It would be nice to look back on this past year and see many wonderful accomplishments, but nothing really comes to mind. Of course, it all depends upon your definition of "wonderful". Some days, just getting out of bed is a wonderful thing.
Going back through the year of posts, here's what I came up with.
January: The boys drywalled the closet. James had a concert. Deb had a birthday. James became a coffee addict.
February: The boys got new mattresses. Mary danced. Everyone worked on projects. Deb had a concert. Cheryl and I went to a Valentine's Day dinner. The family discovered Dutch Blitz.
March: The kids ate snacks. I got to help out with "Engineering Day" at the Middle School. James painted. I de-rusted the Corolla. James appeared on a Wanted poster (for unruly hair). Mary danced again. Adam drove to Muskegon. The bikes declared their freedom. The temperature went up to 74 degrees. Mary became Marie Curie for a class project.
April: We did some Spring Cleaning. It rained. The kids had Spring Break. Adam built a dice tower for his Heroscape gaming. James cut up cardboard. The girls played games. Then the kids got obsessed with chess for awhile. We drove to Frankenmuth. Adam got a Latin award. I made a big mess de-rusting my Subaru. Mary reprised Marie Curie. James showed off his luxurious hair.
May: We started prepping for Mary's graduation from Elementary School. We celebrated our Mothers. The boys went to see Iron Man 2 (and I reviewed it). The girls went nuts with braids. Mary got Hermione Hair. James had his 8th grade banquet. I did some wiring. James got the Director's Award in band, then had his luxurious hair trimmed. A spring storm came in. The kids practiced for the spring piano recital.
June: I went to the baseball game with Mary. She also had Field Day. Deb did her Capville project. Adam and Mary had their spring piano recital. I had a birthday. Mary had her hair cut. I built the Cataquarium. The sump pump failed and had to be replaced. We visited friends in South Bend. We visited the Dale Chihully glass sculptures at Meijer Gardens. The girls went to camp.
July: My cousin Mike got married, and we went down to see it. I did some CSI on the dead sump pump. James went on a a Middle School mission trip. I did a few home repairs (and we missed the family reunion due to lack of $$). James made apple pie. The Meyer grandparents dropped in for a visit. We went to an open house and saw tractors. Cheryl directed the family in some house painting.
August: We drove to Iowa to visit Sandra and see her new house. James found a Big Bug. The basement flooded on our Anniversary. The kids obsessed with a pirate ship game.
September: Mary got her glasses (and I got my straps). One of the living room chairs was "fixed". I built a mystery project. We lost power for a couple days. Mary built doll-sized tables. Cheryl continued with the house-painting project. I revealed the mystery project. James's basement room got a door. Mary had a birthday. Cheryl expanded the house-painting project.
October: Bill Snell went home to be with God. We hosted Super Start at church. The kids got to stay home from school one day because of a threat of high winds or tornado. Mary had her first choral concert.
November: James had his Fall Concert, then played for Santa Claus. Brother Kel had a birthday. We all took an on-line quiz. James had a birthday. We all talked about the books we'd read (or not read). We went to Aunt Susan's for Thanksgiving.
December: Cheryl showed her Pyro side. We went to a Christmas Madrigal. We started counting down the days to Christmas. Or was it the days til school was out? We took a trip to Seattle (and various other points of interest in the Pacific Northwest). We came back home safely, only slightly annoyed by TSA. We waited for the Ball to Drop.
All in all, not a bad year. The kids have grown quite a bit over the course of it. Quite a number of things have changed at work, at church, at home. We've all gotten a little bit older, hopefully a little bit wiser.
I'm hoping that a few things get better this year.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
A Very Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year
to One and All!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Saturday the Postman Saw Read
Saturday came and went, yet nothing came of it.
I was sick. Ill. Down-in-the-mouth. Drained. Drugged. Dopey. Didn't accomplish anything, but there was so much that needed to be accomplished.
Ever have one of those days?
Caught a nasty virus the other day. It didn't last long, but the deluge of immune-system overdrive was all focused on my pitiful lungs, so it was "cough" this and "cough" that and "cough" every thing in-between. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't think. And nothing would satisfy my craving for some kind of food or beverage which would dull the pain in my throat, not even the repetitious honey-lemon tea and cough drops.
Sunday morning came; it was time for church, and worship, and teaching, and singing, and there was no voice left in my throat for it, but the Audience of One understood my miserable croaking anyway. And the kids in my classes didn't care.
So long as this creeping crud is gone by Tuesday morning, I'll be fine.
