Still Guilty...

...Only now I'm feeling a tad guilty because I'm sitting here working on this instead of going to bed as I really should be.

But I do feel a responsibility to my readers (hello? all three of you there?), especially since I missed out on last Friday's meme--which I really meant to do, but somehow suddenly Friday was gone and I hadn't written it, and Saturday, when I could have used a distraction from the sermon, I...forgot. Which I find amazing, considering I used to do them (you'll pardon the pun) religiously. I haven't been able to do the reading for the blog either.

So what have I been doing, you may well ask? I wish it were big exciting things, but it's just not. Mostly some basic strategic administrative things I should have been doing all along. That and now that I live alone, I have to do all the housework--house is the same size and many things need to don just as often (laundry, dishes) even if there aren't as many to b done, and some things just don't change (yard work, feeding the dog). I am trying to focus on catching up with my reading, so maybe that's part of it.

I've done some more looking into doctoral programs, and the DMin programs don't seem to offer enough of the meaty theological stuff that I want, but the PhD programs seem to require a reading knowledge of one (if not two) languages beyond English. It makes sense, especially for a theology degree, but still....the thought of learning another language is a tad scary. I can squeak by in German, I think, with some brush-up and some vocabulary expansion. My German vocab leans more towards art, sailing, and food then Schliermacher, Moltmann and Barth, I'm afraid....It's what I was into when I lived in Germany, what can I say? SO there's on, but the other? Please don't ask me to learn French, I've tried and I cannot get the accent....Oh, wait. This is a READING knowledge...so maybe I could learn it. I have Francophone friends, perhaps they would help me with tutoring (not that kind of help and not that kind of friend--by some odd coincidence, they are all gay men. [puzzled look]).

Anyway, I'm rambling now, and I've done that rare thing, an off-the-cuff blog entry (rare for me).

So--good things to look forward to--dinner out with a friend Thursday, friends over for dinner Friday, my son arriving Saturday, Palm Sunday on Sunday, to my mother's Sunday and Monday, dinner with still yet more friends on Monday night, a wedding on the next Saturday, Easter, a weekend off spent with my mom and sister and her husband...further ahead, a trip back to Large Capitol City (where TO lives) for his HS graduation and visit with many old friends, our denomination's general conference (which I actually enjoy very much), another wedding, and, looking way ahead to August, a weekend off that I am contemplating expanding into a week and spending at my favourite retreat centre (see my entries from October).

In spite of the glitches and bumps, life is good, you know?

Cottage at GilChrist Retreat Centre...a little taste of Paradise on Earth...
A bit of the woods, the fields, the animals, people...
A bit of meditation and contemplation...
All wrapped in the arms of God.