A glimpse of a different life...

Today and tomorrow are our bi-annual staff inservice days. Today during the day, I was at work by myself with the kids I usually watch. Everyone else was off-site for the first day of the inservice. After the kids' dads picked them up, though, I joined everyone else downtown at a 4 star hotel where we are spending the night. I've been to this hotel quite a few times over the years for early childhood conventions, and my sons have both been employed through here though mostly at the convention center next door. Still, it's different coming in with a suitcase and getting a room. Parking is $16 per night, I hope I'm reimbursed for that.

A nice room though I'm glad I'm not paying for it. Huge bed, 5 pillows, TV in an armoire, closet is a separate little room. The view is of the HVAC units though. Not impressive but hey, I'm not paying for it. After everyone else arrived, we carpooled out to a beautiful home on Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids where we were served a nice dinner and then taken out on a boat ride around the lake. This home was beautifully decorated and well-laid out. The boat ride was nice as well - the host pointed out who the owners of most of the homes surrounding the lake were. It was pretty much a "who's who" list of movers and shakers from the area. These homes look nice from the street - they look even more impressive from the lake. It sure is a different life than what I have.

But I'll keep what I have, thank you very much.

Returned to the hotel and we had a "reservation" for one of the fancy restaurant/bars at the top of the tower for drinks. Didn't really feel like caffeine this late so ordered a "virgin" colada (non-alcoholic.) The waiter looked at me funny - "you came all the way up here and that's all you're getting?" "Yep." When the drinks came back, I suspect that my drink and another "regular" colada were mixed up, thought I could taste alcohol in mine but the other person had drank most of it by the time I asked them so ? I didn't really feel like I had any kind of a "buzz" so guess it was probably ok. I don't drink by choice as well as it not being recommended for the medication that I take.

The view from this restaurant/bar was magnificent - 27th floor, looking over the Grand River and the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum. As the sun set the bridges lit up, very nice. If it had not been a cloudy evening I'm sure the sunset would have been great. And the July 4th fireworks are set off right across the river - too bad we were a few days early!

Returned to my room and was pleasantly surprised that I could access the complimentary Tower Club wireless - the regular wireless carried a $10 per day charge and I had NOT been planning to use it. So nice to be able to sit in bed and use the internet!

who'll give me a dollar for this box of "stuff"

Got up yesterday morning and decided to go ahead and go to an estate auction I'd seen listed in the paper. It wasn't too far away, and had camera equipment listed, Steve collects old cameras. Got to the auction and had a good chance to look around. The home was on a nearby lake, beautiful setting for an auction.

I always wonder about the people when I attend an estate auction. You can tell a lot about people by what "stuff" they leave behind... lots of craft items here as well as collectables, toys, furniture, boating stuff. I stayed at the auction about 2 hours or so, and bought a nice little vest pocket Kodak for Steve, plus a few boxes of "stuff" for a dollar apiece. The kind of "stuff" you pick through for a few good things then end up donating the rest to a thrift store. That reminds me, I forgot to bring the box of stuff I'd sorted into town...oh well. It'll get there.

Went back to Lowell from there and ended up doing some garage saling to kill time since I had an open house to go to at 2 p.m. Didn't buy much, just browsed. Then went to the open house and ended up sitting with someone I knew from church. We were talking, and I mentioned the auction I'd been to. To make a long story short, she knew the lady whose estate it was. She told me a lot more about her and her life, which made my day even more interesting. Small world!

Steve and Eric were out on their (1 week delayed) Father's Day kayaking outing while I spent my day. It was good for them to get out together. I worry about their relationship, they don't have a lot to bond them besides their father/son relationship. Different interests and outlook on life. I know they love each other, but sometimes they both have a hard time showing it. But yesterday was good for both of them.

Moo-ville

(This would have been written on Friday so I'm going to write it in the present tense even though I'm actually writing on Sunday...)

We took a motorcycle ride with the Riders Redeemed, our church's motorcycle group, tonight. Steve agreed to go and I'm glad he did. It was fun riding with church friends again. Our destination was Nashville (Michigan) - the home of the Mooville Creamery and really good ice cream, so we'd heard. Nice ride, the weather was better than earlier in the week, less humid and not quite so hot. We got to the creamery and enjoyed our ice cream as well as conversation with friends and new friends. Steve especially liked getting to know one guy from church, hope it develops into a friendship. Steve needs friends, especially godly friends like this guy.

