Family Fun

We've been having a blast with my sister's family in Montana. Not only was it great to spend Christmas morning with a seven year old, but we've been playing games, reading books, watching movies, taking walks, cooking meals, and telling stories around the supper table.

Not that anyone is keeping score, but I kicked a** at Banagrams tonight. That happens when you play a couple of rookies. I managed to pull off a win at Shanghai last night, too. I tried to save Calvin from loosing to his dad at Mega Monopoly last night. There was no avoiding bankruptcy for Calvin. But I hung on to Boardwalk and Park Place to the very bitter end for him after the game exceeded his bedtime. We went sledding on Christmas day, that was a blast! And bowling yesterday was great fun. I didn't get an opportunity to bowl and entire game, but the best was Calvin finishing the night with his very first strike. YAY CALVINATOR!!

Yesterday and today provided beautiful opportunities for walks. Wendy and I took the dogs out west of town yesterday. Nessie and Hobbes had a great time chasing in the snow. Hobbes flushed a jack rabbit that astounded Nessie. I don't think she's ever seen a rabbit that big before. She gave chase until the cattle grate prohibited her forward progress.

Today the whole family trekked around at Wendy and Mike's property northwest of town, fondly referred to as The Long L Ranch. It was a gorgeous afternoon. The boys hacked at the ice on the stream, the dogs sniffed tracks and chased sticks. Wendy took videos and I took pictures.

Tomorrow we begin our journey back to Minnesota. It seems like too short a visit, but we need to return to work. Sigh.

Vacations are good, and even more fun when celebrating a holiday with family. Thank you Calvin and Mike and Wendy. We've had a fantastic time.

Love,
The Skovs

Merry Christmas

After a nighttime blizzard in North Dakota, and sleepy giggles through Great Falls, Montana, (approximately hour number 21 in the Ford F-150) we arrived safely at my sister's home in Choteau. Cousin Calvin, as my sons like to call him, was standing by ready to help unload the pick-up and place presents under a freshly decorated Christmas tree. Nessie traveled like a trooper and was a little disconcerted to learn that the destination home had a resident dog, Hobbes the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. They're learning to get along, Nessie being a bit prickly and Hobbes very good natured about sharing his abode and his people.

This is our first time sharing Christmas with the Maples IN Montana. In past years it has always been my sister and her family that traveled. This was a new adventure for the Skov boys who can't recall a Christmas away from their own home.

We had a lovely Christmas Eve that included getting dressed up for church and singing Christmas carols by candle light. It was a lovely, peaceful service in a full and friendly church.

This morning we were up well before the sun and started in on Santa gifts and stockings before 7 am. Christmas with a seven-year-old, morning person was a significant departure from our well-trained boys who usually sleep in, even on Christmas Day. But they were cheerful and cooperative when Cousin Calvin woke them, pounding into our room and leaping on to Dale and me to wake us with a Merry Christmas pile.

Everyone received wonderful gifts; both surprises and coveted items. Now we get to eat and play for the rest of the day. This is the best!

I pray your are having a fun Christmas with family and friends, too.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

4.4 Below

As I sit to write it is 4.4 below tonight. And that's NOT Celsius.

It is officially winter, and definitely cold.

My father refuses to play the game with my Montana sister and my Minnesota self over who has the worst weather and wind chill factor. His proclamation is that "once it's below zero it doesn't matter, it's just damn cold outside." He still lives in northwestern Illinois where we grew up. My sister and I agree, it simply doesn't get as cold there - at least not for as long and not with as much wind (he lives in a ravine) as our locations. But in recent years he has shoveled a lot more snow than our families have had to move around.

Snow and balding tires were my nemesis this morning. I drive a 2004 Ford Focus SVT. Go ahead and laugh at my Focus. It's a secret weapon with more power than the average onlooker would guess with a sweet BMW transmission; six gears to go from zero to 70 in nothing flat. Except when there's snow and it's cold and slippery. Todd Palin would laugh hilariously at this "snow machine." It's a low-slung suspension with high performance wheels. Currently the treads on the wheels are performing less than adequately.

This morning Joren and I hopped in the frigid Ford to head for church. Being part Clark and part Skov we of course didn't allow enough time to warm up the car (it was in the garage and required no scraping), much less exit the driveway.

