I'm still here!

I just realized how long it's been since I updated this! Despite the fact that we're so busy, there hasn't really been much going on that's been worth writing about. Mostly work, work, work!

I saw a few good movies in the last few weeks - Hairspray, No Reservations and Prairie Home Companion. Prairie Home Companion was good, but kind of melancholy. The other two were really good - Hairspray is definitely going on my wish list. I also went to see License to Wed, which actually wasn't that great. All of the funny moments were in the previews!

I've found this great website where you can go and play Scrabble - with other people who are on line, via email with a friend, or against a robot. It's great! I really enjoy it, especially since I can't alleviate the work-induced boredom with Facebook. :) http://www.scrabulous.com

On Saturday I went to my favourite used bookstore, in Inglewood, and found a few vintage children's books to add to my collection. I found three Enid Blyton paperbacks in almost new condition, which was very exciting for me! lol

This coming weekend is our church garage sale, and I'm looking forward to finding some fun stuff at that - we're getting rid of a fair bit of stuff at it though, so I'm really trying hard not to bring too much more home. We're getting 'new' couches tonight - it's kind of a long story as to how we came by them, but I'm really looking forward to having a proper couch. Hopefully we'll be able to keep the cats and their claws away from it!

Ariella Rose

I just talked to my mom and found out the name of my niece! Yay! Ariella Rose is such a pretty name, hey?

In other news, I read the new Harry Potter book on Saturday, in about five hours. Trevor told me that around two pages a minute is a bit slower then my normal speed of three pages an hour. I didn't realize he was timing me... lol Overall, I'm a little disappointed with it. Most of my theories were pretty accurate, which was cool, but she didn't wrap things up well - it felt rushed at the end. I was expecting the book to be a bit bigger then it was, but it was a pretty enjoyable five hours, despite all the time I spent bawling. I'm sure she didn't mean to write it as an allegory, but it certainly had a lot of allegorical characteristics. Pretty cool!

So the predicted temperature for today is ranging from 30-35, and we're having a youth group campfire tonight. That should be fun - might be a bit too much heat, even for me... :)

Ahhhhhhh....I just realized that "Rose" is one of the names I've always liked for a middle name for a baby...ack! Maybe my sister and I are more alike then we'd thought... :)

I love summer!

I love being warm - it's so great! You won't hear me complaining about the heat, it makes me happy. I do wish we had a yard and garden, but I'm really working hard at not complaining so much, being thankful for what I have, and trusting God to give me the desires of my heart. As nice as it would be to have a garden, I'd probably then complain about all the work involved. :)

I'm going to the Harry Potter release party at the Dalhouse Chapters tonight, and then I plan to spend all day tomorrow reading. In preparation for this momentous occasion, I'm just about done re-reading all six other books - if I can talk Trevor into cooking supper, I probably have time to finish the last one before I head out tonight!

I've been thinking a bit about our Survivor youth retreat that we've started planning for November. Planning for that really dropped off because of all the work involved in the youth gathering, but now that I'm mostly recovered from that, I'm getting excited about Survivor again. We've had some really cool ideas about stuff to do, and I really enjoy seeing how everything comes together in the end. I find that Survivor is one of the most rewarding things I do all year!

Oooh, did I tell you guys that my bridesmaid's dress for Scott and Sam's wedding came a few weeks ago? I really, really love it - it's so pretty, and I got a great pair of sandals and a wrap to go with it. And Trevor's going to wear a tux, so the Heumanns are going to be looking pretty hot. :) I'm thinking that photos of us all dressed up will make good Christmas presents for the family!

It's a girl!

My brother texted me to say we have a niece, but he didn't give me any other info, so I don't know anything else at this point! lol

I did go see Harry Potter last night - I have mixed feelings about it, but for the sake of those who haven't seen it yet, I won't say anything about it yet. :)

All my Ottawa photos are up! You can find them here... http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/michelleheumann

Impending Aunthood...

My mom just let me know that my sister is in labour! Hopefully there will be a niece or nephew by the end of the day...!!! I still haven't mailed the baby present...I really should get on that today, I suppose.... :)

Hey, is anyone interested in going to see Harry Potter with me tomorrow (Saturday)?

Gathering Reflections

Last night I got home from the 2007 Lutheran Church Canada National Youth Gathering "i am", which was held in Ottawa. It was an awesome week, full of so many things that I could probably write for days and not even be able to sum up the complexity and emotion and events that took place. So I'll try and give you an overview of the serious stuff, and you can check out my Facebook and my web album in a couple of days for the crazy fun stuff!


