Category Archives: Day to Day

Today felt like spring.  It was warm and the sun was shining.  The trees are budding out although it is still too early for leaves.  And the days are getting so long.  Almost 9 now and the sky is light still.  Golfing has begun so in the house the TV is silent.  This is my favorite time of year.  The mosquitos are just beginning to show themselves so it is nice to sit outside almost bug free. 

I went for a walk along the river tonight and then just sat for awhile on the riverbank.  Just watching the water; listening to the geese; watching the sunset and the three brilliant white jet streams streaking across the pink orange of the sky.

I’m glad nature is so beautiful.  It helps me hold on to the fact that there is more order and normalcy in my world than I think some days.  Maybe not in the little world of me but out in God’s big universe.  Some days life seems pretty confusing for me and my own reactions seem off kilter.  I react in ways I least want to.  There seem to be too many days when it seems like God has so much work to do on changing me to any sort of likeness of himself.  

It’s a good thing this relationship with him doesn’t depend on my efforts.

I have a niece getting married this weekend in Regina.  Her mother, my sister and her husband are working in Egypt for a sabbatical year so are taking a one week leave to get her married off.  They are packing a lot of things into this one week.  Today they all came up to visit my dad who will not be able to travel to Regina to attend the wedding.

We were able to bring supper in and spend a couple of hours with dad.  It was good seeing my little sister again too.

This is going to be a fun wedding.  They have to wait till Bingo is done on Friday night to decorate the hall – I suspect the place is “reasonably priced.  We were told the ceremony would be very reverant and the party after would be very fun.  I think it will be. 

Well, today was pretty much it for pushing the deadline for paying the old taxes.  Penalties start to accumulate as of tomorrow.  So that is how part of our afternoon was spent – signing papers and signing cheques.

We also are amazed at how these things seem to work out.  And so we talked about that a bit.  We are still not achieving our goal of a 10% tithe – at least not in our receipted giving.  It is hard to judge these things as we don’t really know our income until things have been tallied up at the end of the year.  So we mentioned to our accountant that we are still not giving as much as we would like to.  I think Leo put it “still robbing God a bit”.  She assured us that we do a whole lot more than some.  But I guess that is not the point – just to do better than some.  So that is one of our challenges for the coming year. 

Between taxes, tithing and RRSP contributions, it seems that there is little left to live on some months.  We live in an “opulent state of poverty” as my hubby would say.  I think we have just been abundantly blessed.  We have never once not been able to pay those darn taxes.  Sometimes the ways the money shows up at the last minute are so obviously God providing that it is fairly humbling.

This morning I got to help serve breakfast to about 24 Junior High kids at the church.  They had been up all night – Twelve Hours of Madness – in preparation for Junior High Jam in Alberta.  It helps them get to know each other a bit.  Saskatchewan is a big place and Covenant Churches are a long ways apart so these kids don’t get together very often.  They were a very quiet bunch this morning.  Being up all night quiets even the best. 

One thing I noted – some of the kids thanked us for the food.  Not all of them.  It was nice to hear the “thank you’s”.  They were not expected from the kids – at least by myself.  Just a simple thing but it felt good.

Then I went over to the Mayors Prayer Breakfast.  It was better than I expected.  Well, the food was nothing to write home about, just pretty ordinary hotel breakfast fare, but the words spoken were unexpectedly good.  I have always been pretty critical of the mayor but his story impressed me more than I thought it would.  Maybe this kind of public exposure of his faith will provoke him to exercise his faith more visibly in his role as mayor.  Not in a falsely pious sort of way but on some issues his stance has not come across as “christian” at all, in fact sometimes he seems on the opposite side of what is generally considered the public good.  But no matter what, I will be less harsh in judging him.

Today a milestone was passed.  My household has no more student drivers!!  She passed.  Her only restriction is to wear her glasses.  Only lost 8 points.  She did the wrong sequence of signal, shoulder check, then change lanes a couple of times and did not end up parallel to the curb at the end of her park.  Not bad for someone who can’t back out of our driveway yet.