I barely got out of the garage when I got stuck. Dale did scrape and blow the driveway the previous night and we didn't even get another inch of snow accumulation over night. Granted it was a rough job; the hydraulics on the tractor are frozen so he couldn't adjust the height or position of the front bucket or the level of the snow blower. But he did pretty well. I seemed to be hung up on a brittle ridge of snow. I tried rocking the car back and forth and it wouldn't budge. Finally something made a cracking sound (never good on a subzero morning) and we seemed to be free. It then occurred to me that the car sat for over 24 hours as the temperatures plummeted after a snowfall. I bet my brakes had been frozen and had just broken free.

I made it almost 40 feet around the curve of the driveway and headed in the correct direction before I spun out again. Argh! Joren hopped out to see what the problem was and said the tires were spinning but no traction. He tried giving me a push. But his shoes have less tread than my tires! I invited him into the driver's seat in the cockpit of my treasured traveling office so I could try giving it a push. Traction and leverage is everything. Who would have guessed this 46-year-old mom could out-push a strapping young seventeen -year-old? Okay, shut up about my out-weighing him!

We got it going and he started to slow down. I ran behind, "Keep going, keep going," I shouted and gestured. I ran along side, continuing my verbal encouragement, got the passenger side door open, hopped in, confident that my son wouldn't run me over, and said "I guess you're driving to town!" He started to slow down to buckle up and I cried out, "NO - just drive! We still have to make it over the snow plow ridge at the top of the drive way. If we stop we'll never get out!"

Traffic gave us a break and we were able to squirt right up onto a mostly cleared highway. We buckled up and made it to town safely, if a little late for church. We had a good laugh and then proceeded to get the giggles during the Nicene Creed during worship. Simultaneously Joren managed to claim "I believe in the Holy Spit" as I misspoke of my belief "in the Holy Carrot." I don't know what possessed our tongues or our brains, but we cracked each other up pretty badly. I hope God had a sense of humor this morning.

We received our blessings for travel over the holidays and made our merry way to Kohls in Cottage Grove where we purchased Joren some new treads.

Next time he can push us out of the driveway!

P.S. at the time of publishing this post the temp has already dropped another full degree. Brrrrrr.

Live Long and Prosper?

I don't watch Oprah and I don't read self-help books. But I did watch Star Trek the first time around and I can't remember a life without National Public Radio. My father bears an eerie resemblance to Spock (Leonard Nimoy), the Vulcan on the Enterprise. My father is also the youngest looking and most vital 69-year-old I know. Like Spock he is very logical, especially for a human. He loves Star Trek and "Live Long and Prosper" is a quote that he not only speaks but lives every day in his own way. Don't get me wrong, he's not wealthy in the financial sense, but he has a full life. He has always challenged my sister and me to use our intellect to accomplish things. But he lived out that dream in a way somewhat unique to our peers in Galena, Illinois, during the 70's.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Dear Old Dad (a moniker of his own designation):

"For Christ' sake, Bronwyn, use your BRAIN!" (Usually yelled at me when I was being illogical, or being a normal GIRL!)

"What kind of teachers do they employ in this school district? Mr. ________ really told you Wyoming was north of Montana? It's time for home school!" (But he hadn't the patience to home school us, so we were never deprived of our public school education in spite of its inadequacies.)

"We don't need a television; it just takes up space in the living room and utilizes electricity for no greater purpose than polluting your brain with trite crap!" (Exclaimed as he prepared to drive the blown TV to the landfill in 1972 - we had no television from then until I moved away to college in 1981, thus my dependence on public radio)

"Whoa! Check it out. I've got to get a picture of this . . . ." (As he parked the car and began shooting film of raptors, trees, landscapes, mountains, streams, barns, lightning, etc.)

"Hey Bronwyn, I know what you can tell Mrs. Ray this time, tell her you're going to work at John Deere in Dubuque. Sweepers make $9.35 an hour!" (This to help me out with my second appointment with the high school counselor after being kicked out of her office for claiming that if I wasn't accepted at Macalester College, where she thought I didn't have a prayer of enrolling, I was going to be a professional skier. She angrily asked what I would do in the summer time. I calmly replied "Water ski," and apparently gave her my you-idiot-look, which caused her to dismiss me from her office. The day I received my acceptance at Mac I waltzed into her office triumphant, dropped my acceptance letter on her desk, asked her to forward my final transcripts, and said, "Guess I'll have to cancel that interview in Dubuque, they want me in Minnesota.")

