Hero Gone to Pot

I was not happy when I flushed and got wet feet. No, not happy.

But it turned out to be a cheap (less than $3) and easy repair--what would I do without those Reader's Digest Fix It Yourself books?

Just the rubber gasket between tank and bowl needed to be replaced. (At least the spewing water was from the tank and not the bowl.)

Side benefit: clean bathroom floor.

Somehow, This Just Says It All

Tea Party

One is never too old to play dress up and have tea with the ladies. I found a fine frock and the shoes in the boutique, and crafted a hat and earrings to elevate the outfit from humdrum to hmmm,... well, I can't quite think what is the word for this outfit.

And I wasn't the only one! Look at all these beauties in their hats!

The point of this party was to farewell Kaye, who leaves tomorrow for Guyana. She is going to join another single woman, Bev, who is in the final stages of the the Wapishana New Testament translation. Kaye is needed because the married couple who were working with Bev were murdered exactly two years ago.

Trudy hosted this lovely event at her home, and Eileen helped make the cucumber sandwiches and scones served with Devonshire cream.

Several other ladies brought their mother's china for us to use.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Oh, and yes, we drank LOTS of tea.

Progress?

I think not. The nondescript empty lot covered with nondescript trees is now being turned into a lot of nondescript storage units. :-(

In Progress

The Final Four is an event that we use to mark the anniversary of our arrival in Dallas. We drove here from California, where baby David had just been born, arriving the day after the Final game, which Gary watched in a hotel in Oklahoma. That was 23 years ago but it seems even longer than that in many ways. The four years just before that were spent living in the Solomon Islands and not speaking English. Now, I can hardly remember any To'abaita, and my Pijin isn't much better. Sigh. That was a world ago.

Cheap

You can call me cheap if you want to, but I prefer to think of my R-skills (that is: reuse, recycle, repurpose) as my little bit to stave off global warming. Wait, I don't want to talk about global warming--everybody gets up in arms! No, I just think it is sometimes fun to make do.

Anyway, my latest cheapskate trick: when you run out of black ink to refill the printer's black cartridges, use a mix of the extra red-yellow-blue ink. It isn't exactly black, but black enough for most purposes.

Another project I'm in the middle of is making an apron out of a leg of an old pair of jeans that had a hole in the rear. (This project wouldn't work if the jeans had a hole in the knee.)

That reminds me, I want a subscription to the Tightwad Gazette for Christmas.

Celebrate Spring

Yesterday I planned to celebrate the coming of spring by taking the flannel sheets off the bed and putting on the regular ones (which, sadly, are getting a bit threadbare, but I like the colors so much I really don't want to give them up). That didn't work out yesterday because we were too busy waiting for hot water. But today I was able to wash the winter sheets with LOTS of HOT water! Yay!

Another thing to celebrate today was an email from colleagues saying they had signed off on the copy of the New Testament they've been working on for many years--which means it is off to the typesetters. Nice to be able to celebrate milestones like that with them.

I haven't really gotten into spring cleaning yet, but I did do a complete empty of my email inbox today--finally ordering a book written by a friend I've been going to do for months, finally responding to a greeting I've been going to do for weeks, and finally sending in a donation I've been been going to do for days. That might be worth celebrating too!

Open Rehearsal

Our small group decided to go the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Chorus free open rehearsal of the Messiah last evening.
I know I've blogged about it before, but the Meyerson Center is really a pretty cool building!
Rachel joined us. Her college choir had done the Messiah a few years back, so it was all I could to to keep her from singing along!
One of our group members is an alto in the chorus, so we had a chance to support her and hear some great music at the same time.
This might not exactly be opera (Ma, that comment was for you), but it is the closest I'm likely to get. You know the music was great. The only thing that was maybe just a tad weird for me was the alto solos being sung by a countertenor. One had to wonder if he was singing falsetto, or, um, had other issues.
The downtown Dallas skyline is pretty cool too!

I John 4:10

He was not
forced
tricked
coerced
or
convinced
to love me.

Nor did I
earn
garner
deserve
or
beg for
his love.

He loves me without
doubt
question
hesitation
or
a second thought,
because he said he would.

Love me.

Omniscience?

