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Okay, it wasn't really funny, but it's the best I've got for the moment. There's still pretty much nothing going on. I did start a couple of online college courses. Macroeconomics and Understanding Art. They're pretty easy. I took Micro a while back, and Macro is pretty similar. Art is actually pretty interesting. There's a lot of reading and a lot of required posting on the class discussion forum, but it's going pretty well now that I've settled into the rhythm of things.

Helen continues to remain as radiant and graceful as ever. She is obviously anxious for me to come home, but she has kept her usual dignity and composure. I'm continually delighted at what a precious blessing Helen always is for me. I have said many times that she is my gift from God, and she has demonstrated that to me time and time again. I'm quite certainly the luckiest man in history.

Clarification

Yes, so the above quote was in response to the Pope's anathema of all non-Catholics. The actual quote was "tiny, puny, Pope man," but Matt heard "tunic" and liked it better, so it survives.

In other ecclesiastical matters, I've finally decided to grow up regarding my approach to church membership. I think it has a lot to do with feeling homeless. My home now is where Matt is, which is kinda far away at the moment. But that doesn't mean that God hasn't put me in a place, and therefore I need to live where I am, including being a part of the church. Also, it's not fair to my old church to say I'm a member when I don't contribute in any way. For these reasons, I am joining Redeemer next week. I'm pretty excited. This is a really amazing church, and I honestly don't know why I didn't join earlier. I'll only be there for the next 3 months, but I'm still glad for any time that God gives me to be a part of this church. And of course Matt has given his full consent.

Other things with which I am pleased:
1. my husband
2. the price of red bell peppers (99 cents each, and they're huge!)
3. my roommate
4. God's provision
5. wheat rolls from Walmart

Things with which I am less pleased:
1. Dallas needs new tires.
2. limited time: at Baylor, to spend with friends, until I must move again, until I have to find a real job, etc.
3. my husband being gone

Well, I guess it's about time to post again...

As you've probably guessed, there's nothing going on. Helen is still in school, and I'm still in Iraq.

Actually, there is a little bit of something going on. I've started a couple of online college courses, Understanding Art and Macroeconomics. I'm really excited about the art one, and Macro looks like it's going to be REALLY similar to Micro, which I took about a year ago. It's also a lot like the semester of economics that I had in high school... yes, I'm a nerd, I remember economics from high school.

Today was kind of rough, but not too bad. I didn't sleep very well last night (as usual) so I didn't get to go to church today. That makes 3 Sundays in a row that I've missed church. It's kind of disappointing. There's part of me that wants to say "it's okay, you need to avoid legalism" and there's another part of me that wants to say "church is something that you really ought to want and you ought to be willing to sacrifice for it." So yeah, I have one of these crucial spiritual dilemmas about once a week. Last week it was "are we going to baptize our children as infants," which is not to say that I've made a decision about that yet, nor to say that it's not as important, but it doesn't feel as urgent as it did last week. I still have a lot of research to collect on the topic, so if you have any insight, I'd be willing to add it to my collection. Not to mention that we'd actually have to HAVE a child before baptism was an issue...

Oh yeah, today was kind of rough.. right. Not only did I miss church, but we had an entire battalion of Marines arrive this morning. So I had about 50 Marines processed through my office in the space of about 4 hours. It was pretty crazy because I was only able to take care of the basics but they kept asking questions that I had to defer until I wasn't up to my elbows in Marines. It was a little stressful, but I decided to have fun with it whenever I could. One GySgt (3 ranks above me) was getting his picture taken for his ID and asked if his hair looked okay while rubbing his bald head. It was funny, but it wasn't funny enough so one of the other guys asked if he wanted a comb... funny, but 'way too predictable, so I offered him a bottle of Windex. Yeah, that got a laugh out of everybody.

Anyhow, that's pretty much all there is. My roommate found a huge piece of Styrofoam that we cut to fit in our window so that it would block out the light. Hey, it's a big deal when you sleep during the day. I've also developed an allergy to garlic...

Heels and Highlights

If you have concluded from the lack of posts that nothing of particular interest has happened, you would be quite correct. A few "high"lights from the last week:

1) my dad had a family get-together at his new house on Saturday, which was lots of fun
2) the morale line that Matt uses to call me put a limit of 15 minutes per phone call (down from no limit), which isn't really a big deal because he can call me right back if he needs to, we can talk every day since it's in moderation, it's still free for him, and it's not as hard to get through, so really it's somewhat of a good development
3) I got new shoes. They're cute. And they made quite the stir at church. I especially like the comment from one of the grandmothers who said that if they'd had shoes like that when she was my age, she'd have had a pair. See: