Random bits of my week so far

~It's been a busy one. So far. And there is more to come.

~I don't usually have to buy gas very often...I walk to work and don't go that many places. But with last week's road trip I had to fill up the car three times in a week, and each time was a new record for what it cost. I'm lucky that I have a small car that gets decent gas mileage (could be better but it could be worse, too). For the first time, I'm thinking about what it costs just to go someplace. I wish this would get people more interested in mass transportation, but so far I'm not hearing that anywhere.

~And the price of food, too--wow. Again, I'm lucky, but it will make a difference as time goes by. And what about folks who were already just making ends meet? And the prospect of food shortages around the world? It's really sobering.

~Things are finally getting green around here...I can see a big difference every day. But we have a freeze warning for tonight...I don't expect it to be REALLY warm for another few weeks.

~Tomorrow I can officially put up my oriole feeders. May 1 is the earliest day that orioles are expected to be back in this area, although I don't think I've seen them that early. But I will stock up on grape jelly and oranges. I love the orioles.

~Friday night we're having a church function at my house. I'm not in a panic yet, but give me time--I haven't 'entertained' in years. The good news is that my cleaning fairygodmother was here this week, and that other people are helping with food etc. The bad news is that there is a big pile of the Kid's school stuff in the dining room that must.be.dealt.with and time is getting short. And I forgot to take the tablecloth to the laundry to be pressed. Updates sure to follow.

It's raining, it's pouring...

...The old man is snoring.
Went to bed and bumped his head,
and didn't get up in the morning.

Yes, it is raining...pouring in fact. And this nursery rhyme popped into my head when I woke up and heard the torrential rainfall.

I loved reading nursery rhymes to my kids, and I've already bought Baby J some Mother Goose books. I especially like the ones with all the verses. But some of the words are not the best, although that never seemed to bother my kids.

Just a random thought on this rainy rainy morning...

Dr. Foster went to Gloucester in a shower of rain.
He stepped in a puddle
Right up to his middle
And never went there again.

Wrong side of the bed

~I think I must've gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today, to use one of my mother's old expressions. For no discernible reason I was grumpy. Nothing seemed right. I had to work on my day off (although I don't think that's what made me grumpy), it was cold and rainy and I just couldn't think of any reason to be cheerful.

I hate getting in moods like that, because when the day starts that way it colors everything that happens. Fortunately what I had to do at work was edit the newsletter and that didn't require me to interact with anyone. So I spent the day in solitary fashion, just me and the computer.

Maybe I was just tired. Tonight after dinner I sat down to do some reading for tomorrow, and fell asleep, waking up almost three hours later. So now here it is close to midnight, I've had a nap, but my work isn't done. But I'm going to bed any way...tomorrow is an early day, and staying up any later won't make it better.

It still suprises me what some people will believe

~The church staff doesn't socialize too often, but tonight we gathered for dinner at one staffer's home. It's an unusual group in some ways so at times coming up with topics for conversation seemed hard. And of course, politics eventually came up--starting with a rant about Obama "who won't say the pledge of allegiance!!" I didn't say too much because it was pretty clear that arguing the point was not going to make any difference. The comment was made by a spouse whom I don't know that well; he seems like a nice enough guy but I wouldn't be surprised if he were a bit on the conservative side. But really--to believe the loaded emails that are circulated about Obama--or any of the candidates for that matter...isn't that a bit naive? Or just plain dumb?

~But you know what? Not saying the pledge of allegiance or putting hand over heart during the national anthem wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, even if it were true (and it's NOT so don't be citing me as support for that cockamamie idea!).

~I've also heard a number of people say that they won't vote for HRC if she's nominated, no matter what. While I don't support her, she's still less scary to me than McCain.

~It's going to be an interesting year...

Not really a surprise

You Should Live in a Big City

You don't want anything in particular out of life... you want it all. You crave new and exciting experiences. And you get bored fairly easily. Only very big cities can keep you entertained and stimulated.

Where Should You Live?

Back home again

~We're home again after a nice if short visit to Vermont. It was wonderful to spend time with Baby J, NSLS, Mr. LS and Woman Warrior. We ate good food, held the baby, an enjoyed the beautiful weather. I have to work this weekend though, and so we're back in time for sermon prep.

~Of course I took lots of pictures. It's hard to take bad pictures of such a cute baby! This one was taken this morning. I did actually take pix of other things, too, while we were out and about, although perhaps not as many as I would have liked.

Mama and baby

Lazy day, sort of

~Today NSLS, Baby J and I went shopping. The city has a wonderful downtown area where it's fun to walk around even if you 're not interested in buying anything, and it was another really nice day. Baby J was very happy being strolled around, and slept much of the time--she was also duly admired by passersby. Meanwhile the Kid and Woman Warrior worked on emptying the storage space where WW stored her belongings for the three years she was in Korea. Opening up the boxes was a little like Christmas--it's funny how you can forget what you have.

~The Kid hasn't much experience with babies so he's a little nervous about holding Baby J. She seems to like him though :)

In unison

~Baby J and Aunt Sister

~The Kid has spring break this week, so this morning we headed north for a few days in Vermont. It's like summer here! And the sweet baby is a month old tomorrow.

~More pictures are sure to follow.

More signs of spring

~Grackles are not among my favorite birds; they hog the feeder and don't play well with others. But look at the iridescent colors!

~I have more redwings around than I every have before. In Vermont they were the surest sign of spring.

~The goldfinches have turned gold again...they turn a muddy brown for winter.

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind...

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

then I'm in trouble ... or in very good company :)

From the church garden today

McCain: Out of Touch

We cannot let this man be elected.

I heart punctuation

As seen at Dani's place...

You Are a Comma

You are open minded and extremely optimistic. You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything. You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests. You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time. Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to. (But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.) You excel in: Inspiring people You get along best with: The Question Mark

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Outrageous

~I'm listening to NPR as I get dressed this morning, and they are describing McCain's ideas about health care, and I have one word: outrageous. We should get tax credits to buy our own insurance rather than get it through our employers. We shouldn't be concerned about those who have no health insurance now. No carrier should be required to cover preexisting conditions. We should pay more for our prescriptions--because most of us can afford them. WTF?

~This man frightens me more and more.

Still away

~Long day involving interesting presentation, sunny skies, ice cream, laughter, gathering for all the women clergy in our (woman) bishop's suite, and bishops' banquet.

~Still no pictures.

Away

~I'm away at clergy conference for the next day and a half. This is the annual gathering for all the clergy in the diocese. It's supposed to be a time to get away, spend time with colleagues and relax, and it's held at a lovely beach resort. From my perspective, there's a little too much programming for me to consider it to really be relaxing, but it is a lovely place to spend a couple of days.

~I'm enjoying seeing some of my seminary friends and a few people I've met since I came to this diocese, but I still feel a bit like an outsider. I'm not sure why that is so. Maybe it's just my introversion and discomfort with having to mingle in large groups of people I don't know. But there is a part of me that says it not just me and that this diocese is a hard one to break into if you're not from here.

~It's not as warm as I'd like given where we are, but it's bright and sunny, and I hope to get out and take some beach pictures during free time.

Haiku Monday

look uneasily
on the glaring contrast of
poverty and wealth

in my father's
home town the prayer book is
part of my weekend

my weather pixie says
it's sunny outside she
lies it is not just

i progressed to
thinking i could blog it all
myself i've found lot

with harry potter
grab your brooms and get ready
for the next big thing

in this war is ours
the initiative to
stop it must be ours

From the haiku generator found here
as seen here and here

Found money~Give it 4 good

~Within the next month or so, many of us will receive our so-called "economic stimulus" checks--which for most of us amounts to "found money." Now, I've already spent this money 100 times over in my head, but I'm not sure I want to buy into Bush's recovery plan so completely (no pun intended). I'm not sure that encouraging MORE spending is really good for what ails us.

~So I've decided to donate part of my check to the Give It 4 Good campaign. Click on the button in the sidebar to learn more about it. The idea is to give some or all of this "found money" to an organization of your choice that is working on the Millennium Development Goals. The project is sponsored by Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation-- but you don't need to be an Episcopalian or even a Christian to participate--many of us share the desire to end extreme poverty and illness in the world regardless of our faith (or the lack thereof). Think about it.

Prescient

One of my favorite comics is "For better or for worse" by Lyn Johnston. There are many parallels between that family and my own. Recently the strip has been drawing on the archives; the comic for today must be about 25-30 years old, but it could be right now. (Click to embiggen)

A Friday 5 on a topic I know a lot about...

