Wednesday Smiles

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harmony While I've been purging I'm pondering. I've come to realize that part of this whole moving thing is letting go of my old life and moving on to a new, as yet undefined, call. If I'm free of possessions, I'm free to move where the Spirit wants me to go. So, while dh fully intends to come back regularly to our old church, at least for the time being, I'm still thinking about what role I'm being called to within the wider church. That is part of why I'm working as a facilitator on this National Church survey. I want to learn what else is out there and possibly be part of the renewal of the church, especially the church in society.

The issue for our local church is that we are 'just making it' financially. Dh and I tithe (our tithe is made up of all our donations, not only to the church.) Aside from our energy and talent which makes up a significant portion of the volunteer hours and leadership in the church, our monetary contribution is a significant portion of the income of the church. I don't believe it will continue without our contribution. And I feel that if the church can't make it without us, then maybe we've been financially funding a private church, just for us. This isn't 'our' church, it doesn't belong to us, nor is it our responsibility to keep it going for a group of people who don't feel strongly enough about the church to contribute enough to it to keep it going. Not when there are 7 other churches of the same denomination within 15 miles.

So I've got a kind-of tough love thing going on there. Looking forward to seeing Rev. D and talking this over with him. Because he isn't part of our Presbytery any more, he is free to talk and he knows me and the church well enough to advise me on what to do as far as letting them know the position they are in.

[OKay]

Good Morning!

I am home from field trip with about 75 little ones. I used this time to observe the teacher choices for LO next two years. They stood around in a group together talking for over 2 hours while the children played. In contrast, LO current teacher & aide were actively involved and hands-on interacted with the children while the other teachers basically ignored the the children (stood with their backs to children a good amount of the time). After LO having such a wonderful teacher this year, how am I going to accept a non-involved...lack luster teacher next year? Maaaybe the same teachers won't be there next year. I can only hope.

Harmony - I am wondering the same thing! I wonder, though what would happen if one used the sawdust mineral on the plants in the regular enhanced dirt I bought some of the Mittlerder minerals and prepared recommended weekly feed. I'm going to try it this year using the heavily mulched soil already in place.

Kathryn - I hope your church changes have minimum of stress.

[blessedw2]

okay so sorry teachers for next year were not hands on but so happy your teacher this year is.
harriet i love your apron!
Harmony so happy you are making progress. look at that closet!!!
kathryn I hope things come together at church... less stress (()) years ago I had the same thing (room spinning) to the point I would have to drop to my knees and wait it out. I can't remember the meds they gave me but it helped. also my mom had it and they "adjusted the crystals in her ear" by manipulating her head and she could not lay down for at least an hour and that helped her too. Both of ours were inner ear problems.

hi lynn nothing like clean sheets! great job
Nancy great job on the exercise... so cute that your grdson beat the bus by running home
Hi d twins. you deserve the pampering.!
Cowinkie how exciting and wonderful for you that your friend is visiting

dd has a dr. appointment at 2:00

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I forgot to let you know that the minister's hospital trip did at least get a cause for the dizziness. It was a urinary tract infection. No other signs (fever, burning) although nausea came and went and then for 24 hours before her diagnosis she had extremely frequent urge to go to the bathroom. But the dizziness has been there for over 2 weeks so the infection was festering all that time. Hopefully now that she is being treated the dizziness will pass too. Thankfully, the illness has nothing to do with her leaving.

I'm excited for her because the new job is a good fit and prestigious and if she can be well, she can enjoy the fruits of very hard work. She has had to start over twice, once in the Philippines when she realized she didn't want to be a teacher, she wanted to be a preacher so went back to school and then again after immigrating since she hadn't yet been ordained and our system didn't recognize her education or process. She went back to being a member for 2 years, then discernment (1 year), then MDiv (2 years) all the while taking courses at our local seminary college because the years she put into the process wasn't recognized, learning fluent English, and working full-time to support herself.

[Twins' Mom]

Will CUOP after I post and do something productive! I got pedicure this morning but have done nothing since....

