Snow day, again?

Disproportionately high number of days of snow this winter, out here in the overcast northwest. It's coming own and it's threatening to stick, at least for the day. Keeps us from exiting our driveway, anyhow. Hopefully it will melt enough for Rob to make it to band practice tonight and for me to make it to a Lent Soup Supper somewhere. I'm thinking of checking out the Wooden Cross Lutheran just down the street. The interim pastor there used to be an interim pastor at our home church, Cross of Christ.

Went to Trinity Lutheran in Mount Vernon, WA on Sunday. We were there pretty much all day; service in the morning, lunch with the pastor and his family, afternoon jam session with his band. A good time had by all. I played drum kit for 2 hours! My legs were jello.


We had our first business meeting with each other Monday morning. Rob and I have sort of been wondering what each other does all day and not always knowing who's responsible for what. Then, we're surprised if it doesn't get done. Well, no more! We divided our life into categories, delegated categories, delineated tasks in each categories, divvied up weekly task between the 2 of us. I'll let you know how that works out. I'm feeling more confident in my efforts so far, let's say that.

Though I've been remembering things we should have covered since Monday. Gotta list those so we don't overlook them again.

Benign

So I went to see Dr Ilika for a post-op check-up yesterday and got good news. Here's the skinny:
☻ The fact that my last period (last week) was my most pain-free one ever is probably a really good sign, since the first one post-op is usually worse than the subsequent ones. Praise God!
☻ Structurally, I appear to be sound. Any symptoms I had related to the polyps should not occur since there are no more polyps. Praise God!
☻ The polyps were tested and were benign. Praise God!

I can now biff off to Africa with a clean bill of reproductive health and, hopefully, regaining a day or two of productivity every month. Isn't it funny that benign and malignant both sound exactly like what they mean?

She did give me the photos she'd taken of my endometrium, before and after shots of the polyp sites, but I'll have to scan those in before I can post them.

First podcast!

Yes, we're finally doing it: we're podcasting! OK, the first one is pretty simple. It's just the recording Rob did of the minutes after my wisdom teeth surgery, back in December. Still ... once we're in Namibia and have fun things to show you, the podcasting thing will be really cool. You don't have to have an iPod to enjoy podcasts, either. You don't even need iTunes, a free download from here: DOWNLOAD iTUNES. You can just click listen to begin podlistening.

Though it hurts us, precious, being crammed inside its tiny box.

testing the gear

We tested out Rob's MOTU Traveller on some script for the Dark Waters project. You know, taking advantage of a totally empty house. Empty except for us and the lizard, fish and hamster, that is. But they don't do much in the way of noise.

Christmas?

This is a funny Christmas video from Jonathon Coulton: Chiron Beta Prime

"Did I say overlords? I meant protectors ..."

From the other contributor...

Hey everyone out there, this is Marco. I'm the other contributor you'll find on the right sidebar if you scroll down. I have no idea why Eshinee wants me on this blog as a contributor, but since that's what I am listed as, I should contribute at least once per year, right?

OK, gotta go. Good to talk to y'all. Check out Eshinee's Exegettes page, it's a lot of fun. Maybe we can get her to write on it more often.

Peace out.

Valentine dinner

This is what we made for our Valentine's Day dinner; my first jambalaya with a mean petite syrah. Delish! The red is a 2001 (the year of our wedding) from Paso Robles, CA (from our honeymoon drive). Awwwww. :)

Rob had to pitch in partway through, to cut up the meat. I sliced my hand (lightly) during the chopping of the green pepper. No blood, just a small slice.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡ Happy Valentine's Day! ♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡

Anger management

Here are some links on anger managment from The Week, which Rob's folks got us a subscription of for Christmas:

① American Psychological Association
② Dr. Leonard
③ PatientUK
④ goodcharacter.com

We'll fly away

Current departure date for Namibia: May 20, 2007.

So, there it is. Yay! I don't think the tickets are purchased yet but, barring Namibian visa problems (and we do want them barred), we are going to Namibia in May.

Did I mention "Yay"?


(Nice shot, Valérie!)

Chugging along

I've been a little more physically low-key the last few days. Without getting too detailed, I called Dr Ilika's office this morning to schedule my post-op appointment and make sure that everything is normal because I wasn't sure. She wasn't in but her nurse answered all my questions. She said that, based on what I described to her, everything is progressing well, bette than many, in fact. So, I've been uncomfortable since Friday but I guess that's par for the course. Still had a good time at our home church on Sunday morning; Rob played guitar and I sang.