And, wouldn't ya know it, there was a cache just 200 feet away! Of course I looked ahead of time. So went over to grab it, an easy find, while most were at the petting zoo area outside the creamery. Afterwards, some decided they needed to eat dinner since we'd had an early start and they hadn't eaten. Some others of us had two scoops just because we hadn't had dinner.... but we all went to a nearby restaurant and had pizza/sandwiches. Then a nice ride home, we were home by 10 p.m. and there was still some twilight. These long evenings are nice.

Hanging with my geo-friends

Yesterday, Mi-DNR celebrated their 90th birthday by having events in many of their state parks. Newaygo State Park, about 40 miles north of me, was no exception. They invited geocachers to be a part of the celebration, and we responded by having an event! About 20 new caches were put out in the park, there was a potluck (the DNR supplied the hot dogs) and there were lots of door prizes as well.

Several geo-friends invited me to ride up there with them. That was great because I didn't have to worry about putting "unnecessary miles" (as Steve declares all geocaching miles to be) on the cachemobile, plus I got to benefit from their more-high-tech-than-mine equipment in addition to my own. I met the carpool at 6:45 a.m. - bright and early after a full week of VBS! We started working our way north and hit nine caches before we got to the park. I didn't have coords for any of them, so just followed along and found about half of them first, after the others narrowed down the search area. We got to the park about 9:45 and stopped at the cache outside the entrance, where we met Macho Homemaker's sister and family, who came up for the event from Indiana. Then we stopped at the event, and were the first to register. After listening to the beginning of the geocaching 101 presentation, we went to find the closest nearby cache. We had some trouble, so the others went back to ask the owners for help (they were at the event.) Meanwhile, I figured out that it was underneath a parking post (hollowed out and placed on two pieces of rebar sticking up out of the ground.) When they came back, I was sitting on a bench with the cache. They had to figure out where I got it from!

From there, a group that quickly expanded to about 12 went on to look for caches on the west side of the park. The first was supposed to be as close to a urban cache as the hider would ever make. Well we got to a clearing and there was a light pole sitting there! Several looked in all the likely places without any luck, so I started expanding the search area and was the first to find the cache, which was hidden in a hollowed out rock. We went on to a couple of other caches, then took a longer hike to get to one only to find it was missing. If 12 cachers with a combined hide total approaching 10,000 can't find it, it's missing. (And yes, that was later confirmed.)

We went back for lunch and the prize drawing. Now there were plenty of prizes, so MAYBE I would finally break my streak of never winning a prize at a geocaching event. Nope. There were only about a dozen tickets left when the prizes were gone, and mine was still in there. My record is intact. Then we went back out to work on a couple of multi stage caches. We were finding some single stage caches along the way - one was suspended in a tree with a rope and pulley that were about 100 feet away. Another was a large PVC pipe with many other pipes sticking through it, you had to figure out where the coords were to the final. (had to figure out which cap came off...) Then back to the event for cake & ice cream, then out to tackle the east side of the park. Highlights included a cache that was full of hollow plastic carrots, only one of which held the log; a cache where the "log" was a log; and a birdhouse suspended in the air with a cable somewhat similar to the cache on the west side. I was able to find my 1700th cache while on this part of the search - it was the cache where the log was actually a log.

When we left the park there was one more cache to find. It was called "build a better..." and was a giant mousetrap with the "cheese" being the ammo can. When you open the ammo can, taps plays. How I don't know. But it does, I have video. Then on the way home it became a quest for my geofriends to set a new personal one day record of caches found. Which they did, their final counts were 30 and 31 respectively. Mine was 29 as I'd found some of the ones they stopped for. My one day record is 42 so knew I wouldn't reach that. Got home about 9 p.m. Long day but fun.

Today I have a rash on my ankle, which I don't think is poison ivy as I'm not usually susceptible to it and it doesn't itch or blister. I was wearing hiking socks and long pants so who knows. I do have a nice blister on my right big toe as well. Usually don't get one there.

Orange barrels, orange barrels, looking out at me...

Construction has reared its ugly head in Michigan. It doesn't seem to help as the roads are (mostly) still as bad as ever. The economy is so bad in our state that some roads are actually being turned back to gravel as there's not enough money in budgets to repave!

