Violence

This two-minute video has been spreading around Facebook.  I finally watched it.  Maggie caught me crying over it.



To direct and defend our president and all in authority;
To watch over and help all who are in danger, necessity, and tribulation;
To grant all women with child, and all mothers with infant children, increasing happiness in their blessings;
To strengthen and keep all sick persons and young children:
We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.

Quote

We rarely get enough of what we don't need to make us happy.   

(From p. 15

of  A Little Book on Joy 

by Matt Harrison.)

Little boys and their Legos.
Little girls and their Barbies.
Grown-ups and their money.
Women and their shoes.
Men and their tools.
Hangin'-out-with-friends time.
Sometimes even a Christian's "level of sanctification."


"We rarely get enough of what we don't need to make us happy."
Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus
can my heartfelt longing still. ...

What to me may seem a treasure
but displeasing is to Thee,
oh, remove such harmful pleasure;
give instead what profits me.
Let my heart by Thee be filled. 
Make me Thine, Lord, as Thou wilt.  (TLH 348)

Haircut

Same ol' long hair pulled back in a ponytail/bun.

I like the back!

I think the bangs are too short. 

 (And boy, it's weird how my profile makes me look so much like my mom but also like a cousin on my dad's side.)

The front of the new haircut. 

I haven't cried yet.  That's a good sign, right?  Considering what I was anticipating?  Yup.

The War Against the Ice-Dams

On those days before Christmas when it was raining, how often did I thankfully say, "At least we don't have to shovel it"?

Well, maybe that didn't turn out as well as I'd thought at the time.

So it turns out that the pre-Christmas rain, snow, slush, goo, froze into several inches of packed snow and ice on the roof and in the gutters. A week later when it snowed, I could roof-rake the new snow down. But not those inches of ice. Underneath the snow-ice were, in places, several inches of solid ice, just threatening to be ice-dams with the first thaw, diverting thawed snow into the attic instead of having it drip into the gutters or off the roof.

So it had to go.

Except on days I had to be at "work" [ha ha ha ... the place where I go to rest up] I spent hours daily on the ladder, with a hoe, hacking off small slices of snowpack, trying desperately to be gentle enough to Not Touch The Shingles while being vicious enough to crack the ice that needed to come down.

I'm trying to think of a part of my body that didn't ache from the work.  Not figurin' it out...


BUT you can see the results over the front door: several feet of roof that had been cleared and then sat in the sun for a couple of days.  Woo hoo!!!


And yesterday, with the warm weather, no ice dams!  No icicles!  (Now we just hope that the clean-up efforts didn't cause a different set of roof problems.)

Friends

DARE to be Lutheran!

Andrew, Philip, and Matthew have a game day.