I planned on doing this yesterday morning (to coincide with the publish of TMQ, as always). I planned on then doing so yesterday evening, but I ended up getting sucked into a (very nice) reception here at church after the preschool Christmas program - which I have taped and will likely be posting somewhere for the benefit of all at some point. I was hoping that would be before Christmas, but my domain-sliding attempts have been waylaid so far. I then planned on doing this in the morning today, but the snooze button managed to conquer me before I even had a chance - and then Amanada basically shoved me out of bed so I would be able to take my shower with enough time to make it to Bible study this morning.
And so, here I am, finally getting around to updating.
So anyway, Tuesday Morning Quarterback was posted yesterday, with the annual who-dat “All-Unwanted All-Pros,” TMQ’s yearly list of excellent football gentlemen who have previously been discarded by other teams as washed up or inept, and now are commanding a fair share of the NFL’s spotlight - note that a large number of them are currently at Kansas City, where they’ve been silently building the Football Team to End All Football Teams. Here in Green Bay, they’re just hoping the Raiders won’t look like they did this week, and Denver will leave half their team at home - the Pack still has a good shot at the playoffs, but they are going to have to play well, and Minnesota is going to have to play not so well - they have a weaker sked from this point on, and they’re clearly a better team in more than one respect.
It’s cold in my office, and after I finish this, I have a sermon to work on for Christmas Day, an evangelism database project to attempt to finish, and a report to the seminary for my field work module I need to complete (I could theoretically work on that ASAP, but the other stuff is a little more pressing).
I just printed out my Christmas letters to my Adopt-a-Student congregations, who honestly love hearing from me all the time - and I’m very happy to let them know what’s going on in our lives. Those need to get mailed out tomorrow, I figure - and our cards as well. I received out box of Christmas presents for the family from Grandpa and Grandma Markel today - early speculation has begun as to just what is in the packages. Two are evident by size and shape, ut the rest are a complete mystery. I am hoping that they will be able to make the journey to meet us half-way in Chicago for Christmas, so they can be present for the opening of said presents.
The tooth has yet to assert itself as a serious problem. I’ve been told that these composite fillings can remain touchy for almost a month (sometimes two in extreme cases), especially when they are as extensive as this piece of work, and that I should be concerned about serious issues only when the pain has become spontaneous, intense, or throbbing, which is has not yet become. I can only hope that a problem will not ever manifest itself, but you never can tell with these things - and we just received our bill from the dentist for the remainder of the filling work I had done two weeks ago - I still owe them nearly $300. That’s a whole lot of money to us right now.
I received another Christmas card from a parishioner today - with a nice little gift inside of it - which is something that always makes me remarkably humble and thankful. I have a hard time understanding how people here could appreciate the work I do so much that they would feel a need to gift my family at Christmas, no matter how small or large the gift may be. It’s so neat that I have a hard time expressing how I feel when people do these sorts of things for us - and they seem to do so all the time. So neat - and I can’t wait to see the reaction when we announce this weekend that we are expecting child number two - it will be very wonderful to have such a support structure in place for us, and to be reassured just how much people love having us here. I am going to be honestly disappointed to leave this place in August.
The early returns on Return of the King is that it’s an absolutely amazing movie, and that everyone should be running out and seeing it right away. I plan on doing so, but we’re not sure if it’s good for Amanda to do so, especially in light of the reivews - it seems that there’s not a good place in the movie to take a break and walk around, which pregnant women are supposed to do at regular intervals - and she doesn’t really want to miss any of the movie, so we’ll have to see how to deal with that bit of a problem. But I really need to view this in the theater, it seems - I just don’t know how or when I’m going to be able to get out and see it.
The DDR pad is still on hold as we await fillin gup the bank account to make sure we have enough money to deal with the root canal I might need, as well as pay our medical insurance coming up in February. I am also hoping that tax-time will be friendly to us, mostly because we could really use to get back anything we’ve put in, and I’m pretty sure that we will, because of our additional deduction ability this year on account of Joshua (who woulda thought someone other then us would think he was worth a large sum of money?).
Have to leave for a visit. I’ll try to make time to come back (though there’s not much more to say) sometime today, or, failing that, tomorrow morning.