The End of My Blogging Sabbatical

I didn't necessarily make a decision to stop writing for a period of time, but found that every time I sat down to write, even if I had something in mind, I would just blank. Rather than writing for the sake of writing, I opted to simply take a break. Last week it hit me that today would mark one month since my last post, so I decided on today as my unofficial relaunch into the blogosphere.

A lot has happened in the last month, but not a great deal has changed. Other than Amy starting at USF a few weeks ago, major change has not been afoot, but has been bubbling under the surface. We're continuing to wait for a chance to go interview at the church that I applied at in June. They've been extremely busy and we just haven't been able to find a date. Patience has been the key for me over the last 18 months and the lessons that I've learned must have sunk in at least a little bit. I feel a peace about the pacing of things and know that even if everything seems ideal that God may have another plan.

Things with the house in Marion have continued to move through various cycles of activity and inactivity and we're back to the activity portion of things again as we just heard yesterday from a friend who is a missionary and may be interested in the house for their frequent visits back to Marion. We've seen interest before and been disappointed, so I'm trusting again that it will happen if it's supposed to.

We also had a chance to lead worship and speak at the Sheldon Church of the Brethren on Sunday which gave us an excuse to spend the weekend with my folks. We had a good time hanging out at the farm, eating raspberries in various forms and just decompressing. Well, we had a good time until the last 45 minutes when Xander decided that life was not offering him all he deserved and that he should just invest his energy in hacking everybody off. It was a brilliant plan on his part to try to gain our sympathies by trying to make us feel sorry for him, but it backfired horribly as each new attempt brought harsher consequences. By the time we left and got home, everything was fine. We're chalking it up to too little sleep, a little sickness and too much time being exposed to the manipulation ploys and temper tantrums of other first graders. Unfortunately, math and reading aren't the only things that a kid learns at school.

Things at work continue to plug away. We are firmly out of cycling season and are seeing more winter sport activity coming on. We do snow boards, skis, sharpen skate blades, drill holes in bowling balls and all sorts of other things that I have never even conceived of doing. I'll have to learn an entirely new skill set to get through the winter and it's almost like being a new employee all over again. I did build a bike last night while the other guys were on deliveries, just to have something to do, but there is little going on in bike land these days.

To compensate for the end of the season, I've started riding my mountain bike to work in a vain attempt to pick up a few more miles. A round trip winds up being 6.7 miles, so If I do that three times a week, I pick up an extra 20 miles a week that I would have missed otherwise. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep it up (South Dakota weather being what it is), but it only takes me about five minutes longer to get to work by bike than it does by car.

I've also started ordering and stockpiling new cold weather gear to pick up from work over the next few months so I can brave the weather a little more often this winter. Last year, my 2:00-midnight schedule killed any chance of winter riding. This year it will still be hard to pull off too much riding, but I may be able to sneak a 25 mile ride in every once in a while so that when spring hits I won't be quite as much of a slug.

Other thoughts are percolating and may even be written about at some point. Unless I decide to take another month off.