Friday Five: Hard Habit to Break

"As many of you know, I have been experimenting with some severely curtailed Internet usage. I realized that I had gotten into some bad habits, which got me thinking about habits in general. I understand that a habits/random facts meme has already been going around. In the hopes that it hasn't hit too many of us yet, be as lighthearted or as serious as you'd like with the following:" -reverendmother

1. Have you ever successfully quit a bad habit, or gotten a good habit established? Tell us about how you did it.

I have a terrible time with keeping habits, good or bad. I get tired of "sameness," so I don't often do the same thing over and over. We faithfully recycle; does that count?

2. "If only there were a 12-step program for _________________!"

Chocolate! It ruins my good weight loss intentions about once a month.

3. Share one of your healthy "obsessions" with us.

Hmm, I think books might be an obsession in this house. We have shelves and shelves of them and I can't bear to part with them. Sure, I trade a few with family and even a few on Paperback Swap, but mostly, we just collect and let them gather dust.

4. Share the habit of a spouse, friend or loved one that drives you C-R-A-Z-Y.

Most of P's bathroom habits drive me nuts. Magazines everywhere, globs of toothpaste in the sink, tinkles all over the toilet seat, and trash all over the counter (even though there's a trash can right under the sink). Having separate bathrooms has saved this marriage without a doubt.

5. "I'd love to get into the habit of ___________________."

Exercise! I've tried and tried and, well, like I said, I'm not good at routine or habits, so I usually quit after a few days. No time, no energy, achy knees, lots of things get in the way (mostly excuses, though). So I'd really like to be able to drag my "not even remotely a morning person" carcass out of bed earlier and exercise before L gets up, but so far I'm not doing so good with that.
I also really want to try to walk more often.

Bonus: What is one small action you might take immediately to make #5 a reality?

I just got a bellydance DVD and it's low impact so I think that will at least keep the achy knees at bay, plus I got a gorgeous coin scarf to wear while I was at our local RenFest, so that's a fun motivation to do it. It jingles so prettily!

Bonus 2: Try it, and let us know how it goes in a future post!

Will do! I hope it's lots of fun.

Old Friends and New Additions

I got a phone call, just out of the blue today, from the woman who is probably my closest and dearest friend from seminary. It was so good to hear from her. She took her first call way out in the Wild West Wilderness and it's been hard to keep in touch. She has a daughter about 5 months younger than L, so that keeps her busy too. But we talked for probably and hour and a half today. It was so nice to hear from her, though it made me acutely aware of how much I miss her. I was very emotional when I hung up the phone. It turns out she's taking another call, though it's really not any closer to us, just a different far away place.
On the other hand, it inspired me to call another dear seminary couple only to find out that they've recently had a baby girl-their first child. You can find out about more about her at Concrete Wilderness. I had to teasingly berate them for not letting us know about this momentous occasion. I couldn't believe we hadn't talked in over 9 months to know about that!!
It was so nice to catch up. None of us are very good at keeping in touch. This was just what I needed in the midst of the frustration of call searching. Praise God for such wonderful friends!

Friday Five: Big Event Edition

Did you know that the major purpose for forming a non-profit, RevGalBlogPals, Inc., was to be able to attract grant support for a large scale RevGalBlogPal meetup? My dream from the beginning has been attracting financial support that would allow as many of our bloggers to be together as possible.
RGBP, Inc. now has a planning committee, and we are in the early stages of planning the RevGalBlogPal Big Event. What, When, Where and Who are all on the table at the moment. In that spirit, I bring you the Big Event Friday Five.
1. What would the meeting be like? (Continuing Ed? Retreat? Outside Speakers? Interest Groups? Workshops? Hot Stone Massages? Pedicures? Glorified Slumber Party?)

I'm thinking sort of a combo of the above. Kind of a girlfriends get together, informal time to talk about what we do and how we do it, bring in a speaker and have a few groups or workshops. I think that having ample unstructured time would be good so people who know each other can catch up and people who don't can meet and find out about God's work through other's lives.

2. When in 2008 might you be able to attend? January? Shortly after Easter? Summer? Fall? Some other time?

Can't say at this point. Though I vote in warmer weather (refer below), maybe in May sometime.

3. Where would your dream meeting location be? (Urban Hotel? Rural Retreat Center? New England Camp? Southwestern Fantasy Hotel? Far away from civilization? Nearby Outlets or Really Great Thrift Stores?)

Oh, I so vote for a beach area! Outer Banks are my personal fave!

4. Who would make a great keynote speaker? (That's if #1 leads us in that direction.)

I kinda think it might be fun to invite PeaceBang to speak or at least do a workshop. I know lots of us read her Beauty Tips for Ministers site and she seems like someone I'd love to meet!

5. Did I leave out something you want to suggest?

Chocolate needs to be incorporated somehow. Maybe a knitting group, for people to share their tips and for anyone who wants to learn.