The main roads, though, are just being torn up. This impacts me in two places right now (for the most part) - I-196 at College Ave., where they are replacing the College Ave. bridge; and the off ramp from I-96 to Fulton. The first place isn't usually too bad going in, there's just some lane shifting but not usually any backups. Well, yesterday that wasn't the case, there was one lane blocked off so all the traffic had to shift. Most people, of course, see the lane closed ahead sign and get right over. There are those, however, that think they own the road and go just as far as they can in the "to-be-closed" lane and then expect people to let them merge in.

Many people (myself sometimes included when it seems safe to do so) ride both lanes in an attempt to block said drivers from cutting in line. It usually doesn't work well. Yesterday was sweet, though -- a big truck decided to ride both lanes. That sure stopped the cutters! Made the long wait almost worth it.

Leaving work, I decided to take Fulton all the way through. The disadvantage of this is going through downtown, and overall slower speeds. But - you avoid the detour of going on the Beltline to get to Fulton as you can't take the off ramp right now. When I took the Beltline detour on Tuesday, it was a long wait!

I sure wish construction season was done! But when you look at driving on icy roads, I guess I'll take construction any time over that.

My weekend

My weekend was supposed to be really really packed. It was just really packed. Friday night, Steve and I went to an Eagle Court of Honor for a young man in the troop, one of the last of those scouts who were active when Scott and Eric were working on their Eagle projects. It was very lightly attended, I don't think it was a reflection on the young man but rather the busyness of the day. I hope so anyway.

After the COH we went over to Steve's dad's. Dad C. is still pretty confused about the whole digital switch thing. He has DirecTV, but no local channels, so we got him a converter box. Steve hooked it up and showed Dad how to use it. Yesterday, Dad didn't watch any TV because he said it wasn't working. He had just forgotten which buttons to push when and which remote to use. Thankfully, this is only a temporary situation as we've arranged for him to switch to DISH, with local channels included.

On Saturday, we were supposed to ride with the Gold Wing group to the Gizzard Festival in Potterville. Rain decided otherwise for us. Not sure if the group still went after all, but we didn't really want to ride in rain. So we stayed home and got some things done.

VBS set up (VBS is this coming week in the evenings) was at 8 p.m. on Saturday. Why so late? Well, there was a wedding on Saturday at the church. Now why the bride and groom didn't want a crocodile/swamp theme is beyond comprehension. Isn't that every bride's dream?
Anyway, brought all the stuff I'd prepared for the preschoolers into the church, then helped create a swamp outside the sanctuary. Must have been interesting coming into church this morning for those unaware...

Today the plan was to go with the BMW group to the vintage motorcycle show at the Gilmore car museum. After much prayerful consideration, I decided to go with Steve rather than go to church this morning. I'll be spending much more time at church this week than usual, and thought this would help ease that in Steve's mind anyway. The breakfast meeting before the ride went pretty well, other than it being out in the main part of the restaurant so the noise level was pretty high. Turns out one of the members and I know each other from geocaching! It's a small world, isn't it? Anyway, the ride went well. We made a rest stop in Lowell, of all places - at 11:30 a.m. I probably could have brought my riding gear to church, gone to the rest stop, then ridden the rest of the way AND have gone to church. Can't be helped now.

The BMW group apparently, when riding to a destination like this, does not ride back together. So we were able to leave when we wanted to, and stopped in Hastings at the Big Boy on the way home.

Made for a nice day. VBS starts tomorrow, it will be a busy week!

Gilda's Quest

I'd been waiting for it for a while now. Fellow geocachers who are also members of Gilda's Club (where I work) had asked for permission and had placed a geocache on the clubhouse grounds. I knew it had been submitted. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't approved and published until Saturday morning. I say unfortunately because the cache is only open during the week when the clubhouse is open. So no searching until today...

I had thought about leaving for work early since I had to be there in the morning today. It was pouring rain this morning, though, so there went that theory. By lunchtime, though, the rain had stopped so I spent my lunch break out there looking. No luck.

Went back after I got off work. Still no luck. The same people that had also been looking with me at lunchtime were back, and they finally gave up. A bit later, I went inside and begged my boss for any little snippets of information that she could give me. She had walked with the cache placers and, though she is not a cacher, knew where every stage was placed.

All she would tell me was that it was on a branch. Well we'd searched every branch we could but I went back and did it again. No luck. Was headed back towards the clubhouse when I saw her again. She then told me the general location of the first stage (which was way off from the posted coords) and I was able to find the first stage and really get started. This was after about an hour and a half of searching between lunch and then. The coords at the first stage led me to the OTHER side of where I'd previously been searching, and after a bit of a search I found the container with the next coords. Meanwhile, a young couple showed up looking where I'd been looking before (the posted coords.) I filled them in on what I now knew and they helped me look for stage 2, though I'm the one that finally found it.

