Fall is Here!

Yes, okay, not technically for a couple more weeks, but I am tentatively rejoicing in the coming of fall. Tentatively because it was around 31 degrees on Sunday and that is just too hot for September (or for any season). I am not a fan of summer and heat, so I've been waiting for fall since June.

(Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy summer. There were some very nice parts: vacation, rest, reading, catching up on stuff, more rest and reading; it's just that I don't like the heat.)

There are some out there who think that if you complain about the heat in summer, you can't complain about the cold in winter. That, of course, in nonsense. It is perfectly possible to dislike -30 as much as you dislike +30.

And I know that both summer and winter are necessary parts of life. I accept that. I just don't love them (but winter is still better because it's possible to keep adding layers to stay warm, but you can remove all the layers in summer and still be hot).

Spring is nice. I like the new green everywhere and flowers blooming and no more heavy clothing. The only drawback (for me) is that spring can be muddy and messy. And short: spring always seems too short to enjoy properly.

But fall...now that 's a lovely season. It's cooler and the leaves change colour and it feels good outside. It's time for my favourite sweater-jacket (the blue one with the bluebirds) and it's getting to be soup time. It's a lovely time of year and I'm so glad it's here.

Trying New Recipes

In my quest to be more healthy, I've been trying new recipes. Happily, the internet is full of recipes that claim to be some combination of healthy, cheap, and easy. Although sometimes we have differing definitions of "easy" and anything that requires fish is not going to be cheap! At any rate, it's been fun trying new foods with various degrees of success.

The Stuffed Peppers were pretty good, but next time I'm either going to use fresh chopped tomatoes with some Italian seasoning instead of the canned ones or I'll get the canned ones that are seasoned. And rather than order peppers in my regular online grocery order, I'll go to the store and buy them so I can make sure they are big enough!

The Modern Tuna Casserole was a bust. It wasn't terrible and I didn't mind eating it, but lacked flavour. I guess I could fix it by adding more spices of some sort.

Caramelized Beef with Rice was good, but I think if I make it again, I'll cut back on some of the seasoning.

Saucy Tomato Pork Chops were good and I'd make them again, but I have two other pork chop recipes that I still want to try!

This week was a very "chicken" week because chicken breasts were on sale. I had Chicken Strawberry Spinach Salad (very good); Chicken Stir-Fry (also good, although I changed up the veggies a bit); and Pineapple BBQ Baked Chicken Foil Packets (such perfectly moist chicken; it was amazing).

This week's meals were very good, but I think I'm going to take a little break from chicken next week and try some other sources of proteins! 

Favourite Insults

They story I'm currently reading has some nice insults:

"I envy the people who haven't met you."

"Somewhere, a tree is crying because it worked so hard to make that oxygen you're wasting.”

"You remind me of someone I’d like to forget."

"You’re so dense, light bends around you."

“As an outsider, what's your perspective on intelligence?"

But my favourite comes from the movie Billy Madison:

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Yes, they're all a little (or more) mean, and no, I'm not likely to use them (although there are times as a teacher when the Billy Madison quote comes to mind). I still think they're funny.

Scheduling Woes

I thought, when I left my last job, I'd be done with scheduling issues. Back then it was parents who did not send in their summer and/or fall registrations on time and then were upset if I couldn't get them in on their preferred days and times. Or who set up times but then changed them. And changed them again. And again. Oh, and this one more thing came up. And then there were teachers who were definitely available on certain days until suddenly, with little or no notice, were not.

At my current job, for the most part, the scheduling is easy. Most of the parents at my current job are flexible enough and my schedule is flexible enough that we can set up meetings. They're pretty good at responding to emails and the only glitches comes when someone gets sick. It's much easier.

Sunday School has given me new scheduling issues. These ones aren't related to time but to classes. After registration day I sorted and organized and figured out how to make the classes work and to fit in all the students.

The next day, I had 3 more requests to register students. One I could accommodate; the others went on the wait list. Then this week there were two families who suddenly can't attend Sunday School. The kids are the wrong age, though, so I was only able to get one of the wait list families into the classes (and that by putting their older child in the class a year below his age group). And again I wanted to point out to parents that they should figure out if Sunday School will work for them before they register their children! On the other hand, at least they let me know rather than just not showing up.