I offer these examples to help you get the intellectual, anti-establishment, meddling humor that has always amused my Dear Old Dad. He treasures being unconventional. He is mischievous and brilliant and loves a bad pun. He values individualism, environmental responsibility, and twisted humor. He knows fine wine and appreciates good beer. (Brings to mind another favorite quote: "Why bother drinking that bunny piss?" when I was caught drinking a Miller Lite.)

This man made me eat bean sprouts and home-made granola as a child - YUCK! He also made me walk and hike and camp and garden and read and sometimes do absolutely nothing at all.

Now he's 69 and I'm 46 and I'm aging faster than he is even though I never had a smoking habit. He was a pack a day Lucky Strike consumer in the 50's and 60's until 1968 when he quit cold turkey to never smoke again.

If he doesn't kill himself in the car driving too fast, ("The speed limit is for rookies who don't know where they're going.") I fully expect him to live long and prosper into his 100's.

Which brings me to the Oprah/NPR/Self-help portion of the blog. Being my father's child, I know that a tiny percentage of my life span is determined genetically. But mostly it's about how you live. I heard this guy on MPR last Monday morning. I looked up his website about Blue Zones and am fascinated.

This whole concept about how to age gracefully and live well and live long has great appeal for me. It fits right in with the theme of my blog, BALANCE. Many things in moderation, he educates. And then he goes on to highlight four components or ten zones or nine areas of focus. The details matter not. The principals matter a lot.

So my goal as a Christmas gift to myself is to pay closer attention to this balance in life. I'll try and blog about it, too. I'll let you know what I discover, how I fail, and when I can shout out some success with achieving balance. I hope to celebrate my dad's 100th birthday with him if he's still healthy and living prosperously. Hell, I hope he'll be around to celebrate my 100th! That would be a party . . . .

Gratitude

Last weekend I made my annual trek to my quaint home town, Galena, Illinois, with eight girlfriends who volunteer to staff my costume shop each year. It's a girls' weekend that we've been holding for over ten years. The group is very diverse and eclectic. Some of us are very close friends with not many outside the circle, others have friends outside the circle that are even closer. Some are republicans and some are democrats and some are largely apolitical. All of us believe in a higher power that most of us name as God, yet we live out that faith in vastly different ways. Most of us claim the Episcopal denomination with a Methodist amongst us. Some of us are feminist, some more traditional, some outspoken, others refusing to engage. Some of us smoke and some smoke not at all, with a few in between. Most of us drink, some too much, but less and less in quantity as we age. One of us is a one drink-a-year-woman as far as we can tell. We care deeply about one another and I give thanks for the measure of grace that allows us to be friends in spite of our differences and disagreements. I am very proud about how we tell the truth to one another and respect one another's dignity. Three of us are bona fide Church Geeks - one is a church secretary, another is part of a Total Ministry Team that is forming and she's the coordinator, and I work for our bishop in the denominational office. So religion does get discussed in our group. Last weekend there was conversation about the "Split" in the Episcopal Church and "the gay issue." Personally I am weary of the conversation. My parents raised me to respect the dignity of every human being. I have never been a homophobe and having been bussed to a school in a black neighborhood when they desegregated the schools in Chicago in 1968 (the year I began kindergarten) I've been aware of internalized oppression and white privilege all of my life. I am aware that I must continue to work on combatting the assumptions of dominant culture in order to maintain my personal integrity with regard to my Baptismal promises, which I made at age 13 and affirmed at age 31. But this accusation about gay people splitting our church is just ridiculous and so over-blown in the media. Last weekend I copped out and walked away from a difficult conversation to take a shower. I wish I had had the following article to share with my friends. Once again, Spong writes the words and opinion that I have failed to articulate for myself. Enjoy! Thursday December 11, 2008

