Category — Family

We’ve been painting walls (um…. make that “wall”) this weekend, which involved removing the banister from the stairs in our living room, moving the tv, entertianment center, and four bookshelves of DVDs, applying 3 coats of paint (1 primer, 2 actual color) and various other stuff.

Five more days until Jacob graduates.  Yikes.

Eleven weeks until he goes to college.

Panic time is nearly here!

 

My dad has recently been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. This is unusual for a non-smoker, but there are plenty of examples - lots of stories of second-hand smoke, asbestos exposure, other chemicals. One of the leading suspects in Dad’s case is his colon cancer that he had a few years ago.

Yuck…

I hate this.

I hate the disease. For what it’s worth, I’ve got our three desktop machines using all of their spare cycles running on the cancer project from grid.org. Those folks are burning over 100 CPU YEARS per day just to find likely matches between drugs and proteins on cancer cells. It’s not fast enough yet.

I hate not knowing. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m having to face mortality and the end of an aspect of my comfortable existence and my not being in control. I’ve been told that bright, intelligent, sensitive people can freak themselves out faster and more thoroughly than anyone else, simply because they can imagine more worst-case scenarios per hour than anyone should. I find myself shifting between imagining the worst, avoiding the problem, feeling wonderfully supported by family, friends, and prayer, and feeling guilty about not handling this the right way (whatever that is!).

I hate having to give up my self-sufficient pride and embrace the humility that comes from needing the support and prayers of others. I’ve been trained for years to be the stable, supportive, strong, caring, wise one, and now I have to learn to let others hold me up.

I even hate how selfish this entry sounds, now that I read through it.

The marching band season this year has been a blur. Jacob’s school (Southridge High) has consistently come in close to (but not on) the top of the heap. Last week they ended up in what was essentially a three-way tie, with the top three bands clustered within 0.25 points (out of 100). We’ll see how things go tomorrow, but with two schools from eastern Washington in the mix, we will just have to wait and see.

Time to go pack food and warm clothing. It’s going to be a long day in the stands of Autzen Stadium.

I’m running sound for church tomorrow. Things should be fine, but a lot of the regulars are out of town (hence my running sound). Because Labor Day has become the “last chance for Summer” holiday, we historically have one of the lowest attendance days of the year. The past few years, we have switched to a single service for this weekend.
One nice feature of this is that I get to run sound while Jacob, my youngest son, is playing bass guitar for the first time. I’d like to take credit for his talent, but I think guitar skills skip a generation. He does a very commendable job of getting the notes right, the rhythms nailed, and throwing in a few “fancy bits” for effect.
We won’t be having Sunday School this week, but I will still be able to look up a few of the incoming 5th graders to frighten. Mike (my co-teacher) and I have a reputation of being a little scary, but it’s mostly just a show.

This is now week three of Sammi working - <insert appropriate joyous sound here…>! She has learned much about office work, especially the power struggles that take place. I am reminded of the following:

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”
— Henry Kissinger

It holds true for offices too.

Sammi is now on file with Kelly Services and they’ve already sent out her resume to a client! Gainful employment looms on the horizon. Who knows what will ensue…