Snack Ribs and Bologna - they're magically delicious!

I think it's good to be home. Again.

I'm sick of packing and unpacking and repacking. I'd like to tell you that I'm becoming some sort of expert packer, but I'm not. Since we have the van, I'm becoming even worse, because there is room for everything. Twenty pairs of shoes for a week? Sure! Swim clothes! Workout clothes! The Pastor's 82 library books! The sandwich maker! Anything you want!

A good thing about me being sick of packing. We haven't even been on our "big" trip yet. We are going to Kosovo and England and the country where the book of Thessalonians was written and no doubt a bunch of other places I can neither pronounce nor spell. Since I am sick of packing and schlepping things around, and since the Pastor and I will be travelling without children (pack mules), I will probably take a teeny, tiny bag. This was probably some master plan or evil plot devised by the Pastor.

We went out of town this weekend so the Pastor could preach at a church. I have heard the sermon at least four times. Three of the times, I got mentioned in the sermon. It's about time, after two and a half years of knowing the Pastor I finally get worked into the material. The last time he preached it though, he left out the amusing anecdote involving me. I guess he felt like it hadn't gone over well enough with his test congregations.

Anyway, I could preach the thing by now. It's in the book of Jeremiah and it's all about how these people are in the temple and they think they are so safe because they are in the temple, and this guy tells them not so fast! Just because you are in the temple is not enough! God wants you to also do a bunch of stuff. And NOT do other stuff. So this guy tells the people you've gotta follow these rules, which sound a whole lot like the ten commandments. And you know who was really good at living the way we are suppossed to live? This other guy named Jesus!

This sermon also involves Snack Ribs and Bologna. Actually, it's Sennacherib and the Babylonians, but after I heard the sermon the first two times, Nate and I started making up our own little amusing anecdotes.

I have a need to live in a world where I can use a computer without having to wait for a child to log off of the "Lucky Charms" website (who needs to visit the Lucky Charms website anyway?????) or wrestle it away from the Pastor. He has a computer at his office, thank you very much! Yes, I know I am being spoiled and selfish, but I am sick of sharing. I want to be able to write and to blog and to use the internet and when I go back to school, put my school work all in one place. And it's not like I ask for much! OK, I did get a big diamond ring and sometimes I do ask for clothes, shoes, purses and makeup, but besides those things, I haven't asked for much!

These views were probably best not expressed to the Pastor during our 3.5 hour drive home today. But I have officially reached my limit.

One example, last week I was cooking for the Pastor. I was using a recipe from the internet, and had the computer on the island in the kitchen. Mind you, this was the only time all day long I had been able to use the computer, and I was using it for the purpose of cooking a meal consisting mainly of meat that I WOULDN'T EVEN GET TO EAT. While I am in the midst of food prep, the Pastor comes into the kitchen and starts looking at other sites and I have to ask him several times to let me see my recipe. Mind you, he had been at his office earlier that day, and had free reign of the computer, internet, printers, etc. Why now? Did the man not realize I was in close physical proximity to knives and sharp cooking utensils and I could easily make something look like a strange cooking accident?

Yes I may be acting completely selfish and spoiled about the whole thing, but sometimes I don't like other people to touch my stuff. It just freaks me out. I need my personal, private space. And if I can get used to the packing and the unpacking and the repacking and hearing the same sermon four times, then surely other people can get used to my little quirks.