Resurrection

My poor poor little neglected blog!

Instead of saying that I have been too busy to write, I choose to say that I’ve been on blog sabbatical for the past 6 months. Now I’m rested and ready to write. (It’s not completely true, but my life is calming down enough that I can spend some time on personal improvement and enjoyment.) As London Tipton says “yeah me!”

So let’s see what’s been going on in my life while I’ve been on sabbatical:

I’ve been working on a committee exploring the option of a county-wide metropolitan park district. (We met almost weekly for most of that time.) Unfortunately, although it is a good idea, the economy is such that it not the right time. (I think we’re either 3 year too early or too late.) There is still some serious interest to pursuing a North County MPD and so we’ll see where it goes from here.

I have also been part of a citizens group who opposing the Bonneville Power Administration BPA’s proposed new substation and new high voltage power lines. They want to build the 10-15 acre substation right around the corner from my house and the biggest power lines in the industry running from it across Kelso / Lexington down to Vancouver / Portland. So far we’ve been somewhat successful, they are looking to move it to a less populated area. However, I am still very concerned about the exposure to the high EMF levels and the risk of cancer. The citizens group would like to have them bury the lines or shield them better. There is a public meeting in Castle Rock on August 30th.

I am also the co-chair of the Finance Counsel for my parish. Unfortunately, we have not had an active Parish/Pastoral and Finance Counsels for the last 5-6 years. Which means there hasn’t been a working budget in all that time for our parish and our sister parish. It was a very, very difficult process, and after many, many difficult meetings we were able to create a balanced budget. Unfortunately, in order to do that we had to slash staff levels. That was such a horrible experience!! I felt sick for weeks!!! The one silver lining to come from this was that we were able to make sure that our parish was able to at least have our own clerical staff – even if it’s not full time.

In February, I was appointed to the County’s Parks Board for a 6 year term. I’m very excited to be on the committee! It is something I applied for 5 years ago, but they didn’t have any positions open for the North County area where I live. They finally did and now I’m able to participate. (Unfortunately, the park’s board meetings are on the same night as my bunco group. I was pretty bummed to give up bunco. They are a very fun group of women and I really enjoyed it.) I came on at a very fortuitous time. We have been working on our 20 year strategic plan for the county’s parks system. (Not sure we will have a parks system in next year - let alone in 20 years, if we don’t get a dedicated funding stream. Currently, the county is down to only ONE parks ranger to do all the maintenance and upkeep for all the 17 parks properties. They call him the Lone Ranger.) Hopefully, with a comprehensive strategic plan in place, they will be able to apply for grants too keep the department open.

My kids and I are actively fundraising so that we can go on pilgrimage to the 2011 World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain with our church youth group. Due to a number of factors, our group got a late start on fundraising, so I’m not sure we’ll get enough money. We’re sure making a valiant effort!! So far, we’ve sold raffle tickets to a gorgeous quilt, ran a rummage sale and rented the parking lot for KHS graduation, did a plant sale, held car washes and managed a raspberry patch. W.

Bipolar Summer – can’t decide if its going to be hot or cold. The highs are either in upper 60's or in the upper 90's. Don't like the extremes. Just give me 75 degrees. It's perfect.

Well, off to work

Withdrawals

It seems that I am suffering severe computer related withdrawals. It is very hard to carve time in my schedule right now to get on the internet and write. I keep meaning to and remember and such great ideas, while I'm in my car or at work or at a game...but can't do anything about it until I have time at home. (My poor Facebook account is very neglected as well.) Yes, I'm developing quite a serious case of "Internet Guilt." (kind of like a mild case of Catholic guilt, but more high tech.) Big sigh!!!!


