My vacation starts today!
Before you get too excited for me...
This is one of those "working" vacations. I spent all morning working on my taxes. I've got a whole list of things to accomplish including home and car repairs. I'll probably also end up in the office for a chunk of time (but I won't answer the phone!).
For the last 3 days, while I was sitting in my office, it has been sunny and warm. Today is cloudy and cold, with cloudy and cold being the forcast for the next couple of weeks.
So, as you can tell, it is all adding up to a memorable vacation! Actually, I enjoy these low pressure, hang-around home kind of vacations.
And before you get too bummed for me...
We will be going down to Shipshewana for a night as a family and Opening Day for the Tigers will also fall into this week. And it is a treat just to be home in the evenings with my family as well! We also have plans to hangout with friends as well. So there are plenty of fun opportunities.
To all of you headed out for spring break soon...Have Fun (and drive carefully)!
3.28.2007
3.23.2007
How Many of Me?
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet yourself? It may not be quite the same, but you could find out how likely it is that you would meet someone with your exact first and last name. With only 521 people in the US with my exact first and last name, I'm not planning on meeting any of them soon. I hope they are upholding my good name. If not, could I sue them for defamation? Hmmm...
Are there more or less than 521 of you?
Are there more or less than 521 of you?
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Sense of Spring
Spring has sprung! Tonight I went for a walk to the library and back and my senses reminded me that it was spring. I could hear the birds singing all around me and see the flowers beginning to grow. But the sense of spring that I notice the most was the smell. Up close I could smell the early flowers. I smelled someone with a "camp fire" in their backyard. But the smell that warmed my spring heart the most was the smell of hamburgers cooking on the grill! Yeah! Spring is here!
3.17.2007
Odyssey of the Mind
This morning Brant participated in his first Odyssey of the Mind competition. What fun! The assignment for the team was to create an 8 minute production based around finding a time capsule. Brant's team picked ancient Egypt. The greatest moment was when Brant came out with a black wig and white "skirt" (he had made both) as an ancient Egyptian. I had never been to an Odyssey competition before. It was great to see so many young people being being challenged to be so creative!
3.16.2007
If you don't like the weather in Michigan...
Weatherman Bill Stephen keeps a blog that has some interesting weather stuff. I loved this post after we hit 70 degrees a few days ago. I thought of my family in the Central Valley of California and how little variety they get!
"So far the month of March in West Michigan has brought us rain, snow, sleet, hail, heavy fog, haze, smoke, freezing rain, a thunderstorm, a bright meteor and a blizzard! West Michigan is THE place to work if you’re a meteorologist. I love it! We had 13.5″ of snow in the first five days of the month, with drifts up to four feet high! We had temperatures down below zero (+1 at the airport) and up into the low 70s (with snowpiles around and STILL in the 70s!)…and the month is only half over!! Eat your heart out fellow meteorologists who live where the weather is boring! West Michigan is the World Headquarters of Ultimate Weather!"
"So far the month of March in West Michigan has brought us rain, snow, sleet, hail, heavy fog, haze, smoke, freezing rain, a thunderstorm, a bright meteor and a blizzard! West Michigan is THE place to work if you’re a meteorologist. I love it! We had 13.5″ of snow in the first five days of the month, with drifts up to four feet high! We had temperatures down below zero (+1 at the airport) and up into the low 70s (with snowpiles around and STILL in the 70s!)…and the month is only half over!! Eat your heart out fellow meteorologists who live where the weather is boring! West Michigan is the World Headquarters of Ultimate Weather!"
3.14.2007
Happy Pi Day
Happy Pi Day everyone!
Today is March 14, otherwise identified as 3/14 or 3.14 which also happens to be the mysterious and famous number identified as pi. There are a number of people in the world who have an almost religious facination with pi. One person holds the world record by reciting Pi to more than 67,000 places. It was done over 24 hours and recorded on 26 video tapes. A poet who also likes numbers has written an extremely long poem based on pi. Each word has the number of letters corresponding to the numbers in pi (first word has 3 letters, second word has 1 letter, third word has 4 letters, etc.) I for one am very satisfied with the three digits that I can remember and would like to leave it in the world of mathematics.
Now, I'm not advocating any kind of obsession about pi, but today pause for a moment and appreciate all those hours you put into high school algebra (and I'll appreciate even more the fact that those days are done!)
By the way, if you really want to celebrate today correctly, you will pause and think of Pi at 1:59 this afternoon. After all, the next three digits are 159 making your string of date and time 3.14159. Taking a bite of PIE at 1:59 this afternoon may be the most appropriate way to celebrate.
