, came home, talked to Max for a few minutes (and snuggled with the animals), then went back to the kitchen to work on dinner. Alas, I had completely forgotten to purchase tater tots. Excuse me? The title of the recipe should imply something. But, that's where distractions and old age sock you in the teeth. You forget the main ingredient.

Fortunately, I had purchased enough other stuff to cook dinner anyway. I'll pick up the tater tots tonight. Sheesh.

So ... normal? Not so much.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Whazzup?

Ok, I don't know what's up, but tonight I feel normal! I got up at a normal hour this morning, had a normal day at work, got home at a normal hour, did something normal like going to the grocery store, am about to make a normal meal at home and have a normal evening with my husband. May I simply say, "This hasn't happened in at least 3 months!" And I don't know what to do with it!

How can I make this happen again?

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Larry Norman ... You will be missed

Larry Norman died early this morning. For those of you that have no idea who he was ... it was because of him that we have Christian rock. He was often described as 'the father of Christian rock music.'

Long, blonde hair set him apart from the Christian musicians of the 60s and 70s. And so did his background in music and his choice of the style of music that he played.

The first time I heard him in person was in Colorado in Estes Park at a Christian Artists Music Seminar in the Rockies. 1974. He was the headliner act one evening in the large concert hall. My friend Devbra and I couldn't believe we were getting a chance to hear him in person. Well ... in person meant that we were so far away from the stage that we could barely see him, but we could definitely hear him! This was rock and roll at its best ... and loudest. For a couple of girls from small town Iowa, we were definitely being exposed to something new.

His influence is felt throughout the music industry - not just Christian music. He impacted many people throughout his life.

This is a great article from Christianity Today on the man who brought us some great tunes.

I suspect that Larry is having fun with the musicians in heaven now ... he taught a lot of us how to rock down here ... wonder what he's doing up there?!

Larry Norman ... you will be missed.

So, here's the deal ...

Favorite band - headlining - not opening a show. That makes it after 1 am when I get home. Good heavens! I'm a bit too old for this! I'll admit to a few adult beverages. However, I'm home earlier than some people I know when they go out and party. Hmmm ...

Thousand Houses. Great band. Really great band. The only problem was the excessively loud bands that played before they did and the fact that the room was so ... ummm ... loud.

I feel like a bit of a Thousand Houses groupie. I really do try to get to wherever they are playing. Quality musicians, amazing music. Ahhhhhh ...

So, I get home tonight - I really need to be sleeping. I stink like a smokehouse. My ears are ringing. My husband had a bit too much to drink. And I find THIS in my RSS reader. There are certain things that Spongebob Squarepants should not be endorsing. These things should not be discovered by me at 1:30 in the morning either.

Well, here's hoping that I actually get motivated to write something worthwhile tomorrow.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Good weekend

I spent time at home with Max this weekend. We didn't do too much. Sunday was a bit insane, but other than that, we just spent time hanging out together. We got up late, on Saturday (and Monday), we curled up on the couch and napped together (two humans, a dog and a cat on a couch, it's hilarious), we watched movies, we played games. It was good.

For the last several months it has occurred to me that my time with him is limited. Ok ... limited in a 20-30 year limitation, but limited all the same. I enjoy being with Max! I didn't find him until we were in our mid 30s and I just don't want to miss out on time spent with him. Maybe this is a reaction to all of the death that has occurred in my life this last year. I suppose it could be. But, when I think about how fortunate I am to be married to Max, I realize that I don't want to miss out on the good stuff with him.

I spend most of my week away from him. We have very limited amounts of time together during the week. With my schedule and the fact that we have to be asleep at ungodly early hours, we might have an hour or two during the weekdays to actually speak to each other about things.

People think I'm nuts because I don't make an effort to travel without him or do things without him, because I do make an effort to just be at home with him. If they want to think me crazy, I'm cool with that.

Oh, I know that one of these days he will do or say something that totally sends me over the edge and I'll want to do nothing more than string him up by his toes. But I also know that my anger will subside and I'll get past it.

I spend time asking God to help me love him more and more all the time and it seems to be working. I'm awfully thankful for this goofball that is in my life. I'm a fortunate woman.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Love

Ok, it's Valentine's Day. Everyone around here is wearing red or pink or something. We talk about love and for some of us, it's a really good day.

For me? It's a good day.

I just got flowers. I'd love to post a picture of them for you, but alas, I no longer have a way to upload them from my camera to this computer. You'll have to wait (and I know that you are dying to see them ... hah!)

For too many years I told Max that we didn't have the money for things like this and he wasn't allowed to buy flowers for me. But, that time has passed. At least in his mind. And he couldn't stand it any longer, so he bought the flowers and had them delivered to me today. What a sweetheart.

Yes, I cried. It's what I do.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Random Thoughts

So, yes ... the previous blog was completely random. But, I was glad when the milk finally dried on my shirt. Sheesh ... I hate being a klutz!

It was actually a very busy day today. I guess I'm glad for them, but I do get worn out. I ended up working until 6:30 this evening. Now, you tell me what it is going to be like working an 11 1/2 hour day. Sheesh! I'm a little pooped. I should be crawling into bed right now, but here I am ... typing. As if I didn't spend enough time in front of the screen today.