Hard to hear

When we were first married, P and I discussed the future. We thought we'd like to have a couple of kids: me, two girls (like me and my sister), him, one of each. I said I could live with that as long as the first one was a girl. I have no idea how to parent a boy, I told him. Well, many years later, we have a wonderful little girl; she'll be three this summer. So, it took me a while to feel ready, but I'm finally feeling the urge to have another bundle of joy soon. A sibling, someone L can play with and help be responsible for. I bring this up to P. I figured he'd say that we should wait until I find a call. I agree, at least to a point. (That is, I agree unless it looks like it'll take another year to find one.) But no, he says he doesn't think he wants another one. At all. Probably not ever. That knocked the breath out of me. I still have trouble breathing just thinking about it. I can't imagine my life without another child. I feel like I'd be cheating L out of the joy of having a sibling. I feel like our family would be incomplete. I also worry that if they're too far apart in age, they won't have a chance to be close to each other. (I'm not a child pschologist, so I don't actually know if that's true or not. But I still worry about it. It just seems like it'd be more like having two only children, rather than siblings.) So, I'm feeling rather heart broken these days. It's not a totally closed case, but it's still hard for me to imagine life with just one child; that's not how I ever envisioned my family. I really don't know what will happen if he decides that it's a final decision. Prayers for us all, please.

J. F. and God

So is anyone else really curious about what kind of conversation God and Jerry Falwell are having about now? I sure am! Prayers for those who will mourn him.

Friday Five: Potato, Po-tah-to

There are two types of people in the world, morning people and night owls. Or Red Sox fans and Yankees fans. Or boxers and briefs. Or people who divide the world into two types of people and those who don't. Let your preferences be known here. And if you're feeling verbose, defend your choices!
1. Mac? (woo-hoo!) or PC? (boo!)Why yes, the Friday Five author reserves the right to editorialize!
PC, though more specifically, HP. I love my HP. It's much better than the other PC laptops I've owned and BTW, there's no way I'm trying Vista.

2. Pizza: Chicago style luscious hearty goodness, or New York floppy and flaccid?
None of the above. Give me a thin and crispy Margharita Neopolitana. Yeah, I've been to Italy, so there.

3. Brownies/fudge containing nuts:a) Good. I like the variation in texture.b) An abomination unto the Lord. The nuts take up valuable chocolate space.
Oh, 'b' for sure. Nuts are just that, nuts. Why in the world would you waste valuable chocolate space on them? I'd make an exception for caramel perhaps, but never nuts.

4. Do you hang your toilet paper so that the "tail" hangs flush with the wall, or over the top of the roll like normal people do?
I guess I'm normal (at least in that respect). I don't think it's as easy to get a hold of the TP if it's up against the wall.

5. Toothpaste: Do you squeeze the tube wantonly in the middle, or squeeze from the bottom and flatten as you go just like the tube instructs?
hmm, I like the use of the word 'wantonly' here, because I am certainly a middle squeezer, so maybe that's a latent wanton tendency trying to come out in a polite and non-threatening way.

Bonus: Coffee or tea? Ok, well, since it's my bonus, I get to say both. In the a.m., it's coffee, fully leaded, often with some ff flavored creamer involved. In the p.m., I stick to tea, usually herbal, unless it's an afternoon tea party with biscotti or scones involved. Then I go for the real deal.

Another day, another...

...church to send a PIF to. Well, since I'm still waiting around to hear from the other two, might as well hedge my bets. This one sounds up my alley theologically, it's in a city that P can almost certainly find a job in, so might as well test the waters and see if they're interested. I was surprised to hear Dad say that when he was looking for churches back in the day, most pastors and churches only looked at one church/candidate at a time. All I can say is, I don't have that kind of patience. Besides, I like to have options. :) What do some of you RGBP's think about that? I'm sure different denominations have different regulations, too.
On a completely different note, all you moms who might be reading this, got any ideas on what to do with frozen bananas? I have 10 or 12 in the freezer now that L's favorite thing to do is beg and plead for a banana, take one bite and be done. I try to convince her that she really doesn't want it, but she insists and it IS fruit and healthy and I don't want to discourage her eating good things, but... anyway, any ideas? We can only eat so much banana bread.

Outside the Bounds

Well, trying to get the two-minutes-or-less video out the door today. Finished production last night. Typing without sentence subjects due to having only had a couple sips of coffee so far. (...shlirk...) Ahh, that's better.
Anyway, it was a stretch of my technological capabilities. I learned how to narrate a PowerPoint and also turn it into a Flash video so that someone can view it on Windows Media Player or whatever their choice of video viewer may be. Now I'm trying this website called YouSendIt. A friend recommended it for sending large files. You basically upload a large file, it sends the recipient an email saying it's on their server, and they go download it. Voila! No email backup waiting for a huge file to download, or wondering if it ever made it through SPAMblocker.
Speaking of trying new things, has anyone else tried OpenOffice? It's a completely free, no-strings-attached office suite. It's compatible with all Microsoft Office programs, but it's NOT Microsoft. It has all the good stuff, like a PowerPoint producer (that's what I actually did the beginnings of the video on,) and Excel, Word, a spreadsheet, and I think Publisher, plus a couple other things. I really recommend checking it out here. I just got it recently so I haven't even tried out most of it, but I really like what I've seen so far.
Well, I can see the bottom of my coffee cup. Time for a refill.