Out of the Blue

It is September 11th, and the questions we inevitably hear today, as we remember the loss of nearly 3000 of our citizens in terrorist attacks thirteen years ago, are "Where were you?" and "What do you remember?" It got me thinking. I was at work, as most of us were, on the morning of September 11th, 2001. I was in the basement of the community center where I had just been working for a couple of weeks. Some church groups had put together donations of paper towels and cleaning supplies for us and I was busy inventorying and coding the items. I was at Jubilee Project, a United Methodist Mission, and when the associate director came downstairs and told me what had happened I felt numb; frightened, saddened, and just plain cold all over. When she left the room, I approached a wooden cross that sat on a table there and I knelt down to pray. Words didn't come, but I am sure God understood my heart. That's where I was. What I remember most from that day, and fr...

I had a four day weekend for Labor Day, and being sick today turned it into a five day weekend. Last week was crazy busy at work and I really pushed myself to complete some tasks that were critical. I got home exhausted every evening, so my house was in terrible shape by Friday, and that was with my daughters helping clean after school each day. I was very tired when I got up on Friday morning, but I decided to clean house anyway. I've gotten a bit smarter about it, though - I clean for thirty minutes and then rest for thirty minutes. Or twenty minutes, or ten - the point is to balance activity with rest. So I made it through Friday pretty well and the house was clean by the end of the day. The girls went to their dad's that afternoon, and they each took their dog along, which left just me and Oskar, my shadow-weenie, at the house for three days. Talk about vacation! I was too tired to go out Friday evening, even though I had planned to go listen to some music with a friend. ...