Splinter Episcopalians: Giving Gravitas to Trivia

Ari Goldman, the former religion editor of The New York Times (and not coincidentally my favorite secular religion newspaper writer in America during my active career), once told me that the only way he could get a religion story on the front page of the Times was to combine religion with sex. I thought of that when I picked up the Times on December 4 and discovered a front page, left hand column, lead story by Ari's able successor, Laurie Goldstein, with a headline blaring "Episcopal Split as Conservatives Form New Group." The subtitle revealed the sex connection, for it read, "Furor on Gay Issue." The public loves church conflict over sex. Here was America's most prestigious and best read daily newspaper playing to that fetish. In that issue of the Times, the front page right hand column, considered the lead story of the day, went to the offer of the United Automobile Workers Union to modify its contracts to help save the automotive industry. The second lead, which normally fills the left hand column, was dedicated to the decision of three excommunicated Episcopal bishops and one renegade bishop, elected by no one but ordained by a bishop in Nigeria, to form a new ecclesiastical body. This article, perhaps trying to give gravitas to trivia, then suggested that this new structure had the potential to "split the Anglican Communion," since homosexuality was thought of by the Bible-quoting Evangelicals and traditional Catholics led by the Pope as both overtly sinful and as something condemned by the clear voice of scripture. . With all due respect to the editors of the Times, giving this group and these attitudes front page attention probably represents the high water mark of this movement, before it begins its inevitable journey into anonymity. Let me lay out the facts: The negativity toward homosexuality emanating from these groups is first based on a naïve and outdated definition of homosexuality, namely that it is a choice made by persons who are either mentally sick or morally depraved. If they are mentally sick they are to be cured if possible and if not, they are to be pitied. If they are morally depraved they are to be converted. If that fails they are to be judged, condemned and ostracized. Second, these dated and false ideas are then buttressed by biblical quotations that reveal little or no awareness of contemporary biblical scholarship. The favorite verses of condemnation come from Leviticus, which calls homosexuality "an abomination" in chapter 18 and prescribes the death penalty for it in chapter 20; from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18-19; and from chapter one of Romans. They fail to read the rest of Leviticus, which reveals attitudes and values long abandoned as immoral in our day or to note that the Bible itself calls the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah the violation of the Middle Eastern hospitality code. In Romans one Paul actually argues that homosexuality is God's imposed punishment on those who do not worship God properly. A strange God this would be! Several other texts are also frequently cited, but they are usually based on mistranslations of a Greek word (arcenokoitus), which means a wide variety of other practices like Temple prostitutes, with homosexuality being a minor note, if present at all, in that word. All of these texts assume that homosexuality is a choice, for that was the "common wisdom" when the Bible was written some two to three thousand years ago. Other common assumptions of that period of history also found in the Bible are that epilepsy and mental illness are caused by demon possession, that sickness results from divine punishment, that women are property, that menstruation is an abomination, that slavery is legitimate and that God is the cause of everything we did not then understand. These data raise questions first about why anyone today would give credence to a literal understanding of a Bible, containing as it does such obviously outdated ideas; and second, why anyone would pay attention to those who do? Both science and medicine have obliterated most of these dated attitudes. There is, however, always in every social change a small body of people who cannot embrace new knowledge and who thus will not move to any new conclusions. They shroud their fear in the suggestion that they alone represent "God's will" and that anyone who disagrees with them is actually disagreeing with God! The Christian Church has dealt with this mentality many times throughout history — when the divine right of kings was challenged by the Magna Carta in the 13th century; when Galileo opened our minds to the size of the universe in the 17th century; when Darwin's thought was published and when slavery was ended in the 19th century; and when segregation was struck down, women emancipated and mental illness recognized as a sickness in the 20th century. Today the energy of this backwater mentality floats around the issue of homosexuality. There is nothing unusual about this. What is unusual is that these ideas in their irrelevant death throes can still command a front page story in The New York Times! Homosexuality is widely recognized today as no more a choice than gender, skin