Taking my own medicine

I sent an email to a dear friend of mine who leads a terrifically busy life and therefore has not posted to her blog in four months.  She then posted my email on her blog, hoping to motivate herself to write something, ANYTHING, on a regular basis.

I, too, have been lax in this area, so here’s today’s short post.

The Llama and I are home alone in the rain today.  He is finishing up (or maybe not. . .? ) this week’s school work, and I am supposed to be doing academic planning and writing some blurb for our vacation home.  I am committed to spend fifteen minutes a day on that till I get it done, but I will say that I hate having projects hanging over me that I don’t know how to do.  This is one of them.

Scott, Jessica, and Andrew are out shopping.  Well, let me edit that.  AS I finished typing that sentence, Andrew hollered, “We’re home!” so I guess they are home now.

Katie’s in Virginia, and I do miss her.  However, she assures me that all is going well there, so that’s good.

It’s cool and rainy, and I need to find out if the movie night at a nearby church – that Josiah and Andrew are planning to go to – will still occur if it’s raining.

Medicine taken.  More to come.

In the mail!

I’m a little later than I had hoped to be, but the Christmas cards have all been mailed.  Whew! I really enjoy sending Christmas cards.  I also like receiving them, which is why I keep sending them.   However, there’s quite a process involved:

Ask Dad to take a bunch of family pictures at Thanksgiving

Edit the mailing list

Print the mailing  labels (to know how many of everything else is needed)

Decide which picture to use (not as easy as it sounds!) and order the prints

Order stamps

Print the return address labels

Purchase the cards

Buy the stationery

Create and print the labels to go on the back of the pictures

Write the newsletter

Go pick up the pictures

Print the newsletter

Sign the cards

Put the labels on the backs of the pictures

Fold the newsletter

Stuff the envelopes

Apply mailing labels

Apply return address labels

Apply stamps

Take ‘em to the post office

REJOICE!

The mailing list used to be about 200, but I whittled it down after last year.  When I deleted the people who had died and the additional people that we haven’t seen or heard from at all in more than five years, that knocked it down to just under 150.  Furthermore, I am about 98.6% sure that next year I am going to omit the actual cards and just go with the newsletter and pictures.

So. . . if you get a Christmas card from us this year, we hope you enjoy it.  If you don’t, send us one, and we’ll send you a nifty newsletter next year!

Spice sought

If someone would just buy me some thyme, I’d be delighted to write a fun post about my WONDERFUL semi-centennial celebration yesterday.

Christmas cards?

One of my special little pleasures in life is Christmas cards.  I like to send’ em and I like to receive ‘em.  Shoot, we decorate our living room and dining room with Christmas cards every year.  But this year, for the first time in my LIFE, I am thinking of skipping the Christmas cards.  Sigh.

For one thing, they are expensive, especially when your mailing list is as large as ours.  Postage is not going down, either.  In fact, on January 2, it’s projected to go up to $0.46 for a one ounce letter – or a Christmas card.  However, even the cost is not the main factor.  What wearies me is the challenge of trying to find cards I really like that look the way I think Christmas cards should look and say what I want them to say, all at a decent price.

Besides, having a compulsion for doneness, I don’t like to wait till they show up in Christian bookstores, because frankly, it takes a long time to sign all those cards.  It’s easier for me to get started on it around, say Halloween (or Veteran’s Day, at the latest), and do them little by little.  I prefer to order them online, but some years – despite my best efforts – I just cannot find what I want.

All that to say that our friends and family will be hearing from us in mid-December, but it may just be a newsy family letter on nice stationary.  Or, maybe this will be the month I find the perfect cards.  = )

Typos, anyone?

Seen on the sign at Culver’s:  “Rapsberry. . . “  Would that be a fruit that chants rhythmically?

Seen on the architectural site plan for the Altom Construction project on the other side of Casa de Luz:  “Existing entry to be remain.”  Does that mean it will be main again?

So much to write; so little time

I am not doing very well at keeping my blog updated and I do apologize to both of my loyal readers.