...moving.

1. How many times have you moved? When was the last time?

~I've moved 21 times if I counted correctly. My last move was July 2005 when I moved here from seminary. I've lived in 10 different states and 2 countries. I've lived in a place for as little as a few months, and never spent longer than 8 years in any one place.

2. What do you love and hate about moving?

~Hate--packing. Packing, packing, packing. And the leaving of good friends and favorite places.

~Love--the promise of the Next Big Thing. Almost every time I've moved it has been to take up something new-grad school, a new job, and seminary stand out, but there are others. The adventure of a new place, new experiences.

3. Do you do it yourself or hire movers?

~I've mostly done it all myself. I've packed up everything in the house on my own and moved most of it by myself more than once. My last two moves I hired movers but I still packed everything. I'm looking forward to possibly having the movers do the packing next time.

4. Advice for surviving and thriving during a move?

~I've learned lots of tricks for packing--the importance of getting rid of all those things that have accumulated but aren't really used, carefully labeling the boxes, packing bed linens and towels with breakable things, making sure you know where the things you'll need right away are. Beyond that it helps to treat the move as an adventure. Anticipate where you're going, learn more about it

~I need to get settled quickly when I arrive in a new place. I want everything unpacked asap. I need to do that before I can go out and explore or start work or school. That doesn't work for everyone though. I know people who can live with boxes for months and who need to do others more than they need to unpack.

5. Are you in the middle of any inner moves, if not outer ones?

~I'm in the process of discerning where I'm called to be next...hoping to be ready to move on in a year or so. And I'm working on learning to hold onto things lightly...a constant process for me, but definitely an interior movement.

A taste of spring and other things

~Today was the first day that it really felt like spring--sunny and pleasantly warm. It was such a nice surprise to walk out of the office this afternoon and feel air that felt almost balmy. I know it won't last--tomorrow is forecast to be cold and rainy again--but I'm grateful for this little taste of spring.

~The daffy picture is one of a few I took this afternoon shooting RAW format for the first time. There's another one at my 365 blog. If nothing else it makes me realize how very much I still need to learn both about taking pictures and about using photoshop. I'm waffling about signing up for the next photography class. It sounds good on paper--but so did the one I'm in now and it has continued to be a disappointment. Right now I'm leaning towards putting the money towards the new lens I've been considering (and thanks for the feedback about that) and just continuing to teach myself. I've found lots of good tips and explanations on the web. The one thing I don't get is feedback, which the next class promises. But I'd bet that class will be offered again later if I want to take it.

~I think I got the quiet week at work that I wished for last week. There were NO meetings. I can't remember the last time that I didn't have multiple meetings in a week. I still met with two small groups but that is generally rewarding enough that it doesn't really feel like work. I got some things done, but I didn't worry about being terribly productive. I'll be away part of each of the next two weeks, and likely I should've been working ahead to compensate for that --I may regret that I didn't later but right this minute I don't.

~Today I got a hair cut and tomorrow I'm getting my eyes checked so I can get new glasses. Woohoo. Yes, I do get excited about getting new glasses. Maybe I'll even post an eye picture when I get them.

Photography questions

~I notice that many of you photobloggers are using a 50mm lens and taking great shots. What made you choose this lens and what do you like about it? (I currently have a 24-85 mm f/3.5 and a 70-300mm f/4). I'm looking at a 50mm f/1.4 at B and H right now; everything that I've read about this lens indicates that it's good in low light and for portraits, both of which appeal to me.

~I need to buy a tripod. My photography instructor showed us his, but didn't really tell us what the essential things to look for were. Do I need to spend $$$ to get a decent one? What should I be looking for--I mean I know I want stability, and it should be light but sturdy. What else?

~Thanks in advance!

News flash

~The sun is shining!

My weather pixie lies

~Right this minute my weather pixies says it's sunny outside. She lies. It is grey, grey, grey again. It has been unremittingly grey and damp and cold for the last....I don't really know how many days; the whole winter has been pretty much like this.

~I don't mind cold--even bitter cold--and I like snow. But this never ending cold grey dampness and rain are wearing me down. Could we please have spring?

New look

~So I did it...about time. Whadaya think?

~I would like to change the color of the little orange box with the blog description but I can't find anyway to do it. Other than that and learning how to resize pix for the header, it was easy.