On we went to stage 3. This led us to the rock wall between the driveway and the staff parking lot. We were doing a lot of searching and apparently amusing more than a few people that reported that there were three people crawling around the rock wall... my boss was among those who came out, thankfully, and nudged me in the right direction to find the 3rd stage. I shared my new knowledge with the other couple, and the guy was the one who found stage 3. We all went on to stage 4. I knew what the container looked like (remember I'd seen it at a staff meeting a few weeks ago) so once I saw the general location, it was only a matter of time before I looked in the right bush and found the cache. First to find! (though I shared the honors with the other cachers with me.) Can't tell you how many times I've probably walked right past it since it's been hidden....

Close to two hours spent on this tonight, but it was worth it. How could I -not- get the FTF on a cache this close to me?

Two generations of stubbornness Part 2 (aka Eric's baptismal weekend)

My previous post dealt with my being in the middle between Eric and Steve who didn't want to talk directly with each other about Eric's baptism. I had decided not to bring it up any more. Eric went to a friend's house on Saturday afternoon, planning to go to the church from there. So about 5:15, as I folded the last load of laundry, Steve came in from the garage.

"What is Eric doing tonight?" They're having a potluck dinner for him at their fellowship hall, then he goes to the church and gives his testimony. "Does he want me there?" I told him (Steve) how I felt about being in the middle of this. I said I'm planning to go change and leave for the potluck. Left him to decide whether or not he wanted to go. After a couple of changes of mind back and forth, he finally decided to go. I think Eric was glad to see us both, but what an unnecessary ordeal between the two of them...

The potluck dinner was wonderful. Good food, and great knowing that Eric has a church family that cares for him so much. We sat with him at a table mostly full of other young men, some from his church and some that had come from a church near Detroit for the weekend. Then to the church. Eric sat up front, in the first pew, with a microphone in front of him. The minister asked questions and Eric answered them beautiful. A blessing for me to hear what I knew was in his heart, especially his description of the spiritual journey that he took to get to where he is now. It was even more of a struggle for him than I realized. And it was good for Steve to hear that as well. If Steve could just let go and let God handle things he would have so much more peace with himself and with others. In God's time. We did have a good discussion on the way home about spiritual things.

Sunday was busy! I went to my church, First Baptist, for my morning adult Sunday School class. We're studying Heaven and I don't want to miss if I can help it! Then our worship service. Children's Sunday School is out for the summer, there is a summer program so us teachers get the summer off. So home I went to pick up Steve. We went back to Eric's church in time to share lunch with them, then upstairs to the service. Definitely a contrast for me going from the multimedia, full music worship at First Baptist to the simpler, acapella worship at the Apostolic Church. The sermon was about faith. I think God inspired that for a reason.

The baptism was at the end of the service. Eric gave a short "Q&A" testimony, then was washed in the waters of baptism and became a new creature in Christ. Praise the Lord! After he changed and came back out, the minister performed the "laying on of hands" and greeted him with a holy kiss. Then the entire congregation came forward to greet him (and us, as we were the first to greet him and then were asked to stay up there with him.)

The Apostolic Christian Church is solidly a Bible-believing church. One of the ladies, on one of my earlier visits, described it as "Baptist doctrines with Mennonite traditions." To acquaint you with some of these traditions...

Eric wears a suit to church, as do all the men. (He said during his testimony that that was the one tradition he had trouble with as he doesn't like to dress up....brought a smile to my and most faces!) The women dress in dresses or skirts, no jewelry, hair long but put up, and a prayer covering on their heads. The men and women sit separately, though Steve and I were allowed to sit together. There are no paid ministers, though there are brothers designated as such. There is no instrumental music during the service, it is all acapella. Singing, then a reading from the Old Testament, then prayer and song, then a reading from the New Testament and a sermon. The readings and sermon are God-led, not preplanned. Brothers and sisters (members) greet each other with a Holy Kiss. Eric is now discouraged from serving in the military (though if drafted he would serve as a non-combatant) and asked to affirm rather than swear oaths. He also will not be "dating" rather getting to know young women through group activities. Some differences to be sure, but nothing that is not Biblically sound. To make this choice, especially when he wasn't raised in this church, takes a giant step of faith. I'm proud of him for standing up for what he believes in.

