Category Archives: Daily Life

Another Round of Random Bursts of Thought

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There has been so much in the last few days that has needed to be in my blog subjects that I think I’ll start another round of this.

  • Signatures flowing in to recall Davis. This really scares me because they’re doing well. Thing is… Davis was *NOT* a bad governor. Wilson was ten times worse. Davis hasn’t done much for education other than oppose vouchers (which would literally drain the school system of needed funds) but Wilson turned down $40 million with NO STRINGS ATTACHED from the feds for education. Davis is getting blamed for the power shortages but they were due to the deregulation of electricity passed in 1996 under a Republican governor and were supported by the voters of the state. This led the way for no regulation of Enron (and we all know how credible they are) to jack up the price of electricity during the power shortages. In other words, the citizens of California voted for this, having been warned by multiple TV ads (which I remember) about what deregulation would mean. (And yes, Crystal, I know that people hate him for more than that.) He also won the governor’s race against Bill Simon fair and square (which is more than I can say for *some* politicians). Would Simon, who even alienated himself from his own party, be a better governor? I seriously think not! Y’all elected Davis — you’re stuck with him for the next few years. So… tell Darrell Issa (the impetus for this recall who LOST the Senate campaign in 1998 and is bitter about it) and his fascist thugs to kiss off! *sighs* If only we could recall presidents…
  • We have a few laundry baskets in our bedroom and Finian has claimed the big white one. Yesterday morning, he came and mewed at me. I followed him and he stopped at the laundry basket and mewed very loudly… because his brother was curled up in it. It was a “MOMMY!!!! Cullen stole my laundry basket!!!!” kind of mew. I had to explain to Finian that he needs to share and give Cullen a turn. I’m not sure if he understood the concept of sharing because he is a cat, but Cullen soon jumped out and Finian claimed his rightful throne.
  • Jon and I attended the installation of one of the local pastors of the Other True Church (the one that doesn’t ordain women) on Sunday afternoon. We were treated very well and were able to rub elbows with some clergy we know from Columbus. (Jon attended the church for a few months and one of the pastors is the father of my worship team leader at my home church in Bexley.) Doug was happy to have us there and asked if we could do lunch on Tuesday. We spent two hours talking about seminary stuff, the colloquy process in the Other True Church, politics in the

    • One True Church, theology, our churches… We had a great time and if we can squeeze it in, we want to do lunch next month as well. As someone on my blogroll IRREVERENTLY (!!!) put it, “it was nice of him to hang out with [us] flaming liberals.” To this person, I’d say, “yeah… but we’re right-wing flaming liberals.” 😛

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    Questions Answered

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    In this entry, I offered to answer any questions (within reason) that were put to me. So…

    Jake asked me TWO questions. 🙂

    1) What is the best piece of advice you have ever recieved?
    This is a hard one because I’ve received lots of really good advice. The top five pieces have been:
    -pick your battles
    -love yourself for who you are and not what people want you to be
    -when dealing with difficult people, remember that they are God’s children too
    -diplomacy is saying “nice doggy” until you find a rock
    -live your life in a way that will leave you with no regrets at the end

    2) Where is the one place you have always wanted to go but you have never been?
    Probably the continent of Europe. I’ve been to Ireland (both the Republic and the North) and I spent 24 hours in London; but I’ve never been to France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia, Italy, Portugal, or Greece. Next on my list are the Holy Land and Scotland, Wales, and England outside of London.

    Krissy was next.

    When did you know Jon was the one for you?
    There were two points when I kind of realized that this was gonna last. The first one was January 2000 when we were on the phone one night discussing our ideal weddings and I realized that it was “when we get married” instead of “when I get married” coming out of our mouths. The second one was when I was visiting Jon at the seminary in March 2000 and one of the students told me that they would put money on us being married within at least five years. We were married almost exactly two years later.

    Crystal had two questions too…

    1.) If you could live *anywhere*, where would it be?
    At this point, the Pacific Northwest near the coast (or at least a substantial body of water). I’d love Washington or British Columbia (probably pushing more for beautiful BC because it’s *CANADA* and the people there are so wonderful) but if I couldn’t be in the Pacific Northwest, I’d probably go for the coastal areas of Maine or Massachusetts. Ireland is kind of a dream but probably not going to happen.

