Things Are The Same But Different

This week has been a strange one. My kids are spending the week at my sister-in-law's place, and so since Sunday, it has just been my wife and I at home. In some ways, its business as usual. We're both working like normal this week, so that's no great change. However, it is a little bit odd in terms of how our evenings shape up.

Normally we head home from work and activities will revolve around the house as we've got the kids there. But this week has been different. We've been coming and going as we see fit, though not as much as you might expect. There have been normal evening meetings and homework on the agenda...so for the most part we've still been hanging around the house.

Last night we ended up going on a pretty long bike ride though. There is a very nice trail system around the area where I live. We've gone on a short portion of it before, but have never gone overly far as we always had the kids with us at the time. Last night we went several miles. It took me into a few parts of the local lakes area that I've never seen before, which was interesting. We also saw a little bit of wildlife, have two deer cross our path. I didn't get the camera phone out soon enough to snap a picture of either of them, but it was fun to sit and watch them walk around.

Another strange thing about having the kids gone has been the ability to dive right into homework when I get home for the evening. That's been nice as I've been able to get done what I need to get done and then relax for the rest of the night. I like that.

Granted, I should be using the time to work on the large paper I still have to write before next Friday...but I've been living in denial of that so far. There's always tomorrow.

I mentioned last week that my home church will soon be holding "the vote." That's coming right up. This Sunday as a matter of fact. I've got a strange feeling towards this whole situation. It saddens me that we as a congregation have even come to this point and it scares me that there is a possibility that the vote will pass. The implications for me personally are heavy if that is the case. However, that being said, I don't know what will happen. It may pass, it may not. But a lot of things have been falling into place for me lately that make me think that after the dust clears, my congregation will still be ELCA.

I won't go into great detail now, because nothing is set in stone...but I'm hopeful.