Where are his pants?

It occurred to me at lunch today the my neighbors, well those who are up at 5am anyway, must be wondering about me. Here's why.

I get up a 4:15am -ish every day so that I can be to the gym by, with any luck, 5:15am. I get up that early so I can wake up, have a little coffee and mentally prepare myself for a workout. I always check out side to see if it's snowed over night so that I can clean the walk off for the dog. He's a dachshund, short legs and all, so I like to give him a little clearance for the underbelly. Anyway, two days this week we've been dumped on with snow and I've had to shovel before I left for the gym.

I take my work clothes for the day in my gym bag and on hangers in the car. So when I leave the house its usually in shorts, a t-shirt and my Nikes. This morning when I saw the snow I grabbed my parka and gloves and went to work on the snow. Keep in mind that the parka is long, like about to my knees. As I was shoveling away 3 or 4 cars went down the street. It occurred to me at lunch today that it must have appeared that I had no pants on cuz my parka went below my gym shorts but my legs were showing. I had to wonder if what the people who drove past me this morning, and the people that drove past me earlier in the week must have thought....is he not wearing pants?

Well just for the record, for those of you in my neighborhood who might have seen me shoveling and anyone else....YES, I HAD PANTS ON!

I'm thinking that if it snows again tonite I'd better just put some sweats on over the shorts!

You think you've got baggage.....

Waiting for baggage is the absolute worst part of traveling. Without a doubt, it seems like the longest, most drawn out part of your journey. You want nothing more when you reach your destination to get your suitcase and move on, but you stand and wait and wait and wait.

Our flight from Orlando was do to arrive at Midway around 10:30 Friday night but do to unforseen thunderstorm in Ft Myers we were delayed and didn't arrive until near midnite. After deplaining we made our way to baggage claim to begin our predestined baggage waiting period. In an attempt to make our departure quicker, Adam went to get the car from the parking garage so that when we had collected all the suitcases we could make a swift departure.

It was late and everyone was tired and wanted to get home. Some of the people waiting for their bags were very aggressive in getting up to the carousel to retrieve them. One particular gentleman was so intent on being the first to get his bags that he kicked the emergencey shut off button at the bottom of the carousel and it came to a screeching halt. Not exactly sure why this shut of button encased in plastic so that it just couldn't be bumped, but it wasn't and now no one was getting their bags.

So about 10 minutes later maintenance finally got the carousel running again. We had managed to retrieve 3 of the 4 bags we needed when disaster struck again. The bags came up from a lower level on a conveyer belt and then toppled onto the carousel that went round and round. A car seat came to the top of the conveyer belt, however a strap and buckle that was sticking out from it got caught where the conveyer belt wrapped back under and the carousel came to a screeching halt again. A maintenance man showed up a few minutes later but couldn't get the buckle unwedged from the conveyer. After a few attempts he gave up. One of the passengers who was waiting for his bag jumped up on the carosel and pulled and tugged until he finally dislodged the belt and buckle.

People started hollaring at the maintenance man that the problem was fixed. He then got on his radio and cell phone trying to get someone from the depths of the the baggage department to get the carousel going again. We waited and waited but nothing happened. People started to get irrated and the comments began to fly. One guy jumped up on the carousel and was trying to look into the hole from where the conveyer belt hurled the bags up to the top to see if he could see his bag I guess. The maintenance man didn't like that and very loudly told him to get off the carousel. The guy yelled back that he had to get somewhere. It was midnite, who has to get anywhere at midnight. Or it was midnite, didn't we all have somewhere to be!

After what seemed like an hour (but in reality was probably 10 minutes) the conveyer belt and carousel started up again. Luggage began to pass by us once again and low and behold there was the last piece of luggage we needed. It has actually already gone by once and we all missed it.

It would have been nice to have known that the last piece of luggage we needed was just on the other side of the carousel from us, but hey, had we seen it we would have missed all that drama!

