Vacation 2009: Day 2, Part 1

Vacation day two was almost as cold as day one, but it was much more action-packed.

Our first stop was a logging museum that, frankly, I could have gone my whole life without seeing and been happy. But I suppose we stopped by because it was on our way to Tahquamenon Falls, the main event.

One fun thing about the logging museum was our tour guide. This kid was about 13 (going into high school, but he looked like a shrimpy freshman), his wavy hair was slicked down with a razor-straight side part, and his clothing seemed stuck in time. Slim-fitting jeans that were a few inches off the top of his shoes, flannel shirt, etc. Basically, some wrinkles would have made him a shrunken 90-year-old. I found him mildly amusing, especially when he complained about knee pain. He said he had gone up in a light house the day before and now his knees were killing him from "here to here." I didn't see at first that he was actually pointing to spots just above his knees and just below his hips. His quadraceps, you see. Here I was thinking, "This poor little-old-man kid has bad knees!" But it was actually just sore muscles.

(This became a catch-phrase for the week, especially since on Day 3, we did actually climb up to the top of a light house, and my "knees hurt from here to here" for the better part of two days afterward.)

We bid "smell ya later" to the logging museum (Okay, it was mildly interesting, but the tour lasted way too long. There's only so much I want to know about the history of logging in the UP.) and continued on our way to Tahquamenon Falls. We were closer to the Lake Superior shore up there and it was very cold.

Erich bought a sweatshirt and a hat for the wintertime, which I wore on this cool July day. I refused, however, to wear closed-toe shoes. It's July, darnit!

After a scrumptious lunch at the park's on-site brew pub, we headed off to the Upper Falls. I managed to get some good pictures before my camera batteries died:

Then we drove down to the Lower Falls, and I retrieved some fresh batteries from the car.

Mom, Andrew, Lexi

Michael (coming soon to a Concordia near us!) holding our goddaughter Emily. This is my favorite portrait-type photo I took.

Squirrel!

Later in the day we went to Kitchitikipi, but that will have to wait for another post. :)

Pet Peeve

This may seem a bit insensitive, but I hate it when people say "I covet your prayers." Insensitive because someone usually "covets" prayers at a difficult time in their life, and I would not nitpick with someone who directly told me they covet my prayers.

That being said, that's not really what "covet" means. Coveting goes beyond simple want or desire. To covet is to want something enviously that's not yours and you can't have. I covet the mansion down the street. I covet my neighbor's newer car. Covetousness, when followed to its logical conclusion, leads to hatred and theft.

If I'm going through a difficult time in my life, I don't "covet" someone else's prayers to the point that I would cheat and steal from them to get some prayers. It just doesn't follow.

Using the word "covet" just seems to be a way to use a biblical-type word (heck, depending on how you number the ten commandments, coveting is forbidden in two of them!) and sound "godly." But it usually just makes a person sound like they don't know what it really means. (And, it turns out, people agree that using big words when smaller ones will do usually just makes the person sound stupider. I would second that for using Bible words when regular ones will do.)

Also, "covenant" as a verb. What's the deal with that? Hypothetical example: "I covenanted my friend that I would pay her back the $10 I borrowed." Silly!

Vacation 2009: Day 1

Earlier this month, Erich and I went with his entire immediate (and growing!) family on a vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I had never been there. Well, that's not true: my parents keep saying things like, "Oh, you've been there!" but at the time I was less than two years of age. Doesn't count! So I got to experience everything anew, and I really enjoyed what I saw.

The first day of our trip was a Monday, and a rather cool and blustery one at that. Since many of us had gotten in late the night before, we took it easy. In fact, we took it so easy, I forgot to bring my camera along, so all my pictures from this day are actually from my phone.

Except for this one, from my MIL's camera:

There we all are (clockwise from lower left: Me, Erich, Andrew, Megan, Emily, Paul, Lexi, FIL, and Michael [and Mom's taking the picture]), eating real UP pasties from the local supermarket for lunch. We had pasties several times that week, including from "as seen on the Travel Channel" pasty joints, but these from the supermarket were by far the best. And obviously, we could use the nice hearty meal on a day like this. Look how bundled up we are! And this was JULY!

After our picnic lunch, we walked over to the local lighthouse in Manistique.

Erich starts to regress a little when around his family--especially his youngest brother. :)

It was a decently long walk to the lighthouse, and then there wasn't much to see. But I liked getting my first close-up view of Lake Michigan for the season.

I marveled at how clear the water was! Little did I know this was nothing compared to what I would see later in the week.

Before heading back to the house, I froze my toes on the beach for a while, still very much impressed at the aqual clarity.

Friday Five: 7/31

1. How often do you clean your home?

Embarrassingly seldom. I vacuum up to once a week in the main rooms, and I clean the bathroom when it starts to disgust me. Same with dusting. Everything else is kind of seasonal.

2. What domestic chore do you hate?

Cleaning the bathroom and laundry. Erich is really good at laundry and always impresses me with his folding skills.

3. What domestic chore do you enjoy?

I have always like vacuuming, and I especially enjoy it since we splurged on a Dyson after we got married. It can make even the horrible carpet in our new house look not-super-bad.

4. Do you own a washing machine or go to the laundrette?

I have never lived in a place that didn't have its own washer/dryer, with the exception of my dorms in college, when the worst I had to do was drag it down to the basement of the building. But I saved a lot of my laundry for when I was home anyway.