I did do a little updating with my site. Pruned some blogs (sorry Bella) that haven't been posting in a while and added a couple of my new and old faves... still can't load one of my all time favorites... O'Malley's on the Web. He's way too "techy" for me and has some funky interface that won't let me link with him. Another sigh.... You just wait O'Malley! I'll get you and your little dog too.... (evil chess cackle wafting in the background)


I promise I'll have to tell you about a few of the Summer Solistice Full Moon craziness that have shown up recently. (There was a guy who was arrested for burglary / stolen car due to his distinctive and excessive colonge and another guy who was driving backwards the wrong way on the interstate for several miles laughing himself silly all the while. - I haven't seen him yet because he refused to get dressed and wouldn't come to court.) These are both stories that need to be highlighted. Oh and the funniest story I've experienced ever in court....it revolves around industrious indignant cops, ribbed condoms, illegal drugs and non industry approved containers. :) Totally cracks me up!!! That one needs it's own entry cuz it's just too darn funny!!!

I've also been getting a lot of funny, crazy phone calls as well this week. This isn't an example of those, but will give you a flavor of the my "normal" phone calls.
I usually answer the main phone line, "Superior Court Administration. This is Alice. How may I help you?"
On Friday, I had three calls right in a row that replied to me "Hi. Is this Nancy speaking?"
"No, this is Alice. May I help you?"
After the 3rd call in less than 4 minutes, my coworker turned to me stared in amazement and shook her head. I laughed. What can you do?



In my future blogs, I also want to make sure I share my experiences at the wonderful parish mission we had this past week. I learned so much about my faith and have been filled with a lot of peace. Thanks to Father Tony Judge and Father John Kuehner and the Redemptionist Order of priests, I was pleasantly surprised attending my first Catholic "holy roller" revival. It was very uplifting and I learned that one of my childhood goals was met.... (Hurray! one more thing to check off my bucket list.)

Well, now that I've left you some teasers and me some inspiration, I think I'll turn in.

Moral Delimma

For his birthday, my son got to "redo" his room which hadn't been updated since he was 3. The jungle theme was getting a little old and we were both ready for a change.

So what's my moral delimma you might ask? Well, it's simple and yet so complicated.

We have a fairly old fashioned priest. I guess one of the old pre-Vatican II conventions was to have 'annual house blessings' in January. (Holy Family Sunday was designated "the" Sunday to do that.) This entails, blessed chalk being given to the parishioners and man of the house would write on the outside of their house above the front door the "Roman code" with the current new year. This is supposed to bless your house and keep it for another year....yada yada yada - You get the picture.

(Don't strike me down Lord for being somewhat irreverent and not going into the detail required to do this wonderfully holy pronouncement of our faith justice. But I had never heard of this until this priest revived this tradition, so I'm not as hip on the verbiage and full meaning of all the symbolism behind it.)
After some wild arm gesticulations in the sign of the cross and couple quick Hail Mary's, I'm back.

Anywhooo.....

So a couple years ago, they ran out of white chalk and so the priest blessed a bunch of colored chalk. When it came time to pick up our family's piece of chalk, C, the little "man of my house" decided that red chalk would be really cool. (I thought that would be ok since we have a red brick front.) Well, before I could even get my coat off after we got home, C had run into his room and in about 8 or 9 different places had wrote "BLESS" all over his walls with this holy chalk. (He was so excited about the whole concept and being entrusted with "the holy chalk", that he forgot that the priest said it was supposed to go outside and above the front door.)

So I've been in a moral quandry ever since.... How do you remove it without going to hell?

And so for the last 2 years "BLESS" has covered every wall in his room in several obvious locations, while I struggled with the holy ramifications. (By now the red has seeped into the wall paint and I have to deal with it because I need to prepare the walls to paint.) I finally figured out what to do. - Yes I had an epiphany of sorts! It was so simple and yet has elegant grace that matches the symbolism needed for this quandry.

You ask....How do you remove holy writing from your son's walls? With Holy Water of Course!!

Yes! I did. I got some holy water from church and used it to wash C's walls where the red blesses were written. It looks great and is still holier than thou's room.