    2.) How’s the marriage going?
    The marriage is going well. We’ve learned each other’s breaking points and pet peeves and we try to avoid pressing those buttons. The adoption of the kitties was a plus because they give us something to love together. We’ve made it a year and three months at this point and we’re thinking this should last for a while longer. 🙂

    If you have more questions, leave them in the comments of this entry.

    Random Bursts of Thought

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    I’ve been puzzling about what to blog for the last few days. As I can’t decide, I thought some random bursts of thought might be the best way to get everything out of my head. Enjoy.

  • We’re filling out our paperwork for Jon’s approval as well as his first call. Right now, we’re looking at (in this order): Region 3 (Minnesota and the Dakotas), Region 1 (Pacific Northwest — my preference though there isn’t an ELCA seminary up there), and Region 6 (Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan) which could easily be replaced with Region 5 (Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the upper peninsula of Michigan). Jon’s approval date is August 18th and we are praying that he gets approved (no reason he shouldn’t — it’s just that we’ve learned after my candidacy experience that there are no guarantees) and on September 18th, we’ll go into the Bishop’s draft for a region. It’s smaller than THE DRAFT in February (everyone and their mother who is graduating from seminary in the spring) so we think we’ll get to find out our synod at that point. I want OUT of Ohio if we get Region 6 so it’s easily switched with Region 5 where there are TWO ELCA seminaries.
  • My boys turn a year old next week. To celebrate, they’re getting wet food on Thursday or Friday. (We feed them dry food because it’s better for their teeth.) I can’t believe how much they’ve grown — they were tea cup kittens when we got them last August and now, they’re probably flour cannister kittens. (September and October were the most fun because then, they were “beer stein” kittens.) Cullen is very precocious and Finian is a mellower and bolder version of his brother. They protest soundly when I’m taking a bath without them and they’ll get up with their front paws on the edge of the tub and bat at the bubbles. Finian actually got all the way up on the rail last night and didn’t notice that I was petting him with a wet hand — until I had to towel him off before he was allowed to jump on our bed! (Whoa!!! A new way to bathe the kitties!)
  • Blair Hornstine, the brat who successfully sued to be valedictorian, has admitted that she did not properly cite materials used in some articles she wrote for her local newspaper. Her defense: “I am not a professional journalist. I was a 17-year-old with no experience in writing newspaper articles.” Uh huh. Sweetie, even us COMMONERS know that if we lift words from someone, we need to cite them. I mean… didn’t we all learn to do this during our freshman year of high school (or even earlier)?!?!?! Something that warms my heart even more: She also faces controversy at Harvard University, where she has been accepted and intends to enroll next fall. She has been a frequent target of critical columns in The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. Nearly 1,400 people _ some of whom say they are associated with the university _ have signed an online petition asking Harvard to rescind its offer to admit Hornstine. Blair, let me just say that you deserve all of this because you sought to promote yourself above all others. I hope Harvard does rescind your admission because you plagarized other peoples’ work. (I checked the Harvard newspaper article and apparently, admission can be rescinded for plagarism. Boo yah!) I also hope you lose your lawsuit against the school district and the judge tells you that you are a snot-nosed, spoiled brat and should pay the legal fees of the school district AND punitive damages for the negative publicity you’ve caused them. (Thanks to Mac, my favorite right-wing fundie blogger for the heads up on all of this.)
  • Some lawmakers seek congressional hearings on Iraqi weapons. Well well well well well… appparently the findings aren’t exactly gelling with the Bush propaganda from before the war, meaning that we just wasted countless Iraqi lives over some information that may not be true. The best thing yet on this was what I heard on CNN Headline News while trying to fall asleep last night: “Americans don’t care about this — the war is popular in people’s minds.” Ummm… actually quite a few Americans care that we were probably acting on doctored information. And for the record, I’d be calling for these hearings even if a Democrat was president — I’m not into party politics thankyouverymuch. Oh yes… Texans might want to dopeslap Tom Delay for the following words: “The detractors from our successes might want to congratulate Saddam Hussein on his ability to hide them or destroy them.” Yo moron: why would we want to congratulate a dictator who killed thousands (if not millions) of people??? We wanted him out just as much as you did; but we wanted to do it in a way that wasn’t going to make us look like idiots to the international community. (Methinks the gene pool needs some chlorine…)
  • Yo Natalie Maines: I and many others appreciated your words in London — heck… if I’d had the funds, I would have bought every Dixie Chicks album on the market in support of your good judgement in questioning the government and their policies. However, you really didn’t help your case here. I know Toby Keith is being a jerk and I know that he’s been ragging on you by posting that stupid doctored photo on big screens at his concerts. Heck… his song (“The Angry American”) made me ashamed to be American. However, you didn’t have to stoop to his level by wearing the FUTK shirt!!! All you did was prove that you might be worthy of some of that criticism and that shirt overshadowed the good in your words in London (the good being that not every American loves Bush or agrees with him and we thankfully have the right to criticize the government).
  • To Congressman Tiberi: Your letter to me proved that you really don’t give a rat’s butt about the needs of your constituents. Thanks for making me feel like I wasted my vote in November when I helped you get elected. I hope you are soundly defeated in 2004.
  • In a previous entry, I asked people to leave me questions in the comments section that they wanted answered. Only one person did. C’mon… I know y’all are interested in my life (why else are you reading my blog???), so could y’all please leave me some questions in the comments section of that entry????
  • I’ll have my new layout up for this journal/blog tomorrow. In the meantime, if people know where any pictures of flaming tongues are on the internet, please let me know. 🙂

