Sad But Understanding

I talked to Laura yesterday. She and John have decided that they are not coming to Corinth next weekend for Christmas with my famiy. That makes me very sad; however, I do understand why. Laura does and always has hated to fly in the little plane and the fact that Tim was going to have to go get them on Saturday morning and then take them back on Sunday was a little more that she is willing to face. A 9 hour drive one way is a bit much also so I guess we'll just have to wait to see them at the real Christmas holiday but it will be sad without them next weekend. John has sent out resumes to about 30 different places so maybe they'll end up someplace closer to here or in Europe...who knows? He's a bit discouraged teaching undergraduate students who are required to take his classes to graduate - not because it is what they choose to take and they don't take a whole of of interest in them other than gettng enough out of them to pass. He's been teaching graduate classes until now where the students were there because they wanted to be and it makes a big difference in their interest level.

Carrie Beth Frederick is getting married on Friday night so I don't know if we'll fly down to Corinth after the wedding or if we'll just get up and go Saturday morning. Tim wants to be back here for Sunday morning service and I want to go in Cointh with my family, so I may drive and he might fly. He's in the middle of doing a painting a little at a time (you can see the final result at artist-tim.blogspot.com (it's in several posts back) each week to do something diferent while we are looking for a new preacher to keep things interesting. But we planned our family Christmas for that weekend last year at Christmas so we wouldn't interfer with any other in-law's Chritmas plans and I intend to be there for as much of the festivities as I can, but of course, I can't miss Carrie's wedding - she's one of my children (I just don't have to pay for the wedding, thank heavens!)

When I got home from Italy, Tim had gotten me a new computer. Mine had been in the Apple store for 21 days and they called and said they couldn't get the part they needed so they would sell him one for what the repair bill was going to be. He took them up on the offer. Then soon after I got home, he started talking about giving his mothr his old computer and teaching her how to do e-mail on it and getting himself a new one like mine. Before long, he'd gone to the Apple store and done just that. Now I just hope she really will use it! I told him that he had used the principle of gettng forgiveness rather than asking permission on purchasing a lot of things including cars, the second aiplane he bought, and now this computer. He's been looking at new airplanes, but I told him that principle WOULD NOT work on another airplane and if he decided that he was going to do that he had better be reday to pay a high, high, high, high price. I've been telling Leslie (whose daughter is going to be a missionary in Togo) and Judy Shockley (whose daughter is a missionary in the Check Republic) to get their passports ready becuase if Tim shows up with a new airplaine, we're going to Togo and Check Republic and anywhere we want to go in between on his credit card! I think that might hold him in check for a while anyway.

Pray for me while I try to study for my Marriage and Family therapy boards and get my teaching materials ready for Ghana at the same time and see clients. I can ususlly multitask pretty well, but I'm not being very succesful at it here during the holidays! Too many places to go, people to see, and fun to be had!