Growing up in the salvation Army, I started learning how to play a brass instrument around the same time I learned to walk. And I fell in love with it. My entire history of playing euphonium up until my mid 20s was in a brass band.
So February continues to show its nastiness. We’ve had some not terribly significant snow but enough to be a pain in the derrière for me. And then this latest batch was followed by some -20 weather to make sure everything was frozen solid, just so February could finish being a pain by kicking me in the teeth.
Touché!
I’m tired of being told that someone’s mother’s aunt’s cousin stopped eating pork and now she is running marathons and no longer needs a wheelchair, so therefore I should try that.
The guy who was my pastor for the longest period of time in my life has died. It was a few weeks ago now but it’s taken me this long I guess to process some things. There have been a few occasions lately that have really brought him heavily to mind; especially when we were listening to some guitar music the other night. He was such a great guitar player and very diverse in his musical interests.
Ups and downs, pluses and minuses, good things and not so easy things; that’s life in a nutshell. 2019 was full of great meals, awesome movies, Wonderful new music, really nice books, and good times with my family. It was also full of hard stuff; sickness, hospital visits, ambulance rides, deaths in the street community, exhaustion at work for Erinn, and the uncertainty of life around every corner.
I guess I’m feeling Christmas in the air much earlier this year. I don’t know if it’s because we’ve already had our first snowstorm, or the Christmas displays are up early this year, or we’ve got our Oxford family batch of Christmas wine made, or the Santa Claus parade was yesterday and as a family we hunkered down and watched our first Christmas movie together while eating the festive special, or we have our Christmas lights up outside (not on yet).
Whatever it is, I’m feeling kind of Christmasy.
You’d think that people living in poverty wouldn’t have much to be thankful for.
But you’d be wrong.
Oh so very wrong.
I’m listening to George Michael.
Go ahead and judge me if you must.
I’d do the same to you.
Perhaps my favourite part of the camp is the lake. I so love swimming in lake water. There’s truly nothing else like it in my opinion. I would go each and every afternoon from the moment the swimming area opened until almost the time we were kicked out by the lifeguards. During the past few years while my body was giving out, some of my friends and the camp staff would haul me down to the water and literally throw me in, and I would simply float around and take in the serenity of it all.
But now that I am in this wheelchair I seem to no longer have a way to get in and out of the water.
This whole ordeal has led me to think about stuff.
(What else is new?)
We’ve been singing a song at church.
“You’re a good, good father,
that’s who you are,
And I am loved by you,
That’s who I am.“
