Then Sings My Soul

I linger in the doorway
Of alarm clock screaming
Monsters calling my name
Let me stay
Where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops, as they’re falling, tell a story

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me

I love sleep. Sleep is my friend. I tend to need more than the prescribed 6-8 hours, though I rarely get it. Since I've been getting up at 7 lately to work out, though, I haven't noticed being any more tired than usual... and I'm getting half an hour less sleep. Interesting. This could be a good thing...

Speaking of that working out thing, it's going pretty well so far. I've discovered that I actually enjoy getting all sweaty and then taking a shower right away - I feel REALLY clean. (I'm weird, yes.) I also like that I'm sore. Yay for using muscles!

My loved ones, rest securely,
For God this night will surely
From peril guard your heads.
Sweet slumbers may he send you
And bid his hosts attend you
And through the night watch over your beds.

-- Paul Gerhardt

Jason and I are up in Plano this weekend for the North Texas Lutheran Free Conference at Faith Lutheran Church. We're manning an HT booth and answering the plethora of questions. Craig Parton and Pastor Wilken are the two presenters, and so far it's been awesome! We did Vespers at the close of today's sessions, and sang this hymn at the end. Gerhardt has such a good way with comforting words...


Yesterday I had a terrible struggle with the copier. Somehow -- still not sure if it's my fault or not -- it developed *very black* stripes down the middle of every page from every drawer through every feeder. The Ricoh repair guy doesn't come out until 2 or 3 days after you make a service call. So, I stayed at work 'till 4 with Pastor Quail trying to figure out a way to finish the propers for Sunday. It's a double-sided 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, and none of our other printers print duplex. Long story short, the internet went down and one of the old copiers also developed stripes after 5 sheets, so after much pain and groaning we got one printer to print one side, then put the sheets back in and printed the other side. It all worked out, but it was SUCH a pain. Ahh technology...


So I'm debating. Do I buy a new motherboard/processor for my desktop, or save the $300+ and put it towards a laptop? It's not like I don't like my desktop... and we do have a laptop that works fine for conferences, etc... but I do want to have a laptop someday. So what to do?? I need to research how much it really will cost to replace my motherboard and processor. If I put XP on it it'll be up to date and good to go.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

I watched President Obama's inauguration on my computer at work on Tuesday (streamed it from Fox News) with our church school's kindergarten class. I have to say, John Williams' arrangement of Simple Gifts was the best part. (Heh, heh.) I love Simple Gifts...


Newsletter Week (cue screams of terror) turned out to be not so bad, but not perfect either. I still ended up staying at work half an hour late to finish printing the last page, but it was my fault this time since I watched the inauguration all morning. I did, however, get it all finished today and ready to go to the post office in the morning, which is pretty much a record. I love my ladies that come and put it together for me! They help out SO much. Church ladies are awesome!

Oh now there's a place for you and me
Where we can dream as big as the sky
I know it's hard to see it now
But baby someday we're gonna fly
This road we're on, you know it might be long
But my faith is strong
It's all that really matters

Somehow Jason's laptop managed to get a NASTY nasty virus. One of the pop-up ads ones that throws ads up all over the place while you're online. Now, I've got Ad-Aware, AVG, ZoneAlarm and Spybot all installed on both computers, and they've all served me well for several years. They've cut through any virus we've had, including one that Norton didn't get.

But, somehow, this one went undetected even though I updated and scanned with all of my programs. I tried to look it up online and remove it myself, but apparently there's several manifestations of this particular virus, and none of the 50+ files and registry keys the websites told me to look for were on the computer. I finally found several forums that referenced a free anti-virus software that WOULD detect and get rid of this specific virus, so after 3 hours and a tearful temper tantrum I FINALLY got rid of the dang thing. It's running fine now. Thank the Lord.

Newsletter Week (cue screams of terror) at church is turning out to be not-so-bad this month (knock on wood). I actually received ALL of the articles BEFORE Monday (the deadline is Sunday), which is incredibly unusual. I nearly finished formatting it today and tomorrow I'll polish it off and print it. Instead of the usual last-minute articles coming in Tuesday afternoon right before I print and me having to work way past 3 to get it all done before the ladies come to put it together early Wednesday morning.

Pastor Borghardt's gone to Symposia for the week, and of course as soon as he leaves I have a theological question. I know there's a few pastors that read this, so would someone enlighten me as to the Lutheran interpretation of Malachi 3:10? My hubby's non-denominational intern was using this verse as a law to say why WE MUST TITHE. And so hubby asked me what I thought of it, and I, in my virus-addled state, didn't have an answer.

Even with all the issues this evening, I did manage to whip up a beautiful and yummy batch of oatmeal cookies with my SHINY NEW MIXER (no, it will never get old!). Oh, the wonderful spiced fluffiness...

...but I had to move into a different apartment unit in the same complex. I will blog about our experience someday.

In the meantime, if you have our address, the apartment number changed from 5102 to 8202. If you have mailed us stuff to the old address since October (when we moved), I DID get it - the post office is forwarding our mail until October '09.

