Facebook

I went to lunch with a friend last week who convinced me to give Facebook a try.  I already have a myspace page, and I honestly can't stand myspace, so I didn't feel the need to get yet another social networking thing going.  However, I told him I'd try it so I could check out his page.

Yesterday, I finally signed up.  Before I could even figure out how to find him, another friend I haven't seen in years added me as a friend!  How do you people do this?  How could he have found me within minutes of signing up?  Ok, that was beside the point!

I found Russell, and added him as a friend.  He sent me some weird games I couldn't understand, and will have to come help me set up my page to get the most advantage from it.  

However, during the signup process, Facebook asked me where I graduated from school.  It didn't have the obscure high school I actually graduated from, but it gave me the idea to look for the OTHER obscure school I went to during high school.  This was a boarding academy in British Columbia where I spent a year and a half.  Without doubt the best year of my life.  I've often thought about the friends I made there, and where they are now, but a few feeble attempts at searching them down turned up nothing.

Several years ago one of the guys I went to school with found me and we exchanged e-mail for a little while before drifting away again, but that was the extent of my contact.

So I looked up the name of the school, and voila! so many faces and names!  People I thought to never see or hear from again, all in one virtual place.  Many of them have blogs, so I've been able to get a glimpse into their lives.  One even wrote an article about our disastrous camping trip that year! (http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/408266/Beginners-Luck.html) This made me laugh like a schoolgirl!

I've been laughing out loud for no apparent reason all morning because of this!  It's been amazing!  I LOVE Facebook!

Piano Recital

Ok, after scaring everyone with the Facial Expressions post, I'll move on to something lighter!

My son had his first piano recital on Saturday.  I was very worried about the fact that he is notorious for getting stage fright, and bowing out at the last minute.  He could be completely excited about a performance or show, then freak out when it came time to go up on stage in front of everyone.

This recital was to be a small production of just a few of his instructor's students.  It was apparently not on the scale of her other recitals, which include students from other sources as well.  For my son, it was a "trial run" for the larger one coming in April.  As I said, I was nervous about his ability to perform at the last minute.

So after a week of practicing his piece until he knew it completely, a few "practice" recitals in front of parents, and then my assistants, we moved on to teaching him to deal with his fears.  We had at least two days straight of "what do you do if you make a mistake?" or "what happens if you get scared?" until we felt he was confident in his ability and response.

Then came the big day.  At the last minute I was reminded that I should invite his grandparents and aunt, as they would probably have been disappointed to find out about it after the fact.  So with very little notice they and we made it up to Newcastle for his recital.

I sat with him (the young students sat in a row near the teacher) while everyone came in, gauging his comfort level with the number of people in the audience.  There ended up being around 15 - 20 students and their parents, a larger crowd than I had anticipated, yet he seemed ok with it.  I told him he was number five in the line-up, and he counted as each student went before him.

When it was his turn, he marched up to the piano, played his piece, took his bow, then marched back to his seat.  He was quite proud of himself, but not nearly as proud as we were.  I think this is the first time he's been able to get up in front of a group and perform without quite a lot of fear, and sometimes tears.

This was an achievement for him, and I'm quite proud!

Facial Expressions

I've been paying attention to myself a lot lately.  Not in a "taking care of me" way, but rather in a noticing things about me way.

What I've noticed the most, is my lack of facial expression most of the time.  Maybe it's not really a lack, but more like a scowl.  I bunch up the muscles at the bridge of my nose like I'm worried about something, and the rest of my face is slack.  Even when I try to "lighten" my expression, all I can manage is a softening around the eyes that doesn't really reach any other part of my face.

What I notice even more is that I have this scowl right up until I start talking with someone about something that is interesting to me.  Then, I can feel my face soften, my eyes light, and my smile come more easily.  I FEEL the difference in my face, and in my body.  It's almost like my whole body is lighter.  I know there are studies that argue that smiles produce serotonin, which is a happy hormone, or some such.  

What I want to know is, is this something that happens with age, or am I really just cranky all the time?  I don't feel cranky, yet when I'm at home or working I sound cranky.  Is it my face affecting my attitude, or my attitude affecting my face?  How do I lighten up?  I'm way too serious for my own good!

End of Month Madness

January flew by.

January means tax time, and is usually spent in frenzied activity to get all of my information together in one place, catch up my bookkeeping that generally falls woefully behind around mid-year, and basically do everything but fill out my tax forms.  When I started 5 years ago, I would buy the tax workbook created specifically for my business, and go through every page, gathering and recording each bit of information.  I would begin this process in late November and work on it almost every evening until the end of January.

As I got better about knowing what information I needed to gather, I would start a little later and be a little more prepared throughout the year, until January became the mad-dash month to finish.

This year I didn't buy the tax workbook, since I figured I'd been through it enough times to know what needed doing.  Plus, I'd actually kept up with my bookkeeping throughout the year, and only had to do the year-end journal entries to be up to date.

I did my mileage report, my meal allowance numbers, the journal entries to claim the percentage of the home expenses, yet I feel like I'm missing something!  I was finished before the end of the month, and I actually did more prep work this year than last.  This makes me nervous!

After all of that, I let my daily food program entries pile up until I had to do them all yesterday to get them in before the deadline.

Sheesh.  With all of that paperwork in a month, I have a headache!

My Ministry

I had a strange dream last night.  

The setting was a gathering of Christians meeting together to hear speakers teach.

During one such meeting, the woman teaching the class was speaking on the do's and don'ts for God's followers.  The example given was high-heeled shoes.  She was explaining that heels were acceptable but stilettos were not.  Even though the heel-height was exactly the same, she was arguing that the shape of one heel was appropriate and modest, while the other was sinful.  In my dream, a young man was assisting her by showing an example of each.

(Don't laugh!  I know this seems like a ridiculous example, but I am quite sure that there are Christians that would agree with this thinking, and if not this, then something equally inconsequential.)

I challenged the young man to  explain why one would be acceptable to God, while the other was not.  Because of my arguments, he confessed that he had similar questions about photography. He had some implied nude photographs in his room, and he wondered if they were ok, since they didn't really show any private parts, or if they would still be considered pornography.  I started to tell him about the photography my husband does, at which point the leader of the group admonished us for being disruptive and not participating.

Then I woke up.

As I was waking, I had these thoughts in quick succession:  

First, I should take the young man aside, listen to his concerns, tell him my experiences, and let God do the rest.  

Second, that my ministry is about love and acceptance.  As much as I would love to be in a leadership role, speaking, teaching, or leading, that type of thing would only go to my head, so it is probably not God's plan for me.

Finally, I thought of all the unlikely people that I have already encountered that just needed to know that they were acceptable to God as they are, even with the crazy thoughts, strange histories, etc.  People that I would never expect to seek me out.

I know this is a strange thing for me to write about, but I've often questioned why I felt the need to become a Christian after all of these years.  I've also thought about how incompatible my way of thinking is with status quo of Christian beliefs.  I ALWAYS question the legitimacy of believing in something unseen.

Considering this unlikely set of characteristics, I've often thought about how God might use me.  Mostly, I come up blank.  I wanted to share this thought with you.