color, left-handedness or any of the other givens in life. We do not today persecute, enslave or segregate people on the basis of skin color. Indeed, we now have reached the level of consciousness that enables us to appoint people of color to articulate the foreign policy of this nation and to elect a person of color to the highest office of the land. We do not continue to make second class citizens of women by forbidding them the power to vote, to achieve university educations or to enter into the world of business and politics. Indeed, we now choose women to head Hewlett-Packard and eBay. We appoint them to the Supreme Court. We elect them to be senators and governors. We are not surprised when they run for the presidency, when they are appointed to be Secretary of State or are elected to be Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Similarly, we do not today still think it is socially acceptable to persecute gay and lesbian people. We place homosexual people on the New York Stock Exchange. We elect them in both parties to the Congress of the United States. In the person of Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, we entrust them with the central role in managing Congress's response to the economic crisis through which this nation is walking at this moment. The attitude reflected by this tiny group of dissident Episcopalians is so out of touch with reality as to be laughable. When sex and religion are mixed in the public arena, however, the media still consider it front page material. Other indicators point to this splinter group's increasing irrelevance. Not only are the three excommunicated bishops mentioned in the Times article just three out of more than a hundred diocesan bishops in the Episcopal Church, but they also represent three relatively small dioceses, one in Southern Illinois, one in the Fort Worth area of Texas and one in Western Pennsylvania. This article did not mention, however, that the largest Episcopal congregation in Pittsburgh refused to abandon the Episcopal Church when its bishop decided to do so or that individual churches in all the others have also broken ranks with these bishops to stay in the Church they have cared about for so long. All three of these bishops served in the House of Bishops when I was a member. It is fair to say that none of them was ever mistaken for a leader. One of them barely had his election as bishop confirmed because his views were so extreme. Another was primarily known as a whiner. They were by and large viewed as a tolerated minority of people, well meaning but out of the mainstream, who always populate the edges of institutional church life. They are still exactly that. If they cannot adjust to a church in which women and homosexual persons are treated equally and are ordained to be priests and bishops, perhaps they ought to find another tradition that will accept their prejudices as something other than an inability to adjust. There are a number of such churches in this land that will give them cover for their negativity at least for the balance of their lives. We have had splinter movements leave the Episcopal Church many times before. That is always a possibility in a church where democratic decision making is embraced. In the late 1800s, a splinter left the Episcopal Church in a dispute over churchmanship. Later in 1976 other splinter groups left when the prohibition against the ordination of women was removed and in 1979 when the new prayer book was adopted. Now it is the election, confirmation and ordination of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire that is the celebrated cause of a new splinter of defection. No one in this religiously free land is required to attend a church with which they disagree, so they are quite free to leave. This little group, however, wants to hurt the Episcopal Church in its leave taking. They also want to take the property of the Episcopal Church with them when they depart. They are the "True Church" they maintain. All of the others have violated the Christian faith and are "apostate." How wonderfully arrogant! This tiny group of defectors has lost every vote in the decision making conventions of the Episcopal Church for decades by significant majorities Each of these now deposed bishops was elected, confirmed and ordained by the Episcopal Church, placed in charge of Episcopal dioceses, licensed to serve in the Episcopal Church to which all of them pledged at ordination time to abide by and to uphold the Canons and Constitution of the Episcopal Church. How they can now claim that none of this matters is a mystery. They surely know that this church will not turn its back on the future in order to affirm their continuing negativity. They have by their own choice violated their vows and have left the church. The property of this church does not belong to them. The New York Times followed the Goldman rule: A story about religion and sex makes the front page even if it is of no great import. In less than ten years, these pitiful figures who have somehow confused themselves with God and their prejudices with righteousness will be long forgotten. History moves on and when it does it relegates those who cannot adjust to the dustbins of history. – John Shelby Spong