Our driveway is the litmus test for reverse driving.  First of all, my little CRV has to be backed out of the garage.  This requires a  slight turn in order to get past the porch steps and around the corner of the house.  Then the driveway is a fairly narrow one to negotiate.  While passing the house, another slight adjustment has to be made, keeping the vehicle parallel to the house till past the little part sticking out, turning towards the house again to avoid ending up in the neighbors yard.  If another car is parked in the extra parking space by the front step you must avoid running into that as well. 

She can now do this but it takes several retries and about ten minutes.

But she can now try it on her own and I do not have to endure the ten minutes patiently sitting in the passenger seat trying to give good advice.

She is so glad she got her license now.  September brings in a new graduated license with a bunch of restrictions on new drivers for the first couple of years. 

I was thinking back to when I posted the picture of my son with his friends from law school.  He of course introduced us to friends of both sexes.  But his best friend was female and from what I could tell, he was certainly at ease in the company of a number of the women in his class.  I am wondering if this reflects on the stature of the significant women in his life or if it is just a personality thing?  He is a sympathetic guy and a good listener – but then again is definitely a male( his favorite piece of property he apparently listed as his rifle) in some ways of thinking. 

I’m just not sure he has been around many women that were the submissive type.  I am not.  His wife is not.  I suspect he is at ease around these women colleagues of his because he respects them as equals – or maybe as his betters.

I’ll have to ask him some day.

Today was a pretty busy day – funeral this morning, dance competition to watch this afternoon and a session of volunteering at the same event this evening.  I just got home in fact.  And I’m pooped!  The girls got a distinction in their Hip Hop duet and that was great. 

But the big event of the day was that Sara turned 16.   She goes for her first attempt at the road test on Thursday.  Man, it just seems like yesterday that she was sitting beside me in the plane scribbling on some paper as we travelled home to Karawa from Kinshasa.  Today she went down to Saskatoon with her boyfriend for her big day.  His present to her — with our permission (he asked) — a belly button ring.  Yikes – I’m not about to do anything that looks that painful. 

Tomorrow we will have her favorite cake in her honor – McCains frozen vanilla cake with little chocolate sprinkles.  And ice cream of course. 

Here he is.  A face only a mother could love.  It was hard to get a picture when his mouth was not moving!  Like a good lawyer!   

Well, actually, he seems to be friends with a lot of other students and they tended to be women.  Not sure what that means. 

Finally we have one kid through school – at least for awhile.  And I hope that if he goes back for more school later he will do it on his own tab. 

A lawyer in the family!  That is a first I do believe.

We sure had a fun time last night.  The MC was hilarious.  Roy Romanow was the guest speaker.  So we got a very good law school type of lecture.  It was very interesting – hearing one of the people who helped repatriate our constitution and write the Charter of Rights and Freedoms speak of the importance of putting justice ahead of rights. 

Last night I spent at the E A Rawlinson Centre. The Prince Albert Festival of Dance is going on there this week and last night Grace was dancing.  When I looked at the schedule hung up on her dance studio wall, I sort of figured out that she should dance at about 8 pm, maybe a bit before.  There must have been a page missing – at least I missed it.  She and Nathalie danced last on the program after 10 pm. 

Oh well, I enjoyed a whole evening of dance for only $2.50.  Some of those girls(and a few guys) are really good dancers.  And since I can’t dance worth a hoot – I was impressed and wondered what if I had taken lessons when I was a kid.  But a pastor’s daughter didn’t get to do those things back in the days.

Grace and Nathalie danced a modern number.  This is their first year dancing modern dance.  The song was a real upbeat one with a calypso beat.  They did a great job and pulled off a first place with a mark of 84, I believe.

My good friend, Lauralea, has finally started to blog.  It’s about time ’cause she is a good writer, is funny and creative and has important stuff to say.