Monday Minutia

Sometimes the minutia/details of life overwhelm us and so we do not pay attention to other more pertinent factors! So here goes with my Monday minutia that may then be relegated to lesser positions of priority:

• A dead possum lay in the middle of the street in front of our house when we awoke on Saturday morning. It lay there all day until that night my practical husband put it in three plastic sacks and deposited it in our trash can. Unfortunately, now that same trash can reeks with odor, which is why it is sitting on the street. Garbage pickup is on Wednesday, and so the "summer" temperatures (in the spring) in south TX will ripen the contents even more.

• Our interim priest started on Palm Sunday and is a welcome addition to All Saints Episcopal Church. He is a retired priest who is also my age (60!), and is humble and authentic. I really like the way he expresses his own wonderings. When I told him that yesterday, he said he was wary of people with certainties. I like that!

• I have been chosen to be a member of our parish's search committe for our new priest. I am honored.
  

• I am boggled by the downloaded file of 641 pictures taken in Spain! I really want to post about my trip, but need to label all those images. . . .before I forget, which is already occurring.
  

• Since returning from Spain three weeks ago, I suffered through a week of jet lag, followed by gradually decreasing the dosage of prednisone that had been upped in Spain for joint pain. I felt really good until I stopped the prednisone completely--then joint pain started to slowly return and seems to be increasing each day, even though I went back to taking the small dose of 5 mg. daily. Here I go again. . . .

• I am really pleased that my daughter-in-law and son asked us to spend Mother's Day with them in Austin--with their 5 month old daughter, Avery. This will be AA's first Mother's Day, and I am so happy that she will share it with me.

• Despite the terrorist bombing in Marakesh last Thursday, MJ's IES group went on to Morocco on Saturday. I am impressed with IES' prudent organization for all their trips. This has been an excellent semester for MJ abroad. She will return home on May 31.

• Thanks to going to Spain, I read various good books. (The first two are fiction.) I've meant to post about them, but for right now will just list them below as highly recommended:

1. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (I am suspecting that this will be the first in a series.
2. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (I was told that the first 200 pages were rather boring and to forge ahead as it kept getting better. I agree that it kept getting better, but I enjoyed the entire book.)
3. Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the LIfe and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber (This is Ken Wilber's most accessible book and it is profound and personal.)
4. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr (Richard Rohr's typically simple writing brings forth validation and new knowledge.)
5. The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism by Andrew Harvey (This is such a good book that I have considered giving a copy to each of my children, as it is not strictly a Christian book.)

• I got an Ipod touch for my trip to Spain. I really like it, especially playing a game called Words with Friends, which oldest son DC told me about. He is faithful about playing with me, but always wins! I used to think I was good at Scrabble, but not so much with Words with Friends. It is fun, and if you ever want to play with me, my name is "janintx."