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The Monday Morning Epistle |
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3 Dec 2007 |
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A belated Happy Birthday! to my father, who celebrated his 75th birthday last Thursday. As our sons have been heard to say “Gosh, Dad, you're old!’ (But, to be honest, they were talking about me at the time!) All in all a quiet week, as Mother Nature threatened snow several days in a row, but never followed through on her threat. Even so, Mary and I spent several evenings parked comfortably in front of our fireplace, making sure the dog was evenly browned on all sides and struggling not to fall asleep ourselves. I finally finished my paper on the history of baptism—with some much-needed editing by Mary's father—and turned it over to the young priest in charge of re-vitalizing the parish's sacramental classes. I'm not sure if Father Rafael expected footnotes and a full bibliography, but (like me) he seemed genuinely pleased with the final results. Writing this paper took a lot more effort and research than I had planned, but at the same time, I got a great deal more enjoyment out of it than I originally expected. I don't know if our classes will benefit from the hours I spent reading about church history and sacraments, but I certainly did! The other high point of the week came when the (potentially very expensive) repairman quickly diagnosed our ailing washing machine's problem and fixed it for nearly nothing. He was also kind enough to show Mary how to remove the faceplate and clean the drain filter, which was where he had just found most of a balloon, a dead tube of lip balm, several glass ‘gems’ from Garion's collection, at least 85¢ in change, and enough cat hair to make another cat. It may have cost us $65 just to have the guy show up at our front door, but hopefully we won't need to invite him back for a while. (Note to self: need to clean that filter a bit more often…) Thanks to back-to-back gloomy weekends, excellent progress was made on our model railway, as we removed all of the temporary track and laid plaster-impregnated gauze down over the Styrofoam risers last week. Jacob helped by cutting an endless number of gauze strips, and once it had dried to a hard shell, we filled any rough spots with a light-weight spackle and sanded the whole thing smooth. Garion didn't like getting the wet, goopy plaster on his hands, but loved using the sanding block: he sanded the area right in front so industriously that the cloth was starting to show through, and I had to put down a second layer of spackle after he'd gone to bed! KidBit: During our weekly grocery shopping trip, Mary bought three Advent calendars—the kind with a little door for each day before Christmas—and hung them by the refrigerator Friday night. When Garion came downstairs Saturday morning, he was delighted with the brightly colored picture on his calendar, and pored over it enthusiastically until he found door #1. Monkey-Boy was even more pleased with the tiny piece of chocolate behind the door, and every morning since then has begun with an eager hunt for that day's number, as he wonders aloud what kind of surprise awaits… 
PotW: Garion helping me work on scenery for our model railway layout. He initially balked at painting the black plastic bridge with black paint and insisted on bright red, but once I explained that the paint would get rid of the plastic shine, he reluctantly agreed. He did his share of the painting with enthusiasm, and I was surprised at how careful and dilligent he was.
2007.12.19-20:36 |