When he's outside Pam's dog eats stuff. Animal, vegetable, mineral, it doesn't matter. Goat poop, chicken poop, and whatever he can find in the compost pile all qualify as edible.
A few days ago he repeatedly puked up some really gross things we couldn't identify, then threw up foam, and wouldn't eat his normal food which he typically gobbles down quickly. This went on for three days. Alas, he recovered and is back to normal, which means he does absolutely nothing pretty much all day.
We went to David & Marta's church this morning. Marta told us Sunday School starts at 9:15 so we showed up at 9:10 to a parking lot with about six cars, none of them belonging to David or Marta. Turns out they don't actually attend S.S.
We sat around a table with nine other people and we may have been the youngest. They're studying the Holy Spirit and spent most of the hour discussing how the cloud in Scripture is a type of the H.S. Alas, it isn't, so mostly we read a bunch of passages that just talked about clouds without any mention of the Holy Spirit.
David got called out on their way to church so we sat with Marta and their youngest daughter, a college student. Forrest, who taught the S.S. class, also led the music and did a very good job. He's got decent guitar skills and a good presence.
Then Joe got up to preach.
Moving on, we've had something between a heavy mist and a very light drizzle all day with temps that didn't reach 70. A wonderful break from the heat we've had this month. Tomorrow I start some focused training for a faster 5k and the1/2 marathon in October so the cooler weather will be welcome.
I sure don't understand what happened in Charlottesville. You've got to be seriously imbalanced to be an any-color supremacist, and to resort to violence only puts the lie to your claim of superiority. When I read about someone who dresses up in a costume and/or behaves like a group of discredited crazies from the last century who committed horrible atrocities it's hard to think of them as anything but uneducated simpletons with serious self-esteem issues. And the moment they step into illegal activity I'm for hitting 'em upside the head with the full force of the law.
That said, I find it interesting that some are jumping on President Trump for not specifically identifying White supremacists as despicable. I'm not the only one who remembers a previous administration that refused to even use the term Islamic extremism, never mind denounce it.
We got the second estimate, this one from Ambassador Stoves, for a new wood stove and its installation, and it came in $100 cheaper than the estimate from Midgley's. I'm inclined to go with the latter because they've been in business for decades and have a great reputation in the area. We only know about Ambassador because of their ads on TV. So for $100 bucks I'll go with a known quantity.
We talked about it on the way to church this morning and decided not to move ahead with that part of MoHo's improvement now. The plan was to do the stove this fall and the roof next summer because it would be tricky to put a stove pipe through two roofs. We're told a new stove would be 50% more efficient because of the improved design of contemporary stoves, and we still want to get one. But we work hard to make good financial decisions and spending $4k (!) on a new stove and its installation right now when this one has kept us warm for two winters doesn't seem wise. So we're starting a stove fund that we hope will allow us to do the stove next spring and then the roof a couple of months later. (The roof will be much cheaper, which seems odd. Part of that is because the roof is a DIY project.)
And we have other expenditures that are a more pressing priority, especially a chest freezer. In a month we're going to have about 50 lbs. of goat meat, none of which will fit in the very dinky freezer that's part of our very dinky fridge.
Life's like that, huh? Sometimes it gets tricky to do things correctly, wisely. Our culture is full of people who just plow ahead, doing what feels good and/or easy and/or fun, without thinking it through re. outcomes and consequences. The wisdom of deferred satisfaction doesn't come naturally or get easier, and it seems like a virtue increasingly rare.
I feel better since we decided to delay the wood stove purchase. I hope we have the wisdom to delay it again if the situation still isn't right come next spring.
I'm also glad Pam and I so easily agree on things like this. Being on the same page re. financial decisions makes life SO much easier.
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