Thanksgiving 2008

A Good Time Was Had By All

From 2008 Thanksgiving

My sister, Millie, and her husband, Drew, had us all to their house in Charlotte, NC.

My brother John and I drove up from Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon. So did half of Atlanta try to leave at the same time. A normal three hour drive became a five and a half hour drive. Lewis, Avery and Gracie drove over from Durham on Thursday.

Millie, Drew, and John worked all day Thursday cooking. The turkey went in the oven about 11 AM. The "cooked-to-death" green beans started about the same time. There was potato salad, dressing, sweet potato cassarole, cranberry relish, rolls and an apple pie to end off with.

I had a good time with Gracie. She is still in her terrible-twos stage but was pretty well behaved for the weekend.

We finished off the day with a rousing game of "Mexican Train" dominoes. I lost badly.

On Friday, Lewis, Avery, and Gracie drove back to their house. Andy and John did a minor house repair. Millie and I worked on her computers. She had a program on her laptop that would peg her CPU utilization at 100%. I found the offending process and looked it up on Google. Changing the service to start Manual instead of Auto fixed that. Avery was very grateful.

John and I drove back today.

E-mail error ends up on road sign

From the "I hate when that happens" department

The English is clear enough to lorry drivers - but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

Be careful of the e-mail responses you get from your translation department. Make sure they are translating what you want properly.

Read the story at BBC.

Technology is great - when it works.

Anniversary Comes - Anniversary Goes

At the Grave Side

Here are the pictures of the grave.

The grass right on her grave is having a problem. The replacement sod is not doing well.

I think it is because, while Trudie was an avid gardener, a South Carolina and then Georgia Master Gardener, and she loved most all growing things, she greatly preferred flowers. In fact, she on more than one occasion stated that "She HATED grass." She thought grass was just boring.

So I think it more than poetic that the grass on her "final resting place" is not doing so well.

Of course, Trudie is not there and where she is I believe she has made her peace with all of God's creation, including grass.

How am I doing?

I'm doing well. I'm grieving and know that "this too shall pass."

Thank you so much to everyone who have been praying! I have needed and have felt your prayers. I'm at peace about where I'm at today and I'm looking forward to what God has in store for me in the future.

Holidays

I'm spending the holidays with my family. We will be all together and that will be a good time. I'm looking forward to having quality time with Gracie!

Single Guys Exhortation (to say the least)

Perry Noble - New Spring Church

This "aside" was made by a megachurch pastor in Anderson, SC.

Watch and see what you think.



Beautiful_02- Single Guys Outtake from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

Where I agree

Us single guys need to be the initiators. We need to be the ones doing the asking out. We need to hold the door open for our dates. We need to be the ones purposely searching for a woman of noble character.

Where I disagree

I don't think you can just tell a guy "grow a pair!" John Eldredge states, "Remember—masculinity is bestowed by masculinity." We need a father-figure to help us in growing a pair. We just can't grow them on our own.

This is an outtake from a series he did for women titled "Beautiful!" For the rest of this message visit newspring.cc/series/beautiful.

First Major Anniversary

Our Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday (11/2) was our wedding anniversary. We would have been married 18 years. This is the first of the major anniversaries that I will get to grieve through this season.

I didn't grieve much yesterday. I was not feeling any emotions because I was sick. It's interesting how feeling physically badly will trump feeling emotionally badly.

Today, I wasn't feeling much better but I went into work anyway. I worked most of the day and my boss let me come home a couple of hours early. I'm glad because I will get to get to bed at a decent time tonight. I hope I'm on the mend from my cold. It's been hard the last few days.

Election Tomorrow

I asked to be able to telecommute tomorrow. My boss also approved that and I will be able to go to the polls and vote some time during the day. Tomorrow will be a very interesting day indeed.

Being Sick is no Fun

It started light

I first came down with what I thought was a cold last Tuesday. I stayed home from work Tue & Wed and felt better and went back to work on Thursday. But the 10 hour day was probably beyond my energy level and then Friday I was wiped out. I did meet with a friend for lunch but I didn't sleep good.

Then it REALLY Hit

Saturday I was on the couch all day. I was able to get up to heat soup and that was about it. I called the church and let them know that they probably needed to find a substitute for me for today. I was scheduled to serve and I hated to give up my spot, but I'm glad today I did.

This Too Shall Pass

I know I'll feel better in a few more days. I've called a few friends to cheer myself up. When I was a kid and got sick, Mom would always get me a plastic model plane or boat to put together. I had a lot of fun assembling and painting those plastic models.

What do you do to cheer yourself up when you get sick?