Pictures

Any guesses as to what Matt's doing?  No?  You can't figure it out?  Silly you.  Alia turned him into a Christmas tree.  He's wrapped in green.  He has ornaments and garland.  And he was nice enough to stay there and take it ... until somebody finally "chopped him down" so that he was free.

Hair growth at 27 weeks.  Top still has some curl, but the sides are pretty straight.  The back is wavier than the sides, but not as curly as the top.  I think it still needs to grow more before I get it shaped up by somebody who knows what to do with a grown-from-shaven mess.  Earrings help. 

Visitors at church.  Concordia River Forest students, visiting with the Kapelle.  But what's wild is that they are grandsons of a pastor who preceded Gary at his former congregation.

People Praying for Me

I phoned the Issues Etc Comment Line today.  Jeff asked my name and my comment.  Just before he put me on hold, he asked where I was calling from.  I told him and then kneaded bread while waiting for my turn on-air.  About a minute before Jeff was ready to put me through, he popped onto the phone to tell me that the break was nearly over and they were about ready to take my call.  And then ...

then he asked me how I was doing and how my health was.

And he told me they'd been praying for me.

I was floored.
Me?
Why should he even know me?

I lightly (and quickly) mentioned that I was much improved.  I said I am walking, talking, and DRIVING again. 

Wow.
People that I've met only a few times, only briefly, and yet they care and they pray on my behalf. 

"The communion of saints."  Sometimes you get a glimpse that you don't normally see, and it blows you away.

Update

I put my good mittens (the most-excellent ones that Dad bought for Mom) into the car.  They feel fantastic when the steering wheel is so cold.

Upon the girls' encouragement, I trimmed about an inch of hair off the very middle back of my neck, to even out the look of the short hair.  It does look better now.

Katie cleaned house here last week.  Gary did loads of raking over the weekend but didn't have time to get rid of the leaves.  Today Katie finished raking and dragging leaves over to the garden.  Wow!  What a relief that that's done!

I cleaned out the gutters last weekend.  Funny, for some reason, we didn't get to it last spring.  There were a few teeny-tiny maples that had sprung up from spring's helicopters.  Whew!  I'm glad we didn't leave them there longer -- I hate seeing maples grow out of people's gutters.

Coat needs to go to the dry-cleaner too.  Still covered with last winter's road-salt.  Funny, for some reason, I didn't get that chore done in May either.

Chicken soup is my friend.

Proud, proud, proud of Katie for getting involved with village politics, where a bunch of regular folks are calling out the shenanigans of the village leaders.  She's been to some public meetings, talked, and is circulating petitions.  Proud of her!  And proud of the 100-or-so other folks in the village who are also fed up with government spending and subterfuge.

Upon a friend's reminder of what fish oil can do for joints and nerves, I have been diligently working to remember (and oh!, it's hard to remember) to consume fish oil daily.  I've also been pretty good recently about remembering my pond scum vitamins.  Arachnoiditis has noticeably improved.  I begin to tentatively hope that maybe, someday, I will actually "get back to normal."  Maybe.

The computer mouse has been acting up recently.  It's annoying, but I haven't done anything to fix it yet.  (What's up with that laziness?!)  Yesterday, the Blue Screen Of Death swooped upon us.  The computer tried its self-repair thingy, and then we attempted going back to a restore-point.  I'm scared that pretty soon it's going to keel over and die-beyond-resuscitation.  But Gary did get the machine turned on last night, and I backed up photos, documents, bookmarks, and email.  That's the critical stuff.

I'm sorting and cleaning out files at church.  Today I think I finished the Scaer files for already-published and yet-to-be-published volumes. 
a)  There's so much stuff I want to nab, curl up with on the couch, and read.
b)  Combine several different editors on the same project, and a variety of different concepts for organizational themes, and it turned out there was LOTS of duplicate material.  The boxes are nicely thinned now without any articles being eliminated. Yee haw -- all the highs of clutter-dumping with none of the worry of "What if I need it later?"

With Two They Humbly Hid Their Feet from Sight

Isaiah 6 -- Isaiah saw the seraphim around the throne of the Lord.  Each used two wings to cover his face, two wings to cover his feet, and two wings to fly.

Interesting about covering the feet.

Because when we hear about redeemer types, their feet are uncovered. 
Moses (Exodus 3).
Joshua (Joshua 5).
Boaz (Ruth 3).
Jesus (Genesis 3).

Even preachers too (Isaiah 52 and John 13).

I don't know what it means, but it makes me wonder.
(And I do wonder about God becoming incarnate as a man, not as an angel.)