Ain’t got no photos

Yep, sorry about that, but there has been no photo taking around here lately.  Could be because the snow is melting and you know how ugly that can look.  We’ve had a several sunny sunny days, but only a couple warm ones.  Even so, the snow goes.  I noticed when I was driving past the river the other day that is has gone from so low the birds were sleeping on the shoals, to completely full and rising.  We still have a fair amount of snow to melt such as on corners where one still can’t see around when driving.  But seeing the sun is a huge morale booster, I think.

Strangely, or not given my last comment, there have been fewer and fewer students showing up late to school in the past week and almost no absences.  Two weeks ago, we had 46 kids out with sickness on one day.  That’s out of 170some total.  Someone wondered if we should phone the health department.  But there has been a total turn around and I’m sure the sun and few days of warmth have a lot to do with it.  I guess it’s good this community doesn’t live in the NWT or Alaska.  I guess we’d always all be sick and/or late.  But in any case what’s been doing around here:

Me:  Not much.  Just the usual teaching.  Although I will grudgingly admit I am getting more interested in the New Testament course I am teaching this year than I thought I would be.  “Grudging” because I didn’t want a timetable full of Junior High classes and especially not this one because a) I’ve never taught it before so it’s just one more new prep and b) it’s a religion class which is where, if anywhere, I get in trouble because I’m a Prot in a sea of Catholics.  I’ve already “had” to teach the virgin birth from the Catholic pov and although I tried to be neutral, I had a number of girls I know come from Catholic families telling me they thought it sounded dubious.  I sure was waiting for phone calls on that one, but I didn’t get any.  I conferred with some of my colleagues and they all sounded kind of dubious about it too, so maybe it’s not the dearly held belief I thought it was.  Who can say.  Anyway, even with grade 8 girls I’ve had some interesting discussions about whether or not Mary and Elizabeth really knew each other very well and whether or not Mary and Joseph struggled into town and she basically staggered into a filthy, reeking barn and popped out a child within 5 minutes.  That seems to have been a pretty big belief.  So anyway, things are not as grim as I might have thought.  That seems to be what happens when I stop thinking about them being grim.  Who would have known.

David:  Busy as usual.  Finished up the conference, obviously. (Still hasn’t blogged about it, I know).  Been approached by numerous people to repeat part or all of the lectures at their churches.  Possibly, possibly getting a book deal out of it, but I don’t get my hopes up about this kind of thing.  He has also been setting up a number of Subkirke concerts.  The middle to end of March is going to be extremely busy in that respect.  Why in the world would all bands tour at the same time?  Weird.  And why March of all times?  There have been, of course, a couple requests for concerts at the end of April.  Can you imagine trying to do a full concert the same week as Easter?  If you think that doesn’t sound like a big deal, you obviously don’t work at a church.  We always have a crisis the same week as Easter, but not usually one that we plan to have!   (Tree fell on our house one year, actually, I think that was 2 years in a row, same tree; car broke down last year and cat got terribly ill; just waiting to see what this year’s joy will be.)

Jan:  Still working at potty training.  I wish I could write “doggedly working,” but alas, he seems pretty uninterested.  Anal retention has taken on clear and precise meaning around here.  He has discovered the wonderful world of veggie tales, although we don’t own any.  But we have been getting them from the library and my family will be pleased yet unsurprised to hear that that kid sure does have the musical memory.  He sings the songs from those videos all the time.  Sometimes he adds his own lyrics about Thomas (the train) and Mater (Disney’s Cars movie), but he gets enough of the song that we sort of recognise the Veggie Tales theme.

Smeer gets a mention because the weather has clearly indicated that he should be allowed to go outside all the time and he is very, loudly, grumpy that we have not let him.

So there you  have it, the week(s) in review.  Tune in next time for more of the same, I’m sure, of our small, yet consequential, lives.