Thursday, January 10, 2008

What was your name again?

Long time, no type, eh friends? The holidays were such a blur. See, I’m generally a last minute kind of girl anyway. But when ICE STORM 2007 knocked out our power for four days (and others for much, much longer), the world came to a screeching halt. Not only could I not get anything accomplished that week, all the regular things I needed to do got pushed to the next week. So, in short (ha!) I did ALL of my Christmas shopping on Dec. 23rd and 24th. Needless to say, the Christmas letters didn’t get mailed.

In the aftermath of ICE STORM 2007, the scramble to get all the paperwork together to enroll and provide financial aid for my older daughter to attend ORU sucked all my remaining vacation time right out of the house. “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” Name that quote! At any rate, both girls are now attending class. An absolute miracle of the “happy dance” variety!

Now, Tulsa has faced many ice storms in the past, but ICE STORM 2007 was altogether odd. I don’t know if it was the culmination of the extended drought of the last two years, followed by the amazing rain of this past Spring/Summer, then the mild temperatures up to the point of ICE STORM 2007, or if terrorists were to blame, but not even Jack Bauer could stop the AMAZING TREE BREAKAGE across our state. It is truly amazing. The dump sites are all full and there is still a phenomenal amount of tree trimming and hauling to be done. Yippee. Welcome to Tulsa.

Good news – I had been weighing my options on attending Wednesday night church regularly because of the expense of gas and eating on the road (if you’ll remember we live an hour away from our church). I rearranged my Wednesday obligations and figured we could get a motel room on the weekends that I lead worship, do practice and counseling appts. on Saturdays, for less than I was spending to drive out on Wednesdays. That meant no getting up super early on my worship team Sundays. YAY! I hadn’t talked to the pastor yet about it ‘cuz…well…refer to previous paragraphs. There have actually been a few times when I absolutely did not have gas or money to go. That’s just not good. ANYWAY, I got a call this week that the council had voted to cover my gas and Wednesday meals! AMAZING! What a blessing! I really love these people, and I would move to the country in a heartbeat if I didn’t have to work here to put my kids in college. Maybe God will open up a door there, as well. I’ve been praying, but no breakthrough yet.

So far my only New Year’s Resolution is to post more often. We all see how well that’s going. I’ve been faithfully lurking (is that an oxymoron?), but I’ll try to comment more often, too. I still don’t know ANYTHING about making my blog look nice, post buttons, pictures, or anything else. Despite the continued filling out of blog design contest entries, I’ve not yet had the blessing of professional help. Well, not that kind anyway. So, if anyone out there might find it in her heart to make a seed faith gift of blog design, I’m most certain the Lord would bless and multiply that seed in mysterious ways.

O.K. I’m done rambling. Blame it on the four day migraine. I love you!

2 comments:

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Hey, Mombo! I've missed you! I figured you were affected by the ice storms and prayed for you and the whole region. I also figured you didn't have electricity at work so it wouldn't do any good to email you, so I just waited for you to blog again.

Praise the Lord for the girls being in school and your church covering your expenses!

Glad to hear from you and know you're doing okay. I hope you do blog more this year. I know you're busy living life, but I miss your posts. ;o)

Love and hugs,

Diane

Barb said...

It was really hard to watch all the news coverage about that amazing ice storm, especially since we went through one about five years ago in eastern Colorado. I was shocked at the tree damage. The sound of the limbs snapping and breaking off sounded like gunshots, all through the night, and the mountains and mountains of all those poor trees was unbelievable. Where we lived, the local authorities decided to use all those broken trees to line the bottom of the water reservoir.

If I knew how to design a blog, I'd jump right in and help you. But if I knew how to design a blog, the first thing I'd do is change my own. I love my design but I'm tired of it. Sorry. I hope someone comes forward. There are so many people out here who change their own designs all the time.

I simply haven't found the patience or the courage to figure it out yet.