update

Hello there faithful readers.  I can’t remember what day it was that we last posted a blog.  I think it must have been around New Year’s day when Jan learned to crawl.  Well, life has been terribly hectic since then in a sort of slow way.  David has been doing his usual job and trying to catch up from all the Advent and Christmas chaos and preparing for, can you believe, LENT!!  Epiphany is thrown in there with some stuff.  This is the new front of the church.  And notice, it has been painted beige!!!  If you recall, the front between those weird pillars used to be a sort of street-sign green (terribly unattractive).  So, yeah.  David and a bunch of folks have painted.  He did the very top peak-y part with a roller on a ridiculously long pole.  He has a bit of a stiff neck now as you might imagine.  And of course the Sunday evening services, which had been stopped for Christmas are back underway starting tomorrow.  So he has been running around.  Jan has been crawling (and trying to walk) industriously.  I have been writingevalswritingevalswritingevals (report cards) and then I have been goingtoevalsgoingtoevalsgoingtoevals.  Now, the reason it’s hectic in a slow sort of way is it’s actually more like this:  writewritewrite ponderponderponder write ponderponderponder  surfnetsurfnet   ponder writewritewrite  It’s hard to think of unique things to say about grade 8 students who are all smart and talented and you know,  good students.  The bad ones are easy.  So I did that for about 4 days and then we worked on the house, but nothing really to show.  Going to evals involves a lot of meeting with parents and being all charming and diplomatic, something I’m really not so good at.  I have discovered I’m getting blunter in my old age, but parents actually seem appreciative for the most part.  What is to be gained by sweet talking a parent whose kid is a bully?  Or dumb?  Or not working at all?  But I digress.  Evals are each a half hour so that means I have something like 4 in a row and then an hour break and then another meeting and then a half hour break and then a 2 hour break and then  5 meetings.  So it’s hectic in a slow way.  I can’t go home in those breaks because we live too far now (especially in this weather) and we only have the one car.  I could write a whole blog about the determination to be stewardly by only having one vehicle and the pain in the rear it is during weeks like this especially now there is a Jan.

So that is all over with and now I really feel like 2009 has begun (even though our Christmas tree is still up, albeit undecorated.  I’m attempting a record for deepest pile of pine needles on the floor.  Who needs shag carpet, I ask you!).  2008 was a year of oh my goodness:  a job interview that went nowhere; miserable 1st trimester; birth; moving; helping Ken move; IVY!; figuring out daycare; construction; death; almost losing a job.  I’m sure that’s not all, but that is enough for one year. I kinda think 2009 might not have quite as much drama, but just as much work, if not more.  sigh.  But since idle hands are the devil’s work, apparently we are not tools of the devil.  Good to know.