Old MacStrawberry

As a young girl I remember hearing about women going to "fat camps."  We don't seem to hear too much about them nowadays (or maybe I just don't pay attention anymore).

What if you could create your own?  What would it be like?  All the food you could eat...now that would truly be a fat camp!  Starve yourself? ewwww  No, I think the best fat camp would be to kick start yourself into healthy eating and healthy exercising.  Starving yourself or exercising to the point of hurting yourself is not healthy.

I'm setting my goals for my fat camp.  How about you?  Want to go to camp?

and here we go again!

Grainiacs!!! My papers are finally turned in and I find myself just as busy as before.  How does that happen? Hmm???  LOL  The person who coined the phrase "one step forward, three steps back" is a genius in my mind.  Before taking these 3 classes (considered an overload in my program) I committed to a few tensy tiny things here in Mission and they are now coming back to bite me in the butt!  BUT! I will prevail.  I can do this, oh, yes I can.  I am the little engine that could.  I need to order that book on my kindle to reminding myself.

What's happening in your summer?  Over-committed like this Strawberry?  Or taking it easy and loving life?  (don't tell me right now about your latter life...I just might have to come and hurt you! LOL)  Just kidding, but no, really....that's how I'm feeling.

Stay tuned tomorrow....I'll tell you what's happening in a couple of days.  Clue: oink oink moooooo

A Light

I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel!  I have one powerpoint presentation complete; well, I need photos of the event but once that event is done...the ppt goes to my advisor and it is complete.  I have started two final papers.  One is a powerpoint and the other is a double-spaced Arial font 12" size 8 - 10 page paper.  One is close to completion and the other....well, okay...not so complete.  My heart is still racing and I'm still gorging on ice cream- what can I say?  I'm an emotional eater so DON'T MESS WITH ME!!!!  ( smiley face)

My house is a wreck.  Cat fur, dust bunnies, boxes, papers, magazines, shoes, towels, recyclables.... you name it and it is probably on my floor or in a corner.  Do I care? Heck, yes.  Can I do anything about it right now? Heck no!  We just came back from saying Good-bye to a "light" in Rural USA.  Carol was a friend and the mother of my boys' good, good friend.  It was a hard trip but we wanted to be there and Rev. Hubby officiated her service.  We got to see friends but we were also grieving for a loss.  One thing about Carol; she loved people and she loved to care for her family.  She was a meticulous house cleaner.  I think she might cringe to know that I have a sign right by the front door which states that a clean house is a sign of a wasted life.  She proved me wrong.  She had a very full 55 year old life.  She was able to garden and can and share her surplus with others.  I received shelled pecans from her and not a small snack size ziploc either.  I received a huge gallon size bag full of shelled pecans.  I was not the only person to receive them either.  I can't imagine how many pecans she shelled!!  While undergoing chemo, this "light" missed only 2 days of work.  She refused to let cancer get her down.  Last Christmas she made a quilt for her brother-in-law, Josh.  It was pieced with old t-shirts from her deceased father-in-law/ Josh's father.  Can you imagine?  Quilting and working at home and office AND going through chemo???  She was amazing.  I really have to wonder why child molesters and haters live amongst us yet a beautiful life was taken by a disease that should have a cure by now.  It isn't fair.  Life is not fair.  But God is fair.  Only our definition of fair is not God's definition and I have to remember that.  The poor will always be with us; the sick will always be with us.  What makes the difference is our response.  Will I be bitter and say life isn't fair that haters and child molesters live but Carol doesn't?  Will I choose to blame God for everything and not take responsibility for myself and care of others?

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

(Micah 6:8)

Do you notice there is a question mark at the end of this passage?  Micah is not demanding that people do these things; he is asking "will you?"  It is a good reminder that we have a choice.  We are not puppets; God has given us free will to choose.  I will celebrate a life lost to cancer and pray that a cure is discovered once and for all.  I only wish I had a medical mind to discover the cure myself.  So I will do what I know how to do...support the cancer society and pray.

Friends My Writing Brain is Fried

What can I say?  I've got grainiac writer's block!  I've thought about you.  I've wrestled with myself to write on this blog and yet, I kept coming up dry.  I wanted to give you a little heads up.  I leave Sunday for my seminary studies.  If you think you get "closer" to God going to seminary, think again.  My head is so full of reading material: skimming chapters so I can get the gist of what the book is about and writing papers to fulfill a deadline that I haven't had a chance to absorb what I've read.  Is this the norm?  Is this a seminarian life?  I imagine many feel the same way I do and for some (not me) they receive a call into active parish life.  Minds filled with thoughts and processes and ideas but really unsure WHAT they believe.  I could be wrong.  It might just be me wrestling with my vocation at this moment.

I'm back to "what do I want to be" when I grow up.  I have really gotten into the New Testament.  I love the NT.  I had thoughts of studying more and perhaps becoming a NT scholar.  I wrestled in Christian Ethics with our over-consumeristic ways and joined every eco-theology online magazine subscription.  I even based my supervised practice ministry on eco-theology: gardening (you can't get much more back to the basics than The Garden, eh?).  Gardening is a spiritual practice.  We began in a garden.  Even the dinosaurs needed a garden for survival....in the beginning.  Not sure what happened later but that's not what is important-- it's God's timing; not ours.

So it is that time of the year when I pack up my clothes and books and papers and head for the hills.  I pray there is time for some reflection.  I NEED some meditation time....or possibly some medication time!

I promise to check in and keep you in the loop.

Toodles for now!