Ya Think?!?!?!?

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I was filling my pillbox for this week when Jon came into the kitchen with an article talking about the FDA investigation of a link between Singulair and suicide.Â? (I’m on Singulair for allergies and asthma and have been for almost 10 years.)

According to the article…

“We have no indication that anything about the mechanism of Singulair is consistent with these events [the suicides],” said George Philip, directorof research and product development.Â? “But because suicide is a life threatening event we thought it was important to provide this information in the product label.”

Apparently, suicide is a life-threatening event.Â? Who would have guessed?

(Jon laughed for about 5 minutes when I pointed this out to him.)

Chico Hot Springs 2008: My Redux

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I asked for this week off as it’s the Montana Synod Pastors’ Conference and was granted it so… I got to go to Chico Hot Springs with Jon for the conference!

The Good
-not having to commute an hour to work for 5 days!
-living in the most beautiful state in the union and seeing a part of it while driving down
-breakfast at the Park n’ Ponder in Great Falls on Tuesday
-soaking in the pool at Chico which is fed by natural hot springs so it’s a gigantic hot tub
-the food — all gourmet and all made fresh every day
-hanging with friends from the synod and making new ones
-getting to have a normal conversation with our most awesome bishop and being able to joke around
-AWESOME worship by people who KNOW how to do it
-going to Yellowstone on Wednesday afternoon and communing with the bison and elk and geese who were out
-being able to sit by the fire in the lodge and read Joanne Fluke murder mysteries
-dinner with Joe and Jon at Arby’s which was so fun that one forgot they were in a fast food restaurant
-walks in the falling snow while listening to my devotions as well as other podcasts on Panimatushka (my new iPod)

The Bad
-hard mattresses at the resort
-not getting to have a big orange tabby displacing my hips for several days
-missing my kitties

Otherwise, I’m chilling in my study because we have no heat (!!!!) and downloading interesting podcasts for work this week in addition to some Casting Crowns.

This Joyful Eastertide

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Christos aneste! Alithos aneste!

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Happy Easter to those in the West. To those in the East, keep up the good fight with your Lenten fasts!

No plans as of yet for today other than church and more church but hopefully someone will adopt us? *gives local peeps Bambi eyes*

So Much For Sleeping When I’m Dead

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Pisco and I were talking today about how exhausted we’ve been lately and I had to laugh when I saw this in the chat…

I hear you. I been run down and worn out this week. I keep saying to myself, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” and then realize we’re supposed to expect resurrection of the body and think, “Oh, crap.”

Guess I’m not getting that sleep deficit worked off any time soon…

(Speaking of such things, I should get off and go shower and go to bed meself as I have to be up at dark-thirty for church tomorow.)

The L.L. Bean Incident

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(To those at L.L. Bean reading this: Don’t worry — I’m talking about how AWESOME your customer service is and how much I love you.)

So… Jon and I got a MASSIVE L.L. Bean gift card from my in-laws for our anniversary (which is tomorrow!) and I decided to get a new swimsuit with it. I ordered a dark green/teal camisole-type top and black swim/jogging shorts figuring that it would be modest and also cover up parts of my body that I’m not so secure with at the moment.

Well… I ordered them with express shipping and it arrived yesterday. I finally got to open the package today and found, to my horror, that they had sent me some black-flowered thing instead of the black shorts. So… I drove to town feeling like I was going to cry — I leave for a mini-vacation on Tuesday and I kind of WANTED this stuff for that!

I got to town and figured that I’d open the bag with the shorts and at least see what they looked like. Well… therein lay the problem because the bag was incorrectly labelled — it contained a humongous black swim top!!! I called L.L. Bean posthaste and was put through to a wonderful customer service rep who quickly explained that they would be refunding ALL of my shipping costs and offered to expedite the shorts to where I’m going to be next week.

Well… I happened to be next to the local independent clothing store and I went in there to see if they had something that would work for right now.Â? They did (!!!!) so I called L.L. Bean back and worked through a deal with the next customer service rep to get my shorts though not expedited.

So… all’s well that ends well and I just spent the rest of my gift card there for some things for both Jon and I.

Triduum Update

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So… I’ve had a pretty nice Triduum this year.Â? (I provided the link for those who are not uber-liturgical type people.)

I went to church in town after church on Thursday and got to exercise my mad choir skillz (thank God for choir privileges there) as well as have a nice quiet service and all that. It’s kind of nice to have a preacher other than Jon occasionally because it’s different enough that I pay attention better and it makes me appreciate the things Jon does well in his preaching.Â? Oh yes… I’m also an evil sinner because with only 2.5 days left until Easter, I broke my Lenten fast and had a Coke with lunch.Â? *insert self-flagellation*

Yesterday, I did the 12-3 fast and went for a walk during lunch to get my mind off of food.Â?Â? While on my walk, I met a very nice Maine Coon cat who allowed me to come close and who sniffed the fingers of my gloves.Â? I left chocolate eggs on/in everyone’s desk with a note saying “From the Easter Cat” so it was kind of cool to have a cat to reference.Â? After grabbing a quick Veggie Delight sub in town, I went to Church #1 and got there early.Â? While waiting for Jon to bring me clothes (I was in jeans and running shoes and figured that I should look a little nicer for Good Friday worship), I got to sit and jam with the people doing music for the service and the whole fellowship/singing old-time gospel songs was really a blessing to me.Â? The service itself was incredibly moving and reading the part of Caiaphas during the Passion story was also pretty intense as I realized the stuff I was saying.Â? That plus the music made me a little teary during the prayers which I guess wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Today, I got to sleep in before going to town to do errands… and having a few frantic phone calls with L.L. Bean over them messing up my order.Â? (That’s another entry.)Â? I stopped at the library and loaded up on murder mysteries to read while I’m off next week, did some grocery shopping, and headed home.

Right now, I’m engaging in some “geek spring-cleaning” as my mother-in-law refers to it — I’m cleaning old crap off my laptop and putting pictures onto CD’s for storage because I’m running out of space.Â? I’m hoping the cleaning will make my laptop run better — especially because I have some things I need to do next week!