-two DPCs
-two temple emails
-clear kitchen table

[Cowinkie]

quickie...
I'm back from walking...eat my breakfast...watched a little Perry Mason...and am now ready to face the garage. Its not the work that is involved in organizing the garage that is taking time, it is the boxes and their contents. I've had to go through every one and it has taken me down memory lane. Some of it is good, but some memories were hiding in those boxes that I didn't know about. Most of what had been originally saved were still worth saving, so I'm okay with that. Anyway I'm heading back in just a momeent.

Here's a question for y'all. I saved many letters that were written to my son from his dgmother and also my son's father. My reasoning for this was so that my son could look back over time and remember them. My son's gmother loved him dearly and would write short notes to him all the time. These things have very special memories for my son. In my world I could toss them in a moment, but I know my son is counting on me to save them.

Here's the question...I'd like to gather all the letters and make a book of them, then I could toss the originals and cut down the paper clutter. Anyone have any ideas on how I could do this...my thoughts are to scan them first, then find some site that could put them in a booklet form, but I am opened to all suggestions.

Also I forgot to post the site that I am using to track my daily carbs. Its called fatsecret.com Gotta love the name. Ok, I'm heading out to the garage. It is very cool today...74* and I'm going to use that to my advantage. Won't have many more days like this one for a while.

Waving...cy'all later Have a great day...........

[Twins' Mom]

More than one temple email, several, in fact. Two DPCs made successfully. and kitchen table cleaned up.

-fold lol
-make bed
-s2s
-water orchids
-start a temple worksheet

[Harriet]

Cowinkie, I would scan for my own records as a safekeeping gift, if needed in the future, then give all originals to him, in some recognizable storage container as small as possible to fit them. I would think that there's a possibility the tactile feel of them and original form/stationary will be meaningful to him now or in the future. For a scanned copy, one possibility is photography, and then having Snapfish or some other photo storage site make them into a bound book, which would be thin and wear well with time.

Kathryn, if your minister believes this might happen to her again, then as you can imagine, my suggestion would be the supplement, D-Mannose. Solaray brand and some others offer preventative dosing in daily capsule form.

Kathryn, what does working as a facilitator on this National Church survey entail?

I did a tough 30 min workout, picked up dd, took home a friend whose bus was broken down, went to grocery. Realized late that I was parched from working out, but got water out. Very tired because of housework, too, and right now dd is cleaning her room so I'm going to power-nap and then jump back in when she's ready to start on another area.

[OKay]

Cowinkle - I second Harriet's suggestion. Last year I packed up the last of DSon high school memories and delivered them to his home. I strongly suspect DSon probably dumped it all into the trash. He isn't sentimental in that way and reminds me of Helia DH in how he doesn't hang onto the tangible evidence of awards received. Maybe I should have took pictures of the items and created a digital scrapbook that might have been enjoyed by his children someday.....hum....hindsight is 20/20.

DH is off to elder meeting. Before he left he received 3 phone calls asking if church was going to be cancelled tonight because of possible severe weather. Nope. Yesterday, our state had 32 earthquakes. Tonight they are predicting we will have baseball size hail and tornadoes. Tomorrows forecast is for freezing weather. If they cancelled church every time we had bad weather we wouldn't meet very often.

I need to focus on the house for a bit tonight. At field trip today, one of the Mom's said she is getting behind in her housework because of the multiple field trips this week. She stayed up until midnight last night cleaning house to make up for lost time. I felt a little guilty because stay up to clean instead of sleeping hasn't even crossed my mind as a solution.

[Harmony]

I had no idea a UTI would cause dizziness. Kathryn, I can see why your church might need to close. Everybody could go to one of those other church nearby. Are they bigger churches?

Much progress made in the office. Just for giggles I weighed the last bag of paper I took outside; it was 30 lbs! I just measured the linear feet of bare space on my shelves, it's 9', broken into smaller sections, of course.

I'm not totally done in here, though. I have one more file to set up, but I think I might have to get another plastic bin. I must drag a couple computer things out for the special pickup they do at curbside. One year of records needs to go out into garage trunk and a year purged from storage out there. Yuck. I hate that job. Shredder still needs emptied one last time. All these papers, I had to go through and shred personal information/ numbers, etc.

One small cabinet needs cleared. Then a good dusting.

I never made it out of the house today. Oh, well tomorrow's another day.