Monday, March 4, 2019

Keeping Up With Weather...A Full Time Job

It was kind of a surprise to wake up to a dusting of snow this morning. The forecast had been for the higher elevations but looking at the radar map last night showed that ice or snow might get as far as Marshall. It went a little farther. We will get above freezing today so this will melt but Tuesday will be the day to keep an eye on. No, Tuesday is supposed to be sunny...keeping up with weather is a full time job.

Two Sundays in a row of missing choir practice because of the rain. With daylight saving time coming into play this Saturday/Sunday, it will at least be lighter getting to practice and if it is raining only the trip home will be fret with glare or fallen trees or whatever else all the rain entails. Missing last Sunday night wasn't too big of a deal because the youth led worship yesterday. Roy calls me a GWB, Good Weather Baptist, and that observation rings true, sadly. No not sadly.

The view from the chair facing the window is that silver gray and white pallet with leafless trees framing the picture. The silhouettes of the mountains are covered with clouds or fog. This is a favorite scene, along with the brighter colors of the seasons that will arrive soon. Winter holds its own allure. Overcast days are favorites. Their effect if one will let it happen, makes you slow down and listen and watch. Roy went to a CLE seminar Friday afternoon, always having to keep up with professional education hours, and the speaker shared his adult "time out," and time out doesn't hold a positive connection for me but that is being said by someone who has spent many a time in time out through the years, imposed and self imposed. Love me a run on sentence. Roy said he thought of the term time out as a sports related term...but sport timeouts are relatively short. Roy said professionally, he is beyond the time of taking a sabbatical but tho, 4-6 months Roy thought the man had an interesting concept that might become practiced in ten or twenty years. The author advocates  Roy bought the book the speaker had written looking forward to going further into the adventures that this lawyer took, not going a conventional way overseas. But as Roy got deeper into the story, he began to lose interest because this man spent more time describing himself and constantly referring to his position in a large law firm, where he had been a rainmaker for the firm, burning out, taking all his accrued vacation to have this "time out" and Roy being bored with it all, put the book down and he probably won't pick it up again.

I happen to be reading Erwin McManus' book, The Last Arrow and just read about his trip to Rio for the World Cup in 2014. Not a planned trip but a last minute trip with a ticket being given to him by someone he met once. He asked why they picked him and their response; you are the person who came to mind that would totally rearrange life at the last minute and would go. Sure enough he had a short period of time to get all his ducks in a row....miraculously, he got a visa but arrived with no place to stay. Social media helped with that....  We all have our own definitions of adventure and this would not be something I would do. Now Peggy or Kathleen, they would be all over it. My adventure sense is on a much smaller scale but nonetheless, it is still adventure.

The Sunday School lesson I taught yesterday is a well known story of the children of Israel, standing on the brink of the promised land only to believe the ten spies and not Joshua and Caleb. Thus forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Funny how stories come back to you while studying. I got to thinking of my first job post college and the false promise land it would have been, if I hadn't followed the leading of the Holy Spirit that it was not the place for a career. The funny thing, while working there I met a guy who I dated and was smitten with...he broke up with me and I was brokenhearted cause I thought he might be the one. I also at that company went out with a young man who didn't really care one way or another about God, happy I had found peace but not something he actively sought. We had just a couple of dates when I knew the direction the relationship was going, wasn't really on my radar. Boy who broke my heart, thought he was the one, I cannot even remember his last name...the other nice young man working and going to law school at night....totally remember his whole name. On a bunny trail, looked him up and he did become an attorney and moved back to Illinois, and he practices law probably about twenty miles from where I was born. And yes, this story tied into the lesson...no really it did.

Last night a Houston friend called and so glad they did. First they were checking to see if we were experiencing weather like in Alabama yesterday and after a good weather discussion, we picked up with our conversation catch up. With her telling me about weather she saw on CNN it reminded me that the Bush Family Story was on the channel at 9:00. Watched both episodes last night. Very interesting. I had begun a biography of George HW Bush and had put it down. It came to the top of my reading pile last night. Since it looks like I will put off my errands until tomorrow, maybe I will get back to reading it this afternoon.

Well, my project for the day is calling, well not really but the thought of what I want to get done is not taking a backseat in my brain. So better go with the energy to do the thing than to put if off till tomorrow.




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