5. Do you iron underpants and/or bed sheets?

Never have, never will. I probably iron less than once a year, and when I do it's one unavoidable item. That's what dryers and wrinkle-releasing sprays are for.

Friday Five: 7/3

This is the first halfway-decent Friday Five I've seen in a while.

Randomosity!

1. It's the last night of the world, and you've only just found out. What five things will you do in these final hours?

eat something bad for me, update Twitter with something witty, listen to Bach, talk to family, and cuddle with my hubby

2. How do you feel about our American Flag's design?

I wish they had kept the unicorns, horseshoes, moons, and other lucky charms, but it's decent, I guess.

3. What pets have you had?

Hmm, let's see. The first pet I remember having was a goldfish. We had four goldfish, for each of us four kids. I think we set them free. We got a yellow lab named Ernie (Ernestine) when I was eight, and she lived to the ripe old age of almost 13. My family got another yellow lab named Lucy when I was 19, and she's now 7. I still think of her as "my" dog, because she's the closest thing to a pet I have right now. I also had a betta fish named Henry sometime around the age of ten. He croaked. And during my freshman year of college, my roommate and I each got a goldfish from Walmart. They were both dead within 12 hours.

4. What was the last activity you wore a wristband for?

Pretty sure that was the Miller Brewery tour in Milwaukee in May. That was when we went to the Cubs-Brewers game, of which I have many photos but I never did post about it. :(

5. What song changed your life?

And this is the clunker question. It's just stupid. Can I just say music "changed my life" and leave it at that? Well yes, I can, for this is MY blog.

Happy Fourth, blogland!

Eco-Friendly

I had a lovely evening out with some friends tonight. We ended up at Barnes & Noble, which to me is like a non-edible candy shop, where we enjoyed rifling through the 50% off clearance bins.

In the non-book bin I found a small set of colored pencils. These aren't just any colored pencils. They are eco-friendly colored pencils. Now, I have absolutely no problem with the idea of being eco-friendly. I enjoy not polluting the river. If I have a choice between something that is toxic and something that is non-toxic, believe me, I will pick the non-toxic option. Maybe even when it comes to colored pencils! So, wondering how these colored pencils could be eco-friendly, I flipped over the package for more information.

"These pencils are made from handmade paper..."

Oh, that's nice.

"...from the Daphne bush,..."

Sounds so clean and eco-friendly!

"...a plant locally grown..."

Fantastic! That reminds me, I want to hit up our local farmer's market tomorrow for some locally grown produce.

"...in Nepal."

Oh, in Nep-- IN NEPAL?? How is that local? Yeah, I know Nepal is the capital of mountains and nature and goats and Eastern wisdom and everything, but is it not as blindingly obvious to the general population as it is to me that Nepal is on the other side of the world? And these colored pencils probably got here by airplane? And airplanes have OMG HUGE CARBON FOOTPRINTS?

It's all marketing, people. "Eco-friendly" is the new "low carb." Are there health benefits to eating less sugar? Yes. Five years ago, did people buy things just because they were labeled "low carb"? Yes. Environmentalists are so happy that eco-friendly has become the "in" thing to be, but it's just a fad. People are sheep who go where the wind takes them, and right now they are paying through the nose for some false peace of mind.

Oh, and so, apparently, is Congress. Great job, Congress. Way to pull us out of this recession!

And no, I didn't buy the colored pencils. That's just silly.

Holy Moly! I Have a Blog!

It has been over a month since my last entry. That's a bit weak, even for me. It just feels weird to think of blogging when I'm still living out of boxes. Actually, I'm pretty much just walking around boxes filled with non-essentials by now. The stuff I need to live is put away. I really need to get to work on unpacking much more purposefully, but it's just so hot.

Oh yeah, the move went well, the closing is...over, the best thing about it. We have our house and we still like it. We have fresh paint in some rooms and dire need of paint in others. We discovered a few days ago, when it finally got hot in this part of the country, that our A/C does not actually cool the house. It runs, it blows, but no coolness. Luckily, it turns out our house came with a warranty, so it should be covered. And once it's less than 80 degrees in here, well THEN I shall get to work on unpacking in earnest. Mmhmm. Yep.

But that's also why we got a house with a basement. It's about 75 down there, so we're not doing too bad. That's cool enough to play Wii (which Erich got me for my birthday a month ago... gee, it HAS been a long time!) and ignore boxes!

This week brings Music Camp at church--a new and improved Singing School! Remember Singing School? I was such a young, unmarried blogger then. Sigh.

Two Cents

Have you heard the news? According to a Gallup poll, a majority of adults identified themselves as pro-life for the first time since 1995, when they first started conducting this poll.

I am amazed and pleased with Gallup's findings. It seems to fly in the face of the current Democratic majority leadership with the most pro-choice president in our nation's history. I certainly hope this trend continues, bringing the mainstream back to a more charitable view of life in its earliest stages, which naturally leads to a higher regard for life at all stages.

It occurs to me that my generation is reaching adulthood, and my generation is really the first to be greatly impacted by legalized abortion. Perhaps some of the respondents are glad and relieved not to have been one of the victims. Perhaps the mask of "choice" is finally being lifted, revealing what abortion really is: murder.

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