Someone said that for those of us who don’t have such god short term memory anymore, we need to repeat what we are trying to memorize over and over and do it in writing, looking and verbalizing.
That sounds like learning Greek.
That is what I have ben doing since returning from orchestra practice.
I have to do it for learning the music too.
Life seems one big repetition some days.
Fun. This is fun. Repeat, "This is fun" So it goes.
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Filed under Day to Day
A few mid-night thoughts.
I wish I knew why it is so hard to go back to a state of peaceful sleep when I wake in the middle of the night. Wish the mind would return to sleep mode at the flick of a button. Alas…
And since I didn’t stay up till the results of the election were irrevocably clear, my question to Leo when we both woke at the same time was what the results were. Obama is it then. Good.
We are old – when we ask about election results and no other more interesting thoughts arouse us in the middle of the night!
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It is curious how things get stuck in a person’s mind. Like a sticky key on a keyboard. You try to get away from it but it does not want to let go. Keeps repeating itself.
In my mind anyhow.
So, yesterday, I lost a button off a sweater. My favorite orange sweater. Big square unique buttons. They were one of the features that drew me to the sweater – that and the unique knit pattern. And the color.
My mind is stuck. I keep going over where it may have fallen off. I noticed it when I came back from shopping. I had put on an outer coat since it was pretty cold yesterday and I needed a bit extra coverage to keep the wind out. I doubt I will ever find the lost button but that does not keep my mind from searching for it.
Reminds me of the parable of the lost coin. I wonder if people get stuck in God’s mind like my lost button has in mine. Wonder if he just keeps looking for them till they are found or till… maybe he always keeps wondering when they will come home even if they never do.
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Filed under Reflections
But there were a couple of special little trick or treaters that showed up.
First came Kimia. 
Then Zaka. A fearsome Count Dracula. I think I’d let a little vampire like him get into my heart. Well, I guess he has already.
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Filed under Day to Day, grandchildren
Today was a pretty light one as far as work goes. So I went home at noon and worked a bit on my Greek homework and then, after my afternoon stint up at Vincent Massey School, I ran some errands, picked up a few groceries and headed down to The Bison.
Friday afternoons at the Bison.
The last event of my Friday afternoon most weeks. Good coffee and sometimes a treat like a Florentine to top off the week. And talking. Kind of like the whipped cream on dessert. Not really essential to life but it sure made it sweeter. And richer. And I grew. Good talk does that to a person. Especially faith talk.
Just writing that makes a lump come to my throat. ‘Cause I miss it terribly.
But the memories are good and I will move on from these days to new ones and new memories will grow. And, I expect, there will be new relationships and experiences that stimulate me to grow some more.
For now, in this sort of transition time, I have been taking along my Greek and as I sit there enjoying some of the best coffee in the world, I’m also going over my vocabulary and noun rules hoping they will lodge firmly in my brain. It has been a good to sit in this quiet place to rest from the week, slow down and let some Greek soak in. Just hanging out in a good place.
Maybe it will become a talking place for me again someday.
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Filed under Day to Day, Reflections
Last night Patrick asked me some questions about my marriage. He’s doing his own marriage preparation course/counseling so has this book/workbook that he is working through.
One of the questions he asked was, “What was one of the most memorable events in your marriage?”
I had no idea how to answer that one.
Not because I have had no memorable events. I think there have been so many.
There was the time he came home early from the Congo and met me at the door totally shocked. I didn’t expect to see him till the next day, yet he was there when I opened the door. That was early on in our marriage. There are a couple of other memorable events in the early part that I will leave up to your imagination. Not all of them were happy but although they are there in my memory, I do not dwell on them now. Things forgiven must stay forgiven.
Then there was the cockroach night in the Congo. I think I’ve written about that before so won’t repeat it. Not sure if he deserves forgiveness for that evening but it has become more funny than horrible as time passed.
