EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I find myself a little blue these days.

Don't worry, I'm not going to detail my own issues, but I am finding that many other people I care about are going through such awful things right now and there's nothing I can do for them. It makes me feel helpless and like there isn't a lot of good happening anywhere.

That's stupid, I know, because there's always good, but it feels far away and I can't seem to find many silver linings these days. Every time I turn around, something else bad is happening. Literally, I keep getting bad news about people I care about.  I also find myself feeling this weird mixture of being very glad and being jealous of other people who seem to be moving forward and accomplishing important things and being happy. I don't want to feel like that. I just want to feel the happy for them part.

Anyway, enough of that. I'll work through it, but it feels hard right now. I feel dumb for feeling like I do because other people have it so much worse. I know life doesn't suck completely, though, and I'll prove it!

2) I've been looking through the photos that are available on my Facebook page, because sometimes I like to check and see what other people see if they happen to be looking for me. I'm beginning to wonder if it looks like I am in some kind of polyamorous relationship with Steve and Anthony because we are always together! We hardly go anywhere without him.  That's fine with me and not a complaint, but for the casual observer, I wonder how that looks.  

I mean, I like Anthony a great deal, but no. That...that...no.  Haha!

3) Speaking of Anthony: he, Steve, another friend that was in Spain with us and I (God help my grammar on that) went to a curling class!  We'd been trying to get into one of those classes for a couple of months, but they were always full. We finally got in one, and it was so much fun!

Granted, curling is a strange thing for people in southern states to do, since there is very little ice, but there is a curling club and they give lessons every month or so to get people interested in forming teams for their league.

I knew nothing about the sport going in, except for the little bit I watched during the Olympics, but we learned a lot about it in the short time that we were there. I know why it's called curling, now, and I know that I suck at sweeping, because I am not fast enough to keep up with the stone, but I'm fairly good (balance aside) at throwing it!  I got to be the "hammer" for our team when we played a round after the preliminary lesson, and I was one of only two people to manage to get the stone all the way across the ice. I did fall on my face a lot, but that was part of the fun!  We plan on going back and taking the next level of lessons on the 30th, which will teach us about it in more detail. I don't think we'll be joining a league or anything, but it's a lot of fun to play around and learn about it!  I'm excited about going back!

Just FYI, the sport was developed in Scotland. I thought it was a Canadian thing. Also, there is drinking involved, but I abstained and you all know very well why. :)

4) Our church basement flooded a little over a week ago!  We were pounded with almost 12 inches of rain over a few days, and the sump pump in the basement wasn't working properly and there was two or three inches of water down there! It was a mess, but once the pump was fixed and the water wasn't continuously coming in, a bunch of people came in and cleaned it out. Not me, haha, but others!

A reporter from the local news saw our Facebook page and wanted to do a story about the church flooding. I know it was supposed to be a fluffy, feel good piece about people working together and all of that, but the pastor said no.  He wasn't interested. I waited until I heard back from him before I answered her (I'm the page admin and get the messages) and I was as polite as I could be telling her that he was not interested, but damn, she was tenacious.  I know reporters have to be like that, but for what she was wanting to do a story on, it seemed a bit much. She finally left me alone, but I thought I was going to have to get aggressive. I'm sure her journalism teacher would have been proud of her!

5) There's a slim chance we might be going to Germany with the band next year. I hope so! I haven't been there yet. There are still so many places I'd like to go!