Alison sent me a video link. It's gotten to the major news sites, so you might have seen it. A quadriplegic being dumped out of his wheelchair by a deputy in a police station. Don't you just love knowing that idiots are out there running our world?

If you have a few minutes, you have to check out this site. Lori Nix makes these amazing tabletop sets and then photographs them. I'm in love with this stuff. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I've always been fascinated with model railroad panoramas. I wanted to build them, but was never in a place where we had space. Ok, and I couldn't afford it all at the same time either. So ... at this point in my life, I have to simply enjoy other people's exhibits. I used to drag my poor nephew to a train cemetery in Golden, Colorado. We would traipse through the cars they were restoring and then spend time (and quarters) in front of these fabulous model train exhibits. He was good to his aunt.

I hope most of you know that I love Spongebob Squarepants. Cracks me up! Well, anyway ... this video is a riot. The actors who voice the cartoon re-voiced scenes from three classic movies (Casablanca, The Godfather and Singing in the Rain).

The writer's strike is over. Now, while I shouldn't be paying that much attention to the gossip out of Hollywood or even watching that much television, this has been really annoying in my world. For the first time in many years, there are some excellent shows on television. I'm totally addicted to Lost. And this article says I'm going to get some more episodes this year! Hello! I'm a bit excited about this!

I love sci fi art. This site has some ideas for space settlements. Now, that just makes me happy. Somebody buy me the calendar when it comes out? ok. .. just let Max know about it

Alright - that's enough random stuff for tonight, I need sleep!

Fruit Loops

For breakfast. Really ... could it get any better? Ok, it could get better. I could be eating these at 10 am this morning (having slept for 3 more hours) rather than at 7:30 at my desk. I've already gotten several tasks completed and then remembered that I had breakfast here. Whee! I don't know that I've eaten fruit loops for many years. Oh ... Julie shared some dry cereal with me one day ... Josh had brought it and didn't eat it.

(hmmmm ... well, that's going to make for an interesting day ... I just dumped milk all over myself. It's cold and wet. Which brings to mind another story - about milk, not 'cold and wet'. But, oh ... I could go to a story with that as well!)

Anyway. Fruit Loops. Introduced to the world in 1963. Wow, I do remember them as a child. They were a treat. We didn't get them very often, but we did enjoy them. And what a great smell! Open a box of fruit loops and it just pops out at you!

Alright, what's up with the 'never correct' milk to cereal ratio? I've never had a bowl of cereal where it worked out correctly in the end. No matter how hard I tried, I've never made it work. There's always too much milk left over. Oh well, sigh ...

And as for the other milk story. Never, NEVER ignore a milk spill. They must be cleaned up at all costs. I'm sure that you've smelled sour milk. If not, leave a carton in the refrigerator for several weeks past it's due date and open it. Yikes! When we were young in the printing business, we purchased a light table from friends. They warned us that a cup of coffee with cream had been spilled into the inner guts of the table. A light table - think of those light boxes they use to read x-rays - now, make it horizonal and much bigger. Well ... they had cleaned it up as best as they could, but there were cracks and crevices where the coffee obviously had traveled and they couldn't reach.

Every once in awhile, we would get a whiff of realllllly bad soured milk. Even after 20 years, you could still smell that awful stuff. So ... clean up a milk spill, the smell never goes away.

Well ... that's random thoughts for a Wednesday morning! Honestly, I need a nap.

Monday, February 11, 2008

What if the world ended tomorrow?

I'll bet you thought this was going to be a really religious post. Ummm ... not so much (yet. Who knows where I'll get by the end of this).

I've been watching the first season of 'Jericho' on cbs.com. The new season starts tomorrow night and I figured it was time to get caught up. Let me tell you about this show.

Location: Jericho - a small town in Kansas
Premise: the people of Jericho see a mushroom cloud (nuclear bomb) go off in the direction of Denver. They lose contact with everyone.
Characters: hot men, hot chicks, one FBI agent (are we sure? he showed up the day before the bomb went off), tough men, tough women, scoundrels, youth ... everything I knew from my days in small town Iowa. A pretty good cross-section.

Then, even though they made it through the bomb and there is no fallout, a plane flies over and there is an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) that kills every electrical circuit. So ... nothing works.

We deal with the fact that the world is changed. People that are selfish become even more selfish. People that are gracious are extended beyond their limits. Law and order becomes nearly impossible. Greed sets in. Fear predominates. When refugees come to town, they are barely tolerated and are forced to sleep in the local church, even though there are homes in town standing empty since their owners were out of town at the time of the destruction.

News trickles in - these nuclear bombs went off in many cities around the country. The government is in turmoil. Raiders are on the highways. It's not safe anywhere.

I started watching this show when it started, but ended up falling away because it's not on a night that I'm usually home. But, I decided to try to catch up this weekend - and will Tivo the episodes for the new season. I managed to fully immerse myself in the storyline this weekend. And I'm a bit overwhelmed.

