New Rector starts tomorrow morning

And we have a SHE!  I’m kind of excited to finally get a new rector in place so we can start the next chapter of our parish life with some degree of stability and forward-looking-ness, and yes I know that isn’t a word, but you get the idea!

But this is our first female rector, so it’s especially interesting, and corner turning.  Stay tuned!

Greyhound Rescue Dog?

I’ve been reading up a little on retired racing greyhounds.  My city has an active rescue group, and they do meet and greets at a local pet store periodically….foster families and the dogs, I presume?  I’m going to one this Saturday, I think.

I would ordinarily lean toward a smaller dog…medium sized, probably not toy.  But what I read about greyhounds surprised me!  More than one site identified them as 40 mph couch potatoes.  Couch potatoes!  Who’d a thunk it!  We’re sort of couch potatoes.  Low shedding, little doggy odor, even when wet.  Don’t bark much.  Cuddles with pillows and whatnot.  I don’t know…I may have found my doggie type???

Anyone with experience or stories to share?  I’d love to hear them.  Stepson’s wedding is in mid-June, and then the dog adoption process can get underway – no further travel plans for the foreseeable future.  The kids are getting so excited about getting a dog again.  I am too!

Which Bible translation for you?

Check this compare-n-contrast of your favorite Bible translations.

Labeling update

(like you’d even care?)

But I’m doing it, slowly but baby-step by baby-step surely.  I’m organizing my paper tiger.  That labeler gimmick might just have something going for it!  I’ve gone through one label cartridge and one set of batteries (okay, they were partly used, and not alkaline) and still going strong.  A small, but significant victory for this perennial procrastinator to mark and rejoice in.  Yippee!!!

(updated book pages at site)

I’ve updated my books I’m reading and books I recommend pages, accessible from the top of the page at my website, if you’re following along by email or RSS and are interested.  I’m especially interested in two new books I’ve picked up, for vastly different reasons:  that classic time-management tome, Getting Things Done and a 30-day devotional selected from the writings of one of my favorite saints, Therese of Lisieux.  Now, if someone will just tell me how to pronounce Lisieux, so I can speak aloud of her, and not just in writing?  <smile>

A more meaningful Christmas

Feeling discombobulated?

Fly on in to Milwaukee Mitchell Airport!  They’ve got you covered!

(see feature article from the Journel/Sentinel here) http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/29452504.html

Recombobulation Area

Thank you goes out to Satchel Pooch’s blog for bringing it to my attention!!

http://highcallingblogs.com/satchelpooch/

Happy (stress-free!) holidays being wished your way!

Twitter? Not sure I get the concept?

Of course, I’m not letting that hold me back from getting a twitter account. (see the right sidebar at the website.) I’m not sure how I’ll use it yet, but I thought I’d give it a whirl. So far, I don’t think any of the people in my reach-out-and-touch crowd are on it. Ah, what the heck. I’ll soon see what blogger or e-group friends turn up there. “Come follow me on Twitter,” as they say. (karla__ is my username.)

https://twitter.com/karla__

So you who twitter…what’s your goal in using it? Blogs I get. I may be amateur, but the heart of a compulsive writer beats within me, and 140 characters (the Twitter posting limit) could never cut it for the topics I would usually care enough to hop on to the computer and blather on about. Who reads you and corresponds with you on Twitter? On what level of social or business interaction? What motivates you to monitor one more place that messages accumulate in? My inquiring mind is quite curious?

Peace! – Karla

Still Here…

…but busy, busy, busy!  Let’s just say I didn’t do the best job of perspective and balance when making my end of October commitments!  Way too many strings pulling me in different directions.

One of these days I’ll be back and writing.  Peace all! – Karla

Hello, High Calling Bloggers

My existing readers are nearby…the kind I can reach out and touch with little effort. Friends, family here in my “real world.” It is possible, that with the addition of that little orange box on the right side of my blog page that I’ll make some more new friends in my e-world. New-era pen pals!

(I used to LOVE corresponding with pen pals when I was a little girl. I still remember the tail end of the “Big Blue Marble” television program on PBS on Saturday mornings! I got a pen pal from Malaysia out of that clearing house. Very cool.)

It’s interesting, to me anyway, how I came to make the decision to become a blogger.

I used to manage an email-based discussion list for fellow members of my parish (congregation) over the Bible readings we would share in worship that Sunday morning. Participation in such venues is always limited to a certain niche…it attracts a small segment of people that are interested enough, and simultaneously have enough time to participate in such an online discussion. I totally understood such limited participation, but I hoped for more interaction, all the same. Eventually I sort of drifted away from doing reflections regularly.

I realized that my reflections were functionally speaking more like blog entries than the hoped-for discussion starters. And a friend once remarked to me, after reading some email correspondence with me over my wonderings and wrestlings with faith matters, that I “should get a blog.”

One day as the lack of participation by me or others in the email group struck my consciousness, the suggestion of a blog re-entered my mind. I started following a few blogs, and searching the archives of one I liked particularly, real live preacher, I found a post there that really resonated with me. It inspired me to respond to it in a journaling, blogging style. I wanted to incude large hunks of it in my own (as yet “potential”) post, so I emailed the blog author, Gordon Atkinson, for permission to quote his post, sort of extensively.

I was so delighted to receive a reply from him, including a remark to consider joining this blog network that he helps administer, High Calling Blogs. So, I sat on it awhile, started following a few more blogs in this particular network, commenting once in a while, and I decided one day, acting on it actually last night, to go ahead and join this network.

“Make new friends, and keep the old;

one is silver and the other gold.”

Here’s to all my silver and golden friends! The ones I currently have and the ones I haven’t met yet. Love and God’s peace to you all! – Karla