These are the Deebs so far. Lu is in her 2nd year at Covenant and Sam is tooling his way through Temple. Nick had his own place. But, this summer there will be two more! We took this picture last Memorial Day and we had a Master’s Degree party for J-net that day. Every picture (almost) that Joel was in this summer he was wearing sunglasses. Mr. Cooldude.
Archive for January, 2008
So far
It swings around , too!
Here’s our popcorn girl! Yes, I threw it away after this. I couldn’t get one of her hanging out her tongue and trying to catch it like snow! There’s a couple more pictures at my flickr.
Outside m kitchen door in the AM
Yea! I’m in! This is one of those sunrises that I have actually seen with mine own twoon eyens! When the morning is a little cloudy, but the sun finds a slit and comes through and makes the world glow! Now I have to figure out how to do more than one pic in a blog!
Who is having more fun here?
Oh is this how we do it? I am experimenting here. This is on the way home from Iowa and we were expending some 2 year old energy…………
Jury duty
Yesterday Joel had jury duty. In Philadelphia, no less. In the ‘elimination round’ he was asked if he was ever involved in a family business! When I had it I was asked if I was related to anyone who had been injured in a car accident! Wouldn’t that eliminate most anybody?! He had taken a couple of books along and I guess they were both pretty dry. I could have told him that about one. I couldn’t get through it. If you have got something to say, make it interesting! We are involved in an inner city ministry startup and my friend Terry was telling us the other day how she never wanted to teach kids because she never wanted anyone to feel or say that they were bored. So one craaaaazy evening , very early on, one girl stood on the table and said “I’m Bored!!!”….. and Terry was in charge that night. She did fine. She told her to get down and come do the activity she had planned and she wouldn’t be bored.
I took Christmas down about a week ago, but I couldn’t throw away the nice long string of popcorn Luisa made. Katarina found it ripe for snack the other day.She would pull it off or try to catch it with her tongue!file
:///home/joel/Desktop/IM000164.JPG
I am wondering if the actual picture will show up.
Our house is going to be sold. It was appraised last week and we are trying to make up our minds. I think it is a bit of a stretch for Joel and me, not only money -wise, but upkeep as well. It is a lot of work. While we enjoy it most of the time, and we can foresee ourselves hiring out the mowing some day, we know we can never get it done. And that doesn’t bother us a whole lot, either, but sometimes it does. So we need to figure things out. There are days I wish for something considerably more efficient!
Well, that’s all for now folks. Maybe if I were in Honolulu I could tell you more exciting things!
Bits and Pieces on a January Morning
I often sit here doing other stuff and then I don’t want to sit and write. I think my brain hibernates in January, but I’ll try to throw a few thing s in here to make your reading interesting, at least.
I read Banker to the Poor by Mohammed Yunus, a Bangladeshi man who has made great strides in helping the very poor out of poverty. To me, this story is as powerful as William Wilburforce. I actually saw him on Oprah one day and thought I would get the book. He was an econmics professor at a B. university and the rural people were being starved out by a famine and coming to the city to work, and finding none, they would beg until they died in the streets, and that was fairly common. It made everything he was teaching seem farcical. He took a couple of students and went to he nearest village and started talking to people and often they only needed a few dollars just to break their bondage from the middle man, who was practically enslaving them, and make their own money. That first day he loaned $27, Then he went after it big time and didn’t loan his own money but worked with (reluctant) banks and foundations until there was enough base to have ‘his’ own private bank. Among the very poor the repayment rate is 98%. He says that’s because that is their only way out. There is also a book written called Give us Credit, that is individual stories. What I found about interesting about this book and Reclaiming the Commons was the vision for the whole person each of these visionaries had and they keep working at it. It takes more than a lifetime, but a lifetime can have a much greater impact than we imagine sometimes.
I finally took the Christmas ornaments off the tree and the Christmas stuff off the mantle yesterday. Every time I went to do it before I would get such a whiff of the pine or fir or whatever it is, that I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. And I didn’t mind the space it was taking up.
Our landlord wants to sell our house. An appraiser is coming on Tuesday. I am pessimistic about being able to afford it. They would have to really want us to have it. So we are checking out or options. And burning a lot of wood in the fireplace.
Scott and Mary are all moved back to Lancaster County. They are staying with his parents while he goes back to school. It’s nice to be able to see more of them. Really big adjustments for Mary, though. I cooked a nice Sunday dinner and told the boys “I’m cooking this Sunday. Scott and Mary are here” and Nick came in and remarked that the dinner fare had stepped up a notch from “Here’ s some spaghetti , if you’re hungry.” :>)
Yesterday at work I was determined to figure out how to make and print address labels. I always get hung up at the point where you want to make more than one per sheet. One guy I was asking was complaining about how it takes too much time, I should just write it. Then he said , ‘try this’ and it worked! So I learned a new thing. Learning takes a little time sometimes, but then you know how. I still have to figure how to get the copy machine to collate. I am not sure it even uses the word. Now if I can just get my nice Linux computer to do address labels for me I will have it made! :>) Or learn how to post pictures on my blog. That will probably not happen until I get high speed internet. I just spend way too much time Waiting at the computer.
Sam goes back to Temple this weekend, with classes starting on Tuesday.
I need to go forage for some good food.
Y’all have a great day.
Winter…..and Spring
From the book Reclaiming the Commons by Brian Donahue:
“Every February modern New Englanders complain about the later winter blahs and how the snow has worn out its welcome. Everybody seems to be reading from the same tired old script. Television ads for escapes to Florida and the isalnds appear. People burn up jetloads of fuel to get away from — what? The dullest , dreariest time of the year? Sap is rising, lambs are dropping, garden seedlings are poking up in the greenhouse! By March, we at Land’s Sake seem to inhabit a world completely different from that of our winter weary neighbors, who gladly shell out a couple thousand bucks to flee the liveliest time of year. We are manic, they are numb. The quickening of spring is as dead to them as the road slush frozen in their wheel wells. Only that day dawns to which we are awake, said Thoreau, and I say only that spring comes to which we are engaged. Our culture is coasting deeper and deeper into neutral slumber, cruising through life with the automatic windows rolled up tight. People are no longer awake even to the everyday morning before their very eyes, let alone to any higher dawn. The bright spring sun puts out eyes a attuned only to video screens.”
Visit a greenhouse. Breathe deep. Buy a plant with some color. My favorite January plant is a Kalanchoe, a bright colored one. There might be some leftover Christmas cactus that was a little late budding for the holidays.
Melinda is going to work 2 1/2 days in the greenhouse, processing orders, at least during the “manic season”, which is beginning to settle in.
See yooz latuh.
