A year of bloggery:

Thank goodness for blogging!

When times are good, it's a place to gloat and giggle about my successes

When times are bad, it's a place to reming myself of what the PLAN is.


I wonder... if I can keep track of the art I want to buy on here...


Here's to 2009!

Stupid Forecast:

Mind you, they all seem like this when I bike:

Wind east 20 km/h gusting to 40 becoming northwest 30 gusting to 50 in
the afternoon. High minus 15 with temperature falling to minus 19 in
the afternoon. Wind chill minus 31

--
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Well let's see...

Hmmm... 32, eh?

Five years married, my tenth year of my career, my own house, six years a role-model, good friends I truly don't deserve, some sense of what I want from my spiritual life, some handy skills.

Down over $100,000 on the year, but up $1800 a month on net income, getting by without a car or a dishwasher quite handily.

Life is good.

Ah, to own an old house

The dishrack was broken, and needed a screw to be fixed.

I went downstairs to get a screw.

I heard running water... uhoh.

The humidifier was running water all over the floor, and had been all night.

I had to move the washer to get to the humidifier.

I had to remove the temporary subfloor to get to the water

I had to clean the vacuum cleaner to sop up the water

When I poured the water into the sink downstairs, it backed up.

So... my humidifer has a new motor, I have new permanent sub-floor, my laundry machine and dryer are in better positions (I think) and my downstairs sink is cleaned out and scrubbed out.

And the dishrack is fixed.

Christmas Madness, general status report.

Le sigh...

I'm still on track to be out of debt by the start of February, but it's frustrating not being closer now. I have found the main cost of Christmas, and it's transportation, sadly.

I could do all my entertaining easily, and all my gift-buying fit nicely into the budget... but it's the various transportation things that add up. Ah well, I know for next year.

I also have to re-freeze/bury/hide my credit card again, as having it accessible is waaaay too convenient. Boo on that!

I have also got some good stuff done at home, though that has slowed down as well for Yule-ing. I'm taping all The Boy's windows so I can caulk them all at once on a single day, and that job may be no fun at all... but we shall see.

Then I get to work on solving the heat problem for real... I need the heat!

Microcosms

"Have a good time, and I'll see you back at Communion time."

Some sentences, given the right moment, resonate. I've never found it to be a waste to investigate why.

Let's break this one down, one phrase at at time.

It's in the imperative. "DO THIS". It's not a wish, or a prediction; it's an order.

It uses the verb To Have. Synonyms include: to possess, to own, to hold. There's an implicit responsibility or intention in having something, and it places no burden of de facto change. It isn't, for example, "Be good", or "Join in good". The first implies, pretty strongly, that the listener is not good already and the second implies as strongly that there are others out there whose good-ness you should emulate.

'Good' is different from 'fun', or 'amusing', but does not, despite what some people would tell you, prohibit fun or amusements! 'Good' does not speak so much to how you will enjoy the time, but more to how you will feel after the time. 'Good' does also stand usually as a measurement of the whole.

'A time' has boundaries... is finite. This good thing that you are ordered to do will come to an end. Keep it in mind.

Other cultural equivalents for this first phrase would include "Have fun", "Stay out of trouble, "I hope you have a good time", "Enjoy yourselves..." but they don't carry the same concrete or literal meaning. And they're not very Anglican.

Second phrase: 'I'll see you back at Communion time'

There's a lot of semantic games that can be played with this one. There's some threat in this one... a little R of J... 'I'll see you, but you may not see me' and 'It'll be communion time, but there's no guarantee you're getting any"

A tonne could also be written about 'back'. 'You will return here'. And note that the speaker makes no mention of bringing the listeners back in any way, but underlying the phrase, supporting it, is the certainty that the listener WILL return.

And as fun as it would be explore those phenoms, there's more interesting resonance in the word 'communion'... Substitute in 'sharing', and we're into some interesting territory. 'I'll see you at the time when we will all share together'.

While it's a recognizable moment, it's also not definite. Not "11:30", not "in 45 minutes"... at the time that will come when it comes...

(For those of you playing at home, you can now form your own metaphors for the differing times at which children return to the church)

So I find the two phrases together form an interesting microcosm of a Christian faith statement.

HAVE A GOOD TIME, AND I WILL SEE YOU BACK AT COMMUNION TIME

Just plain odd