Snow life

It is -24C (about -10F) outside in the early dawn as I sit and watch the eastern (actually southeastern) sky turn red. There is a nice blanket of fresh snow and it crunches when you walk. All of this I love about winters in Sault Ste.Marie. I’m not so crazy about being cold, or about driving in snowstorms. The skiers (downhill & cross country) and snowmobilers and ice fishing folks are in their glory --

However, Linda & I aren’t into snowmobiling or icefishing. When our kids were growing up we used to go cross country skiing regularly and did some downhill but haven’t done that for several years. Some might think that for us “snow life is no life” but in balance life is what you let God make of it and God is good.

My attempt to make a play on words reminds me that the other day we saw one of those church signs with a “catchy phrase” . Sometimes these are funny and give me a laugh – sometime they are fairly mundane. This one said “Sign Broken Message Inside”. Now I understand what the intent was but the more I thought about it I wondered about the ethics of telling a lie to try to grab people’s attention. Surely churches of all places need truth in advertising. Obviously the sign wasn’t broken – it was working fine.

I like watching for church signs with a "punch" and I have seen some pretty funny signs that made a good point with humor. But my memory failed to come up with any recent favorites so I thought I would google for “funny church signs” to see if I could find one. I didn’t see anything that leapt out at me – Maybe the best signs are original and haven’t made their way onto the lists.

But, believe it or not there is a whole “industry” out there dealing with church signs – books for sale and the like. But what amazed me was that at least one blogger has made it his “life’s work” to critique these signs. See Crummy Church Signs and Critical Analysis of Church signs -- Personally I wouldn’t let a small thing like a bad sign consume me but different strokes for different folks.

I also discovered that the sign I was talking about wasn’t original so I guess the preacher at the church on Wellington street uses one of these books - I guess this explains why when we were traveling we would often see the same sign in different places.

Back to our life - Linda’s tooth extraction resulted in a “dry socket” and she has been in severe pain. She is now going back to dentist daily to have a packing put in. Hopefully it will heal soon.

I worked on my small trim finishing project again yesterday. I’m down to fitting small pieces in doorways and it is a real challenge requiring “cut & try” techniques. I prefer projects where I can get visible results without a lot of “picky” fine detailed work so it isn’t really much fun – Maybe that explains why I put it off for so long!!!

We had a chance to do a "webcam" visit with Kevin, Sarah & Will last evening. It had been a while since we had done this . Kevin had had to reformat his computer so he had to redownload Live Messenger before we could start -- but it is great to be able to see them as we talk to them.

Other than that life goes on – maybe I should have titled this one (consistent with the last 2) “Life in the SNOW Lane” but I think that is too corny even for me.

I have bounced around in blog land a few times this week. Some of the things I saw follow

Dee Andrew’s asks some of life’s most important question such as “Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle?” in her Wind Vanes Chronicles post for January 22 (click HERE)

One of the biggest blessing and best memories of our trip to Pascagoula last year was meeting Robbie Wood. He has started a blog (click HERE) and tells a poignant story of how his father’s refusal to help him get a driving licence contributed to his fall into alcoholism. His story is a compelling testimony of what can happen when we turn our lives over to God.

Well “daylight’s burning” _ I have a long list of things to do today – and I hope to get at least one of them done!!

God Bless
Charlie