There was the ring he gave me on our fifth anniversary – the matching band for my engagement ring. Took him 5 years of marriage to afford the thing! And I didn’t need it but he gave it to me anyway.
Over the years there have been many occasions that were special. However, there is not one single event that stands out for me as the most memorable. Our marriage has grown slowly, sometimes invisibly, through all sorts of events and trials till it has become something solid. I live with a man I trust completely, one who trusts me with the same kind of certainty. I still have a man who supports me in whatever endeavor I take on – not some sort of foolish disinterest that lets me do things that are not healthy, but he has believed in my ability to do things well and that has, by his faith in me, helped me to do well. He’s nudged me towards wholeness and completeness and I think I have done the same for him.
So there is no one event that can bring about the kind of slow and steady development that we’ve experienced through our marriage. There is love, deep and solid and trustworthy that has grown between us that is too big to attribute to an event. I guess if there is one single factor that has helped us to grow a strong marriage it has been the fact that God has been present in it from the beginning. Sometimes it has simply been the knowledge that we vowed to remain faithful to each other that has made us work at keeping our marriage strong. Partly it has been the fact that if one gives God permission to be active in a marriage, he is more than willing to use it to grow you as a couple and as individuals. Our marriage has been a gift of God to us, one of our most precious blessings and one that has required hard work as well as love to maintain.
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Filed under Reflections
I have to tell you a funny story. I think even Leo will admit that it has some humor, ‘cause it is about him. But then he never reads this blog anyway.
Leo travels a lot. And he has many meeting to attend in town. I hardly can keep track of exactly where he is. So last night we had a bit of a mishap.
Leo was in town. I knew that. He was holding a clinic that went very late. I didn’t know that. I thought, when he was not home yet by 6:30 that he must have had a meeting – one of his occasional supper meetings. I figured he had told me and I had forgotten.
When I got home I had decided to cook up some sausages that had been sitting in the fridge for a few days along with some waffles. So at about 6:30 Patrick and I began to eat. We finished. Patrick finished all the sausages(he is a bottomless pit) and set the frying pan to soak in the sink.
Then in came Leo.
A Frenchman and his food should not be parted when he has had a long hard day especially. But there you go. The sausages were gone. Every last one of them. The uneaten waffles had been packed up in a sip lock bag and stored in the fridge. Leo was so mad he could have blown a gasket! You would have thought that we had deprived a starving child of his last meal!
It took a while to calm him down get the waffles out and suggest peanut butter as a reasonable substitute for sausages.
Later on we laughed.
But I think Patrick learned a lesson in keeping a wee morsel in reserve for the master of the house!
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a compressor malfunction at the office. Dentists can’t do much without compressed air these days. So we ran way behind and had some people a bit irritated with us at the end of the day.
Also had some extractions that took waaaaay too long, due to one tooth shattering each time we moved it and other teeth not wanting to get numb. That was tiring. Good patient but tiring work.
Now, I am done. In more ways than one. Have to go home now and start the night job. I have no idea what to cook for supper. I wish I could just eat a sandwich on the couch with my feet up. Wonder if I can convince others that this is a good idea?
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Today we said good bye to Meg. Meg joined us one Sunday following a joint Good Friday service just after she had moved to Prince Albert. That Good Friday our worship group was leading the music. I still remember the day. I was still pretty fresh at playing my recorder in public and was pretty nervous. We played one of Megs favorite songs and she came to check out our church the next Sunday and stayed.
Meg has given so much of herself to us at Gateway Covenant. She joined us on the worship team playing guitar. She’s participated in a small group. She has blessed us with speaking and she has shared with us her work with Wycliff as she has worked on the Cree translation. She has become a friend.
Now she is moving on – out to Nova Scotia and to another First Nations group – The Micmac people.
We really are going to miss her.
If I knew how I would cause this posting to have a bright purple background. Alas, I’m not that smart.
There have been too many of these good bye things these days.
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