Mug Club BINGO

Hello Followers. It's been 19 hours since my last blog post and I'm still awake with no sleepy spells today. Go Figure!

Many if not most Wednesday nights a group of my Hastings friends gathers at the not-so-new-anymore Green Mill on US Highway 61. The restaurant's gimmick is that they sold us our "own" mugs that we store at the bar. Supposedly we get coupon's and discounts and our name is to be engraved on the mug. My mug is still only a statistic, but I do get a free one on Wednesday nights (after I've paid for one) and the refills are cheaper than if I wasn't a Mug Club member.

They also entice us with appetizer deals, but those don't kick in until after 9 pm. So those of us arriving there around 7 or 8, hungry from work, really shouldn't wait until 9 to eat if we're going to start drinking at 7:30ish. So we use coupons and when the food is bad, which usually it isn't, but when it's bad it's disgusting - ask Beth about her steak sandwich tonight - we protest and get better food with a comped meal.

We have two favorite servers, Todd and Nate. They both have learned our names (and the names of our children) and they have learned that we may be demanding, but we are gracious and generous if treated well. Perhaps they roll their eyes and sigh when we come in, but we truly enjoy our time in the bar and trust that they will take good care of us while there.

The newer enticement is the addition of Wednesday night BINGO! We have disrupted our regular dice game to play BINGO. It started out as a lame sort of gig. This guy named Matt distributed these flimsy paper bingo cards and threw some pennies and colored, transparent disks on our tables. He started calling Bingo numbers and we complained that we couldn't understand if when calling the N's if he was pronouncing thirty-something or forty-something. We offered constructive criticism and asked that when he call a number, he then pronounce the two numerals as well.

"N forty-three, N four-three."

Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes we struggle - especially during rapid-fire Bingo when he repeats nothing. He and Mary tangled it up about that a little bit tonight. Mary's brilliant and diplomatic solution was to blame it on the microphone. She's so good.

Often we have not been given enough disks to finish a round, so we are left to dig in purses and pockets for pennies and coins and any manner of disks. Some games we have used pens to mark our "cards." It's all been a little less than professional - Bingo on the cheap. But it's worth playing because the prizes are Green Mill gift cards that we can apply to our food and beverage bill.

Tonight was different. We ran the full roller-coaster of Green Mill Mug Club experience. We were missing some of our regulars tonight, and the children didn't haunt us for a change. It was Beth, Tom, Mary, Me, Mike, and Barb seated on the west side in Todd's section.

Mike and Barb had already had supper at another bar, RJ's downtown, before choir and would be late. The rest of us were hungry and ordered meals. Beth's sandwich was inedible and some of the chicken in Tom's wrap was over-done, too. Todd takes good care of us and replaced Beth's meal quickly with an apology and no questions. My pot roast with gravy and mashed potatoes was excellent, the perfect winter night comfort food.

When Matt came around with Bingo papers I demonstrated my own little cloth bag was full of my very own colorful, transparent disks to use. I raided a vintage game of Tiddly-Winks sent to me several Christmases ago by my mother. They are my lucky Bingo disks. Usually we come very close but very seldom win a Bingo at our table. Now and then one of us gets lucky, but that's about it. Tonight Mary won the very first BINGO of the night.

Tom won an early round, too.

We were $20 up plus a comped meal.

When we advanced to the $20 gift card rounds I won a T Bingo: top row and all the N's. I was afraid it wasn't a Bingo because I had marked an N that I couldn't tell if he said it was a thirty or forty during rapid fire. It proved good. But another girl won at the same letter that completed my Bingo - N41. So we split the winnings and I received a $10 gift card.

A couple rounds later I won another $20 Bingo with three horizontal rows. Again, I had to share my Bingo with another winner. So I received 50% of my $40 winnings in the form of two $10 gift cards. Not bad - our table managed to receive damn near 50% of our total bill paid by gift cards, discounts, coupons, and a comped meal. Gotta love that during a recession.

No one won the final Bingo pot where you can win $100 for getting a traditional Bingo in 17 numbers. So next week the pot is bigger and we get 18 numbers to win.

Not to worry, we tipped Todd on the gross bill amount, not our net. Some of us have waited tables before and even know better than to tip on the credit cards.

Anyone waiting on our demanding group deserves to receive cash compensation!

Here's Matt with my two-time winner.

B - I - N - G - O !

4:44 a.m.

You guessed it.

Wide awake - at 4:44 a.m.

It serves me right for going to bed shortly after 9 p.m. last night. Usually I push through that first, post-supper-time, sleepy spell and stay up at least through the weather on the late news. Sometimes I stay up through Leno and even Conan. My alarm is almost always set for approximately 6:30 a.m. - give or take half an hour. And it is almost always a drag to get my sleepy body out of bed at that hour. I have no trouble hitting the snooze alarm and drifting back to dozey dreams for another hour if I have the luxury of time.

I guess my body is used to, and perhaps only needs, seven hours of sleep at night. Although I have a recollection of one of my co-workers walking right into my sleep and yelling something at me and walking right out of what seemed to be my office. All of a sudden I was wide awake in my cozy, flannel enclosure with my canine foot-warmer, Nessie the Jack Russel Terrorist, curled up in the crook of my knees. I decided to get up and pee. Often either the dog or I have to go at that time of the night. I generally leave the lights off so I can fall right back to sleep upon return to the confines of my comfy bed.

Not this morning.

As I lay in my peaceful bed I became aware that the morning traffic was just beginning on U.S. Highway 61 in front of our country yard. It had the muffled sound that surely meant it had snowed in the night. I then realized I hadn't heard a snow plow yet. Either it's still snowing and they're waiting to clear the roads around 6 a.m. for the morning commute, or there wasn't really enough snow to plow.