I've had three or four people in the last week come to my office, or call me on the phone, or bump into me in the ladies' room and ask me some minor question about something or other. They say in a sweet tone of voice, "You know everything" then proceed to ask their question about what time does Bible study start, where to find help for some software program, how do you post things to the new intranet, how to get money transferred from the Philippines, etc. I've decided people come to me because 1) I'm an administrative assistant, and 2)I've lived here a long time.

The other thing that I sometimes get told is, "You think you know everything." This is usually said with a considerably less-sweet tone of voice.

A Bit of Technology

This week I got a letter (on paper!) from Roadrunner, our latest broadband company (before that it was AT&T then Comcast). They told me I needed to do blah, blah to convert my website from Comcast over to Roadrunner by March 31. So I followed their instructions, and converted away, acquiring yet another email address in the process.

Several days later, only one of my three websites had converted (mine, my daughter's, and my son's, all of which are under our account). So then I started getting worried that all that work was going to end up lost in cyberspace, never to be seen again. At that point I started trying to figure out a decent way to back up my website (probably something I should have already been doing, but hadn't). I'm still waiting for the conversion to be complete, and if and when it is, I'll mention it here. In the mean time, my my old address still seems to work. I don't know for how long.

So off I go to the web, searching for free software to help me. The web spider didn't quite do the trick, nor did the web clone program. (Or maybe I just didn't know how to use these programs.) But then I remembered my trusty FTP program. So after upgrading it to the newest version, I was able to do the opposite of what I normally do with the program,and completely download my website to back it up on my own computer. It only took 20 minutes and I was quite proud of myself for figuring out how to do that. (If any geeks are reading this, forgive me for thinking this was clever of me.)

And while I'm at it, do all of you readers (all two of you) know about RSS? I really don't know much about it, but an RSS program (there are several to choose from) tells you everytime a blog is updated without you having to go look for it. That is, you tell it all the blogs you want to be appraised of, and it will tell you each time any blog on your list has been updated. Saves time going to check them all when half of your watched blogs only update once a month.

Jesus Camp

Last night we watched this movie from our Netflix DVD subscription. It was released in September 2006 and was in the theaters here in the Dallas area for a short while, but I didn't want to spend the $ to go then.

I pretty much decided ahead of time that I wasn't going to like this movie, that the filmmakers would be either making fun of or criticizing Christians who are far right politically and socially. Now that I watched it twice--once with my family and again today with the "commentary" setting (you know, from the "extras" that come with a DVD)--I don't feel so negative toward them.

The movie is about how some conservative American Christians train their children. The subsection of Christians portrayed are pentecostal or charismatic--the movie makes no distinction between those terms. The movie shows the children in their homes and schools, which are the same. The main event is seeing the kids at summer camp, a children's prayer camp lead by Becky Fisher. There are also scenes of the kids visiting Ted Haggard's megachurch in Colorado Springs and praying in front of the Supreme Court.

So here's my take: my somewhat negative reactions were more at the things that are normal for Pentecostalism. But seeing them manifest in young children (speaking in tongues, strange body movements, etc.) seemed more excessive than when seen in adults. But, that has to do with the expression and theology of one subset of evangelicals, and I can't really say that they are hurting their children by teaching them what they believe.

The positive things: the filmmakers did seem to respect the fact that children are capable of believing in God, capable of prayer, and capable of changing the world. I was also reminded that Christians teach their kids from a very young age that they have meaning because they are loved by the almighty creator of the world--what a great message! All children should be so fortunate.

The filmmakers provide "contrast" with footage from a radio talk show by Mike Papantonio, a good Methodist middle-of-the-road Christian who pretty much dislikes the Christian right because they are "too political."

The worst part of the film--and by "worst" I mean saddest and most embarrassing--was not the children acting like adults, it was Ted Haggard doing two things: talking to these kids in a somewhat hostile way that seemed out of place, and most of all, being a hypocrite to them. Less than two months after Jesus Camp was released, Ted Haggard resigned from his ministry as pastor of an evangelical megachurch and president of the National Association of Evangelicals due to scandal. Knowing that as we watched--the irony was a bit much.

The filmmakers are east-coast city people who didn't know much about evangelicals or the heartland but didn't poke fun like I thought they might. There is plenty in this movie for both Christians and non-Christians to get upset about, but I decided it really didn't upset me. Yes, some folks might say these kids were being brainwashed by rabid Christians, but really, don't TV and video games and friends and books brainwash too?