ETA: Thanks to a tip from Eliza, I did it! Woohoo! Okay, so maybe I am irrationally proud of this....

Saturday night

~I lost my watch last night. I knew the clasp was loose--it had almost fallen off a few times--but I couldn't seem to fix it. I really liked that watch. We were doing errands last night and we were at 6-7 different places. I went back to some of them tonight but to no avail. It wasn't an expensive watch but I'd had it for a while and it suited me.

~So I went to buy a new watch tonight because I am really used to wearing one all the time. And it struck me again that the place where I live is a terrible place to shop. Really. We have one real department store in the mall and it's not all that great. Gah. I bought a watch but I may end up taking it back and ordering one online.

~I spent a little while tonight updating the church blog--it's been largely ignored, but a group is on a mission trip building houses in LA and decided they would like to post stories--or rather have me do it. Working on that blog made me want to update my template here. The difference is that the church one didn't have a lot of things in the sidebar to loose and this one does. But if tomorrow afternoon is rainy as it promised to be (again) I may just take the time to do it. I'm still on the old blogger template here.

~I've had lots of unbloggable stuff swirling in my head today--I wish I could blog it all, but it's work related and I really can't.

~And now I'm going to bed because I have early church tomorrow.

Still relevant

One year before his death, Martin Luther King delivered this speech at Riverside Church in New York City. He said, in part:

A few years ago... It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube....

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now...The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours...

...I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just."

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just."...

...A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood....

It's stunning to realize how relevant Dr. King's words still are today. Some things, it seems, don't change. 1968 Viet Nam. 2008 Iraq. Will we never learn?

Forty years ago

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked 'round and he's gone.

Glad tomorrow is Friday

~I was hoping for a slow week this week. In truth, I 'm not sure what a slow week would look like. There is always something else to be done. But I did have time this week to reshelve all the books I've pulled off my shelves in the last couple of months and then stacked up willy-nilly, and sort out some of the papers that always are on the verge of being out of control on my desk. I always console myself when I look at my desk by thinking of the sign I once saw that said something like "a neat desk is the sign of a disordered mind" or some such.

~I had lunch today with a retired priest in our parish who (along with his wife) has become my unofficial mentor. I am ever so grateful for their wise counsel and support.

~We're in the process of envisioning what it might look like to do some things differently next year. But change is SUCH a hard thing in a church, in any institution I guess. There is so much potential for good if we can just move beyond the fear and anxiety that comes out when that c word comes up.

~I've been thinking a lot about leadership styles lately. How one shares "power" and authority (or doesn't), how a leader helps shape a vision for the future and/or acts as an agent for change as opposed to just trying to maintain the status quo, how one should respond to situations where risk is involved. I know much of this is dependent on a particular context, but it's interesting to try to think through how I might respond in this or that situation. I guess I'm thinking about these things as I try to discern what sort of position I might seek out next. For a long time I thought I never wanted to be in charge of a congregation. Then I progressed to thinking I could do it. So the question is, do I want to? And if so, what sort of congregation (to the extent that I have a choice). Sort of like the process I went through before I applied for academic jobs, although it feels more complicated now.

Photography class

~My photography class has met for four of its six sessions (although I missed one when I was in VT). So far I'm not sure that I've really learned anything much...I have spent some time on the internet reading up on some topics that were tangentially mentioned, but other than that, nada. Well, the instructor told us to always shoot in raw and not to crop but rather to frame everything in the view finder. Does that count? And honestly, I'm not sure that I agree about never cropping (of course, I'm not the expert...).

~For the next class we're supposed to bring in five prints for him to look at. That's a good sign, isn't it? And we're supposed to go on a shooting field trip one afternoon. So there may be hope yet.

~So this same instructor is offering an "intermediate" class when this one is over. The class description says that there will be assignments every week--really taking pictures! It sounds good--but the description of my current class made it sound a lot better than it really is. So my quandry: do I fork over another hundred bucks and give this guy another chance--and hope to really learn something?

~There really aren't any other options around here right now. I haven't been at all impressed with this guy's ability as a teacher, but I really want to take another class somewhere ...so we'll see.

Quidditch anyone?

This is awesome ...and hilarious, and perfect for a generation that grew up with Harry Potter. Grab your brooms and get ready for the next big collegiate sport!