Stubbornness reborn in the next generation

How can two people who share the same genes (ok half of them anyway) be so different and yet so alike?

Eric is being baptized on Sunday at his church. Steve, as my faithful few readers probably realize, does not at this time share in the faith that Eric (and I) embrace. I am rejoicing that Eric is taking this important step in faith!

Here's the situation as I see it: Eric would like to have Steve come, but would like his dad to ask Eric about the plans and would like Dad to tell him that he WANTS to be there, not out of some perceived obligation of parenthood. Steve would like to be there but he wants Eric to ask him himself.

I've tried to be a bit of a go-between, but it's just not working. I asked Steve on the phone this afternoon if he was going, and it was back to the "Does he want me there?" conversation. I suggested he ask Eric himself if Eric did want him there. He still wants me to ask Eric that question myself.

Eric does want him there but doesn't want to put him in a situation where he might feel uncomfortable, knowing how his dad feels about religion and church.

I think Steve is willing to be there because this is important in Eric's life.

I'm in the middle, trying to bring the two ends together. At this point, though, I'm just going to back out of it. They both know I think they (either or preferably both) should instigate the conversation with the other. Whether either of them will do anything about it remains to be seen.

They are so alike in their stubbornness...

Back to eBay

Today was my first day of "non-working" with my new schedule. A bit different than a day off as I know that this is the regular schedule. So, as promised, I started working on eBay stuff again, for the first time in a year and a half.

First things first, deciding what to list. Picked out a variety of stuff, including some vintage jewelry, a Mrs. Beasley doll, a set of Sherlock Holmes books, a set of Star Wars puzzles, a microphone, and a couple of child care director polo shirts. Step 2 is to get some pictures of those items. That took most of the rest of the morning to take the pictures then edit them.

After a lunch break that stretched out for a while, I started writing the listings. I had downloaded Turbo Lister to the netbook, so I could work upstairs instead of in the basement. I started with the Mrs. Beasley doll. Took a bit to get going, forgot just how much you needed to have to write a good listing.

Eric finally got up and going while I was working on the doll listing, and he persuaded me to go over to the high school and play tennis with him. I hadn't played tennis in over 30 years. It was "interesting" to say the least. I was remembering rules and such by the end of the time, but skill was coming along much more slowly! It was good to spend some time with Eric anyway.

Back home. Finally got eight listings completed, then uploaded them to eBay and now we'll see how it goes. I still have the jewelry to write listings for so maybe I'll try to get a few more listings written tomorrow morning before work.

Things I miss now that I'm getting older...

Yesterday was graduation Sunday at church. Can't believe it's already been six years since Scott graduated, and four for Eric. These graduates (some of them anyway) were in my first Sunday School class of first graders, that would have been in about 1997 or 98. Makes me feel old. Our church honors our high school graduates in the morning service, then the actual graduation at the high school is that afternoon.

But all I have to do is look at myself and realize, yep, I -am- getting old! I really don't feel that old but reality tells me that I have just over a year until I hit the big 5-0.

Things I miss now that I'm older:

my auburn hair (the "redhed" part!) - I am getting more and more gray strands mixed in. I tried dyeing it once, had a reaction to the dye and decided what will be, will be.

my nice smooth hands. This sounds silly, but I look down at the tops of my hands now and they look like my Grandma's did. Hand lotion helps, I use it often, but I just don't have that smooth elastic skin that I did when I was younger.

my 20-20 vision. Bifocals aren't fun. And I really do need the close-up part now. 'Nuff said there.

perkier "ta-ta's". Laugh again. On the night of our anniversary, I put on the nightgown I wore on my honeymoon, which had a seam (then) right below them. That seam now hits smack dab in the middle with plenty below. And it's not a weight thing, just gravity. That and nursing two kids for a year each will do it.

The pre-babies body as a whole. It wasn't fantastic, but I'd trade what I have now for that in a heartbeat. I know it's a matter of willpower, but the youngest baby is almost 22. Don't think it's gonna happen.

and most of all, being with my kids when they were kids. They have both grown up to be wonderful young men, but I miss my little boys sometimes. At least in my job I can sort of relive that time, but of course it's not just the same.

BUT - I have the wisdom that comes with age and experience. And I wouldn't trade that for anything above. Well, maybe the part about missing my little boys. But if there is a way to be young again WITH all that wisdom, well let's talk. But anyone who has figured that out has to be richer than Bill Gates!

After reading this over, I think my mother will laugh when she reads this herself...