    • That is all.

    Friday Five! (Yeah… I Know It’s Saturday.)

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    1. How many times have you truly been in love?
    Twice

    2. What was/is so great about the person you love(d) the most?
    Compassion

    3. What qualities should a significant other have?
    Compassion, similar faith convictions, sense of humor, ability to be self-sufficient without you (i.e. know how to cook/take care of finances/clean), intelligence

    4. Have you ever broken someone’s heart?
    Yep

    5. If there was one thing you could teach people about love, what would it be?
    You need to wait and let it blossom before you act on it.

    My Brother’s Report on the House

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    My parents are in Ireland right now and asked my brother to send them reports on how the house and the cats are doing. He’s known for his strange reports, most involving destruction to the house and injury to my mom’s cat. So… here is this year’s report on the house, with the caveat that it is not politically correct and all. (It’s meant in humor.)

    [tic]

    Dear parents,

    Yet another episode of my watching the house has come and gone and things couldn’t be better, although I should mention we have a few guests at the house currently. You see, the repairs have been costly every since CHP shot holes in our roof and the monsoon came through, so I figured I would expand my income by taking on a few tenants, so I went down to the old Feed and Fuel and found some nicem individuals, Bubba, Moon Dog, and their entourage. SInce you two have the biggest room, I gave them that one. They pretty much keep to themselves and are quiet during the daytime, orta sleeping in a pile like dogs do, but they are a lot of fun at night. I did not understand why they needed to sacrifice a goat in the middle of the bed, esspecially since they are vegetarians, and I’m still not sure why they had to eat the drapes and a few of our paintings, but I am amazed at just how many tatoos you can get on an orange tabby, well a rather bald orange tabby now. They tatooed the faces od dogs on each of her flanks, so she’s aftraid to turn in any direction. SHe just walks straight, or at a slight angle, so she bumps into a lot, but the bikers love it. They even gamble based on wher the cat will end up. Trail KItty is in the corner of the kitchen in the fetal position rocking backward and forward, eyes fixed forward, doing the kitty equivalent of muttering softly. I guess he doesn’t like it when they ride their Hogs though the house, hogs they found
    up in Quicksilver.

    Their rent was still not enough to fix the roof however, so I took on a group of Muslim extremists and put them in Jenny’s old room. They immediatly destroyed all the computers and burned them as the Great Satan and began removing all the alcohol from the house, which saddly included the moonshine stills the bikers had set up. The bikers in turn sacrificed one of the hogs and served it to them, which led to the manufacture of bombs and, well, we still have most of the living room left I shoiuld stay. I think if we get a few cubicle dividerswe can live in relative privacy.

