Thirteen on Thursday

1. I haven't blogged since Saturday, and while I never promised anyone anything, I feel like I owe you an explanation. Except that I don't really have one besides that I wasn't really home on my day off and I haven't felt like it. I'm sure you've been handling the disappointment okay though, right?

2. I can't decide if teenagers' (and adults') tendency to get all excited about something they'd like to do but won't actually follow through on is annoying or charming. It's nice to see enthusiasm, and churches should be aiming higher than they're going to get, but it makes planning kind of a pain when people act like such-and-such is going to happen and you have to pretend like you believe them when you know they will never really do anything to make it happen.

3. I wish I lived closer to my niece. It is hard to be a good aunt from a distance.

4. I discovered this week that it's actually very easy to email photos from my laptop. I'm not a huge tech geek, but I mostly assume I can figure stuff out. But I have had a major mental block about learning how to deal with pictures for a long time. We didn't get a digital camera till last spring, which is part of it. But maybe it's slowly going away. It's possible there could even be a picture on this blog some day, I suppose.

5. I made a Funny Cake Monday night for the women's group that met at my house on Tuesday. Funny Cake is mixed in the pan, and it was considered great fun when I was growing up. However, I'm now convinced that it was mostly designed as an exercise to learn what "homogeneous" means. You have to stir it forever! (And I think I still had some lumps.)

6. I don't understand why John McCain is suddenly disturbed about taking out a loan from our grandchildren now that it comes to investing in infrastructure in ways that would create or save jobs, but he isn't bothered by such irresponsible borrowing when it comes to paying for an unnecessary war or ridiculous tax cuts for the rich.

7. I wish Obama would get more hard-core about protecting the poor and the working class and the middle class. It's time to stop letting the rich people run things, even a little bit. They're all delusional.

8. When I get stressed, my body reacts. The other day, I had a twitch in a brand new place: the fleshy side part of my right palm. It was weird. But it went away.

9. When I'm tired and start to eat something without drinking anything first, I frequently get hiccups. It's strange, because as soon as I take the first bite, I can tell it was a mistake not to take a drink. I can feel the hiccups coming on, even though they don't start for a little bit. But at that point, it's too late to drink something. There is nothing I can do to make the hiccups not come. And they usually last a while, and come back at the slightest provocation, even laughing. But I rarely have them come back the next day, which is nice.

10. This year has 2 Friday the 13ths in a row. I haven't heard anyone report about that much yet, but I'm guessing we will start hearing about it tomorrow. At least I'm not doing this "Thirteen on Thursday" on Friday the 13th. (Of course, that wouldn't really make sense, would it?)

11. I am supposedly pretending that today is Sunday, by getting up early to write my sermon. Haven't actually gotten to that yet, although I did do the part where I type up the scriptures and get my formatting ready. I got way-laid by the computer on the way to the shower. Ooops. I still believe it's possible. Saturday is going to be a long, tiring (though fun) day, so I thought I should try to adjust my peculiar sermon-writing strategy. Sometimes when I'm extra tired, it doesn't work so well. And I want to give them a good one this week.

12. I am singing with the County Chorale again this spring. Because it's the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn's birth, we are singing a couple of his pieces, in addition to the Rutter Requiem which is the main course. I am very happy because we are singing "How Lovely Are the Messengers" which I have loved and wanted to sing again ever since I first sang it in college.

13. I love the story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5 which is this Sunday's OT reading. I can rarely resist the urge to have people act it out. I'm sort of planning to make my Children's Time about having the kids pantomime the actions and emotions this Sunday. Hope it doesn't take way longer than it should.