For Carolyn

Carolyn, I had no idea you were still reading my blog...I thot sure now that such a nice young man has captured your time that I and my blog were history, so I was flattered by your comment.

We had a murder mystery dinner at our house last weekend. We took the leap years ago and hosted one for our friends after finding the game at a garage sale. It has become somewhat of a winter tradition now, esp among some of our friends and even our daughter's friends.
Daughter Bethany drove down from college in Seattle and she and her friends put on a delightful evening for all of their parents.
I enjoyed having such a great bunch of young adults in my kitchen all afternoon, chopping, baking and simmering...Chef Blake, you have done it again.
Carolyn's Mom and husband were two of the distinguished guests, her Mom, Linda, dressed her part as a famous actress, husband Don was the carefree fisherman. What fun to look forward and enjoy such an evening...winter needs more of these delightful breaks from the ongoing responsibilities of adulthood. Thanks kids...it was a gift!
Here are some scenes from that evening...the evening did NOT include alcohol...we had a fine time without it don't you think?

Busyness

I read a quote from Eugene Peterson this week that I have been thinking about.
He said, "Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the lazy thing instead of the hard thing."
I just finished a short stint teaching the teenagers at church. We have been studying the book of James in the Bible and the first chapter talks about how God's word is like a mirror that reflects back to us what our inside person looks like.
I had each one count up in their head how many mirrors they could think of in their house and cars, purse, etc. (over twenty here at my house) Then I had them count how many Bibles their family owned. Guess what, the mirrors won... but worse yet is how many times a day we check out our physical reflection compared to looking into the Word at our eternal reflection....too busy to examine the eternal but ever checking the temporal, diligently monitoring its decay? This challenges me...you?