I was sick. Ill. Down-in-the-mouth. Drained. Drugged. Dopey. Didn't accomplish anything, but there was so much that needed to be accomplished.
Ever have one of those days?
Caught a nasty virus the other day. It didn't last long, but the deluge of immune-system overdrive was all focused on my pitiful lungs, so it was "cough" this and "cough" that and "cough" every thing in-between. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't think. And nothing would satisfy my craving for some kind of food or beverage which would dull the pain in my throat, not even the repetitious honey-lemon tea and cough drops.
Sunday morning came; it was time for church, and worship, and teaching, and singing, and there was no voice left in my throat for it, but the Audience of One understood my miserable croaking anyway. And the kids in my classes didn't care.
So long as this creeping crud is gone by Tuesday morning, I'll be fine.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Countdown to Christmas
We don't have our Christmas pictures done yet. We haven't started writing any Christmas cards yet. We haven't started packing for any trips yet. We're just waiting. And counting.
Has the holiday started yet?
We've had the Christmas concerts. James played his clarinet and his bass and had a wonderful time. I think. The girls missed theirs due to illness - or feigned illness (although the temperature probe displayed convincing evidence that there was some kind of immune-system action going on). Cheryl's been busily doing the Amazon thing. And I've been trying to finish up some things at work so I can avoid thinking about it for a couple weeks.
Good plan. Worked out until around noon today, when my work laptop suddenly lost the ability to connect to the work servers. Not sure what's going on with that. Probably a virus or rootkit or something noxious like that. The antivirus scanner didn't find anything. But even now, hours and hours later, the stupid thing won't connect to the network, so I can't do my usual work-from-home gig. Which means, even though I'm sniffling and coughing from my own little virus, I'll be going in to the office tomorrow to finish things up.
Yuck.
I've totally lost my enthusiasm for work lately. This end-of-the-year rush to finish things up - including the yearly performance reviews - stresses me out. It's all meaningless (shades of Ecclesiastes). Besides, I'd rather catch up on all the things around the house, including the dozen-or-so computer projects, the basement project, the garage project, and all the other little projects in-between. Oh, and then there are all those church-related projects.
Why can't they just send me a paycheck while I stay home and work on things that really matter?
One more day, and it'll all be over. Mostly. Except for the panic when we realize that nothing is ready for next week, and there's no time to get things ready. I feel so dis-organized. Actually, it's nothing but laziness. Laziness and procrastination. And stubbornness. With a little bit of confusion, distraction, frustration, and headache thrown in for good measure.
Saturday just can't come soon enough!
Has the holiday started yet?
We've had the Christmas concerts. James played his clarinet and his bass and had a wonderful time. I think. The girls missed theirs due to illness - or feigned illness (although the temperature probe displayed convincing evidence that there was some kind of immune-system action going on). Cheryl's been busily doing the Amazon thing. And I've been trying to finish up some things at work so I can avoid thinking about it for a couple weeks.Good plan. Worked out until around noon today, when my work laptop suddenly lost the ability to connect to the work servers. Not sure what's going on with that. Probably a virus or rootkit or something noxious like that. The antivirus scanner didn't find anything. But even now, hours and hours later, the stupid thing won't connect to the network, so I can't do my usual work-from-home gig. Which means, even though I'm sniffling and coughing from my own little virus, I'll be going in to the office tomorrow to finish things up.
Yuck.
I've totally lost my enthusiasm for work lately. This end-of-the-year rush to finish things up - including the yearly performance reviews - stresses me out. It's all meaningless (shades of Ecclesiastes). Besides, I'd rather catch up on all the things around the house, including the dozen-or-so computer projects, the basement project, the garage project, and all the other little projects in-between. Oh, and then there are all those church-related projects.
Why can't they just send me a paycheck while I stay home and work on things that really matter?
One more day, and it'll all be over. Mostly. Except for the panic when we realize that nothing is ready for next week, and there's no time to get things ready. I feel so dis-organized. Actually, it's nothing but laziness. Laziness and procrastination. And stubbornness. With a little bit of confusion, distraction, frustration, and headache thrown in for good measure.
Saturday just can't come soon enough!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Christmas Madrigal
Cheryl and I have been looking forward to "a night out" for quite some time. The typical December activities, both with church and school, have kept us busy enough that we struggle to find time to spend together, just ourselves.
The Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing puts on a Christmas Madrigal Dinner every year, and, having never attended one before, this year we decided to do just that. We were told that tickets would go quickly, so we purchased tickets about a month ago when they were first available.
Naturally, the weather was threatening to make our journey challenging; a big storm was forecast to come in during the evening. Just to be safe, we packed some bags with extra clothes and boots and heavy coats. (I always keep extra water and food in the car during the winter.)
