Books, the library and me

As usual I am thinking about what books I would like to read and enjoyed reading Jane's goals for herself from her blog for 2010. I don't read enough but love it when I do. I need to really rip myself away from our new found ease of high speed and plant myself in a chair with a book more often between all the life responsibilities that scream for attention. "How Green was my Valley" was well worth the effort. I would like to read more of his stuff too in the future.

While thinking about all this I opened the newspaper to discover that the library is increasing its fines again. Oh brother. Amazon will love me all the more. I am not very good at getting books back in on time so this just encourages me to use the library less than I did before. Amazon has these wonder penny book deals with 3.99 shipping for most of the books I want. I really want to read Rutherford's 'New York' which came out recently but am not ready to stomach the 17.95 Amazon price just yet. I find if you wait a year or two it can be found CHEAP! I have plenty on my list to keep me busy in the meantime.

The biggest catch with the library is books on tape. I don't think I want to buy them but may start collecting some favorites. We shall see. I should work on selling some I am not interested in so much and sort of trade.

Once and Future King is my current read for school with the kids. I read that a long time ago so am rereading it now so I can better grade their papers etc. I want to read the Harry Potter books, a book about Charles Lindbergh that looked interesting, Byzantium, the third and fourth Twilight books (which I don't have either) and several other books that others have recommended that I have found very cheap on amazon. So..........perhaps I will become disciplined and read some more between now and July..........and then perhaps even more after July as I will stuck in a chair more often.

ttfn

Stupid computer

I am trying to copy and paste something onto the old blog and it won't let me. Love this modern technology. I will have to print it out tomorrow and retype it. Maybe I will just post my post on reposting old posts. Did that make sense?

I am contemplating doing something fun next year for me..........we shall see. I won't even say what it is, I will just let you wonder. I have to chat with the family to see if it would be alright with them.

Hmmmm.........it was an intense day. It's over and time to go nighty, nighty. Not anything else too exciting to report today. My algebra skills are improving. That is exciting. I can at least fine the mistakes made in their problems if I can read their writing. If I can read their writing the problem is more likely to be right. Interesting concept.

Haven't biked in a few days but I think I may try tomorrow if I can find the time. Or perhaps I won't be able to find the time!!!! Argh. That's all for today..........

Muddling

The last few days have been basically good. It is nice to have Charley's parents here. The kids get more attention. It is pretty mellow around here. I've been personally less than perky but am working on that. Tonight I think I might race the kids to bed. Yawn. I have thought on and off about quitting blogging. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

I'm counting the days till Anna is home. It will be fun to go and get her next week. I can't decide if I am taking Ingrid with or not. Maybe I will just for the mere entertainment of it. I can just see it now. Anna and I walking her around the dorm halls. Perhaps if she starts screaming we will walk to the outside of particular screaming people's doors just for kicks and giggles.

Sigh. Much of my day was obsessed with chasing after something. Three...........so far........yuck. Better three than none. Will report further numbers later........if I keep blogging.

That's all for now.

Might repost

I am contemplating reposting my posts. I deleted them in concern that perhaps I hurt someone's feelings but frankly have reread them too many times and personally just see them as having said that I need to laugh more and church atmosphere doesn't always lend itself to that. I have been thinking a lot about church life. I think a hearty, let's not take ourselves too seriously, honest look into church atmosphere can never hurt anyone or any church. I was simply contemplating my own pleasant surprise of realizing I miss ridiculous, laugh at ourselves, comiscerating, non-important conversation. I grew up in Valpo which is another one of those hubs of intellectual, theologically heavy places (whether you agree with them or not - PHD's abounded), grew up a Pastor's kid, grew up pondering the church and what it looks like, grew up being seen as that 'pure pastor's kid' who you better behave around, grew up with a dad who also graduated from college, like me, at age 20, undergrad, seminary, Master's degree, PHD under his belt...........phew. Emmaus, like it or not, is full of intellect. Intellect is not a new experience for me. Neither is pious, wonderful worship having grown up listening to God, I mean Rev. Dr. Nagel amoung others, for years at the Chapel at VU. So how to meet the balance between intellect and down to earth, we're all in this together, encourage one another relations is sort of tricky. Having grown up with plenty of intellect floating through the hallways at home, the hallways of my peers, I know that intellect does not always look outside itself. I suppose I could also say to be fair, that intellect should be cautioned to not become self-absorbed. It happens. It should be guarded against. Intellect is valuable but so are people and their ordinary lives.