Catching up on some paperwork today, as well as helping Rob test some new VM gear that he got; the MOTU interface and mike stands. We're going to record the rest of my lines for the Dark Waters project. The hope is that we can verify that these are the right tools for his overseas work and, if they aren't, return them before flying away in May.

More commissioning photos

Watch again

See? Here's the watch and its messed up band. Can't help it, still love the thing. Glad it's working again.

Pictures and more on the watch

I went ahead and got a new battery yesterday. Got tired of looking at my wrist, empty, useless. Much happier about always knowing the time, me.

Pete sent us pictures from the commissioning. Here they are:

This shot looks like one from the 9:30 service.

I got to do part of the morning's message. I'm tempted to post some of the other pictures. I photograph like a duck when I speak, for real.

See? Duck face.

"We will and we ask God to help us."

Happy times. "You may kiss the missionary."

Thanks, Pete!

Watching for watches

I'm looking at a new watch since my old one had both the band falling apart and the battery die in the last year. It would cost about $15 to get a new band, if I could find one (about $10), and a battery (about $5, maybe plus a replacement fee, if they charge for that kind of thing where we get the battery). And I react to watchstraps that aren't leather. Timex Expedition leather straps are the ones I've had good success with for the last decade so I'm probably going to stick with those. But, if I go ahead and get a new Timex Expedition watch, saving myself the hours of driving from one watch-store to another seeking the right strap, here is the one online that I thought looked like a good replacement:

Timex T403019J

The key is the dark, neutral leather watch band, small face with actual numbers on it, silver metal casing, Indiglo night light and water resistance. Anyway, still deciding what to do on the watch thing. Just exploring options, is all. I hate to get rid of a perfectly good watch body. I guess I still have time to decide. [smile]

It was a great commissioning

[snicker] Though, is that actually a pun? Rats. I thought that it was.

Our commissioning service was yesterday. Two services, actually, the traditional and the contemporary services at our home church. I'm expecting a bunch of pictures from our church buddy Pete this week and I'll be sure to post them when they arrive. Rob's folks and brther Larry were there. They gave me a hyacinth (from the church's flowers for the day, I think) and Kate's going to plant it in her yard for me. We also got a cool burgundy NASB thinline Bible with our names and the date on front. We realized when we were looking at it later last night that it has a genealogy section. So, we finally have a family Bible! I hadn't realized that I wanted one until we got this one. I think people even asked when we got married if we wanted one and I said that we didn't. But to get one commemorating yesterday seems like a bigger deal, if that makes any sense at all. The wedding was nice but it was so par-for-the-course that, well, I don't know. It didn't have the sense of accomplishment attached to it that yesterday did. I really felt yesterday like we were making a committment that hasn't been a foregone conclusion.

Or perhaps I'm babbling. Rob says that I've been babbling since I preached yesterday. It's like I got talking and now can't stop. Except for yesterday afternoon. We got back from lunch and crashed on the bed while we were talking about what we were going to do with the rest of the day. Then, we went out to dinner, came back and watched a movie with the peeps.

On the mend

I'm feeling pretty OK today. I only took a single Advil this morning; we'll see how long that lasts. Yesterday, I was a little zony and a little cautious about my activity level. Dr. Ilika said to take it easy for a couple of days so I'm taking that to mean that I shouldn't move around a lot or lift anything. I'd rather take it way easy for the first 2 days and give myself a solid, healing head start than potentially pulling something and then having physical issues on Sunday, during the Commissioning. Just have too much going on this weekend to mess around with my health.

What I did do yesterday was build a little Amazon store, link in the sidebar (click the "Sni-pirate" picture). It not only has individual sections of the books and products that I find myself recommending all the time but the main page is what I've recently read, watched or listened too. A good mindless activity, with at least something to show for it when I was done.

And here's the hair today. Did nothing with it but run my hands through it. It's holding up pretty well.

Christmas cuteness

It may take a bit for this video to actually show up, if you can't watch it yet. Hang in there ... it's cute.

Success, it would seem

Surgery happened uneventfully; thanks be to God! Now, I'm home with a latte, recuperating.

Note the hair. I had to shower at 5:30AM and leave the house with it wet. Looks not too bad for a "slept on it wet" scenario, eh?