The Things That I Do

A moment to catch up. It's been pretty hectic and to be honest a couple projects are really weighing me down. They don't really play to my strengths so I'm especially aware that I'm under performing. All I can say is I've done what I can and if it falls down, it falls down. I don't have the time or the energy for intense worry.

Let's see, what else is going on? Volleyball team continues to be pretty bad. Still have only won once this session I think. Came close last week, could have easily doubled or tripled our win total. It remains mostly a good time.

I'm supposed to be learning to play guitar. I must confess my practice time has dropped to zero. Just too many other things right now. But my faithful musical friends awaits with perfect patience if probably less than perfect tune at the moment.

Getting ready for my first meeting as a member of the Standing Commission on Ministry Development, a national body of the Episcopal Church. (And before anyone jumps on me for the "national" I am well aware that we are in fact an international denomination, a fact which I cherish and proclaim. There's just no easy term I can think of to represent that this body is drawn from the larger church. It's quick and easy and understandable if not perfectly precise. Bear with me). This is something of a big deal (there's a limited number of these Commissions with a limited number of seats and lots of people who want them) and it's a six year commitment. To a large degree I enjoy this kind of work and it matches my gifts as well. So I'm excited. Plus it involves at least some travel and I LIKE travel! Next week I go to Chicago. Don't know if I'll have any time to see various friends while I'm there. Since this is a first trip and a training/community building trip I'm going to work on committing most of my time to the task at hand.

I WILL be very interested in seeing what the Commission does. A quick (very, very quick) look seems to indicate LOTS of stuff for clergy and very little if any for the laity. I'm fairly certain I don't like that balance. We'll see.

You see how I am? Put me on a board and I walk through the door planning on making waves. [Evil Grin]

The current soap opera of my life concerns my cars. Two very LONG stories that I'll spare you here. The short version has a buck deer taking out the entire right side of my SUV and a flat tire on the other car (plus news that we need a new battery). The flat tire would normally only get a foot note except along the way I discovered that my car lacks a tire iron. Not sure how that happens but it makes trying to change a flat rather problematic. Borrowed one, discovered the mini-spare was almost flat. Plus a 50 mile mini-spare when you're 90+ miles from home...not real useful. So we had to try and find an open tire store on a Sunday afternoon.

Thank you Wal-Mart. I will have nothing but good things to say about them for 6 months.

The big thing right now is the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where I am trying to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. It is day 11 and I've written 18,500+. That's ahead of the minimum to stay on target but a little behind my personal goals. So I should really be writing on the novel, not on the blog. I think I've hit part of the dreaded week two slump. I'll get at least 1,000 words on the virtual page today and I have hopes of hitting 2,000. We'll see. It has been a very interesting experience, some of which I've already written about.

My immediate goal is to survive the next 10 days. Then my trip will be over, that project that is not working so well will be over and I'll hopefully be well on my way to 50,000 words. Hey, the volleyball team might just win a game too!

Peace