Jessica is away on a mission trip right now and many people are praying for her.  My role in that project is to keep them informed and inspired to pray for her regularly, so I’ve been trying to send Jessica news emails several times a week.  Then we have our regular weekly (or bi-weekly, or monthly, or whenever. . .) ministry email update to write.  Scott used to write them and I’d proofread them and send them, but lately I seem to be writing them.  Generally, when a lot is happening with the ministry, those are written weekly, and right now, there’s stuff happening.

The Jessica and ministry updates are two writing projects that I do because I like to do them and because they are my small contribution to ministry, but the thing I am really enjoying more than all that is writing emails and letters to Jessica to keep her updated on what’s happening with the family here at home while she’s on the other side of the world.  So I have been writing her several times a week.

All that to say. . . what with Jessica updates, ministry updates, and letters to Jessica, (A), I don’t have much time left to write blog posts, and (B), I can’t remember what I’ve already written to whom in what setting, and since I fear I might be repeating myself (which would be boring for both loyal blog readers), I often can’t think of anything “new” to blog about, and so I just don’t do blog at all.

Here are a few family tidbits. . .

1.  Katie will be working 13 hour days for “Moonlight Madness” at SDC this week and and a half.    I think she will work there through about August 5, which is when her roommate flies in for a short visit before they drive together (well, realistically Katie will drive and Amy will sleep) back to PHC on August 9-10.  Katie is getting tired and is very ready for this summer of  intense work (six full days a week all summer, except for one week when she had two days off) to be over.  I think she’s thankful to be able to earn the money, and having two different jobs has helped break up the potential monotony of running kiddie rides continually, but she says she’s going to go back to college so she can rest and relax!

2.  Scott made pancakes this morning, and because some of them were chocolate chip, Katie actually got up early and ate breakfast before going to clean.

3.  Josiah LOVES his new computer.  He saved up forever, researched it to death, and then took the plunge.  As best I can tell, no buyer’s remorse so far.  He also – after having had the checking account for two-and-a-half years – finally ordered checks.  I think it had something to do with Scott buying the computer on Scott’s credit card and then asking Josiah to write him a check for it, but Josiah had no checks. . .

4.  Today on the way home from church, I took my afternoon diuretic as I always do, just a few minutes after we left church.  It’s 45 minutes home, and that usually works out just peachy.  But today, there was a train, a LONG train, at the 65/60 interchange.  Not a good sign for a rapidly filling bladder.  Given that, I knew I couldn’t drive straight home, but I was pretty sure I could make it to Saddlebrooke without exploding.  We tooled along for a number of miles, and then suddenly, just north of Busiek, everything ground to a halt.  Miles of traffic in both lanes sat there for some ten minutes. the discomfort increase, but what to do?  We assumed there must be a bad accident somewhere ahead of us, but we had no way to know how far ahead, how bad, or when the traffic would move again.  I began scanning the rocks and grass beside the road for any signs of possible cover.  Absolutely nothing, and of course, hundred of people sitting there in plain sight.   Suffice it to say that once the long lines of cars finally began moving again, I was lead-footing it to Saddlebrooke, and I almost body slammed a cute three-year-old girl as I made a beeline for a stall.  Nuff said.

4.  Scott and Josiah are currently have dueling laptops at the dining room table as they research our upcoming Colorado vacation.  So far it looks to include a visit to Royal Gorge, an overnight hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (Scott and Josiah), a whitewater rafting expedition somewhere in Colorado (Scott and Andrew), and climbing at least one, probably two, and possibly three of Colorado’s “fourteeners” – 14,000 ft+ peaks – (Scott, Josiah, and possibly Andrew).  I’m going to make sandwiches, provide shuttle service, do laundry, and take LOTS of pictures!

