Good-night to the mountains

Thursday on my way home from work I took this picture at a stoplight.



On the left, the power wires lead to the top of Mount Baker, showing over a nearer hill, and, on the right, on either side of the tips of some trees are tips of the Twin Sisters. The snow caps were pink. That happens when the sunset throws color onto the snow. The sun, as is its habit, sets in the west and the mountains are to the east, so it's interesting to see sunset effects to the east.

It always reminds me of the book Heidi, which I loved when I was a little girl (in fact I still love it).

Theory and practice

This evening I learned that the oven will only heat up if you turn it on. Oh, sure, I had known that in theory for many years, but now I know it through experience.

I've made another discovery in recent months. If you frequently take a cup of coffee with you to the car then let the empty mug roll around on the floor of the car for weeks, clanking into other mugs you've carried out to the car, then the mugs sometimes become damaged by chipping, cracking, or having the handle fall off. Who would have seen that coming?

Enthroned

Today, I changed the seat on my toilet.  A few weeks ago, I bought a new seat, new handle, and new flapper after reading instructions and watching videos online about how to install each. The handle and flapper went in like a couple of dreams. I did buy the wrong color handle (white handle on an ivory toilet), but it works just dandy. Such a relief after years (really) of the chain falling off every few flushes. But the seat I had bought was too long, so I put it back in its box and then left it sitting around for a while. Today I finally put it in the trunk of my car and, after work, brought it back to Lowe's. I still had the receipt. The young woman at the counter asked me if it was used. I said, "Well, I took it out of the box and put it on the toilet, but it didn't fit so I took it off again. But it's not used in the sense of used." An older woman sitting at counter stated, "We sometimes get them back like that." Can you imagine? How crass would one have to be to return a used toilet seat to the hardware store? Anyway, then I bought one that is the correct size, brought it home and, in a matter of minutes, installed it in place of the old one, which was broken at the hinges. So now I can sit firmly in place and then flush effectively.

Life is good.

What's in the oven

I was just over at my sister's blog, reading her review of Dearie, a biography of Julia Child, and I mentioned to her that I've been trying to fix real food lately. Tonight I boiled some small yellow potatoes (because I don't like underdone potatoes) then rolled them around in olive oil, some minced garlic, and rosemary leaves from my own rosemary plant right outside my door. I placed them in a glass baking pan and at the other end of the pan put a meatloaf that I bought fully cooked from Safeway (okay, I cheated there) and put the dish in the oven to heat up and hopefully the potatoes get all crispy on the outside, too.

I actually have not been eating many potatoes because I'm trying to reduce my carbs. I've been buying broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and the like and fixing them by a method my sister recommended, which is to roll them around in olive oil and garlic and then cook them in the oven till they are crispy. Yummy when well-salted. But the reason I did buy some little potatoes was because they just looked so cute there in the produce section, not like the behemoth brown potatoes I ate so reluctantly as a child.

Well, anyway, I should go check on my meal. It would be a shame if it burned.

a better rest

Since today was a holiday in the U.S. (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day), I made a long list of things I wanted to get done around home. I accomplished several of them, which is a far, far better thing than accomplishing none of them.

Memento mori

Today I attended an aunt's funeral. It was hard to watch her children say good-bye to their mother, hard to watch my uncle weep for the loss of his life's partner, but also good to see many family connections and friends.

I said to my sister-in-law before the graveside ceremony, "We're really not here [on earth] very long."

There are so many people in need of prayer. Including me.

Monday again

A couple of days went by without my posting because I was preoccupied about preaching on Sunday morning. I did so, and I was very happy with how the message turned out and how it was received. I'm hoping to get an audio file, but I'm not sure if I can.

Meanwhile, today back to work.

Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion. Ecclesiastes 5:18

A long winter's nap

Hooray for Friday night, when I don't need to think about what time I need to get up tomorrow morning, or whether I need to wash my hair. "It's the most laziest time of the week" (to the tune of "It's the most wonderful time of the year.")

To paraphrase Mr. Spock, "Sleep long and prosper."

Determined

I shall go to bed on time tonight.

In other news it was kind of cold today, windy last night and tonight.

It's hard to be this scintillating.

The time-space continuum

A couple of hours ago I was going to write a blog entry. Then I started watching clips of "The Big Bang Theory" on youtube.

African violet

The African violet I keep at my workstation at work is blooming.



Exquisite.

Epipany

I've had a minor epiphany, which is that if I don't go to bed soon I'll just keel over and fall asleep right here.

Meanwhile the Feast of the Epiphany celebrates Christ mad manifest to the Gentiles -- as represented by the Magi.

Sermons and sleeping

On the twelfth day of Christmas, I worked on a sermon I hope to deliver next Sunday morning. In the afternoon, I did a rough translation of the passage (Matthew 12:15-21) from the Greek. I'm not a Greek scholar, but I like to look at the Greek text just to see if something different comes through to me. One interesting tidbit, the word "servant" in verse 18 is παῖς in the Greek (pais) and can be translated as either servant or child.