Update

I haven't felt like I've had much to blog about lately. There have been some times when I was in a bad mood that I felt like blogging, but then thought better of it.

I really do love spring in Texas. The winters here aren't bad, of course, but I just love the abundance of wildflowers that spring brings, and how good it feels to be outside without a big coat on. I enjoy doing my daily walks with my neighbor, but I also enjoy the times I go after dark all by myself--when the weather is warm enough (we have a pretty safe neighborhood, so I don't worry about being alone).

I have a new boss at work, and he's giving me a few more projects to do. But mostly I'm still just working mornings, and then doing a few things by email from home in the afternoons and evenings.

We still don't have our water heater fixed, but the last guy I phoned has promised to get back to me soon.

Comment Silence

I've just removed "word verification" from my Blogger comments. Ma Hoyt has informed me that she is unable to comment due to some problem with word verification. I'm sure there are many other people who have tried to leave me endearing comments but have run up against this same problem.

And here I thought the lack was because nobody liked me.

Prayer Request

The redbuds are letting us know that spring is just around the corner if not already here. I do feel sorry for my friends up north. (Of ocurse, come July, I feel sorry for myself.)

This is the time of year that teachers look for jobs for the coming fall. Rachel has begun registering for teacher job fairs at a number of public school districts. We just happen to be located such that there are four different independent school districts with elementary schools within a 5-mile radius of our house. There will also be some Christian schools to apply at.

Rachel has had an interesting year as a substitute teacher, many good experiences and a couple bad ones too. But she is ready to try a full-time teaching position for next year. Pray that God will help her through the application process and especially the interviews (she feels like she doesn't interview very well) and lead her to just the right position.

Pebbles?

I just ate a bowl of cereal that claimed to be 96% organic. I wonder what that other 4% was.

Pastor Gary Simons

I was looking at the online TV guide tonight and noticed that we we turned on channel 2 at 9:30 we could watch Pastor Gary Simons. So we did. He wears cowboy boots. His church is just a few miles away in Arlinton. And he has a website: www.garysimons.org

One time we got a phone call: "Hello. Is this Gary Simons, the preacher?" I replied, "No, this is Gary Simons, the missionary."

Skinny

Can you believe that was me? Thanks to the good old internet, the other woman in the photo found me and we've reconnected after 30 years. She sent me this photo of us. I have no remembrance of it being taken, but I assume it is somewhere in Michigan in the early 70s. I also have no remembrance of ever being that skinny.

We're All Getting Old

Happy 50th Birthday to the Cat in the Hat. I guess I'm not the only one getting old.

Speaking of getting old, we had physicals this week. Actually the news was slightly better than last time in almost all categories. Except, I do have something stuck in my ear, which the doctor will try to fish out on Monday. You'd think I'd notice if something was there, but it could explain why I haven't been able to hear so well! :-\

Dustbowl

The weather is very weird at the moment. There is not a cloud, I think, in the sky, but visibility is limited due to all the dust in the air. This is a photo I stole from a Dallas weather cam at about 3:30pm today. Currently winds are at 25 mph with gusts up to 45/mph.

My guess is that a lot of this dust is from a humongous construction project (yeah, we need another mall) south of us. There are several acres of open earth there. Or at least there was, before this wind came along!

There is Justice in this World

We are lowering the price of your current 1 at-a-time (2 per month) plan to $4.99 a month plus applicable taxes.

Your membership will automatically move to the lower price for your next billing period and be reflected in your Membership Terms and Details. The lower price will appear on your next bill on or after February 23, 2007. You will still get the same great service and convenience. So please sit back, relax and enjoy your movies!

-The Netflix Team

Gary bought me the cheapest Netflix subscription for our anniversary, for $4.99/month. Except that when I actually signed up, it was $5.99/month. That was a little aggravating. Then we noticed all the TV ads for Netflix for $4.99/month, and that was more than a little aggravating. So when this little message arrived in my inbox yesterday, that was not aggravating at all.

Somehow, picking out movies over the internet is way better than going to the store, especially for Gary. But the types of movies he has been picking out are not exactly entertainment! His latest choice was Supersize Me. (I just had to use the big font for that.)

Three Generations

This photo reminds me that I miss my grandma.

