December 22 – “Long lost evil twin”

I got an email from Mike today.  Looks like I may have to do a completely different teaching from what I planned for Christmas Eve.  The software is not working to put together the video clips for the teaching.  It would be hard to do a lesson entitled "Video Review" when you have no videos.  I know I have a few days to reposition, but I was really looking forward to doing this one.  Just to make sure, though, I went through my files of Christmases gone by and grabbed a teaching from the Ghost of Christmas Past.  I thought I was almost through with that part of my Christmas preparation,  but I'm also trying to memorize a short monologue for the service.  That means every so often I come into my office and try to at least read it all the way through.  Over the next few days, I'll try to start quoting it.  By Thursday, I'll probably forget the whole thing.  Hey, I just had an idea.  Why haven't I already done this?  I need to draw a picture for it like I do with Visual Verses.  Now I have a plan.   A big portion of the day was spent helping Chris work on our family Christmas letter.  She made her "last" changes to the written part.  I went through and added a few comments.  Then it was time to insert the pictures.  Choosing pictures of everybody was harder than making them fit on the page.  We couldn't find one of Kel and Christina that passed the "Chris and Kelley both like it" test.  Christina finally brought over the card form their camera so we could download one from their stash.  Then we added some cool letter to the title.  And now we have to decide if we're going to use plain old white copy paper or maybe that resume paper I accidentally bought the other day.  It looks pretty good either way.  I'll let Chris decide when she gets back.   She went to the quilt store to get some material and thread for I think three quilts she wants to make.  She also has one in there that she is finishing for her Mom.  Chris has been driving to Bay City and then Houston, then back to Bay City for quite awhile now.  Her Mother's chemo treatments and her Dad's heart and foot issues keep her on her toes.  She almost didn't come home last night.  Her mom was wheezing and couldn't walk from the couch to the kitchen.  She got her head and feet propped up took it very easy the rest of the evening.   It is so quiet around here with Mom gone to Stan and Sue's and Chris on her way to Texas.  And it's afternoon.  I'm getting sleepy.  I need to go to WalMart for some Claritin-D, but I have to wait for Nathan and April to come rescue their fish.  He's not dead yet.  In fact, he's been quite active.   Come quickly, oh, ye owners of "Fish whose name starts with B."   Just had a false alarm.  Salesman rang the doorbell.  He thought I was "the long lost evil twin of his neighbor in Florida where he hasn't been in two years but used to have wild parties when he was there so the neighbor didn't like him all that much are you the owner of that rocking pickup truck out there do you have trouble seeing at night through the headlights (That's what he said, "through the headlights") if not then you're either lying to me or you're the first person around here who can say that I'm selling …"   I'm not sure how much more he had, but as soon as he pulled the jar of spray cleaner out from its hiding place behind his leg, I told him I wouldn't buy any.  I'm pretty sure it was the same stuff I saw at the dollar store the other day.  As soon as I said that he turned rudely and walked away.  I told his back thank you.   1 John 2:28 says, "And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming."   Father, I trust you.  Help my mouth to reflect that.  Amen.