Quit your whinin'

Some dogs whine when they're puppies, some dogs whine they're sick, some dogs whine when they want to go outside. Our dog whines when he wants to go to bed. And quite frankly, HE'S MAKING ME CRAZY!

Round about 7 or 7:30 he starts in with his pathetic wimpering. It's not a long or painful sounding whine. It's almost like a sigh.....that he repeats over and over and over and over. And, when we ignore the whining the pacing begins. He walks from the living room to the bottom of the stairs and back. He then sits down and whines again. After a few minutes, he tries to climb up the side of my chair. When that approach is ignored him as it usually is, he backs down and repeats the cycle. This pattern goes on until we finally give up and go upstairs.

The whining technique also seems to come in handy when he wants his dinner. I have never seen such a neurotic dog in my entire life! The only real reason for this post is because he is driving me nuts tonite.

Florida in 3 days

It's amazing how quickly you can forget what winter is really like when you have the opportunity to go south for, even just a couple of days. I just got back from a trip to Orlando for the annual Willow Creek Leadership Summit National Strategy Event. It didn't take me long at all to settle into no coat, short sleeve shirts and flip flops. Palm trees and sandy beaches surrounded the very large lake at the Disney Coronado resort where we stayed. Definitely a welcomed paradise in the middle of a Michiana winter.

Disney wants your stay to be as easy as possible. When you check in your room key also serves as a charge card for the entire Disney area. You can use at any
Disney park, restaurant or store on the property and the charges will just be billed to your room. It only functioned as a means to open the door to my room for me. Dave Ramsey would be so proud! However I did have to carry the room number around on my wallet. The resort was so huge I was convinced without the room number stuck to my wallet I would never find my room again!

I was hopeful to be able to spend a little time with Josh while I was there but with all the meetings we'd be having I wasn't sure if that would be possible. As it

turns out I did get to see him. We had an awesome visit. He moved to Orlando to attend Full Sail last spring and we'd never seen his apartment as he moved sight unseen. I got to see where he was living this week.

Although we were consumed by activities and meetings I managed to make time for some alone time for myself. Each morning I'd get up early, get some coffee and walk around the lake 2 or 3 times and watch the sun rise. It gave me an opportunity to talk to God and reflect. I was surprized at the number of people who were up and out between 5:30 and 6am. One morning there was even an organized race being run.

My early morning walks also gave me time to think about how much I missed Lori. She loves flowers and they were blooming every where you looked. I had forgotten to bring my digital camera with me and the camera on my phone didn't take the best pictures. I did manage to capture a couple pictures.

The weather on the last day of our Orlando experience was probably the best. Go figure! The sun shone all day and the temps were in the 80's. All of us moaned and groaned about having to return to the frozen tundra awaiting us in Michiana. But as the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end." It only makes me look that much more forward to our vacation back to Orlando in April!

A Winter Revelation

As many of you know, we put our house on the market just after Christmas. Ever since we put the "For Sale" sign in the yard we have had some pretty harsh winter weather. From freezing rain, fog thick as pea soup and snow up to our armpits, it doesn't seem to stop.

One of the perks of the villa where we want to move is that all of the snow removal will be done for us, as well as lawn care, etc. It's not that we have a big driveway to shovel now, but just not one of our favorite things to do (but then again, who does love shoveling snow!)

Anyway, after getting dumped on with more snow this morning, Lori took the first shot at shoveling the drive. About 30 minutes later enough snow had fallen that I decided to shovel again before we left for work. Yes we do get up at 5 am!

We've said all along that if God wants us to move then the house will sell in His timing. If He doesn't then it won't. So Lori comes to me with this revelation after we get to work today about the snow shoveling. She said that while she was out in the blowing snow this morning that she figured either God doesn't want us to move so He keeps sending this less than desireable weather to Granger, or its really going to make her appreciate the fact that once we get moved into the villa that we won't have to deal with snow anymore! Isn't she great! I love her!