"I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly." - Steve Martin

From friend Sue

This will be brief. It's late by old man standards, I've had a challenging day, and I'm baking cinnamon roles as I type this. So my attention is divided.

My class this morning was weird. We wrapped up Proverbs and then did Ecclesiastes (deeepressing) and Song of Songs (R-rated). Difficult, especially with a lot of college and post-college and a couple of adolescents in the class.
How many synonyms are there for the word erotic?

After lunch I cleaned the goat barn. It had been WAY too long since I last did that and as a result it took a lot longer and was a lot harder. Plus, the wheelbarrow doesn't push through snow easily. Ugh.

I baked orange rolls yesterday (Mmmmm!) and am baking regular cinnamon rolls now. I'll take a half-and-half pan to the office tomorrow and the other half-and-half to Seattle Tuesday.
Coffee and cinnamon rolls, just about a perfect pairing.

Pam's dog Bear is a four-legged...I can't think of an appropriate word. This afternoon Pam described him as "a combination of all the worst characteristics of the species." I got him for Pam for her birthday about five years ago because she wanted a lap dog to cuddle with at the end of the day. He came from a shelter and seemed like a good natured dog well suited for that role. And in that sense he's perfect. He jumps up into her lap and falls asleep immediately. Beyond that he does nothing except eat twice a day. And eat poop. Goat poop, chicken poop. Poop in the compost pile, poop in the goat pen, poop just outside the chicken pen, and poop in the pile of straw cleaned out of the goat barn.
He snores in a bizarre way that makes you suspect there are two dogs in his kennel and they just read Song of Solomon. It's embarrassing.
Other than that he just lays around all day. When I throw the tennis ball Buddy goes after it with eager enthusiasm while Bear *might* look up to see what's going on but mostly he seems to see it as interruption to his day-long nap.
I used to thin Pam was too emotionally attached to him to even mention his eventual demise but lately (especially after Buddy who is a near-perfect companion dog) even she questions Bear's raison d'etre.
Which means he'll live forever.

The cinnamon rolls just came out of the oven and are cooling on the counter. In about 30 minutes I'll frost them with the icing I just made and I'll have one...strictly as a test before I give the rest away. I'm sticking to my "one cheat a week" and was down half a pound at this morning's weekly weigh-in. I would normally expect more loss than that but I've been working extra hard at the gym (burpees) so I figure there's some muscle increase to match the fat loss.

If (!) UFC decides to add the adult ed component to the week's ministry list I'll be the teacher. But one of the things that excites me about the possibility of this ministry is training more teachers. We'll identify potential teachers who will take one of the classes. After each class the prospect(s) and I will meet to talk about what I taught and how. Toward the end of the unit (or a subsequent unit) they'll teach a class and then together we'll critique their effort. Eventually they'll teach a re-offering of the unit they took & observed. It will take us a few years but Lord willing we can go from one teacher in the congregation (me) to a half dozen. That dramatically increases what we can accomplish in adult ed at UFC.
Multiplication!