My Brain Twin and I Share the Crown for Queen of Procrastinators

And to be perfectly honest I am the evil twin.

Without a doubt.

I could show you evidence but then I'd have to move out of the country and change my name. ;)

Clearly I am just a *tad* behind on the Gospel of John posts and I also have a couple of comments on the GoJ posts I've already made to reply to. But it's been a super crazy month. We've had people at work go on vacation which is good for them and good for my bank account but has me working either really early hours or really late hours and leaves very little time for blogging.

We also upgraded the system we use to produce our classified section (I work at a newspaper in case anyone missed that factoid) by a whole lot. It's beautiful. I may compose odes to the new system.

I mean it's really bad when the representative for Brainworks (the system we use) didn't believe that we weren't using a third party program between Brainworks and our Quark because the version we had was so old he didn't recognize the interface.

*faceplants into desk for a million years*

We also upgraded Quark. From Quark 4 to Quark 9.

I know we can all count and see how many versions there were between those two things.

We were working on Ancient Mac's.

ANCIENT.

Basically this:

Only we couldn't get on the internet anymore. Or access some of our (rather necessary) servers. Because ANCIENT.

We have been promised the opportunity to Office Space one of these bastards.

For anyone unfamiliar with Office Space (watch it it is hilarious....) here's what I mean. There is some mild (in my opinion) swearing for those who are sensitive to that or, you know, have kids.





Please do not underestimate how badly we want to do that.

ANYWAY.

With the two weeks it took to do the upgrade, install and training and vacations (none of them mine), I've just not had the energy or the time to blog.

And then I spent the last week not sleeping well due to nightmares. It's funny how you can think that you're completely over something and then your subconscious just laughs at you.

So I've just been taking care of myself.

Which mostly means lots of reading (let me tell you about the Stormlight Archive series one day. Mostly it will be a lot of squeeing and shaking you until you buy the books) and watching the Lord of the Rings in my free time. Basically I watched both Hobbit movies (currently released) and all three of the Lord of the Rings movies (extended edition on all where possible) in two days.

Gotta love three day weekends.

Which might explain why, when I performed a minor household repair with no input or assistance I did this:

Let's all just ignore how things actually turned out for Boromir and Gondor, okay?

Yes. Excellent.

So, in conclusion, I know I suck but I've accepted this fact. At least in this case I sucked for reasons of personal sanity maintenance.

I plan, inshallah, to start the posts up again this weekend and just do one post a week. I think it's a schedule with less pressure (all personally given) that I can keep up.

Day 7: 1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim

I had another plan for today's post, but then Heather showed me this video.

It's beautifully done, but the reason behind it, the message of what it's trying to show people is happening, is terrible.

Everyone should watch it because it drove me to tears.

Video: And Now You Can See What A Dork I Am

I knew I'd forget things in the video. Apparently they have two priests at the church, and this time it was the younger one. He's a little less heavy on the incense. :)

Anyhow. Things one must adjust to if going to an Orthodox Church from, well, pretty much anywhere else: When you get there, assuming you get there at the time stated in the bulletin, you will think that you're late. There's a pre-Divine Liturgy service that starts an hour before, called Orthos (or Matins). In my limited understanding, it's the preparation for the Divine Liturgy. So yes, you will be walking in on a service 'in progress'. It's okay. People walk around the church more than anywhere else I've ever been. They are constantly walking up to icons and lighting candles. You just have to get used to it. Also, people come 'late'. No one minds.

Personal stuff. Like I said, everyone was super nice! It was so lovely and warm and happy! One couple brought their baby who was, I'm guessing, maybe a few months old. Towards the end of the service she got fussy and cried a little. There was *no* shushing and dirty looks like 'shuffle the kid out!'. The only comment I heard was, 'Isn't that a lovely sound to hear!' *makes gushy faces*

The service is a mix of Greek and English. The hymns are sung in Greek, but the hymnal has the words in both languages so you can follow along. They also use a book of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with English and Greek. As a matter of fact, here's the book:



Anyway. When I say that the service is split, I mean that sometimes it's Greek one sentence and English the next. Like, during the Petitions. One will be in Greek, along with the response, and the next will be in English. And there are some things, like the Creed and the Our Father, which are said twice. Once in Greek and then again in English. But the homily is only in English.

Also, while Communion was going on, I was looking around at the icons, trying to figure out who was who. I figured out most of them, but, here's the awesome surprise:



This is a picture of the iconostasis of the church from their website. From left to right we have, by my figuring, St. Michael the Archangel, the Last Supper, the Virgin Mary and the Child Christ, the Annunciation (on the doors), Christ, St. John the Forerunner, and, in the last icon on the right....*drum roll* St. Raphael the Archangel! My thrill is because *no one* ever uses Raphael! It's always Michael and Gabriel that get the love! And since Raphael is my patron saint...*grin* I was *so happy* to see him up there!

Hmmm...the grandma's, like I said, abducted me and made me go to coffee hour. They even fed me, though I turned down the baklava. They also managed to find out, in about five seconds, that I am neither married nor in a relationship. I have no idea how, or why this was important information. Even though I kept saying, at first, that I was just visiting, and I made a point of explaining that I was neither Greek nor Orthodox, they insisted on referring to me as the 'new parishioner'. So I eventually just gave up and went with it. *shrug* I also have my 'official' table for coffee hour, with them, and must be back next week.

