Much Ado About Nothing

Happy Easter (a little late). Hope yours was fun. Ours was okay. The Easter Bunny left a basket of goodies but didn't hide any eggs this year. I don't think anyone was the worse for it, but Nicholas is still asking when we're going to hide the eggs. I'm tempted to go take some plastic ones and be done with it. My only fear is that Ruger would find them first. This past week has been a blur. I can't think of anything that really stands out. It was the normal school, scouts, church, and house-cleaning that normally goes on. The boys had an OA ceremony Monday and Wednesday. Aaron had YM Tuesday while Neil went to a Camporee meeting. We re-did taxes (again) only to have them rejected (again) and are now sending them in via mail with all the necessary documentation to prove which children we are legally supposed to claim. Thursday I did an observation/lesson at Daniel's class for my Social Studies course. Only to find out today (when I read the real assignment, not ...

This book by Karen Fowler is about a group of 5 women and 1 man who meet together to discuss the various Jane Austen novels. However, do not expect to learn anything more about the actual novels by reading this book. Instead, the reader learns about relationships of six people whose interest in Jane Austen is the least of their commonalities. At the end of the novel, the author does include a brief summary of each of the novels discussed at the book club and a number of responses from friends and family of Ms. Austen regarding her various books. Personally, I felt that any author who has to convince readers of another author's greatness is better off not writing at all. The ladies in the novel disdain any who watch the movies rather than read the Austen novels and are critical of those who actually enjoy the movies or prefer them to the novels. Having both read some of Austen's novels and watched the movies, I can feel the disdain already. Nevertheless, I admit to not being an ...

It was another busy week. Monday I had my final dentist appointment where I finally got my crown put on my tooth. The tooth still feels weird, but the dentist assures me that this is normal and since there is no pain associated with it, I tend to believe her. Aaron and Derek have become rather active in the Order of the Arrow and they each took care of a troop's OA elections Monday night. Tuesday Neil had to go down to Tucson for some NYLT staffing stuff so I took care of his 11-year-old scouts that night then took Aaron over to the church for YM activity night. Wednesday I think we actually all got to stay home so Neil and I went to get our taxes done. We thought everything had been settled with his dad's estate and we had no K-1s this year. At the very least we expected that if there were any forms, we would have received them as it was now practically the end of March. Well, nothing like being proven wrong. We got a call that night from Neil's brother stating that he had...

I had the hardest time finding this book. The library didn't carry it, the used bookstores didn't have it in stock, so I finally had to go buy it full price at Borders. Having read his Chronicles of Narnia, I had no idea what kind of book I would be reading when I was directed to the Religion section of the bookstore to find this one. The preface begins "Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant." I suppose I ought to go find who Blake is and see what his Marriage book is all about. It may or may not help me understand Lewis' Divorce. The premise of the book is a man is taken away in a dream to a level of heaven. I say level because the book does direct the reader to believe that there is much more to heaven than what is observed by the man in his dream. He witnesses ghosts from what may be ...

We have been a little stressed about taxes. Having sold the other house and making a profit assured us we would be paying taxes this year. How much was to be determined. Well, once again we were blessed. Even though we had made a considerable profit on the house, we had sold it for less than the market value and therefore tax-wise, we took a loss. So we are able to breathe a little bit better and are working with our bank on the house to do a loan modification. Although we have a decent savings, Neil is still unemployed so we need to be wise in how we work this out. But we do feel that because we are trying our best to do our part, the Lord will continue to bless us - though we have learned that rarely is it in the way we expect or in the timeframe we would like. Guess this is part of learning to do the Lord's will rather than try to get Him to submit to our own.