3.10.2007
P.O.E.T.S.
Last night was family night...nothing but pizza, popcorn, brownies with ice cream and games after 6:00. After Erin defeated us all at Cities and Knights of Catan and Brant was in bed, Huggermugger came out. Under the horseshoes category we came across an acronym that I'd never heard of before and found rather. Do you know what "P.O.E.T.S." stands for? Take your best guess and then scroll down for the answer. I'm curious if anyone else has ever heard this one.
Answer:
Phooey
On
Everything
Tomorrow's
Saturday
Answer:
Phooey
On
Everything
Tomorrow's
Saturday
3.07.2007
Sin and Snow Plows
Here is my latest article for my church newsletter. Feel free to read it if you wish. It isn't published yet, so if you see any horrible mistakes kindly let me know! Thanks!
Sin and Snow Plows
I woke up last Saturday morning to 11 inches of newly fallen snow. It was really a rather beautiful sight – everywhere except in my driveway. Being rather compulsive about keeping my driveway clear, I bundled up and started shoveling. I seem to be caught in a never ending cycle; I dutifully shovel my driveway, even scraping off the tire-track strips of ice, only to have more snow fall and undo all of the work I’ve done.
Perhaps the most frustrating factor in the cycle is the snow plow. After meticulously working my way down to the cement on both the driveway and the sidewalks, I retreat to the warmth of my home and wait for the snow plow to come with both eager anticipation and with dread. On the one hand, I enjoy watching the power of the plow as it effortlessly tosses great amounts of snow often great distances, and I like the roar of the blade scraping the road. But on the other hand, I dread the great piles of heavy, slushy snow that will be cleared from the road and deposited into my once clean driveway. And once again the boots go on and the shovel comes out and the cycle continues.
I was given a wonderful gift, however, this past Saturday morning. As I finished my shoveling, a friend of mine drove by in his truck with a plow on the front and plowed the road for about fifty yards in the direction the plow was going to come. So, when the plow roared by later that morning, I watched from inside with joy as it passed with hardly any effect, depositing next to nothing in my clean driveway.
That got me thinking about keeping my soul clean. Jesus is rather compulsive (to say the least) about keeping our souls clean just as I am about keeping my driveway clean. And he too is caught in a never ending cycle. He does the hard work of forgiveness, washing our sin and guilt away, making us pure and holy, only to have our lives fill up with sin again. It is a cycle that will continue in our lives until we are finally perfected and completely set free.
Some of our sin comes naturally. We can’t avoid it because we are fallen human beings stained by sin. But too often I set myself up to sin as well. I allow it to stay too near my heart and life and soon that sin that was “crouching by my driveway” is now piled into my life needing to be cleaned up.
Just as my friend robbed the plow of its power by pushing that snow away, so we need each other in the family of God to push those sins that are so tempting far out of reach. That is what accountability does in our lives. I need people around me to help me keep the power of sin away from my life, to disarm sin’s lure, to remind me of the price that must be paid for my sin. I can not do it alone!
There will always be work for Jesus to do in our lives. We’ll always need the power of his grace. As long as we’re on this earth, we’ll have sin in our lives. And as long as we’ve got sin in our lives, we’ll have to look to the blood of Jesus Christ to do what we can’t do ourselves – to wash us clean in his forgiveness. But perhaps, with each other’s help, the help of our church family, and the help of godly family members and friends – Jesus’ job can be made a little bit easier. Perhaps our hearts and lives can remain clean just a little bit longer…for Jesus’ sake!
Sin and Snow Plows
I woke up last Saturday morning to 11 inches of newly fallen snow. It was really a rather beautiful sight – everywhere except in my driveway. Being rather compulsive about keeping my driveway clear, I bundled up and started shoveling. I seem to be caught in a never ending cycle; I dutifully shovel my driveway, even scraping off the tire-track strips of ice, only to have more snow fall and undo all of the work I’ve done.
Perhaps the most frustrating factor in the cycle is the snow plow. After meticulously working my way down to the cement on both the driveway and the sidewalks, I retreat to the warmth of my home and wait for the snow plow to come with both eager anticipation and with dread. On the one hand, I enjoy watching the power of the plow as it effortlessly tosses great amounts of snow often great distances, and I like the roar of the blade scraping the road. But on the other hand, I dread the great piles of heavy, slushy snow that will be cleared from the road and deposited into my once clean driveway. And once again the boots go on and the shovel comes out and the cycle continues.