Last night, I laughingly told Max that my conspiracy theory brain was in overdrive. Maybe the government was in league with Hollywood - all of these 'survivor' type shows (LOST, Survivor, Jericho, etc.) are being shown because they know something we don't and they are trying to show us what could happen and help us become more prepared. HAH ... whatever.

But, at the same time, it really has gotten me thinking about the ease of our lives. We fully expect electricity to be on at all times in our homes. The internet has become our main tool for research and for many of us ... communication. We pull up to a gas pump and expect to fill our cars. When we walk into a grocery store, we want to have multiple choices for everything we purchase, we wouldn't know what to do with empty shelves. Most of us have cupboards stocked with plenty of food and our freezers are full. We turn on the faucet and receive clean water. We rely on the infrastructure of this country. We wouldn't know what to do without it. We have no plans to ever have to know what to do without it.

When we were warned about the Y2K crisis in 1999, we thought about it. When the planes hit the Twin Towers in 2001, we thought about it. And yet, we've put away our generators and emptied the water containers. We don't want to be considered nuts.

Yup, I'm an old lady with a bent towards conspiracy theories. And once I get past paying attention to this show, I'll set them aside and think about other things. But, today ... I'm wondering what would happen if the world as we know it ended tomorrow?

Monday, February 04, 2008

Watching Movies

I wasn't at work today. I decided to stay home and win the battle with the cold. While it isn't over with completely, I am much better. I slept a lot! Crawled out of bed about 9:30 this morning, took a nap this afternoon and another this evening. It's good to be a slug!

However, in between naps, I decided to watch a couple of movies. Max and I are Netflix members now and I've had a few of these sitting around for over a week. Either watch them or send them back and try again another day. The reason I was holding out was that I knew I would become emotionally involved in them. I'd been warned by people who know me well. It's also difficult to find a lot of extra time for me and Max to watch a movie together. So ... I figured if he really wanted to watch them, he could tell me.

Pursuit of Happyness. Will Smith and his son, Jaden. Living a life of struggle while he tried to pull them out of it. You see, I'm betting that the real Chris Gardener and his son have strong lives because of what they had to deal with ... together. I could go on and on and on and on and on (ad nauseum) about the kids that I am around today who have a sense of entitlement and have everything given to them. A life of ease does not make for a healthy sense of self-worth. And any parent that thinks they need to give that easy life to their children because they didn't get it, doesn't get it.

Great movie ... I didn't cry as much as I was afraid I would and I'm glad I finally saw it.

Blood Diamond. I didn't weep and cry as much as I was afraid I would in this one either, but only because the shock of the movie wiped me out! One of the lines in the movie resounded with me, "Will God forgive us for the terrible things that we have done to each other?" Again, I see that the greed and wealth of Western nations feeds upon the poverty and then the hideousness of humanity. We should be ashamed. We probably are ashamed. But, we set the shame aside and move on with our lives, forgetting things that should never be forgotten.

Poor Max called me to ask what he should bring home for supper - right at the end of that movie. Right when I was an emotional wreck. I'm sure he thought I was nuts. I tried to explain what was happening in my poor psyche, but he was so far removed from it, he didn't get it. He wants me to process on supper and I'm not done processing on destruction.

So, I'll send these back to Netflix and I'm hoping that something a little less emotional comes next. (yes, I know I can organize my own list ... but, isn't a surprise worth something?)

Friday, February 01, 2008

Too Good to be True

Ok, if you didn't know it ... I certainly knew that I wasn't going to be able to keep up any semblance of constant blogging. I'd like to think that I could maintain a state of continual blethering about what is happening in my world, but it's just not that interesting. If I'm not interested in it, there's no way that I can make it interesting to anyone else. So, there it is!

The end of the week is here and the beginning of the weekend is upon me. Whee!!! I plan to hide tomorrow, lead worship on Sunday, lead Bible Study Sunday night and the week will be back. That's alright. I enjoy my weeks at work. In fact, without them, I wouldn't enjoy my weekends quite so much! But, it's always good having a fun place to hang out at during the day.

We watched the opening episode of the new season of LOST last night. Well, well, well ... they managed to open up more parts of the mystery. It's going to kill me, it's going to kill me ... ok, here's hoping that if Jesus comes back before the mysteries are solved, He lets me in on the secret! It was a riot of a night though! We had praise band rehearsal at 5:30 - knowing that at 7:00, things would be starting on ABC. We thought it would be a great idea to gather a few of us (Jen, me, Max, Carol, Cody and Kristen) in the Youth Room to watch it together. We're all addicts. Max brought Mama's Pizza for supper. It was going to be great. Well ... we couldn't get to the television in the youth room ... weird keys, strange locks ... ack! We turned the televisions on in the hallways. Board of Trustees had let out, so we pulled the comfy chairs out of the conference room and started watching. Cody finally called his wife on her cell phone (he was still in the youth room trying to figure this out) and told her that he had it! So, off we went - curled up on the couches and watched the beginning of Season 4. We'd worked hard for it (Cody worked hard for it) and it was worth it. But ... yup ... too much mystery, not enough answers. This show is gonna kill me.

It's midnight - and I don't have to get up in the morning. But, I am a little tired ... so, I'm going to snuggle under some blankets and see what happens between now and tomorrow morning!