Under A Rock

We've figured out why I've never heard of the the Police. I was living under a rock from 1979-1983--no electricity, little English, and lots of kids. No time for Police.

I have heard of the Beatles.

The Police

From an email from Andrew:

P.S. Just in case you missed it, The Police reunited (Sting is their lead singer) and they are about to go on their first tour since 1984 together. I was lucky enough to get some of their tickets this morning and they have already sold for double. :)

I'm not sure I've ever heard of The Police. But last time Andrew sold Sting tickets, I got a new dishwasher out of the deal. Maybe this time he'll buy me a new car. :-)

Servants In Luggage

Meetings have been going on in my office for the last week plus. Several of those attending meetings come from overseas. One particular attendee I've come to think of as Mr. Beast Of Burden--Bob, for short. All week long boxes have trickled in containing stuff for him to hand carry back to country X (I suppose I shouldn't actually mention the name of the country--in order to protect the guilty--but this country has a LOT of ocean in it.) I can understand the hard drives, the laptop, the prescription medicines. But what about 6 pounds of pinto beans?? And used tee shirts from the boutique?? Really, are there no tee-shirts to be had in this country??

He's more gracious than I would be if asked to carry all this stuff in my luggage. But I did hear him mutter something about someone starting their own personal cargo cult!

Happy Valentine's Day

May your day be filled with love (and chocolate).

Credits to Ma Hoyt's Christmas letter for this graphic. ;-)

Supplements

I've never really taken nutritional supplements, subscribing to the theory that if you eat your vegetables, you don't need them. (And I love vegetables, almost all kinds.) Besides that, they're expensive.

But I'm beginning to wonder if my daughter would benefit from them. She is sick way too often, and she doesn't like vegetables very much (except broccoli and carrots and corn).

Anybody know anything about supplements and could make a recommendation? (Although if you sell them as a side job, I might look at your advice with a jaded view :-)

Just the Facts, Ma'am

I was never a very good history student, so maybe that's why I like the "executive summary" passages in the Bible, places where the author condenses all the relevant facts into a short densely-packed passage. Some examples:

• Acts 2:14-36 Peter gives a speech.
• Acts 7:2-53 Steven gives a speech.
• Hebrews 11 Heroes of the faith.

Do you know of other passages like that?

Where the Cobs Live

If spiderwebs are made by spiders, then certainly cobwebs must be made by cobs, right? Haven't you always wondered how those cobwebs formed at the top of the window frames when you've never seen a spider any where in the vicinity?

Naturally, we must check to see what the the internet says about cobwebs.

Anyway, I found where they live at our house when I unloosened two painted screws over the air intake vents under the furnace.

Scary, huh?

I actually had a reason for doing this. I mean, who wants or needs to go looking for yet more dust in one's house? My reason had to do with the on-going process of getting a new water heater. The old one is still dripping, but not spewing, so I just had to see if I could tell where the drips were going.

Need More Detail

Ugh. For all that work I did yesterday trying to organize information to take to Rachel's new doctor, it turns out I still missed a bunch of stuff. It makes me want to go on a tirade about the medical industry and the bad job it does with patient records and about how I would fix it if I were in charge of the zoo.

In any case, I should have brought along the yellow International Certification of Vaccination card.

Summary of Life

Tomorrow morning Rachel has to go see a new doctor. Sad, but she's too old to keep going to the family doctor she's had since she was two and a half, someone who has known her well and really cared about her.

Anyway, in preparation for visiting this new doctor, I'm helping her summarize her medical history. You know they are going to hand her a massive set of papers to fill out when she gets there, so we're trying to get prepared for that.

Perhaps it was overkill, but I decided to do this right. I made a spreadsheet with the months of the year across the top, and the years of her life down the side, then further subdiving each year into these categories: Location, Education, Jobs, Medical, and Misc. Perhaps I'm being obsessive, but haven't you sometimes wished you had a concise reference guide to what you did when? (Or maybe your memory is so good you don't need that??) So the idea is to fill in the Medical row specifically for tomorrow, but filling in the Job and Education rows will help when filling out job applications, etc.

And, if anyone wants to write a book about her, think how valuable this will be. :-)

Poor Hibiscus

This is what happens when Gary leaves me home alone in the freezing weather.

Bill Collectors

I pay my bills, I really do.

