Okay, I am going to be out of pocket for awhile

Tomorrow night I am making dinner and breakfast on the Amtrak train back to Florida. For dinner we will be having muchos, muchos snacks. Cheese, crackers, pepperonis, a can of vienna sausages, cheez-its, juice boxes and Yoo-hoos. Complete balanced nutrition? Oh hell no! A way to stay quiet and entertained on a train with a five child to one adult ratio? You betcha! Breakfast will be Pop-tarts, grapes, and frozen yogurts in a tube (AKA go-gurts) and more juice boxes. Mommy will probably have a coca-cola and a Vicodin. We will be on the train 13 hours, most of it HOPEFULLY sleeping. We get into Orlando around 10 a.m.

I will be making dinner the next night in my mother-in-laws GIANT marble counter topped kitchen with her full range of appliances. Her stove/oven has more dials and buttons than the Starship Enterprise. Her dishwasher is a quiet, efficient, stainless steel interior dream machine. I covet it like I have never coveted anything in my life. It's a good thing the Bible only mentions wives and asses or I'd be in real trouble! The rest of the week I will be sharing a rental house with some women from my church as we attend a spiritual retreat and workshop. I will be making dinner at the rental house! Looking forward to learning some new recipes from my friends too!

I went to last year's conference and completely enjoyed it, even though it didn't seem like the kind of thing I'd really like to do. I sort of went out a sense of duty, and then was completely shocked to find it entirely peopled with my kind of folks! Life can be surprising like that. I learned I am not the only foul-mouthed, free-wheeling, liberal Christian on earth. Of course I am not some special freaking snowflake! Good times all around.

I hope you get to do something inspiring in this first month of the New Year, be it a new job, new hobby, new book or even a new haircut (hoping to get one of those too!) I'll be making some short but sweet posts from my phone if internet connectivity is a problem. Later!