Wednesday 12 November 2008

Street sweeping and my ticket

I remembered this morning as I saw the parking warden drive away from ticketing my car, that I was still parked on the wrong side of the street, as wednesday mornings are street sweeping times. Grrrrr. Enjoy my $30 Madison.

Heat and teamwork

The house that I live in has three floors of a flat on each floor. And one thermostat..... Which means the the bottom floor is responsible for controlling the heat in the whole house. And if they leave doors or windows open, the heat compensates to make their floor the right temperature, which means that the rest of the house is burning up. And if it is too cold up here, that means that we have to have them turn up the heat which may mean that it is too hot downstairs. All of the heat comes from radiators and most, though not all of them have knobs to control each one but turning it off does not really mean that it will be less hot. The heat on the top floor used to not work at all. And so it appears that we are in a balancing act in which eleven people need to work together to make everyone comfortable, what a crazy balance. It does teach you to care about the other people though, like if I am hot, is the top floor warm enough to have the bottom floor turn down the heat a bit? And the poor guys downstairs who can't open a window without turning the rest of the house into a sauna (unless they figured out how to compensate on the thermostat). Teamwork indeed. We were praying one day in the basement and then the heat on the top floor actually worked after that. Those poor people must have been freezing. The part that is sad too is that the guy who has come over to hook up radiators and make some of them that were not working work, doesn't have much faith in the system, saying it is really fragile and quite the balancing act, brilliant. So teamwork it is.

We also have a mouse friend (probably a lot more than one, but let's try to stay positive.) It turns out that he likes to eat chocolate, flour, and powdered sugar the best. Ew. He sets off the humane traps without getting in, and doesn't seem to like the peanut butter that we baited the other traps with or doesn't set them off. And won't eat the poison either cause they tried that downstairs. I want to get that great expanding form stuff to shoot into holes that he may be finding. So mr. mouse, could you please just find somewhere else to live? And I would feel bad killing him, so another pickle of a situation that I wish I wasn't in.

Friday 7 November 2008

Indecision

Why am I so bad at deciding things? Especially if I there are many options and I can't do all of them. But in reality in order to do anything, you have to not do something. I was thinking about it today and a friend brought up a quote from Mother Theresa that I had mentioned last week. Funny when things you say come back to haunt you. So the story is the a man asked Mother Theresa to pray for him for clarity so that he would know what to do in his life. She told him that she would not. She doesn't pray for clarity but for trust instead. Trust that God will guide you along the way, trust that you have the facts when you need them, trust that all will be well and there is a happy ending to the story, or trust that things will work out. Really if you make a decision that is not one that you like later, mind changing is usually possible. And if you sit in the middle trying to hold on to all the options, nothing is possible. So you move forward in one direction. And then you also have to move forward in that direction, not thinking about the what could bes of the other ways but knowing that you would know if you needed to turn around. Trust indeed.

The beginning of November

So we made it through October without snow and last week was even warm, how lovely. And now this week and especially today has me wondering why I live in Wisconsin. Who's idea was that, really? Oh how I dread winter. So let's focus on the positives, like drinking hot chocolate and watching movies, ice skating, playing the snow, looking at the pretty whiteness on the trees. Might as well try and think of the good things cause there is nothing that I can do about it anyway, winter is coming indeed. Like the snow of a day that I hear is happening outside now.

There is going to be a prayer room at church that is exciting. It is a part of the Advent Conspiracy thing. http://www.adventconspiracy.org/ The basic premise is to worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all. Giving presents that are time with loved ones instead of expensive gifts, and then give some money away to building wells in Africa. So there will be a prayer room in which people can pray and be and get to experience God in a new way hopefully. It is exciting and will start at the end of November.