A quiet week (with exciting news)

Here is Thursday night and this is my first entry for this week. I’m telling myself that it is because I was too busy. However, it is also true that I didn’t really have much to write about. So to-day is just a brief note on my week.

I will start with the exciting news. In my posting about our visit with Melissa in Kingston I wrote “We had several long conversations with Melissa getting caught up on her life and talking about her plans for school and – hopefully—some time soon - a wedding. We had been kidding her the fact that Chris was married in the year of our 25th anniversary and Kevin in the year of our thirty-fifth -- so she had to either get married this year (our 40th) or wait for another 5 years – anyhow – time will tell but she may break the pattern."

What I couldn’t say then -- because Alexander hadn’t made it “official” by proposing -- was that she was quite certain she would be getting married soon. Saturday she called and said that, on Friday, he had “popped the question” and given her a ring. Sunday or Monday she called to confirm a ”good news/bad news” plan for their wedding that we had talked about but it hadn’t been completely settled.

The good news was that they are planning to be married on September 7. The bad news is that this will be very small civil ceremony. We wanted to be there as did others in her circle of family and friends but, since Alexander’s parents who are in Sweden can’t come now—they wanted to be fair to every one and limit the participation to a couple of their friends to ”standup” with them.

The GOOD news however,(which is like Melissa to do things differently) is that she still wants a wedding with the dress, attendants, family & friends – a full scale celebration of her marriage. That they are planning for next summer. So she will be married this year close to our 40th but she is also breaking the pattern of “multiples of 5” by delaying the “ceremony & party” until next year. I’m sure I’ll be posting more about this event as time goes forward.

So we are happy that she is getting married and that her and Alexander can go forward having made this commitment to each other. We are sad that we can’t be there--- and we look forward with anticipation to next year (although I’m not to keen about being involved in what I know will be some ”tense” times as Melissa and her mother are working through the details f the “million” things that have to be planned. (Update - I don't mean that I think they'll "fight" about it -- they get along well -- it is just that there will be so many decisions and that creates stress)

--- I pray this is a step on a life long journey together and that as they walk together in their love for each other they will seek God and walk with him as well.--

Other than that it has been a fairly quiet week.

Monday morning I got a call from my Dad asking if I wanted to go golfing and we set a timeof10 a.m. When I went to pick him up he had a puzzled look and said he was waiting for my nephew Ken— so I said “Did you know you called me?” –and he said “Oh – I thought I had called Ken”. – So off we went and had a good round of golf.

Monday afternoon I prepared a bulletin article for next Sunday that had to be to Karen by Tuesday. I also did some prep work for the courses I’m teaching this year at Algoma University and Linda had started work at tearing up and replanting one of her flower beds.

By Tuesday I was heavily involved in the ”reconstruction” -

Our house is built on a gravel hill and this bed at the edge of our patio had very little top soil-with gravel and rocks underneath. She had dug down about a foot and wanted it filled back in with a better base and more topsoil. Lots of shoveling and mixing Tuesday & Wednesday but it now has about 6 inches of fine gravel as a base, topped by 3 inches of the old top soil mixed with half composted leaves and then topped with a equal parts mix of topsoil, cow manure and peat moss. I try to look at these day-to-day experiences to find spiritual applications. In this case I was reminded that in our efforts to fulfill the mission that Jesus gave us (Matt. 28:19) we don’t have to worry about the ”back breaking” work of preparing the soil. We rather have the easier job of planting the seed—God does the rest.

Tuesday p.m. I got talking to Len Roetman –we had talked briefly the previous Friday and it was his birthday so I had wanted to arrange a golf game with him & my Dad. We had done a couple ofyears in a row a several years back but we hadn’t done it for a while. The reason we started this ”tradition” was that my Dad and Len’s son Len Jr. Both have their birthday’s on January 13 – and that’s not so good a time for golfing here in SSM so it was a Birthday celebration for the3 of them and I just tagged along.

In any case – we arranged to go Wednesday a.m. (Len Jr. is working so he couldn’t join us. We had a great time. I had a good visit with Len which we haven’t had a chance to do for a while (click HERE for more on our connection with the Roetman’s)

To-day I had a number of errands to run, paid some bills and made a trip for the Red Cross to take a lady to her Dr’s appointment. I also learned that one of the courses I was scheduled to teach had been cancelled due to insufficient registration. Fortunately, I had been focusing more effort on the other course although I had done course outlines and set up a course website. It is disappointing to put effort into preparations and have the course cancelled but it is what it is.

We also "closed out" the final chapter of "Roger at Pinehill". The movers had come in to pack so Linda & I met Roger, Sandra and Jessical for a "last breakfast" at Sandro's on Tuesday morning. Wednesday evening we had a full house for the final session of the "Mayberry series" with coffee & cake following -- lots of hugs and tears.

Oh I almost forgot the other big news for the week was the birth of David Stewart Seeler on Saturday -- 2 weeks ahead of schedule but a fine healthy baby boy. Mark & Sharon and older sister Amy are overjoyed.


Well such as it is that’s been my week so far

God Bless
Charlie