Where have you been?

Got a call from a dear friend today, asking in the gentlest and most loving possible way where the hell I've been. Since it was 12 hours later when I got her message, and too late to call back, I wrote her a long email. And, having read Christine's comment in my last post, thought you might be curious, too. So here is a section of my email to her, typos and all.

I'm sorry to be such a lousy correspondent this week -I am stretched to the limit at the moment, time wise. Last night, I made a list of all I had to do today and realized that I was feeling so stressed because there was absolutely NO WAY to fit everything I had scheduled into my waking hours, so this morning I had to make several calls from the car to cancel stuff. Then I felt better, but sheepish that I got into this binge/purge situation of overbooking and then cancelling, which is right in "women who do too much" - hmm, maybe I should be reading that, huh?

We've also been van shopping, which mostly has involved me driving all over puget sound** IN THIS HORRIBLE RAIN (have I MENTIONED how the WEATHER is getting me down ALREADY? Sister, it's not even December yet!!), and going to Yelm (!!) today to get one! Which means that everything will be much lighter for me in terms of LOOKING for a van, but also that I'll be doing more driving, as I'll be transporting Jeff to and from work some days.

Our new van, btw, is GREAT. It's very low mileage, and we got a good deal on it, mostly by what felt to me like taking advantage of a guy whose mom had just died, but which felt to him, I think, like a big relief. Anyway, it's a red ford windstar, with all bells and whistles, including a funny button that brings the brake pedal closer to your foot (in case you're such a princess that you cant bring your foot to the pedal, I guess) and a 6 CD DISC CHANGER! (LIke I"m not distracted enuf in traffic...)

LUCKILY, work is lightening up considerably. Coming up- tomorrow (Weds), I am preaching at our neighborhood THanksgiving service, then leading worship on Sunday, then --whew-- I can scale back my job some to it's actual size! I'm not on the calendar to preach at all into the near future, and no special services either, and no big crises that I KNOW of (knock on wood), so I'm feeling hopeful that I can actually do my actual job without thinking - "ok, next week I'll make up this extra time by taking a day off..." Because if you do that for weeks and weeks it kind of stops making sense.

For Thanksgiving, which I usually make a big fuss over, we are keeping it tiny this year - going to volunteer at a soup kitchen here in Ballard in teh morning, then we'll stop at our good pals' in teh afternoon. It feels good not to have people here, and all the prep that takes, to add to my List.

Ok, gotta go now and get that sermon ready about how we are not really feasting at God's table, because we're too busy running around nibbling at the edges. Preach whatchya need to hear, I guess...