Lift Up Your Hearts!

Recently I discovered Li’l Writer Guy living in my head.

That sentence is enough to make half the readers of this blog think I’m insane, and the other half think I’m possessed. Be that as it may, it’s the best way I know to explain the way I think. (More)

Having made so much of the Red Sox for their World Series win, I must also congratulate the Patriots for their Super Bowl performance. Not quite so heartily, however. For one thing, for the Patriots to win the big one is not quite so rare as for the Sox; for another, half my heart was also given to the Eagles. I care even less about professional football than about professional baseball, but I have pleasant associations with both teams' cities. (More)

Florida has been experiencing unseasonably warm weather recently, though here it is not as welcome as the 60 - 70 degree temperatures in the Northeast has been seeing. I'm not ready for shorts and temperatures in the 80's yet, and neither are our plants, which must have been dreaming of an early summer this week.

What a change this morning! Suddenly the air pouring through my open office window has a welcome chill, driving off the computer-generated warmth. Time to switch back to long pants, maybe even break out some soup and our Christmas hot chocolate. Alas that the cooler weather that brings blessing to us brings hardship to more northern climes!

I'm not unmindful that the new temperatures that are wonderfully cool to us are the same ones that were wonderfully warm to our loved ones just yesterday.

Lime Daley is the name of Jon Daley's Internet hosting and embedded hardware and software systems company. It is also the name Porter gave to a great drink Jon and Heather invented. For the curious, here is the recipe for a Lime Daley:

ice to taste
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 drops Boyajian lime oil
1 twelve-ounce bottle Blenheim “Old #3” (red cap) ginger ale

Put ice in a tall glass. Add lime juice and lime oil. Slowly pour in Blenheim. Stir well. Be prepared for the strongest kick a non-alcoholic drink can have. (To remember the proportions, think “3, 2, 1, blastoff!” It’s appropriate.)

(I predict LimeDaley.com will be a powerful business.)

Many churches have early evening "family services" on Christmas Eve, so that young children don't have to stay up for "Midnight Mass." That's a mistake, I think. Children who stay up past midnight are less likely to awaken before the dawn on Christmas Day. (More)

'Tis the final day of Advent, and family is gathered around. Tonight we hear the penultimate story from Jotham's Journey, which we have been reading each night while the Advent candles are lit. Soon we will travel to church, bracketing our worship with fondue: cheese before and chocolate after. A white Christmas is unlikely, for the snow has been washed away by yesterday's rain. Perhaps we will have some Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music instead, which is almost as good.

The Season of Waiting is almost over. It is hard to observe Advent in our culture, where "Christmas" begins in October and ends about noon on December 25, just as the Christmas Season is beginning. But our small attempts have succeeded in shutting out some of the clamor, and drawing our eyes to greater wonders.

Billy, age five, is greatly excited. He hung his stocking from the mantel, and moved the large airplane cockpit control panel toy from in front of the fireplace, so that Santa will find no obstruction tonight. Then he solemnly declared to his cousin, "It wouldn't matter if Santa doesn't come, because the important thing about Christmas is Jesus' birth."

One year ago today we were basking in the sun of an unusually warm November day, and in the healing joy of the birth of a beautiful, healthy baby boy. This has truly been a Year of Thanksgiving.

I know this will not impress you Northerners, but I'll tell the story anyway. When I jumped into the pool today, I thought that the water was a tad on the chilly side. After doing my 10 warm-up lengths, I checked the thermometer: 67 degrees, a drop of six degrees since Friday. It was actually quite pleasant, after a lap or two, though I'm sure it's colder than the Maggie P. in summer. Probably not colder than Lake Bomoseen, however. My goal is to keep swimming until Thanksgiving. This time it was easy, as I had no idea before I stepped in how cold the water was. The real test of my determination will be the next time I venture in.

We're watching the lunar eclipse. The first time I saw that beautiful phenomenon, my father awakened me in the early hours of the morning, and we drove to a place where we could see the moon well. I was cold and sleepy. But it was worth it: to see the moon, and to have that special time with my dad.