I personally need to take stock in the beauty of just oridnary life. I was reading Peter the other day where they were saying how they had all heard God say "This is My Son with whom I am well pleased." Their observation and report was striking to me in that it was part of their 'ordinary life' They heard it themselves, they relayed their life experience to others. It related to me and my ordinary life. It certainly was not an ordinary experience but it was their experience and they were sharing their experience with their fellow Christians. It was again, just striking to me. I need to have time to share MY experience with others. It doesn't HAVE to be at church of course but church is not just intellect and the desire to obtain more. My church IS my family in so many ways so why wouldn't I want to share my life experience with them???? The Christian life is experience, sharing it, laughing about it, crying about it (I do enough of that to have a PHD in that subject), and caring to hear other people's experience. I value that time and can not always cope well if that opportunity does not present itself. I love how so much of God's word is God's people's life experience. What I was talking about in my deleted blog posts was a need for that time. I need time to reflect on how God's word applies to my simple life through laughing, thinking out loud with, and enjoying the experience of others and my own experience.



So I contemplate serving my neighbor by taking an interest in them. I desire, as anyone does, to be served in the same way. This can be a challenge. I do not see this post as some bad reflection on my church or the pastors. My pastors are great in taking interest in their people. I personally am contemplating who I can reach out to, laugh with etc. Who might be hurting. Who would be served by some comic relief. I am a person who honestly cares deeply for others. I think others do too but perhaps we all need a kick in the pants sometimes to remember to do that. I just pray I can remember this more than a day or two and remember to take the time to just talk with other people. That is all. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. I need to laugh and enjoy people more.

Resisting impulse purchase

Charley sort of shocked me by saying it would be fine with him if we upgraded the laptop with a new laptop. I must confess I almost jumped on that as it was tempting, sounded good, sounded fun but.........it's a lot of money. I think we will wait awhile. Best Buy does have some great deals on hp's that are a lot more computer than we have now. That made it all the more tempting but this laptop will do for now. It is tempermental and locks up from time to time (sometimes more frequently than other times) but it behaves pretty well. I can't mess with my pictures too much but as my brother Steve mentioned, there will be after Christmas sales as well and the prices only get a little better and give you a little more computer. Sigh. I sort of surprised myself from going from almost the checkout cart to just deciding not to do it at all. Weird.

Another reason I love to bike

Yesterday was by most people's definition, dreary. I guess I would beg to differ. It didn't really rain too much until late and dreary is what you make of it and as the saying goes, it is in the eye of the beholder to determine what dreary is. I took my bike ride despite the 'dreary' forecast and I am glad I did it. There is a different sort of beautiful to a day like yesterday. It was completely quiet except for what animals were scurrying around. The leaves, even though they are not on the trees anymore, are truly beautiful carpeting the forest ground. I love it. Without the leaves in the forest you can see evidence of past generations buildings, the remains of stone fireplaces and foundations. This sort of thing reminds me of my dad and my quest to find the home places of some of our ancestors in Sweden. Those reminders of the past are even here in our young nation. It is pretty cool.

The other thing I enjoy is observing all the different sorts of homes there are. You can tell what has been added on. Some of the homes are so tiny you wonder who lives there but they look pretty cozy. Some of them are so new and huge you also wonder who lives there. Most of the homes in the country are well taken care of and you can see the care that has gone into them. South of town is rolling hills and it is just stunning to get to the next hill. When I bike towards dusk the sun going down puts a whole new spin on the ride. Of course it also makes me spin faster so I am not out when the sun IS down.

Yesterday I saw two different groups of deer and a red shouldered hawk. Coming upon these animals in the quiet is something that calms my soul and gives me cause to pause and marvel. Dreary days keep the complainers inside and affords me more wonder of God's creation. Not that I don't enjoy seeing people but sometimes I see so much of people that it is fine with me to be alone spinning down the country roads.

