I Hate Computers!

Geez, I just finished a nice long post and somehow when I was running spell check the whole thing was lost. So much for that news. I refuse to rewrite what I just wrote. So this one will be short and sweet. How are you? We are fine.

Quote for today:
Our spirits belong to the eternal world - but as animals we inhabit time.
To be in time means to change.
Humans live in time, but GOD destines them to eternity.
He therefore wants them to attend to chiefly two things....
ETERNITY itself and to that point in time called PRESENT.
For the PRESENT is the point in time in which time touches ETERNITY.
Of the present moment, and of it only, we have an experience analogous to the experience which GOD has of reality as a whole, in it alone freedom and actuality are offered us. -paraphrased from CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

At the office

It is time for me to post again. Time goes way too fast. I'm here at the office at the secretary's desk while she is at lunch. This morning before I left the house. I looked at the 6 foot nutcracker and decided it is well past time to lug him up to the attic. I still have furniture to bring down from the attic too. And to think, it is only 330 days until Christmas, which means I will be decorating for Christmas in 270 days. Maybe I should just leave the nutcracker in the foyer and just cover it up with a white sheet until next year. I could dress him in costumes to match the upcoming holiday, a Cupid for February, a Easter bunny for March. You get the idea.

Business is kind of slow this time of year, but I think it is going to be a good year in Real Estate. I am started on my schedule of every Sunday open houses. I did get lucky and sold a new construction in Brandon, and I got to list the buyers' house in Sioux Falls. So it is worth giving up a couple of hours every Sunday.

I just finished the book "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath. I found it at a Good Will. I had just watched the movie Sylvia about her life. It was a pretty good movie, not great but fair. And it made me curious about her writing. The book was depressing and not that good. I guess I don't need to read about someone else's struggle with sanity, when it seems like our family is struggling with theirs. So I wouldn't recommend reading it. I am reading "The Children's Blizzard" now. It is pretty interesting. It is about the 1888 South Dakota blizzard that killed over 500 people, many of them children. The author does a nice job of giving background information about the settlers. I would recommend this book. I am just going to start reading "The Mother" by Pearl Buck. Has anyone read it? I hope it is good. On a different note, I have seen a couple of really good movies too. Ray is excellent! You just never know about a person's life. Go see it or rent it! Another extremely good movie is Ladder 49. I thought it might be kind of lame like Back Draft, but I was wrong. It is so good and well done. It should be viewed on the Big Screen rather than renting it. Trust me, it is a must see. National Treasure was ok, I enjoyed it, but it doesn't compare with the other two. Still worth seeing though.

Well, I promised a quote a day so I better get back on track:

Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." Luke 9:23, NKJV

Just right

For any of you weenies that are reading this from the comfort of a milder clime, the actual temp. reading in Aberdeen, SD this morning was -33F, with a wind chill of -55F! A couple hours south here in good ol' Dell Rapids, it was a balmy -15F. Tonight should be even better. I love it, in a perverse way. It's like, there has got to be something wrong with people for living here, and yet it gives us a sense of superiority over the lemmings that fled. There has to be a reason we live here, I just haven't figured it out yet.

I'm Back

I would've said I'm back with a vengance, but that's not exactly true. It's been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened. The Garretson project house is finished, spit-shined and sold! Never again will I buy a house at auction over the cell phone. It really turned out nicely in the end, but what a lot of work. I learned something about myself though- I'm not a slow carpenter- I'm not a fast carpenter- I'm a half-fast carpenter. (say it fast, you'll get it) But I got the job done and in the end, that's all that matters. It was a fun holiday season, I can't say I'm sorry it's over. After a month of non-stop holiday frivolity, it gets to be a bit much for an old curmudgen like me. AND, I still have outside lights to put away but at least they don't get turned on anymore. AND, the days are getting longer already, which gives me hope that the blisteringly muggy days of summer will return soon.( but as we like to say, it's a wet heat) So, I'm trying to wile away the short days and long nights of winter by engaging in my new winter hobby, ice fishing. Now I never was a fisherman, but I finally relented to go one day last year, just to shut up my friend's relentless nagging. Long story short- I was hooked. (There are few things I enjoy more than a good pun) So last weekend, after a morning of showing property in Sioux Falls, I headed north, to Waubay Lake, to meet my friends for what we hoped would be a weekend of harvesting perch in the comfort of my friends borrowed ice house. Oh yes, no more 4'x6' portable canvas shacks. This was to be the real deal. And I suppose in 1942 when it was built, it was. Let your imagination be your guide- 5 1/2' wide, barely 12' long, 2 bunks, a fold down table, full set of cabinetry obviously robbed from a mobile home that had gone to the happy hunting ground, microwave, coleman propane cook stove and coleman camping lantern that hung swaying from the ceiling, giving the constant impression of being lost at sea in a dinghy, a crank-up antenna attached to a 9" color TV with amazing reception. For your comfort, a ventless propane gas garage heater, meant to heat a 24'x24' garage, not a lawn shed filled with kitchen appliances and fishing equipment and 4 grown men. The heater was complete with thermostat as well- ON and OFF. So the night was spent intermittantly getting up to kick open the door, stagger out into the PITCH BLACKNESS without falling through a fishing hole, to cool off . Then later on, waking up again to realize that frost was forming on your nether regions, you couldn't feel ANY appendage on your body, and stumble through the bodies, amidst much cursing, to re-light the blast furnace. Yes, it was an absolute riot. No, we did not catch any fish.