I miss the warm

And I miss the sun

And I miss the ocean

I miss everyone

And I miss the bridges

That span across the bay

Tonight, it seems like ages ago…

—sixpence

It does seem like ages since I’ve seen the sun.  I was even in Orlando over the weekend, but we only had sun on Friday.  It’s been nearly a week!!  No wonder they call it the winter blues.

My sister owes me her firstborn child.  Why?  I got her a street sign yesterday!  No, really, I did. 

The city was going through replacing a bunch of street signs, and I drove by them while they were doing it on our street.  When I got home I told Steph, and she wanted it—very badly.  We drove down there real quick and got out to ask the guys if we could have it.  (They were young, BTW. grin)  They wouldn’t let us take it…said they weren’t allowed to.  Steph asked, “What if we steal it?  Will you chase us down?”  He said no, but as the sign was still attached to the pole (that’s right, we got a new pole and stop sign, too), I didn’t see how we’d run off with it.  I pictured the two of us hightailing it down our street with this huge pole and street sign between us, leaving the car, course, because it wouldn’t fit.

 

Steph had to leave for canoeing, but she was really bummed.  She kept telling me to call someone, but who do you call?  The mayor?  After she left I got online and looked up League City, and found a number for the streets department.  I asked the lady there if they were responsible for the new streets signs being put up, and she said, “Yes, that’s us.”  I said, “Good, can I have my sign?”  The supervisor, George, was on the other line so she took my number and address to have him call me back.  He called about 5 minutes later and said that unless it was an old oval one, they recycle them, so he couldn’t give it away.  Oval?  Has anyone ever seen an oval street sign?  But he said he’d keep my number and if, for any reason, they were just going to throw ours away, he’d give me a call.  I realized later how easy it would be for him to just blow the whole thing off and move on with his work.  But apparently he didn’t: thirty minutes later he’s on our doorstep asking for me.  He said, “You wanted the old sign…like, the name? (I think he couldn’t figure out why we wanted it)  I’ve got it in the truck…”  Turns out it was an old one (by oval he meant rounded corners instead of straight edges), and he’d found it for me (I guess he chased those guys down, too).  Good thing I’m not big on hugging guys…I might have thrown myself at him.  I don’t know if he had to come this way to check on his workers or not.  Personally, I think he was so baffled by the idea of wanting an old street sign that he came to see what kind of people we were.  I like to think that we’ve created a great story for the city workers to circulate… “So, we’re out there digging away, and these girls drive up… My office got a call from this lady…when I found the sign and took it to her house she was so excited she was jumping up and down…over a street sign!”

 

The sign is now in Steph’s bedroom, and she owes me, big time.

 

The moral of the story, according to my father–persistence wins.  Mom said he kept saying, “She just wouldn’t take no for an answer!”  He told me he’s proud of my persistence.  Cool.

 

Funny thing is, I don’t consider myself a persistent person.  Stephanie helps me…she pushes me and nudges me to stretch.  If she hadn’t insisted on marching down there…she’s really not afraid of anyone.  I want to be like her when I grow up.

Well, the Super Bowl is over and (almost) gone.  I heard that the last party/thing is tonight.  How weird to have the Super Bowl in your hometown, and just watch it on TV like every other year.  I kept saying, “Guys, this is thirty miles away from here!”  When the helicopters did the fly-by after the National Anthem (which, by the way, was better than I expected), one of the guys said, “You know in a few minutes we can go outside and see them fly in to land (at Ellington).” 

It would have been fun to go to the game, except that no one can hear me yell at a stadium.  It’s like being a little fish in a big pond.  I want to be heard!  Besides, they didn’t really open up that many seats to the public, and I hate the anxiety of trying to get tickets to something.  I’ll just wait till I’m rich and/or famous with connections in every city.  *grin*  I was in Galveston with my best friend Friday night, and one of the shop owners on the Strand told us about a big party they were doing somewhere down the street.  They were bringing people in by the bus-load.  Security was already staking out the area as we walked back to our car.  I kinda wish we could have hung around.