I rolled over and tried a prayer to get myself back to sleep.

Guide me waking, Lord, and guard me sleeping,
That awake I may watch with Christ,
And asleep I may rest in Peace . . .
Bless Dale, and Joren, and Arthur, and Maria, and Luke, and Danika, and Karen, and Grace, and Calvin, and Sonia, and Jamie, and Rory, and Kevin, and Kieran, and Owen, and Elise, and . . .

This isn't working. I almost always drift off after I've asked for blessings of my children, godchildren, nephews, and nieces!

I tossed over the other direction and tried a different prayer.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep . . .

There goes another car. Hmmmm. Sounds really snowy. Oh, look. Headlights are moving by really slowly. I wonder when the plow will come by. Maybe Joren will get a snow day. I better go check the news. It's already 5:44 a.m. and I still haven't fallen asleep. Might as well get up. I could even blog!

There's at least an inch of wintry white blanketing everything in the yard. New snow is such a blessing, so peaceful, quiet and pure. The sparkles will be beautiful in the morning light - unless it's still cloudy.

At 6 a.m. the plow went south. Traffic doesn't seem to be moving any faster. Guess I better hit the shower and get the Skov men up a little early so they can be careful drivers on the way to work and school today.

I guess it's just destined to be a long day for me. I pray it will be a fun and productive one!

Oh, wait, I'll check out the Advent Calendar first. Care to join me?

Spoiled or Blessed?

I am blessed.

Actually, I am spoiled rotten.

I suspect my sister would agree.  She's younger and a shy introvert.  I'm not only older than she, but the first born grandchild on both sides of the family, and a double-E -EXTROVERT!  So if I wasn't getting enough attention in any given situation I found a quick way to get it as a child.  I like to think I've matured in my forties, but I still love attention.  And I love gifts.

I love giving them and I love receiving them.

This past holiday weekend I invited our family to my father's for Thanksgiving dinner, suspecting I wouldn't be up to cooking so soon after surgery.  My father agreed to cook turkey and pheasant that we promised to provide.  My step-sister, Heidi, who lives in Chicago with her husband and their five children, decided to join us for the feast.  We had a wonderfully relaxing weekend in Galena, Illinois; my home town, a.k.a. The Town That Time Forgot.  I felt very blessed.

On Sunday my youngest asked if I would come to church in Hastings to sit with Kristen-the-Girlfriend.  Joren wanted to sing with his dad in the choir.  I reluctantly agreed, hoping it wasn't a "Contemporary Worship" Sunday.  I lucked out.  I had a thoroughly enjoyable time quietly welcoming Kristen-the-Roman-Catholic to the Anglo-Catholic expression of religiosity known as The Episcopal Church.  It was First Advent and she's from a liturgical tradition and parochial school background, so most of the worship felt familiar to her.  I was so pleased that we were using Eucharistic Prayer C (the Star Wars Eucharist) because it's the perfect liturgy for demonstrating our subtle yet significant theological differences from Roman Theology.  Kristen had good questions and participated faithfully, including breaking bread with us.  I love teaching young people about this tradition and find that doing so during worship is one of the best ways to illustrate why we do what we do.   I felt very blessed.

But wait - there's more.

At work I got going on my Two-Do list and started wading through our website to get myself fully up to speed on our diocesan activities and resources and low and behold, there's a fantastic Advent Calendar on the home page.  I love Advent Calendars and this one is rich with perspectives and possibilities.  I encourage you to check it out.  I felt very blessed.

And ONE MORE THING!

Today my friend and colleague Irma-the-Archdeacon walked into my office bearing a gift. I doubt she realized that I was suffering Da Bears Blues after the Vikings horrific victory last night.  Her face beamed as she triumphantly placed a tiny little fishbowl on my desk and announced, "There, now you have both Becket(t)s, Thomas and Samuel!" (Formerly I had a red Siamese Fighting fish that was named Beckett.  See here for previous post.  BTW - he died.) 

It is such a cool little thing.  It's a fish bowl of fake fish that from a distance look legitimate! When the battery in the base is turned on the fish swim around in random patterns!  I laughed with delight, thanking Irma for solving the loneliness of my fish less office with fish I can't kill.  (I suppose I will kill the battery at some point, but that's more readily replaceable than the fish!)  

I am very blessed.

And spoiled rotten, too.  Thanks be to Irma!