The Last Page of the Internet -- I Can Just Reach It!

WORD COUNT: 4,588

Are computers getting more useless every day, or it is just me? I've learned this morning I need a brighter colored cell phone than the one I have (it's grey and blends in just about anywhere I drop it from a highway to the floor of my car -- where I found it this morning after calling it, bottom side up which happens to be the same grey as the carpeting!), and somehow months ago a laptop of ours uploaded an unregistered copy of Windows -- how do you do that? -- and even this one I type on now has a tendency to blink on and off due to some stupid systems error. It's a new century, I thought we were past more error messages than you can shake a stick, or a tree, at!

So today I voted. That's still important in this country -- I'm writing from North Dakota in the United States, by the way -- because even if the persons elected aren't the friendliest or supportive on the issues that are important to you, the fact that there's still constraints on what the governing class can and cannot do shows that not all is lost. In fact, today there are EIGHT such constraints or ballot measures, ranging from the state recognizing and protecting human life at every stage of development to setting aside oil revenues for a state conservation fund that gets reviewed every twenty-five years to repealing a law that a pharmacy has to be 51% owned by a licensed pharmacist ...

That is likely a hopelessly naïve statement ... but this is me writing it, so deal with it. It gets easier to "vote my conscience" the older I get; it so helps to READ the measures -- not editorials, not others' opinions -- before you vote on them! (I changed my mind on two of them.) Now to flash back to the past, Halloween went great for all of us; Martha did most of the trick-or-treating with the kids because she got off work earlier than I did, took them to a Trunk and Treat at an area church, the kids rode on a hayride from there, and I was able to go a few places with them too. And I pretty much didn't say a thing, because it was the kids having fun!

Saturday I worked at Marketplace, then I came home. Saturday was also the opening day of National Novel Writing Month, so I've been tap, tap, tapping away on my opus for the year, a story about the Wise Men who visited Jesus at his family's house in Bethlehem (this is an important distinction, for they appear in Matthew's account not Luke's -- that's for the shepherds) only THEY'RE the main characters in the tough world of my story. And possibly the main character is the Wise Man known -- but none of them got their names until the sixth century -- as Gaspar (the phonetic spelling I'm going with) who's hard of hearing. "We Have Seen His Star In The East" ... check me out on it!

Sunday was church and Sunday school and Dalyce and I teaching The Temptation of Jesus to eight fifth graders. Everybody lived, we'll just say that ... oh, it wasn't that bad, but I had to fight the urge to not shout out stay focused! But the fact that we're acting the story out (and sometimes acting up) makes it stick better that just reading it -- though I had some great readers in Chance, Breanna, and Phoebe! -- and although I was ready to tell Karn who's in charge of our church's Sunday school to shove it this year; I have to admit, it's a good thing for me that I do it. (The adult forum I'd be hearing if I were not in Sunday school ... is often quite off-putting.)

Sarah was with me Sunday at our first Sunday write-in at Beaver Brew Café and she made some awesome pictures there! Then she was with me as I got the oil changed at Tires Plus, and because she'd been so good we strolled Dakota Square Mall for a bit. The kids' reading -- at least doing it with us at home, and wanting to -- is much improving; Jeffrey's on another Magic Tree House book and this morning Sarah started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of my favorites! And Monday night I met the family at my in-laws' house where Martha was helping them with some tax work, we grabbed dinner, watched Once Upon A Time at home and Jeffrey was ready to jump at the screen when it ended -- he's REALLY getting into the story!

And now I'm on to 5K, David