Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Wednesday's Musings

Today is my brother, Bill's, 39th birthday.  I hope he has better weather for it in San Clemente, Ca. where he is than the rainy overcast day it is here.  I'm glad his birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, since that's one of his days off, and he can go surfing.

I should call him later today.  I guess that's another reason to be glad his birthday fell on one of his off days; he won't be at work when I call.

Pastor Randy called last night and we talked some.  Not about any of the issues Kat & I talked about on Sunday, but we still had a nice chat.  I've always felt that Randy's one of the best things about that church and I still do.

I almost hope we don't end up changing churches.  I might still go to CCDC or CCPhilly for Sunday night and/or Wednesday night services - especially once we have a car, but I think it'd be nice if it works out that we stay where we are for Sunday mornings and "membershipwise". 

We'll have to wait and see tho; nothing's been decided yet, nothing's been discussed with Randy, and very little's been prayed about yet.  This isn't going to be a short-term, one-week thing.

Matt's back over here today.  I really like him and enjoy watching him.  He's good with Rebekah and he's also great at helping with her, especially when we go to Aldi's or the laundromat.  I'll actually miss Matt when school starts up again.

He's so much more well-rounded, secure and others-focused than I was at his age, or even much older.  His mom, Chrissie, has really done a great job raising him and his brother, Jeff, and in less-than-ideal circumstances too.

Becky's 18-month check-up was Monday and all went well. Her weight's right at normal for her age.  Her height and head size are still on the high end of normal, but no surprises there.  She's really a VERY healthy kid and we're very thankful for that!

We really need to do a better job on her baby book tho.  We've got a LOT of catching up to do there.  A lot of firsts that we've forgotten the date of and/or other specifics about, and just a lot of stuff that's better done as it happens and while it's still fresh than in catch-up mode.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Update

Things are better marriagewise.  A lot more optimistic, peaceful, cooperative, etc.

It's mostly due to all the talking we did on Sunday.  Not at all the way I would have expected it to go, as we never had a "formal" or "official" discussion of any sort, but we still discussed many things, including at least one that I knew I needed to bring up and was expecting would go a lot worse and more awkwardly than it did.

I think it's important that we still discuss a few things that didn't come up on Sunday, but I don't think we need to cover every undiscussed issue or topic we can think of.  I also think it's very important that we try to keep SHORT accounts from this point on, and not let things build up so easily and often and heavily as they so often have before.

We're getting a little restless at our current church.  Moreso me than Katrina, but we both have things we see that we don't like and areas we think need improvement there that we don't see much change in or short-range hope for.  We both know(and from MUCH experience too) that we'll never find the perfect church(and they'd refuse us as members if we did, lol), but we just see a lot of needs we have and anticipate having in our lives and family, now and in the not-too-distant future, that aren't being met(and/or we don't anticipate seeing met) much - if at all - over there.

Some of my restlessness is at least partly caused by the fact that we both anticipate having a car within the next year.  The reason that makes me "restless(or moreso)" at our current church is that if we had a car now, I've a lot of reasons to think that I'd want(us) to start going to Calvary Chapel of Delaware County(CCDC from here on) again.  The main reason we don't go there now is that it's a 5-hour round trip(church time included) on the local buses, thanks to the skeletal Sunday scheduling.  That was too much before Rebekah came along and it's definitely too much now! 

As a credit to CCDC, it was always easy to get rides to services there.  They even have a ministry for providing rides to carless folks, and it's even staffed by folks who genuinely want to and enjoy doing that, rather than folks who're doing it cuz they got guilted into ministry, or so they won't feel like parasitic couch potatoes.  We've gotten rides from folks like that at other churches before and it's not worth the trouble!

Who knows if we'll change churches or not.  We're going to discuss and pray about it some more, and we'll prolly do some visiting of some other area churches as well, but we're both more than open to the possibility of staying right where we are fellowshipping now.  We will put our pending membership there "on hold" until this is resolved, but neither of us has ruled anything out, including staying put.

God has really taught and shown me a LOT thru Rebekah!  I almost wish I'd started some type of journal or blog when she was born and written down all of(and only) the things He's shown and taught me "thru" her in it since then.  A lot about life, about Him, about myself, about our relationship with Him(in all sorts of contexts), etc.

We're going up to visit my parents this weekend.  The main reason for the trip is that the County Fair for the county my folks live in starts next Monday, I practically grew up there since my mom was a volunteer there for several consecutive years, and Rebekah's just about the right age to really enjoy the animals and kiddie rides there!  I just hope it doesn't rain on Monday evening, since that'll be our only chance to go to this year's fair, and I don't think Mom & Dad will still be living there when next August rolls around.

That's cuz my dad's 81, my mom's 74, and they're in the process of finding and eventualy moving into an assisted living place of some sort.  Probably out near my sister, Linda's, family in Southcental Pa.

My parents have lived in the house they live in now since September '69; 35 years!  They've been there long enough to see their 1 phone # have 3 different area codes, lol.

I was 6 when we moved there.  Young, but old enough to remember prior houses/homes.  But my brother was 4 when we moved there, so it's the only(parental) house/home he's ever known.  And he lives in California now, so he may very well have seen it for the last time too.  At least the last time while it's still theirs, anyway.

I'm glad my folks are moving tho.  It's difficult to wonder who's shoveling for them everytime it snows where they live - and hoping it's NOT my dad!  Plus, they both got a flu bug at the same time this past Winter and my mom said how nice it would have been to have someone ELSE cooking their meals for them.  At least dinner, anyway.

So, my parents have started giving things away BIGTIME.  My mom's gone thru and inventoried their entire home; contents of bookshelves, closets, boxes, etc.  Just their basement is prolly it's own file; she's got so much home-ec stuff down there.

More later.  Probably/hopefully, anyway.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

First Post

I wasn't origionally gonna do a blog.  I've always felt that anything I'd care about enough to spend time journaling about it would be the type of stuff I wouldn't want to share openly with just anyone, and that's been my experience with the private "offline" journals I've attempted at various times in my life.  I've got some friends who do "Live Journals" religiously and have even met some friends "there", but I had to stop reading their journals cuz they always wrote stuff there about their relationship that made me want to gag and/or gag them.

But then I came here and read some of the entries in a friend's blog here.  I eventually read one that I wanted to comment on, but couldn't comment anonymously, so I had to register.  So, since I'm already registered, maybe I'll give this a shot.  I've already found myself wanting a place to express myself about various things, not really caring who read it or responded to it, or even caring if nobody did either, so maybe this'll be that place?

I haven't yet figured out how to do everything here.  Like I haven't figured out how to make a buddy/friend list, or how to send the link/url of my blog here to others.  I also haven't figured out how to restrict certain entries to a specific list of friends, for their eyes and comments only, and leave the other entries for general perusal and comments, or even if this site allows for such a restriction/distinction.  I know "Live Journal" does, cuz I was on a few folks "all-posts" lists there, but that doesn't mean that all sites like that have identical features.

Right now, Katrina & I have a lot of problems & issues in our marriage.  We've probably had most of them for awhile, but they've really been on my mind & heart a lot lately.