And the wind

Today the wind picked up and there is now a huge heap of leaves at the back corner of my driveway. I can hear it swirling still.

When I was leaving work, I saw Batman in the atrium and he said hello to me. Batman knows my name!

And the rain came down

I made it into work before the rain started to pour down. I made some headway on my email but I am still drowning in it. Hopefully, I will be able to catch up more tomorrow.

Bartimaeus

I heard 2 sermons on blind Bartimaeus today and had 2 trips to Giant Tiger. Coincidence?

The first sermon was I think the inaugural Chris B. Sermon and it was good. He talked about understanding how low Bart was and how desperate he was to get to Jesus. How sometimes you have to hit the bottom to want to see the light. You need to be stripped to be clothed. (Bart threw off his cloak before he went to see Jesus.

Then in the evening Alex from Ottawa was at Kim's Church and he spoke on the same passage (it was the lectionary passage for this week) and the part he focused on was the last part of the passage- if you read it in the King James version, it says that Jesus says to him that his faith has made him whole before he received his sight. So he only asked for healing in his eyes but he was healed in other ways as well. God gives unexpected gifts.

I ran a lot of errands today. James has been losing pants at school so I bought him a new pair today but in Adult small. It is too big for him now, but won't be soon. The boys ones are starting to get too small so I didn't want to buy the same size as replacement.

Fire alarm and phone books

On Friday as we got set to start our first test, the fire alarm went off so I had to reschedule and will have one Monday morning. It turned out to be a cooking incident.

This morning as a hockey fundraiser, some of the parents and 2 of the kids- James and Brandon we to Wolfe Island to deliver phone books. It is mostly a rural area so it was a lot of driving, but the people seemed to appreciate seeing us. The most dangerous part was the guard dogs. The boys almost got eaten a few times!

A discount if warring people want to eat together: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/23/450905869/israeli-cafe-offers-discounts-for-jews-and-arabs-to-share-a-mealarticle

If you have seen Adele's new video "Hello" you might find this amusing:

midterm week

This week is always a high stress one for both the students and for me. Tomorrow is my longest day of midterms. In for 8am and out at 9:30pm and then back in on Thursday for 8am. Just 3 more days!

For my dad:

It was very cold on Monday and so this morning James dressed in his snowpants and toque, got outside and was disgusted as the weather was WARM.

Last night I was out walking and I was looking at this Halloween decoration. I thought it was a kind of weird one. Then I realized it was a real person standing still (maybe smoking?). I felt bad that I thought he was a decoration.

One of my neighbour's has their Christmas decorations up!

Flakes

This afternoon I went outside and there were small flakes of snow falling. Sigh.

I didn't get as much accomplished today as I was finishing the "conspiracy theory" novel. There was some odd misdirection at the end but for the most part it was interestingly spun.

I went shopping at Loblaws at 7am. It took me longer than usual as there was a lot for me to pick up. It meant that they had baked the bread before I left, which was nice.

Sadness and joy

Today though we were celebrating Rustle's birthday, we also were recalling those who could no longer celebrate with us. Christine, Pearl, Audrey and others were remembered today.

We had a turkey lunch and I got a chance to catch up with Tanya.

Went to Metro and SDM and they weren't busy at all thanks to most of the students being away. The exodus back will be tomorrow.
I'm planning on going in tomorrow to get the midterm times sent out and the Mod 3 project groups.

Happy 10th Rustle

We'll be celebrating Rustle's 10th birthday today!

Karen found this great poem:

"It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church's mission.No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

*This prayer was composed by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, drafted
for a homily by Card. John Dearden in Nov. 1979 for a celebration of departed
priests. As a reflection on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Bishop Romero,
Bishop Untener included in a reflection book a passage titled "The mystery
of the Romero Prayer." The mystery is that the words of the prayer are
attributed to Oscar Romero, but they were never spoken by him.

conspiracy theory

The new murder mystery that I have is called "conspiracy theory" and apparently that will factor into the mystery.

James has been on the injury list due to his hip flexor. Apparently he is growing so fast it is hard for his muscles to keep up. He hopes to be back on the ice on Wednesday. Last night his stomach wasn't feeling well and he didn't eat dinner, so he was double down. Today he seems fine and I played soccer with him.

Thanksgiving day 1

Yesterday afternoon I managed to get most of the project groups for next term done. It was a pretty quiet afternoon in the office, relatively speaking.

Today I didn't go to Loblaws at my usual time (7am) but went around 10:30am so I could also stop by the Library. I finished the Banks book my dad left when they were in Kingston and a library book by Jane Haddam that was about a celebrity murder. It had a thinly veiled setting of Margaret's Harbour that mirrored Martha's Vineyard.

Today I am working on laundry and one last chance to mow the lawn.

Happy Birthday Karrie!

Happy Birthday Karrie!

I am hopefully getting to the end of the super busyness of work.

I woke up to find that one of my Facebook friends had passed away. I knew him through my work at RMC though I never met him because he lives in Leeds. He leaves behind a wife and an 8 year old son. Very sad for them.

the way more clearly

Was up at 7am to do some shopping. On driving home I had a red light at the intersection of Princess and Bath so I was waiting, there weren't many cars on the road. The lady behind me was anxious and didn't want to wait and so took the right hand turn on Bath just before the light turned. I was driving into the sun but I did manage to look ahead in the lane I was in and it looked like there was an accident there. They had pylons up so I didn't see the accident but they must have been waiting for the police. There were almost no cars on the road so it is hard to understand even why there was an accident at that time. Because I saw it in time, I took a right before the accident through a parking lot and avoided it.

When I got home, I baked muffins and did some dishes and laundry. James left for Peterborough and I headed in to work. I didn't get what I planned to done but I cleared through a lot of email.
James was sad on the return from Peterborough as he pulled his groin and is out for the game tomorrow. Injury list.