It was a great game, as football goes.  Carolina didn’t get their heads in the game until late in the second quarter.  But that 85-yard pass was beautiful.  Great call, perfect execution.  If only they’d played like that for the entire game…

I didn’t really care who won.  I joked that since the Patriots’ quarterback is single, I’d have to root for them, but he’s already got a Super Bowl ring.  Delhome doesn’t, and, honestly, I think he’s the better quarterback.  If the Panthers had played better over all (and earlier on), I think they’d have gotten it.  I also can’t believe Brady got the MVP.  One stinkin’ touchdown pass!  And it was the kicker who won the game for them (after missing everything else)!  But he did throw for 350-something yards.  I guess that’s impressive.

Okay, that’s my vent on the game.  Oh, one more thing…where did they get those refs???  Somebody needed to show the sideline ump a replay of that touchdown he called out-of-bounds.  That was totally rotten.  But at least they made bad calls for both sides.  Still, that’s the wrong game to make mistakes on–this time everybody’s watching.

Oh, and I hope all of the guys I know were protected from watching the half-time show.  I read that the NFL will probably never ask MTV to do the show again.  Good riddance.

A few advantages to having the Super Bowl come to town…the city works real hard on some of our road repairs. 

 

I’m almost too tired to post anything normal sounding, but I’m tired of looking at the last post everytime I log on.  J  What a sanguine reason to talk.

 

Did you know that about 95% of sun damage (skin, you know—on the face) has occurred by the age of twelve…?  Just something to think about this summer.

 

I’ve been going through/doing a lot of training this past week in the skin care/cosmetic line that I represent…can you tell?  It’s been really good, but now I’m exhausted.  I’ve been around the market so long that I was signed up (okay, I volunteered) to help.  Who wants to get up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning?  But it was pretty close to being worth it.  So much good information, and the best stuff available to work with. 

 

Of course, it would have been more worth it if some wonderful man had shown up to rescue me from my weary toils—or to at least smile at me and let me know that, to him, I’m the most wonderful person in the world—but, no one did, so…

 

Okay I am way too tired to be sharing my thoughts with the world. I will probably erase this post tomorrow when I wake up and see how silly I am.

 

Well, my “premium trial” expired, and I’m trying to decide if I want to actually spend money on this thing.  Mostly I just enjoyed being able to put pictures up.  Is it worth it for someone my age?  Especially for one who has major travel plans for the summer…

sojourning talked about the wind.  It has been windy.  I was in a spa event tonight.  I had to help, so I got there at 4pm–it was seventy degrees and I was sweating (from running around, late, of course).  When I came out at eleven, it was 25 degrees cooler and the wind hadn’t died down at all.  Yikes, no coat or nothin’!  But I love going to sleep to the sound of the tree branches creaking out my window, and Mom’s windchimes on the front porch.  Kind of brings back childhood fun.

More tomorrow when I can think.  It’s too late.

P.S.  Thanks to everyone who has been praying for Steph.  She is doing better–thanks in part to an antibiotic.  (Those things are exspensive!)  Please continue to pray for her healing, and also for her…social side?  She is having the hardest time not being able to do anything or go anywhere.  I think she’s wishing she could do some chores.  (Well, maybe not.  If she reads this she’ll probably argue with me.) 

G’night.

Prayer Request

 

Hello, friends –

 

Please pray for my sister Stephanie.  She has had an earache all week, and they took her to a doctor yesterday.  This lady is an MD, but also into nutrition and chiropractic stuff—which is good since Steph can’t have antibiotics (allergic, as far as we know).  But this morning Steph’s ear hurt so bad that Mom took her to a “regular” doctor.  (Maybe Dr. McCree, who some of you know from church.)  Please pray that they would figure something out, and pray for healing. 

The big concern would be for something to go wrong and Steph to lose her hearing.  NOT good for a musician, especially one who sings a capella.  Please pray, and pass the message on to anyone you know that knows Steph.  She’s such an awesome person (and sister), and I hate to see her in this much pain…and from a silly earache, too!