I was given a wonderful gift, however, this past Saturday morning. As I finished my shoveling, a friend of mine drove by in his truck with a plow on the front and plowed the road for about fifty yards in the direction the plow was going to come. So, when the plow roared by later that morning, I watched from inside with joy as it passed with hardly any effect, depositing next to nothing in my clean driveway.
That got me thinking about keeping my soul clean. Jesus is rather compulsive (to say the least) about keeping our souls clean just as I am about keeping my driveway clean. And he too is caught in a never ending cycle. He does the hard work of forgiveness, washing our sin and guilt away, making us pure and holy, only to have our lives fill up with sin again. It is a cycle that will continue in our lives until we are finally perfected and completely set free.
Some of our sin comes naturally. We can’t avoid it because we are fallen human beings stained by sin. But too often I set myself up to sin as well. I allow it to stay too near my heart and life and soon that sin that was “crouching by my driveway” is now piled into my life needing to be cleaned up.
Just as my friend robbed the plow of its power by pushing that snow away, so we need each other in the family of God to push those sins that are so tempting far out of reach. That is what accountability does in our lives. I need people around me to help me keep the power of sin away from my life, to disarm sin’s lure, to remind me of the price that must be paid for my sin. I can not do it alone!
There will always be work for Jesus to do in our lives. We’ll always need the power of his grace. As long as we’re on this earth, we’ll have sin in our lives. And as long as we’ve got sin in our lives, we’ll have to look to the blood of Jesus Christ to do what we can’t do ourselves – to wash us clean in his forgiveness. But perhaps, with each other’s help, the help of our church family, and the help of godly family members and friends – Jesus’ job can be made a little bit easier. Perhaps our hearts and lives can remain clean just a little bit longer…for Jesus’ sake!
3.05.2007
And then there were 18
And then there were 18...
We got a 10 gallon fish tank last summer and have worked our way through a number of new fish as one by one they were found floating on their backs. Only one fish remains from our original 6...a molly named Memmo.
(Interesting side note...We had two snails to keep the tank clean until one morning we found an empty shell and the other snail smuggly satisfied. I never knew snails were cannibals!)
Two weeks ago on a Saturday I purchased 4 new fish to surprise the kids. When they looked in the tank they were thrilled believing that our fish had had babies. After enjoying it for a moment, I stopped their happy dance and told them the truth.
The very next morning as I was preparing to go to work and everyone else was still sleeping, I went to feed the fish and found that Memmo had populated our tank with 18 young ones! We have kept them alive for over two weeks now and have found a couple of different homes for them once they grow a little bit bigger (anyone else interested?). It has been more fun that I would have thought watching these tiny fish grow bigger every day. The kids named all of the boy fish Bets and all the girl fish Betsy. How you tell the difference...I don't know!
Thinking about it...I'm sure glad that children don't come 18 at a time!
We got a 10 gallon fish tank last summer and have worked our way through a number of new fish as one by one they were found floating on their backs. Only one fish remains from our original 6...a molly named Memmo.
(Interesting side note...We had two snails to keep the tank clean until one morning we found an empty shell and the other snail smuggly satisfied. I never knew snails were cannibals!)
Two weeks ago on a Saturday I purchased 4 new fish to surprise the kids. When they looked in the tank they were thrilled believing that our fish had had babies. After enjoying it for a moment, I stopped their happy dance and told them the truth.
The very next morning as I was preparing to go to work and everyone else was still sleeping, I went to feed the fish and found that Memmo had populated our tank with 18 young ones! We have kept them alive for over two weeks now and have found a couple of different homes for them once they grow a little bit bigger (anyone else interested?). It has been more fun that I would have thought watching these tiny fish grow bigger every day. The kids named all of the boy fish Bets and all the girl fish Betsy. How you tell the difference...I don't know!
Thinking about it...I'm sure glad that children don't come 18 at a time!
3.04.2007
Bridge to Teribithia
I don't go to many movies, but I saw Bridge to Teribithia last night and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of why I don't ever want to relive Junior High! It also had some very good symbolism which was fun to think about.
The big question always is..."Did the movie do justice to the book?"
My answer...I don't know. I never read the book! Pretty sad for and English major, huh? Guess what is on my "soon to be read" list!
The big question always is..."Did the movie do justice to the book?"
My answer...I don't know. I never read the book! Pretty sad for and English major, huh? Guess what is on my "soon to be read" list!
3.03.2007
Poor D, no snow
We received 11 inches of snow yesterday and the temperatures warmed up just right to make awesome snow forts. After making 3 of them (one for each kid and one for me!) and engaging in a wonderful snow battle, it is time for some work. I thought of Brother D and his 3 boys...all they miss out on living in CA!
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