Please update your address books! :-)

In my dreams, I see
A little sky blue house beside a small stream
A front porch, a screen door,
The sound of barefeet running and cartoons
In my dreams, your dreams come true

Today we went down to Woodforest National Bank's "Waterway branch" (which is a story in and of itself -- it's one of the fanciest Woodforests around) to talk to a mortgage specialist and see what our house-buying options are.

It was VERY encouraging, in my opinion. With an FHA loan, we can "get away with" a small down payment and a fairly good interest rate. She gave us a good faith estimate on two loan amounts (which were right about what we thought we could qualify for) and the monthly payment ended up being almost exactly what we're paying on rent right now, which is right where we want to be on a house payment.

Basically, it confirmed everything Jason had been figuring in his head, and made me feel like we can actually do this this summer. Assuming, of course, that we find a house in our price range that doesn't need a ton of work.

We've found 3 or 4 that we want to go look at. I'm gonna call up the realtor we worked with last summer who was really good (she actually taught both of Jason's ex-girlfriends in high school and recognized him) and see if we can set up some showings. We figure we could probably close on a house in April, which means we need to get cracking on finding something. There's quite a few houses that have just recently gone on the market in the Conroe area that are around our price range, and with the market like it is now, they'll probably still be there in a couple months.

PS: That song, In My Dreams by Josh Turner, is one of my favorites. It's pretty sappy, but it describes Jason and I pretty well... the chorus I quoted is PERFECT. Sky blue house, front porch, screen door, barefeet running and cartoons... yep. That's my heaven right there.

I've been meaning to blog about Jack since we got him, but I haven't had the time until now. So, here goes...

Jack (the Ripper, Jack Attack, Jack-Jack, Jack Shepherd, etc) is the puppy of one of our friends from church's dog. Jack's mom, Muddy, had 11 puppies (1o survived) on May 10, 2008, and we told them we'd take one of them off their hands. Muddy is a Shar Pei/Lab mix, and since we don't know who the dad was, we can only guess as to what else is in Jack. We're almost positive there's Doberman Pinscher, which you can tell just by looking at him.

He's pretty much a lab in personality, but has some Dobie traits, too. He's happy-go-lucky, but also incredibly smart. He also doesn't mind punishment (or has a very high pain tolerance), so we've had to be creative about training. He's also developed into a power-chewer, which has made it difficult to keep him occupied; we've resorted to giving him a huge rawhide bone for about an hour at a time througout the day. (Yes, he destroyed an Extreme Kong.)

He loves ice. This makes for some pretty hilarious play-sessions. He also likes to chase a laser pointer, which is a GREAT way to wear him out at night. Jason also loves the laser pointer, so it's a good way for me to get stuff done in the evenings without "the boys" underfoot. (LOL)

Jack and Jason have an interesting relationship - Jason is obviously Jack's favorite person (even though he loves me, too), but he takes training WAY better from me. Jason and Jack know how to push each other's buttons, let's put it that way. (I can go a whole afternoon without yelling at Jack, but put Jason in the room with him and within 10 minutes they'll be "yelling" at each other.) He's a great guard dog; he often barks at stuff that I don't hear for another few minutes, which is great when I'm doing laundry or dishes and don't hear someone knocking at the door.

He will be calm in any position you put him in. Jason likes to sit on the couch and put Jack stomach-side-up in between him and the arm of the couch. Jack will just lay there and stare at the ceiling. He's also comfortable thrown over Jason's shoulder or carried around like a baby.

At 8 months old he's about 40-45 lbs and has outgrown his first crate, so now we're trying to figure out how to re-arrange our bedroom to accomodate a larger crate. Monster puppy!

So, anyway, that's Jack. I will amend this post later with pictures!

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are gonna do me in, I think.

I work 9 to 3 Monday through Friday on my "regular" job as church secretary. After I get off of work, I usually practice the organ (I'm taking lessons) and piano (I play for Wednesday night services) up at church and then go home to work on any HT projects I have at the time. This is nothing new. But on Tuesdays, I have an HT conference call at 3, followed by my practicing, and now I've added a piano student at 4:15. Wednesdays are even better - work 9 to 2:30, go home to change and let the dog out, then drive 45 minutes to Tomball for an hour organ lesson, 45 minutes back, straight up to church for supper, Evening Prayer and Bible study.

Now, that may sound really whiney - but that's only because it's Thursday and I'm pooped. I absolutely LOVE all of the above-mentioned activities.

My new piano student, an 11 year-old named Katelyn, is going to be SO much fun to teach. She already plays the flute, and has had some general music classes at school, so she's flying through the first lesson book. I'm THRILLED. As long as she practices, it's going to be awesome.

Organ lessons are going well, but I just found out that Michael (my teacher who is AMAZING) is moving back to Canada in the fall to get his doctorate from the University of Alberta. His original plan was to stay and finish it at Rice, but there's a lot of things that have made that the less advantageous path. We're gonna really miss him... Zion in Tomball, where he's the organist, is gonna be stuck in another rut. There's just not enough organists around here. Anybody know someone who wants to move down here for an organist gig?? Heh. (This is also the reason why I've finally caved an am taking organ lessons - St. Mark hasn't been able to find someone in 2+ years.)

If I can manage to keep posting on my blog again, I might just post a few recipes. I've made some kick-butt stuff lately that Jason has RAVED about, so I might just have to post them. Be on the look-out...