Trivial Pursuit

Good morning! I have a little snippet of time, so will sit down and give you a couple of updates! Nothing really big! Just some St John trivia to pass on....

We sold our 4-place airplane to a guy from Brazil, Abrao Eliasquevici. He left a week ago, but is dawdling around somewhere in the Caribbean! Now, the plot thickens!

Joah, who flies inner-island planes in Puerto Rico for a company located down there, called Travis yesterday and said, "Hey dad, guess what happened? I just landed this morning at the town of Fajardo and as I was getting out of my plane, I glanced over on the ramp and there was your plane that you just sold!"

Joah received a special award when he was a little boy in the Christian school for being the "Most Observant". I guess some things never change!

So, Travis called Abrao on his cell phone and left him a message telling him to call Joah as they were right there in the same place. I guess they're going out to dinner or lunch today in San Juan! Small world, huh?

Travis, Denny (my brother-in-law) and I are driving over to Kansas City to have Thanksgiving at Sara's new apartment. Allen lives only about 15 minutes from her, so will also be coming to dinner, along with his son, Drew. Unfortunately, his wife, Erica, has to work. Of course, Sara's boyfriend, Erich, will be there too. So, should be lots of fun!

Now, the funny thing is this...before we decided to move the dinner from our house to KC, I asked Sara what she wanted to bring. She immediately said, "Corn!" Now, how hard is it to cook corn? Hmmmmm....we've been chatting on Face Book and giggling about her big contribution for the past couple of days.

I told her that since the dinner was moved to her house, I was bringing the corn and she could do the the rest of the dinner. But, that didn't fly! She's still providing corn, although she is going to make mashed potates now too.

I called my brother-in-law last night and asked what he would like to bring....Yep! Baked corn! Looks like the meal will be real yellow!!!!

Oh, life is so much fun, isn't it? I love all these little diverse pieces of trivia that pop up all over the place...just to make things interesting!

So, if I don't talk to you before Thursday...have a very happy Thanksgiving and for heaven's sake, don't eat too much corn!

Who am I, REALLY?

I'm sure you really want to hear about this, right? Well, once again, I have to write about something else that has been stirring in my heart! :-)

I tried to answer some questions in my "Recovery" class last night, but found it almost impossible until we all sat and talked it out. Questions like: If you could live anywhere in the whole wide world, where would that be? If you had unlimited funds, where would you go on vacation? What do you really like to do? What really bothers you?

Sounds easy, doesn't it? But, for me...it wasn't. I've spent the greater part of my life deferring to everyone around me. Guess what!? That means I'm a people pleaser! My daughter will force me to give my opinion about things. "Mom, what do YOU want to do?" And my standard answer has been, "Whatever everyone else wants is fine with me..."

So, even in a workbook with imaginary scenarios, I couldn't just say..."I want to go to Egypt to see the pyramids!" Yep, that's something I've always (down deep inside) wanted to do! Will it happen? Only God knows, but the important thing is that I learn to express it! It's ok to have opinions, wants, and desires. In fact, God delights that I come away from trying to please everyone around me! I've come to realize that you absolutely CAN NOT please people enough. Someone will always be bummed!

I will try to express those inside desires more as I blog! Perhaps I'll find out who I really am after all! And if you don't like it? Oh, please don't be mad at me! :-)

Procrastination

Blogging is so much fun! Why do I wait to do it? I've been seriously working on not procrastinating so much. Did you know that this goes along with trying to be perfect? Yep! I've learned all about it (AGAIN) as I've been working through one of my "Recovery" classes that I facilitate on Monday nights.

When you have a "perfectionist" mindset--you tend to procrastinate. After all, it's really hard to do something perfectly! So, the thought of even getting started or finishing a project can be mentally and emotionally overwhelming! No one is perfect, except God, so why do we strive for that? We need to do things with excellence--which is a whole lot easier than "perfect".

OK...so what have I finished? Well, Christmas presents that needed to be in the mail no later than earlier this week to arrive overseas in time. I had to force myself to finish! I would almost get something complete, then would think, "Oh well, I'll just put this down for now and come back to it later!" I can't believe how hard and stressful it was to just finish, pack up the boxes, take them to the Post Office and get them mailed!

I'm sure this sounds silly, but we all have our "issues", right? Right! This just happens to be one of mine.

I'm starting in on another project and am thinking about the prospect of writing out Christmas cards. Seems a bit daunting, but I really love this time of year and anticipate hearing from family and friends all over the world. I just received my first Christmas letter from South Africa!

So, I'll close for now--am proud of myself that I didn't procrastinate any longer in writing to all of you, and will go pick up my next project--to complete with excellence! :-)