Tonight we have it easy. We step out of our front door into the warm Florida night, and there is the disappearing moon, clear and lovely and perfectly framed. It reminds me of watching space shuttle launches, which we also see from our front yard. Except that this time I have no lingering fears that the beauty will splinter and fall as I watch.

Being originally a New Englander, Porter has been a Boston Red Sox fan since before he learned that those things he put on under his shoes were actually spelled s-o-c-k-s. He loves the team so much that he usually refuses to watch them play. (We lived near Boston for nearly two years, and never went to Fenway Park.) Demonstrating that paganism can still lurk in the deep recesses of a Christian's life, he is (or pretends to be) superstitious enough to believe he can jinx them just by watching. And I must admit that the anecdotal evidence is pretty strong. He has the opposite effect on the Yankees, too. During the first round of the playoffs this year, he watched seven seconds of a Yankees-Twins game, with Minnesota well ahead—just in time to see Rubin Sierra hit a three-run homer to tie the game, which the Yankees went on to win. Chastened, he watched not one second of the Boston-New York playoffs. (More)

With the nonchalance of season passholders, we spent the day at EPCOT’s International Food and Wine Festival. The park was not crowded by their standards, but it was by ours; we prefer to go when time spent waiting in line is minimal. Today, however, we found ourselves in line again, and again, and again…each time at a small booth with a long queue, that featured a different country’s food and drink. Portions were appetizer-sized, and prices were Disney-sized, but the idea was great. If the portions had been any larger, we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy so many tastes. It helps to have a partner in this situation: you wait in this line, I’ll wait in that one, then we’ll meet and share the food. It was a strategy that worked well.

Waiting in line was a social event, too. Floridians seem to have made an easy transition from exchanging hurricane preparation tips while in line at Home Depot, to exchanging food recommendations while waiting at EPCOT. (More)

We went to a high school football game tonight. It was a great night for it, cool enough for long pants and a sweatshirt, our first cool weather in months. We actually went to see the halftime show, which I understand is pretty good despite the efforts of four hurricanes to thwart practice. But there was no halftime show: the Marching Patriot Band played their music from the stands. Why? I'm not sure, except that it's technically Fall Break, and a significant portion of the band was elsewhere. (Why the sports teams, band, cheerleaders, and associated people should be deprived of their Fall Break time is another issue.) Even so, it sounded pretty good. Too bad those people at the gate thought we paid our $12 to see the football team.

Ah, well, it was a fun night anyway. We had friends to talk with during the first half, and the second half had several exciting plays, exciting even to me, whose interest in football is something less than one of those mathematical epsilons.... Besides, there's nothing quite like a Band Booster hamburger.

This is the first year there is no one in the band who was there when we were involved. Some siblings, though. And they still play the same songs.

I have been working on a project that involves gluing two sheets of cardstock together, then laminating the result with clear contact paper. It's a bit of work, but seemed more reasonable than purchasing a $200 laminating machine.

Maybe not. I had been pleased with the results, but noticed that the rubber cement seal was coming apart in some places. No problem, I thought, I'll just slip in a little extra rubber cement. That appeared to be a fine solution, until I returned to my work an hour later and discovered that the solvent from the rubber cement had apparently penetrated the card stock and dissolved the adhesive on the contact paper, leaving a mess of wrinkles and bubbles. :(

Time to figure out Plan B. (More)

No Christian can rule out the possibility that he may be called upon to be a martyr. Be that as it may, I don't believe any of us is called to be a masochist.

In today's sermon we learned that God intends worship to be—among other things—fun. I'm not quarrelling with that, only mentioning it to make the point that I do not, in general, consider pain to be fun. (More)

Tuesday, September 28, 2004. 1:00 p.m.  The power is still on, and we are all happy about that. Porter is currently up on the roof, making repairs, and is glad that the pool is looking better this morning. Jonathan, Heather and I have a date to see some friends this afternoon, but we hope to get in some yardwork and a swim, too. Jonathan is not yet very helpful with the yardwork, but makes up for it by being incredibly cute as he tries to handle the rake. And he really enjoys the swimming part afterwards.