It turned out that we didn't need to make use of the emergency supplies. The freezing weather held off long enough that we only met up with some cold rain on the way home.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Christmas Madrigal Dinner was held in a very ornate old Methodist church right across the street from the State Capitol building. We were met at the door by a couple of Medieval guards who graciously held open the door for us. Then we waited in the lobby for a few minutes while the final preparations were being made, after which we were taken to our table by a very gracious hostess.
The interior of the church reminded me of a classic Italian villa, with an inner courtyard surrounded by balconied rooms. We sat at tables arranged in the inner "courtyard" (which is not really a courtyard as I understand the word, because it is not open to the sky overhead, but covered with a ceiling) and listened to the authentic flute/violin/harpsichord music which was being played live.
The Madrigal play was the story of a contest between the sons and daughters of the Court Jester to decide which one would replace him, as he was getting old and sick. The puns and word plays were flying pretty thick throughout. The Lords and Ladies of the court, who sat at a banquet table onstage overlooking the audience, interjected commentary on the performance of each of the Jester's children as they attempted to display their talents; additionally, in-between the Acts of the play, they sang very pretty choruses.
At specific times during the presentation, the Host would direct a specific course to be served - salad, main course, dessert - so that the dinner was incorporated naturally into the flow of the play. Then after the play was concluded (with a moral ending, of course!), the Lords and Ladies of the court performed a set of Christmas songs (including two that I'd sung back when I was in high school).
The food was very good; the company at our table was pleasant and friendly. After it was all done - it took about three hours for the entire madrigal - we ran into a few friends and visited them for awhile before leaving to see the big Christmas Tree out in front of the Capitol.
We hung outside for a few minutes, noticing that there wasn't any snow falling ... yet. But the snow was predicted closer to home, and we figured on running into it as we drove back. So we drove on home, expecting any moment to run into some kind of traffic mess.
It never materialized.
In fact, we got all the way home without any trouble at all! And the kids were (mostly) in bed, too!
Which was a good thing, because I was too exhausted to deal with them by the time we got home.
The Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing puts on a Christmas Madrigal Dinner every year, and, having never attended one before, this year we decided to do just that. We were told that tickets would go quickly, so we purchased tickets about a month ago when they were first available.
Naturally, the weather was threatening to make our journey challenging; a big storm was forecast to come in during the evening. Just to be safe, we packed some bags with extra clothes and boots and heavy coats. (I always keep extra water and food in the car during the winter.)
It turned out that we didn't need to make use of the emergency supplies. The freezing weather held off long enough that we only met up with some cold rain on the way home.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Christmas Madrigal Dinner was held in a very ornate old Methodist church right across the street from the State Capitol building. We were met at the door by a couple of Medieval guards who graciously held open the door for us. Then we waited in the lobby for a few minutes while the final preparations were being made, after which we were taken to our table by a very gracious hostess.
The interior of the church reminded me of a classic Italian villa, with an inner courtyard surrounded by balconied rooms. We sat at tables arranged in the inner "courtyard" (which is not really a courtyard as I understand the word, because it is not open to the sky overhead, but covered with a ceiling) and listened to the authentic flute/violin/harpsichord music which was being played live.
The Madrigal play was the story of a contest between the sons and daughters of the Court Jester to decide which one would replace him, as he was getting old and sick. The puns and word plays were flying pretty thick throughout. The Lords and Ladies of the court, who sat at a banquet table onstage overlooking the audience, interjected commentary on the performance of each of the Jester's children as they attempted to display their talents; additionally, in-between the Acts of the play, they sang very pretty choruses.
At specific times during the presentation, the Host would direct a specific course to be served - salad, main course, dessert - so that the dinner was incorporated naturally into the flow of the play. Then after the play was concluded (with a moral ending, of course!), the Lords and Ladies of the court performed a set of Christmas songs (including two that I'd sung back when I was in high school).
The food was very good; the company at our table was pleasant and friendly. After it was all done - it took about three hours for the entire madrigal - we ran into a few friends and visited them for awhile before leaving to see the big Christmas Tree out in front of the Capitol.
We hung outside for a few minutes, noticing that there wasn't any snow falling ... yet. But the snow was predicted closer to home, and we figured on running into it as we drove back. So we drove on home, expecting any moment to run into some kind of traffic mess.
It never materialized.
In fact, we got all the way home without any trouble at all! And the kids were (mostly) in bed, too!
Which was a good thing, because I was too exhausted to deal with them by the time we got home.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)