    Of course when the building inspector came by wantingt o condemn the house, I chased him off, shooting at him and accusing him of being a communist. He said he’d be back with back up, so I’ll be waiting for that. Anyway, I hope the trip is going well. YOu might want to buy a tent incase I can’t fend the state off.

    [/tic]

    My Last Few Days

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    Jon graduated from seminary today. Here are the last few days:

    Thursday: I drove Jon down to Columbus to meet my father-in-law at $tarbuck$. He arrives and we go out to dinner while waiting for his bags to arrive from Chicago. We go back to Newark and Jon goes to work on his Approval essays while I do a Wal-Mart run and some light cleaning. We head to church to proofread things for Jon and get home at 11. I do three sinkfuls of dishes and clean the counters. At midmight, I poured straight bleach on the countertops. It made the house smell icky (and yes, I did ventilate the house [though not the kitchen — bad Jen] while doing it) but it got the stains off my counters. I get to bed around 2 a.m.

    Friday: Up at 6:45 to get Ray (my father-in-law) and Jon and I out the door to Columbus for Jon’s class picture and meetings. I head to $tarbuck$ for a bagel and a Frappucino. (I needed the caffeine, OK?) Head back to the sem and meet up with a few people. Jon’s advisor takes us out to lunch and then Jon and his advisor meet. We get back to Newark at 3:45 and hurriedly do the last of the cleaning and dinner prep before Bill and Judy arrive at 5 for dinner. (I cooked much of it a few days ahead of time.) Dinner goes well (my first time entertaining, so nerve-wracking for me) and we chill and head back to Wal-mart to get bookcases. In bed at 11 and asleep at 11:45.

    Saturday: Up at 6:30 (!!!!) and got Jon, Ray, and I dressed, pressed, and on the road by 8. We get to the sem at 9 and mill around and find seats for the Baccalaureate Eucharist. Eucharist was about the level worship normally is at Jon’s internship site — and this was *celebratory*. There was more prelude music (mostly to give the MACM students a chance to show off) but the worship formality and enthusiasm was about the same, which is a compliment to St. Paul’s because they worship with *GUSTO*. The sermon was hysterically funny — it was Dr. Croy preaching and he has a rather… interesting way of incorporating pop culture stuff into his sermons. His sermon last year on John 14:6 was related to “Wayne’s World” and this one was on the “you are the Son of God” passage in Matthew where Peter gets it and later rebukes Jesus for talking of His impending suffering. (The second the sermon gets posted, I’ll link it on here, OK?) For lunch, we went to the Golden Corral (buffet food — LOTS of it) and made our way to Mees Hall for Commencement. It was an OK ceremony and I got pictures of Jon getting his diploma. We milled around and socialized afterward. We then went to the apartments, got Sable (who was being worked on this weekend by a fellow student who was a Volvo mechanic and fixed her for about 1/3 of what it would have been otherwise), and bade Ray adieu. He had offered to take us to dinner (and I sort of wished we’d just gone for coffee) but we were tired and peopled out, so we returned home.

    Lost and Found

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    I was (finally!!!!!) cleaning my study today when I picked up my Bible from Urbana 2000. I noticed that things were stuck in the pages and I pulled them out. The “things” happened to be two funeral cards from two of the people I knew who died during my junior year of high school. One was Mrs. Cooke, my 8th grade English teacher and the other was my friend Gabe Maze. When I’d switched over to my Urbana Bible after coming back, I’d stuck them in certain spots and I guess I forgot to remove them. I thought about them a year ago and wondered where they had gone. Praise God that they are found.

    Mrs. Cooke’s card is stuck in Jeremiah 29:11-13 because she had always encouraged us to follow our dreams. The story of the placement of Gabe’s card is this:

    The night of his funeral, I was going to put the card in a spot in my Bible. I was in tears and I decided to open it up and see where I wound up. Well… I opened it to John 14:1-4: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know” I stuck it there.

    Granted, I could have opened my Bible to a passage talking about the flames of hell or something; but I think the Lord knew that I needed comfort at that point and the message was *exactly* what I needed to hear.