But in September of 2003 I got a statement from a phone company saying I owed them $156.10. I called them to say that the phone number from which these calls were supposedly made had closed down by me in June 2002. (At one point we had two land lines, before we got high-speed cable internet.) They said they would research it. Then later I got a letter from a new company telling me I needed to pay. Then later I got another letter from a bill collection agency telling me I needed to pay. Each time I phoned them and explained, and each time I kept notes and was glad I had kept notes from the time before.

And now today, another call from another bill collector, for the same amount. By some miracle I was able to locate the paperwork and notes from 2003 and explain it all again. When I complained about being through all this before, she told me how the bill collectors buy and sell debts to each other--so if bill collection company A doesn't succeed, they sell it to B who tries again, etc. Apparently, since no one seems to believe me, this may go on forever.

*sad face*

Waste Management

I guess it is getting pretty bad when you can't think of any better way to waste people's time than to post about trash cans. I could have recycled some old topics, but instead, I'm making bad puns.

I do like the new blue bins we got to place our recyclable materials in. Dallas as been slower than it should have been in getting around to this, IMHO. But, really, do we need bins this big, even if they are emptied only once every two weeks?? For that matter, do we need regular trash bins this big? I know in Texas everything is bigger, but it seems that oversized trash bins, picked up twice a week, only encourage over consumption of over packaged consumer goods. I can go 2-3 weeks before setting the trash bin out for pickup. (I guess that is partly because I put the "stinky" food scraps into the compost pile instead of into the trash.)

OK, let me know if you can think of anything more interesting for me to blog about. I'm hitting a dry spell, it seems.

Climbing Higher

In spite of my reluctance to attend, I did actually enjoy my time at the retreat. Everybody was nice to me even though I didn't know many of the folks. I had many opportunities to answer the "Do you have children?" question, and my brain is still functioning well enough to get that one right.

We had ample unscheduled time, so we got to do a little hiking. I saw two new birds, but was only able to identify the ruby-crowned kinglet. I also saw a large water bird, probably some kind of dark heron.

If you're interested in a few more photos, click on the photo below.

pinecove

Retreating

We're off to Pine Cove Christian Camp near Tyler, TX in a couple hours. Gary will be giving a little talk, and I will be doing a little talking. And walking. And eating and sleeping and reading. No blogging, however, and no emailing, since the center has no connectivity. They claim to have cell phone coverage. We'll see.

Lest you decide to sneak in and clean my house for me while I'm away, let me assure you there is no need; our sweet daughter will be here as the caretaker. We return in a few days.

Oh, and as a follow up to my last post, I should report that the fishing net worked great. The HS boy who used it turned a kid-sized table over to turn it into a fishing boat from whence they could cast their net on the other side.

Repurposing

You remember Rachel's prom dress don't you? Oh, wait, that was before we all had blogs to show off photos of our kids. Well, anyway, I got an old strapless Victor Costa formal dress out of the boutique, and remodeled it into this two-piece dress. Not bad for free, huh?

So why am I thinking about Rachel's prom dress these many years later?? Today I remembered I had removed the net underskirt from the prom dress and discovered it would make the perfect fishing net for use as a prop in children's church tomorrow. Note the corner where I was mending the net, just like James and John. :-)

Mark 1:16-20 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

The Value of Sparrows (and Juncos)

Matthew 10:29-31 For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent. As for you, even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!

Another Holiday!

As soon as we got the official word that there was no work today, I started thinking I'd better cook up a batch of Ma Hoyt's Power Oatmeal. But when I couldn't find the recipe on her site, I discovered I already repeated the recipe a year ago on my site. Wow, blogging is a good supplement to my failing memory, huh?

The snow makes for good bird watching too. Yesterday I saw a pair of goldfinches in their winter clothes, and today a small flock of Inca Doves. I need to go add those two to my official bird list.

Official End of Extended Holiday Season

Today is a holiday, MLK day to be exact. No work at the office, but that won't stop us from doing a few things around the house. One thing I did today was take down all of the Christmas greeting cards that I had taped to the wall for display. I left them up long past the other Christmas decorations--partly because I love to be reminded of all the friends we have (and partly because I'm so lazy).