 

My seventeen-year-old sister and I were discussing the latest tendency of Bible publishers and tee-shirt makers who try to make being a Christian look cool.  Don’t get me wrong—I have nothing against student Bibles or cool t-shirts.  But what happened to parents (and pastors and youth pastors) teaching young people that being a Christian has nothing to do with “cool”, and more to do with taking up your cross–daily dying to self?

Or maybe we’re trying to make Christianity look attractive to the world.  Problem.  The Bible says the gospel is offensive to those who are still blind.  Christianity isn’t attractive.  It’s hard.  It’s painful.  It puts you on Satan’s hit-list (don’t worry, the less of a problem you are to him, the lower on the list you’ll go).  It also puts you on God’s hit-list, in a better sense.  He says He “disciplines” those He loves.  So trials and sufferings that cause growth and draw you closer to Christ aren’t necessarily the Enemy.

 

So, back to being cool.  Leslie Ludy points out that once or twice in a generation, there is a young person who becomes totally sold-out to God.  He/She does whatever is required, without thought to how it looks to others.  And they are the world-changers of that generation.  Amy Carmichael is the best example I can think of.  If you haven’t read her story, read it.  I like Elizabeth Elliot’s, A Chance To Die.

 

To be quite frank, I’m trying to decide how “sold-out” I’m willing to be.  I don’t really want to end up in China, or India, unmarried, etc.  But perhaps that’s not what He’s asking from me.  I think to begin with, I’ll work on worrying about what God wants of me, and not what others are thinking about me.  Yes, living for Christ is tough, but I want that joy and peace that Amy talked about and exhibited so often.  I want someone to be able to say of me (and not just when I’m an old lady), “She was really close to God.”  I think I want to be a world-changer.

I’ve been reading a book called The Servant, and pondering the differences between leadership authority and power authority.  Basically, one gets people you lead to do something because they want to do it for you, and the other is forcing obedience.  While power may get the job done (for a while), ultimately, it damages relationships. 

I think I tend to use the power method a little too often.

I had a good weekend in Dallas.  I was babysitting a one-year-old girl during a business conference, and she cried most of the time.  I think she wasn’t feeling good, but I also thing she is going to have to get over her parents being gone for a couple of hours.  It was, in a way, exhausting, but also character building.  The fire alarm was character building, too.  It’s amazing how quickly you narrow down what’s important in life when you aren’t sure your room will still be there when you get back.  Let’s see…baby, phone, room key (in case you do come back), driver’s license and money…oh! shoes!  Yes, but I had to carry them because I didn’t want to take the time to sit down and tie them.  So down four flights of dirty stairs  in socks and then by the time we got to the lobby, they were telling us everything was fine.  I was grateful that there was no real fire (just someone smoking on the 7th floor) and that there were lots of people going down the stairs with me.  I felt sure the baby and I would be taken care of if there was an emergency. 

I did have a very interesting conversation with a cousin about relationships…particularly the romantic kind.  It kind of freaked me out because he’s so much younger than me and I wasn’t prepared for him to grow up and start thinking about girls.  And I just found out today that anther guy I’ve known for years is getting married at the end of the month.  I think it finally hit me that people my age (and younger) are very likely to fall in love and get married.  What happened to bemoaning the fact that someone was turning twenty–“the first one of us to leave the teens (Brack)?”

Whoops…my baby sister is trying to help with this.  While her kissable cheeks are very distracting, her chubby fingers are very naughty and I nearly misspelled everything in the last paragraph.  *laughing*  Now she’s trying to chew on my arm.  I’d better go…  (I’m glad she doesn’t have teeth yet!)

 

Now this is my idea of paradise.  Someday I am going to find this place.

 

 

Being in power is like being a lady.

If you have to remind people that you are,

you aren’t. –Margaret Thatcher

 

 

 

Off to Dallas in 30 minutes.  Have a great weekend, everyone!