Who owns you?

This was something that really stuck in my mind from the gathering. There were many themes and words and phrases, and many of them resonated with me, but this idea was the most resonant of all. I'm not actually sure who, or what, owns me, but if I have to ask myself that and search so hard for the answer, it makes me think that it's probably not God. I think maybe I've been trying to own myself, or make my situation into what I want to own, if that makes any sense...


Missing You

This is something I've been struggling with lately - I feel that no matter where I go, who I'm with, or what I'm doing, there are people who are really important to me that I miss. Quality time is a pretty high-ranking love language for me, and right now, all of my best, closest, longest-term friends live somewhere that I don't, and that fact make chances for quality time pretty slim. (I do have good friends in Calgary that I love, and I don't want to short-change them at all, but as dear as they are, we're all too busy to really have the time for quality time either!) I find that thought kind of depressing, and I've been trying to make decisions based on where the people I love are located. It seems logical to me - God put these specific people in my life, so why wouldn't He want me to be closer to them?


Letting Go

I didn't have any big, earth-shaking revelations at the gathering, but on the last afternoon, as we sat on the bus, I did hear a still, small voice that said to let go. I said "ok God, I'll say good bye, and then I'll let go". Ironically enough, I didn't get to say good bye to the people I wanted to! I think it was a hint... :) I guess that He gave me friends in the first place - "you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be Your name" - I really need to just let go of what I want and just trust that He has it all under control. For the last couple of months, I thought I was trusting, but really, I was just praying that what I wanted would happen. I still want it, and feel that it IS what He wants, but my attitude and motivations were more centered around myself then they should have been.


Heaven is like a Gathering

One thing that I really cling to for hope, and that gives me much joy, is that I know I will see my friends again, and we'll have all the God-moments and all the worshiping and fun that we have at a youth gathering, but with out all the work and stress that we put in now. :)


Today...

...I'm exhausted, but content. One of the people at work, when I told her how tired I was, said "you don't look tired, you look great". I don't feel "great", but I do feel peaceful. God reminded me of His awesomeness and attention to detail this last week, and while I feel totally drained, I have a lot of hope for whatever He's going to do with me next! I just have to be patient and let go of what I want, and be ready for and open to what He wants for me.

And we're off!

We're leaving in just two hours to head to the airport and off to Ottawa for the LCC National Youth Gathering. I'm really excited about some parts of it (seeing all the people I know and the music) and I'm freaking out about some parts of (well, mostly just one - the cabana, which I've been in charge of organizing). I still need to shower and finish packing and feed the cats and water the plants and....ahhhhh....

But I thought I'd throw out a quick plug for Evan Almighty. Our 5th Anniversary was on June 23, and we went on a dinner and a movie date. I was a little skeptical, because I really didn't like Bruce Almighty at all - it was just too irreverent, too un-God like, and had waaaaay too much Jim Carey. But Evan Almighty was amazing - soooo good. It had a great message about faith and God's timing and families sticking together - it was really, really, really good. I highly recommend it! And it had really cute alpacas... :)

Did I mention we've been married for FIVE YEARS now? We've been together for 7 and a half years - it's crazy - sometimes it feels like only yesterday, and sometimes it feels like forever!

I'm sure we've been up to a lot in the last few weeks since my last post, but I can't remember any of it right now - all I can think about is making sure I've packed everything...probably a sign that I should be packing up my computer now! So stay tuned for photos from the capitol sometime next week!

Your Oven Guy v. My Plumber

Dear Reader,

I write every day because I have a deadline. But even if I didn't write a daily column, I'd still have to write something every day. Because writing helps me figure out what's going on inside of me, and it helps me recognize what I'm feeling. And today--I'm feeling like I want to let the air out of the oven repairman's tires. My new oven wasn't working right, so I called the repairman. First impression when I answered the door--the repairman looked like a nice enough guy. But I thought it was strange that a guy, who fixes appliances, wouldn't be carrying his "fix-it" bag. You know one of those bags filled with screwdrivers, widgets, a secret decoder--plug it into my oven and it would spit out the secret digital codes to tell him what the problem was--so he could fix it. But this repairman showed up at my door empty handed.