As I took them down, I sorted them into categories as to who sent them:

• 11 - relatives
• 4 - coworkers
• 8 - supporters
• 2 - commercial companies
• 6 - friends from our old church
• 1 - friend from new church (Hmm, looks like we need to work on our apparently fading social skills.)
• 1 - friend from an online forum
• 7 - generic friends

Now that totals 40 cards, but let's not also forget the two that were unsigned and the four that were actually anniversary cards, making a grand total of 46.

(What is it that drives me categorize and count things?)

Wedding

I didn't get any good photos of the bride and groom, but from my seat on the edge of the sanctuary, you can sorta get the idea. John had 9 attendants; Jessie had 7.

Before the ceremony I got my photo taken with one of the beautiful bridesmaids. Notice the Solomon Islands necklaces I'm wearing? They are made of the shell and porpoise teeth used for brideprice. I always wear them to weddings.

Wedding Flowers

The flowers were to have arrived at 9am, but they didn't make it until 11:30, so I got off to a slow start making boutonnieres and corsages for the wedding party. I gave lessons to some of the bridesmaids and they helped me cut ribbon, skewer flowers with wire, and hand over pieces of florist tape.

4 hours later we had all 24 boutonnieres and 11 corsages finished.

I'm home now for an hour before we go for the wedding.

Boxes

After work today I drove Rachel over to the church where the wedding she is in will be held tomorrow evening. I ended up being the only one with enough spatial skills to figure out how to turn these:

Into these:

Yay, me. Fortunately, I was able to give lessons to the bridesmaids and groomsmen so I didn't have to fold all 300 of them myself.

We had a nice rehearsal dinner with yummy Chinese food. As we left, the attendants were filling the boxes with candy. They will make nice wedding favors.

Somehow I got talked into making 34 boutonnieres and small corsages tomorrow morning, so I'd better get to bed now.

Sew

I haven't posted in a few days. Nothing too exciting has been going on with me. I've spent a lot of time remodeling these clothes in preparation for Jessie's wedding on Friday. In one case, the top was remodeled from a size 2 to a size 0! In the other case, the back darts, collar width, collar height, and length were all altered. So much for buying ready-made outfits!

Gary has been practicing his hammered dulcimer in preparation for Friday too. He will be making his performance premier on this instrument at the wedding. He's worried about it going all out of tune when we have to transport it to the church in cold weather.

The bride and her friends are having girls' night out tonight. Tomorrow it will be a bridal luncheon and decorating the church prior to the rehearsal. Friday will be a long day with manicures, hair appointments, photos, ceremony, dinner.

Quiet

Gary is gone. Rachel is gone. I've resorted to turning the Mavericks' game on TV for background noise.

Later--Good ending to that game! Go Mavs!

Bubble

It doesn't take much

to amuse

me.

Getting Married and Living Happily Ever After

Today several thoughts about getting married have crossed my path.

1. I guess it started last night when I saw that Cinderella boy from Boise State proposing on national TV.
2. Next it was an email I received early this morning from the girl whose wedding Gary will be playing the processional for Friday after next.
   
3. Then there was the blog by a 23-year old friend who feels like she's the "only" one who isn't getting married.
   
4. And lastly, the email I got from a woman nearly my age who remarried in December, thanking me for the photos of said event that I emailed to her.

These are my thoughts in response:

1. Cinderella boy and cheerleader girl, may you live happily ever after. (But the odds are against you.)
2. You said the Lord is good for helping you to find "the one." I agree and I pray that you two will live happily ever after too. (But the odds for Christian marriages don't look much better than for the population in general. May God bless you with a strong union.)
3. I'm sorry you are alone. I really am. But you're not alone in being the only one without someone. In the words of a 32-year old single friend, "There's an epidemic of singleness out there." Maybe it is time to consider that perhaps the Lord's plan for you is to never marry. (But the odds are against that. May God bring you the right person at the right time.)
4. Your first marriage was a happy one, and may your second one also be. How blessed to "find someone" not once, but twice in life. (The odds are definitely in favor of you living happily ever after.)
   

Happy New Year!

The new year is almost a day old. I spent the day cleaning and reorganizing and putting away and vacuuming. I often have these "clean up the nest" drives when I'm transitioning between one thing and the next. I tried to get Gary to do some cleaning in his office, but he didn't do enough, IMHO. I'll just keep nagging :-) Back to work tomorrow.

I've got the usual list of New Year's resolutions: eat less, exercise more, be nicer, read more, blog less, don't bug people. We'll see how all that goes.