On the non-church related front, I was in the parking lot at the mall around 4:30 this afternoon, talking with a friend of mine after a movie. We could see there was a storm way off in the distance, but it was clear where we were. And then, all of a sudden, there was the electrical poppoppoppop like light bulbs and electronics blowing, and then the freaking *ground* shook as lightning shot over our heads! It set off car alarms, I'm not even kidding. And that's when we decided we were done talking. :)

This is the second time I've been close to a lightning strike. The last time was years ago. I was weeding, and a storm was coming up, but I just wanted to finish what I was doing. So I kept on weeding and weeding until *boom* when the flash and the thunder come at the same time, you're *under* the lightning, boys and girls. It hit in the empty lot across the street, and I *still* felt like I'd stuck my finger in a socket. My hair stood up, I'm not even kidding. And that's when I figured the weeding was done for the moment. :)

The Kinder Report - Day One

So, sorry, this is almost a week later, but *things* intruded.

So:

Preparation video, because I'm addicted to this blogging thing.

This is a picture of the class room set up, before the kids arrived.

I went to the 7:30 Mass, as I said I would. It's...very early. Smaller, quieter, there's no music, so all the hymns are simply spoken. I've never seen the priest who celebrated the early Mass before, so I'm not certain who he is. *sheepish grin* I liked it though.

Got over to the Parish Life Center around 8:15, and proceeded to run around like a nugget getting the books and folders together, relabeling a few because we 'lost' some kids, and gained some more, so the class size is officially 15. We didn't have enough books for everyone, but the DRE is supposed to get us the rest, so we didn't pass out the books on the first day of class.

We went over the general idea of the class, sort of a 'why are we here' thing, went around the room and made introductions, and then we went through the Our Father. A couple of the kids, of course, already knew it, but we read it as a class, and then we had them make their name tags and decorate them however they wanted.

It was funny, the boys and I got into a discussion over Transformers (the girls were taking a *long* time to finish decorating theirs) and one of the boys was having trouble getting his to stand up, so I went over to make the crease better - and I ripped the corner off accidentally! *hangs head in shame* But everyone thought it was pretty funny... :)

We finished this, then went over the Hail Mary, and oh! before all this, we started with the Sign of the Cross, because that's a prayer as well.

Then, we went through the Ten Commandments, going around the room and having each kid read one, and then we asked what they all thought it meant. Now, I forgot to mention that while 15 kids are signed up for the class, only 8 actually showed - 6 boys and 2 girls. When we got to the last two Commandments, we just asked who wanted to read them and picked a hand.

'Adultery' is always fun...if they were my *actual* children, I'd tell them exactly what it meant, but because they're not, Deb we trying to explain without *explaining*, and was saying how it meant that you had to stay married to the person you married, just them, and then, of course, there was the one boy whose parents were divorced and his mom remarried, so she had to tell him that was okay. And 'coveting' - got explained as being jealous of other peoples stuff.

We had snack time (oatmeal raisin cookies) and potty breaks, and then we did the 'letters to Jesus' portion, and the 'vocab' box, which we just did as an example of what we'd be doing at the beginning of the classes. And then, we got to release the hounds! Their parents came and took them away! :)

Related to kids, but not class, we were talking at work, and I mentioned the whole, not gonna tell my kids about Santa, and was looked at as though I had two heads. Then, in the same conversation, one of the mothers was saying something about her oldest daughter saying that she'd be okay if they 'just' got her a PS3 and laptop. 'Just' those. And she was saying how whatever she got, if she didn't get the oldest those things, then it 'wouldn't be fair' in the mind of her daughter. To which I replied that "'Fair' is whatever you say it is. You're the mother, she's the kid." To which I got laughs, and someone else said, 'Amber's kids'll be perfect, *or else*!' And I laughed, but, uh, since when are the kids supposed to make the rules in the parent/child dynamic? Did I miss that memo?

Right. Bonus Itteh Bitteh Kitteh:

Not my kitten, but the friend I was dog/cat/house sitting for.

Woodpeckers and Grasshoppers

Okay, this is not the 'post of content' that I was thinking about making, but I've got a bunch of nature pics, so you get a nature post.

These were taken on Wednesday, when I was cleaning bad tomatoes out of the garden I came across this big grasshopper. My dad called him a 'looger', but I can't find any such thing though the all knowing Google.

Saturday he was hanging out on our pool cage.

And today he was on one of the sunflower leaves.

Woodpeckers, of the juvenile variety. They're two of them, but I admit they're kind of hard to see. The video below *point* is my attempt to make sure you can see them. On the right, you can see one of them moving.

They're nest was in this big old dead tree. They've just started flying out and about.

Hello, My Name is Amber, and...

*cough* FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOM! *cackles like mad* And now we get to wait and see what the reaction is from the rest of the family, tomorrow morning.

So, um, please ignore the pjs and, you know, general frumpiness of my self.

also, nothing to do with the video, but, Supernatural season finale - so much awesome. So much. Where's my season five already?! And I'm gonna see Angels & Demons on Sunday. Hello Ewan McGregor...I've missed you...

Snoodism