Around 5:00ish, I gave into the dog's increasingly anxious hints and fed and walked him. Then, feeling I needed a mental break, I sat down in my recliner to a gardening show on TV, on of my favorites, Gardening with Ciscoe. Within minutes I was sound asleep, snoring and dreaming, and only woke up, groggily, about an hour and a half later. The station on the TV was showing some clips of the bad weather in the Midwest and East (in the U.S.) that made me heartily pity the people who live there and equally made me heartily glad I do not.

A tree falls

On the eleventh day of Christmas, I took down my tree.

Here it is in all its glory, the day we put it up and decorated it.



And here it is in its fallen state, stripped of ornament and dragged outside.



I flung it into in my dad's pickup and took it to the Christian High School parking lot, where the Boy Scouts were accepting them for recycling at Green Earth Technology.

The scouts would have picked it up curbside if I had had the tree out by 8:00 a.m., but I didn't make that deadline. I started to take down some decorations on New Year's, but I did most of it this morning between about 10:00 and noon. So it goes. Done is done.

Whom do you take after?

The tenth day of Christmas

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
1 John 3:2

To be like Christ -- that's quite a promise. When I was at Regent College, one of my profs pointed out a theme in the Bible that you become like what you worship. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are repeated remarks that those who worship idols will become like them -- blind, deaf, unable to speak. But we worship the living God. We are created in his image, that image has been distorted by sin, and in Christ we are re-created in his likeness -- the likeness of Christ. It is our calling to perfect our likeness to Christ by imitating him. We will get as far as we can in our natural lives on this journey of becoming like him, and then at Christ's return, God will complete the transformation in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

It's a day

On the ninth day of Christmas, I fell asleep at my computer and decided to call it a day.

And then forgot to push "Publish" until the next morning.

Pondering

The eighth day of Christmas.

Luke 2:16-21

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.

A vsion for the new year

Okay, so somewhere seven swans are swimming. The lectionary Gospel passage is the beautiful first chapter of John.

It's also New Year's Eve. What thoughts are appropriate there? I went over to youtube and searched "New Year's hymns," and among the results was the lovely song, "Be Thou my Vision." I watched a few videos but couldn't find one where both the visuals and the singing pleased me. So here are the words -- sing them yourself, if you choose:

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven's joys, O bright Heaven's Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

It's a worthy prayer. May God bring it to fruition in all of us in the coming year.

Old lady

Well, and today is simply the 6th Day of Christmas, not, apparently, anyone's Feast Day. The Gospel passage tells the story of Anna the prophetess, who, like Simeon, adored the infant Christ when he was presented at the temple.

There was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they [Joseph and Mary] had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

Luke 2:36-40



Gotta love a story about an old lady who knows what's what.

Disorderly

Funny thing about Christmastide. It comes right at the darkest time of the year. Did you ever notice that?*

I've mentioned my struggles with waking up when it's dark out, my general non-morning-personness, and my night-owliness. It's been particularly bad for me lately. Yesterday, I was sleepy all day, even dozing at the computer, so I finally lay down in the evening to go to sleep and little by little I woke up until I was quite perky as the night wore on. So I went on an internet search engine and searched: during the day I can't stay awake and at night I can't sleep.

I followed a link to an article at Lifehack called Tired in the morning and awake at night? Here is a REAL solution. The author wrote about his own sleep pattern:

It’s truly a bizarre pattern of dead tired mornings, walking around like a jet-lagged zombie, followed by a tortuous afternoon in desperate need of a nap, and finally an evening where I start to wake up.

That sounded exactly like me, and he offered the diagnosis Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Sounds impressive. He even called it a sleep disorder. Everything has a diagnostic label these days. People used to be larks or night owls, but now night owls have a sleep disorder. Just like a kid used to be pesky but now he's got ADHD, and people used to be odd or eccentric but now there's a DSM-IV code for any weird way you might be. I don't know if that's good or bad, or if I really have a sleep disorder, but I do know my sleep issues make life more difficult for me.

Oh, what a beautiful morning.

The lifehack dude recommended a light therapy device. I've heard of these as treatment to help your mood if you have Seasonal Affective Disorder (yet another disorder!) but not to help regulate your sleep. Since this guy's story sounded so much like mine and he testified that the device was helpful, I ordered one from Amazon. I don't know how long ago he wrote his article but I got the impression that the specific device he mentioned was obsolete, so I ordered a later model. It should arrive in 5-8 business days, so then I'll give it a try and see if it helps. I've seen other light therapy tools that were considerably more spendy, so I'm glad this one was not astronomically expensive.

I remember once watching a Today Show segment about how to wake up more easily, and one thing they kept saying was "Look to the light" and, every time they said it, they would show a little film clip of curtains opening and sunlight streaming in. Trouble is, in the wintertime around here, if I throw open the curtains when I wake up, it's still total darkness outside.

I had a friend at my previous church who used a light therapy device. She said her young son called it her Lite-Brite.

Anyway, we'll see if it helps.

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* Yes, I know that's on purpose. The date for the celebration of Christ's coming was chosen for its symbolic value. Under the calendar of the time, it was winter solstice, so that as soon as the church celebrated the incarnation, the light began to increase. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.