I think that there will forever be scheduling woes to deal with; it's just a part of my life now!

When Time Stopped

 My most recent read was When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains by Ariana Neumann. 

Ariana grew up in Venezuela with a Czech father and a Venezuelan mother. She knew nothing about her father's experiences in World War II. She did not even know he and his family were Jews. He never talked about it. Only after his death did Ariana start to learn about those years. Her father left her a box of documents and her cousin sent her more (her uncle had also not talked about the war year). There were letters, government documents from Czechoslovakia and Germany, and photographs of people Ariana had never heard about. All of this led her on a journey to find out what happened; in the process, she found family she had never known.

I quite enjoyed this book. It starts with Ariana's childhood memories, especially of her father. It then becomes a mix of the story of her father's life and the story of Ariana's quest to find the truth. The book is heartbreaking at times; after all, it is the story of a Jewish family in Prague during the Second World War. It is very intense at times as well. Even knowing that Ariana's father survived the war, there were still some very tense moments where it looked like he might not.

It is the story of survival, of a man who hid right under the nose of the Nazis, working in a Berlin factory for roughly the last two years of the war. It is the story of how a carefree boy became a careful man. It is the story of secrets kept, not because they were dirty secrets but rather because they were too painful to talk about.

I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in World War II from the human side.

Sunday School Time Again

It isn't quite time for Sunday School to start; that will be the middle of September. It is, however, time to get ready for Sunday School. I've been looking over curriculum, ordering supplies, making up prize boxes, and sending email. 

Yesterday was the annual Sunday School Registration. Because there are a lot of children at the church and not enough room for everyone, registration day is a big deal. Registration opens online at 10:00 and there are moms sitting by their computers waiting. Within the first minute, I had 10 emails; within 7 minutes, there were 33 emails. It slowed down after around 10 minutes, with only the occasional email after that. I went through the registration forms, organized the information on my spreadsheets, and tried to figure out classes. After a quick reminder to people, there were a few more emails, and then in the early afternoon I closed registration.

We have 90 students from around 40 families registered this year. There are 7 classes of between 9 and 16 students each (depending on the class and the size of the room). 

Now it's time for teacher meetings, handing out class lists and supplies, making sure everyone is good to go, and more emails.

Only 24 days until Sunday School starts for the year. 

Taken From a Paper I Wrote for School

I've been going through papers that I wrote for my Master's Degree lately. This bit here, the conclusion to my last term paper, seems important even for now. I have seen and heard many people focusing entirely on "God is love" to dismiss sins. They argue that a loving God wants them to be happy or does not really see certain things as sinful; that's how unloving people interpret Scripture, or things have changed and those verses don't mean anything now, or it's just the writings of man. They cannot deal with God telling them "no" to their desires because they think it makes Him unloving somehow. Here I try to explain that yes, God is love, but He is more than just that, and His love is so much greater than we sometimes make it.

The paper was written based on a popular book that I am not willing to name (although you may be able to guess if you have any familiarity with popular "Christian" books). I also removed the author's name from my essay. I refuse to give any sort of publicity, good or bad, to authors and books I would never endorse.

Finally, does love win? Yes it does, but not the sort of love ------ describes in his book. His love is too small and too man focused; ------ shows God acting only because his love for man is great, not because God Himself is great, and when he loses focus of God’s overall greatness, he diminishes the greatness of God’s love. ------ also ignores the other characteristic of God. God is love, but God is also just (2 Thess 1:6), holy (Is 6:3), righteous (Ps 7:11), sovereign (Jude 4), wise (1 Cor 3:9), and true (Jn 14:6), to name a few of His character traits. All of these characteristics work together to make up God, and all are equally important. Most problematic, ------- tries to divorce God’s love from His justice and in that he makes a serious mistake and gives a one-sided view of who God really is and what His love is. God’s infinite justice shows the depths of His love as He forgives sins that deserve death and is “the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). Yes, love wins, but so does justice. In the end, God wins in all His fullness and glory.