I hope to keep this biking thing up as long as possible barring snow and the temperature getting too low. I guess I can not complain for dreary skies as there is still much to wonder at. Getting outside is good for me at least to get over dwelling on the lack of sunshine and obviously there is much to see. Maybe it will stop raining sometime today so I can escape and soak some more 'dreary' in.

Trip to PA

We had a very nice visit in PA. Too short as usual but nice just the same. Everyone there seemed to be doing well. We went to visit the Rodenbeck's on Friday night. Scott was in charge of some sort of 'night out for mom and dad', do fitness activities with kids at their church. You find out just how homeschooled your children are when you participate in such activities. Poor little Benjamin had not a clue what a relay race was (not that this is a requirement for life) so when the relay began he thought he should just go with everyone else. Taking turns running was not explained of course since everyone else there knew what a relay race was. So........instead of running down and around one cone he ran down and around all the cones. He is only six but my not very well behaved brain had a compulsion to shout "Run Forest, Run" as he cheerfully went about his business of not knowing what in the world was going on. No, I am not going to start having the kids run relay races so they can be more properly socialized. I have a distinct memory of our older kids having similar difficulties and they were younger but older than Benjamin is now, at a gunny sack race at some other Pennsylvania gathering. I also know for a fact that Anna was not asked if she knew how to run relay races when she applied to college so this will not be added to my long list of things to do. Or........evil giggle..........we could have everyone run relay races at Thanksgiving to be eligible to eat dinner. Hmmm.....

Our visit with Rodenbeck's themselves was very nice. We will have to see if we can stay a little longer next time so I can go to the nearby IKEA and Erik can go to the museum there. How will I remember that????

Saturday noon we were at Mary and Floyds in Somerset. They seem to be doing better than the last time we were there. The kids had fun feeding the old horse up on the hill. Even Stefan was not scared of it this year and kept dragging his siblings and dad out the door to go visit it. They fed the horse apples and that was their basic entertainment at the Reeses this year. Oh.........that and playing Old Maid where the Old Maid card was more worn than the rest so the kids knew which card NOT to pick as it was too obvious. Then.........I played the game with them and solved that little problem of critical thinking............how hard is it to hide the mark on the card behind other cards. The biggest lesson learned in that game was 'what does it mean to play fair and not cry if you get the Old Maid?' They were perplexed how I tricked them.

Saturday night we went to the Walkers home also better known as the place with the cows and the legos. The younger kids got to bottle feed new calves. I have not looked at the pictures yet but that was a lot of fun. The Walkers work harder than anyone I know, getting up at 3:30am to do the morning milking and working most of the day with maybe a nap until 8:30ish at night. I don't think I would be able to handle that. Horners work hard but not THAT hard. We enjoyed our visit with them as we always do and Cindy continued the Somerset tradition of trying to kill you by feeding you to death. We ate WAY more food than we usually do while in Somerset. The kids just kept stuffing it in endlessly. They don't eat that way at home so I guess they were enjoying the freedom to eat or something.

Sunday and Monday we were at Mary and Floyds again for more of the same. The kids also managed to go swimming and rot their brains out in the hotel room watching silly movies.

Walmart provided the opportunity for us to run into Charley's Uncle Ed and family. Richard, their son, is in his mid-forties now and he was helping him mom load groceries. I saw him first as we pulled in. His mom said Richard told her "That was Cha Cha." (Richard is mentally handicapped). So........we visited in the parking lot. I now have a new name for Charley thanks to Richard. Richard is so very cute. We also ran into Mary and Floyd's daughter-in-law Pam and her daughter Lisa and granddaughter Hayden when we stopped to get a few things on the way out of town. Charley (Cha Cha) finally called my cell phone as he thought I was just going to run in and get milk and wondered what happened to me. Uh.......yeah..........I visited with them for quite some time.

So ended our mini vacation. We left a little later than we had planned Monday afternoon and got home pretty late. I think Stefan developed a fascination with rest stop potties and suddenly needed to go to the potty a lot. Another child was not feeling so great (probably from over eating) and I thought we would never get home for all the stopping. Anyway........we are home. Yay! I love my house, I love my nest, in all the world my nest is best!