Friday Five: Take Me or Leave Me

Songbird at RevGalBlogPals poses the question: Whether it's new friends or new loves or new employers, what are five things people should know about you?

Not in any particular order -

*I tend to /try to look for the good in people, situations...
When I was growing up, "Pollyanna" was one of my favorite movies. If that means nothing to you, I suggest you find a copy and watch it - the 1960 Walt Disney version with Haley Mills. I had the soundtrack (dialogue and all) on a record. I listened to it until it was no longer playable. I think that is where it all started. Then this became a survival technique in teaching children with severe disabilities. We focused on the positive - what could be learned, not what couldn't.

*I am not nice -
a. When I'm hungry. (My cousin's ex says this runs in the family.)
b. After my bedtime.

*I am goal oriented rather than process oriented.
This means crafts like knitting and other needle work aren't so good for me. I get so caught up in getting finished, I forget to enjoy the process. It also means I get lots of stuff done!

*I am genuinely interested in finding the spiritual in my many tasks (see#3), but I have to be intentional about it.
This doesn't come naturally. Life is so much better when I live this way, but it's an ongoing effort. Prayer helps.

*Family is important to me.
I love being ManBoy's mom and Gifted & Talented's wife. I don't show them enough.

Full Circle

My boss is a history buff and has a small collection of books from Methodism past. A few weeks ago, I was invited to a church to see if I could use any of the material that was being discarded in the Conference Resource Center. Among the videos and books, I found a Handbook for Methodist Youth Fellowship from the 40's. I asked if I could take it for my boss.

Today, I finally caught up with him long enough to give it to him and explain how I came to have it. He was excited to have it for its historical value. Then he opened to the front page. The name inside was the pastor who first hired my boss as a youth director many years ago. He had been an important mentor in my boss' life even to the point that my boss spoke at his funeral a couple of years ago.

After checking the publication dates, we figured the book must have belonged to the mentor pastor when he was a teenager in MYF, long before he was a pastor. The book, it seems, has made a full circle or maybe two!

Reflections???

We'll I've been reading a few of my favorite blogs and several have good-bye 2008 or hello 2009 posts. I've been too busy living 2009 to reflect on it! I have four big projects, three trips, and residency paper work all in the next two months. So my resolution or goal or whatever you want to call it is to stay out of panic mode, out of dread mode and just do the next thing.

When I manage to stay in the moment and not "dread ahead," I do pretty well. It worked while I was at Mom's. When I start dreading, I get overwhelmed and discouraged. I haven't spent much time in the apocrypha or deuterocanonical books, but twice in the last couple of weeks I have found myself reading Sirach 11:10 My child, do not busy yourself with many matters; if you multiply activities, you will not be held blameless. If you pursue, you will not overtake, and by fleeing you will not escape. I'm listening Lord!

Now for a couple of mini-notes:

• This was the first New Year's Eve G&T and I spent apart from each other in 30+ years. It was wierd. Maybe that's part of why I'm not so into this "new start" stuff.
• I'll be at the Congress on Evangelism this week. Anyone else???
• The temperature when I got up this morning was 46 degrees lower than yesterday's high of 84!
• I'm using this blog entry to stall from stuff I don't want to do, so time's up.