I invited the repairman into the kitchen to show him the patient, and our conversation went pretty much like this: “What seems to be the problem? “The temperature isn't working properly. When my oven reads 375 degrees, it's really not that hot. “The repairman took a step back from the oven, folded his arms one over top of the other, stared at the oven, and then looked at me with a straight face and said, "The oven looks okay to me.” I thought this was oven repairman humor. It wasn't. He was serious. “Well, aren't you going to test it with a thermometer?" Then I told him about my experiment, how I set the oven to 375 degrees, and put an oven thermometer inside, but the temperature only reached 350. My experiment didn't impress the oven man. Instead, he told me the oven was working within the guidelines for new ovens, because new ovens only have to be 80 percent accurate. So let me get this straight, "I just bought a new oven because my ten year old oven wouldn't keep the right temperature any longer, and now you're telling me that this brand new oven--that cost me a whole lot of money--doesn't keep the right temperature either, but that’s okay because it's within new oven guidelines?"

Yes, that pretty much summed it up from his perspective. I begged the guy to go get his fix-it bag and test the oven himself. His first reply was that he had a full schedule, "I've got a lot of other stops to make today, so I really have to get going.” I finally talked him into testing my oven's thermostat, and it wasn’t working right, and he did fix it. But it would still be a thrill to let the air out of the oven repairman’s tires.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher Suzanne@EmailBookClub.com
My blog: http://dearreader.typepad.com/


Dear Suzanne,

We had a plumber just like your oven guy! We recently moved into a new rental unit, where we share the hot water tank with the people upstairs. There was never enough hot water even for me to shower in the morning, never mind my husband. We weren't sure if it was because the people upstairs were using it all, or because the tank wasn’t working properly, so we called our property manager. He said he'd send plumber, so we waited for the plumber to call.

He finally called one day while we were driving home from work, and wanted us to check some settings on the tank. We asked him to call back in about an hour, when we were home, and he said he would. It was a couple of days later when he called back, and he told my husband to adjust the temperature setting on the tank. My husband came and told me what the plumber had said, and I said "but we already did that!”. And of course the plumber hadn't left a number to call him back at, so we had to call the property manager again. He had the plumber call us, and we had to beg the plumber to come out to the house and look at the tank.

He finally came, circled the tank a couple of times and pronounced “it’s a brand new tank - there's nothing wrong with it". We tried to get him to run some tests or SOMETHING because obviously there was something wrong with it as we were running out of hot water. We finally got him to admit that the tank is too small for four people to share, and coaxed him into calling the property manger to tell him that.

A few hours later, at about 10:30, just as I was drifting off to sleep, the property manager called to say "we're going to order you a larger tank". Which was just great, but why did he have to call then? Oy...

That was over a month ago now, and when we got back from vacation about two weeks ago, we still didn't have a new tank. We called again, and the manager told us that they'd ordered a new tank from Home Depot, but they were on back order! Finally, they came and installed the new tank yesterday, and this morning I had my first hot, full-length shower since the end of March. I can't decide whether to let the air out of the plumber's tires for being so difficult, or bake him my famous chocolate chip cookies for talking the manager into getting us a new tank...

--What I've Foundhttp://michellelindah.blogspot.com/

Home, sweet home?

It's never much fun coming back to day-to-day life after a holiday! I went to work on Friday, and I'm totally swamped. Everyone's glad to have me back (apparently the temp wasn't very popular) which is nice, but I'm glad I only had to work one day before getting two off!


Yesterday Dad and I went down to Drumheller for the Calgary Philharmonic's presentation of "Beethoven in the Badlands". We had some interesting customer service experiences, and checked out the Tyrell Museum. That place is such a crock - they present evolution as if it's gospel truth - tried to tell me that I evolved from something that looks like a slug...oy...and every year the public school system brings in busloads of kids and teaches them this stuff. Did I mention that this is a major load of crap??!! Anyway, the music was good, it didn't rain, and I only got a little sunburnt, so it was a good day, museum notwithstanding!


Now, back to the grind...laundry, housework, paperwork, Gathering stuff....ICK! I'd rather be walking on the beach, thank you very much!!!

On the road again

The best B&B in Annapolis Royal

Michelle in a tree

Simon says "touch the moose, Chris"

Boys....

Trevor at Lobster Lane in Peggy's Cove

The boys at the boardwalk in Eastern Passage

Peekaboo

Mom says "you could do this..."

Live from Nova Scotia

Sooo tired...must sleep...

Stories later - photos for now!

http://picasaweb.google.com/michelleheumann/NS2007

Talking to myself?

Just wondering...does anybody actually still read this thing? Facebook seems to be the new blog, and while I'm happy to rant to myself on here, I'm just curious to see if anyone else is checking it. :)