My moment of beavish joy today came when Scott said, “I have a topographical map that shows all three of these peaks and the trails to them!!!”  That would be the map of the Georgetown / Guanella Pass area that debated about buying on one of our winter trips there.  I really wanted to buy it, because I liked the area so much and I enjoy good maps.   But I didn’t want to buy it because it seemed awfully expensive.  It was high because it’s printed on some kind of semi-plastic-ish extra durable paper.  As it turns out, it will hold up well without tearing when they do this mountain climbing.  I was SO pleased to have on hand exactly what he needs.

More could be said, but I’m out of writing time.

Promises, promises

A note to all six of my loyal readers:  I promise that I will soon create some new posts for your viewing pleasure.  They may be as short as this one, but they WILL be new.

In which I become a letter-writing machine

A new item must be scheduled into my day:  letter-writing.

I have a friend in prison, and my goal is to write him once a week.  I usually do that on Sunday afternoon, along with taking a nap and finishing the adult laundry.

I also have a daughter in college, who likes to get snail mail from home.  My goal is to write her twice a week.

In a couple of days, I will also have two children who will be away from home for five weeks on a mission trip.  My guess is that they will like to receive mail, as well, so I plan to write each of them at least once a week.

Now, the daughter in college can read my blog, so it is a bit challenging to think of things to write to her that she hasn’t already read.  The two mission trippers will not have internet access, so I can recycle blogged news into letters for them.  The same is true for the prisoner, but I have decided that I would be able to keep up with the writing better if I had a set time of day to do it.

Initially I plan to try 12:00 noon.  I should be able to crank out a decent letter in 30 minutes, shouldn’t I?  And if so, I could still eat lunch at 12:30 when the kids do.  Well, with the planning done, now all I need to do is follow through.

Lowering my standards

Christmas cards are a big deal to me.  I enjoy sending them and receiving them, and since we send a lot of them, I usually shop for Christmas cards on deep discount in January.  I didn’t do that this year, and when October rolled around and I started looking in catalogs and online, I couldn’t find anything I really liked.  I like to really like the Christmas cards I send.

In the past, when I haven’t been able to find just the right card, I have ended up at CPO, a Christian bookstore in Springfield.  There, I have to pay a bit more, but I can always find something nice.  So I went to CPO this week, and I was very disappointed.  I couldn’t find anything with a good, meaningful message.  Not even among the really expensive cards that I would never consider buying.

I came home and thought and thought and thought.  Finally I thought a new though:  I could make my own cards, and then they would say EXACTLY what I want them to say.  Thursday night I lay in bed, unable to sleep, working out different wordings for Christmas cards.  I finally hit on a sentence I liked, so I hopped out of bed and went in the bathroom to write it down.

The next morning, I got on the computer at 11:00 AM and spent almost my whole Off Day working on The Card.  There were ongoing fights with Publisher, searches for non-copyrighted clip art, new printer challenges, and a veto on wording by 33.33% of the family, but FINALLY, I had The Card looking the way I wanted it to look.  We even had almost enough cardstock to print them all.  Now I just need one more pack of card stock and a bunch of envelopes.

As far as lowering my standards, I finally decided NOT to sign all the cards by hand.  We are talking almost 200 cards, and with my carpal tunnel syndrome and time limitations, writing something like “Merry Christmas with love, Scott, Patty, Katie, Jessica, Josiah and Andrew” 200 times is a chore that I don’t relish.  So this year, I had the computer sign all the cards.  That’s right.  If you are on our family mailing list, you will be receiving a lovely, meaningful card that is NOT signed by hand.  It will also have a mailing label on the envelope and a wonderful newsy newsletter within, but it will not be personalized.

My mother taught me that cards should be signed by hand, and ideally contain a nice, hand-written note.  She is right, of course, but I have decided that it’s a higher priority to me for more of our friends to receive card and letter with news of our family than for fewer of our friends to receive a card (and letter) that is signed by hand.  So, yes, 2007 marks the year that I have become slovenly in the hand-signing-of-Christmas-cards department, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know better or don’t care.  It just means there are a lot of things I’d rather do with my limited card-signing time and energy.  Like blog.  = )