The Living Water

"Stand in shock, heavens, at what you see! Throw up your hands in disbelief—this can't be!" God's Decree."My people have committed a compound sin: they've walked out on me, the fountain Of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns— cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves. "



I heard this scripture at Revive on Friday night at Common Ground. It made me think about how we may turn our back on God to find the easy way, even though his way is better. It reminded of the Tanda Village where we drilled water wells and gave them a modern pump. These wells gave fresh refreshing water to the village. You could use the pump and fill your container. The wells were located in well thought out locations. One in the village square the other in an area near the clinic. The hand dug wells were still available, they even produced good water during certain times of the year. They were convenient as well since they were not far from the homes. The problem was they got contaminated and people would get sick, babies would die from the nasty water. It was amazing to think that with the clean fresh water available not more than 100 yards from most homes they would gamble with the easier water. It made me think we do the same. There are things we fall back on, out of habit or maybe out of convenience. Our cisterns contain water but it is stagnant and nasty. It will fill your stomach but not sustain us. It does not always make you sick but there is that chance. Jesus says he is the Living Water and he will quench our thirst.

New Well with clean water.

Old Well

Payback is a....

OK, someone up above has a sense of humor. I am always complaining about people who do not use their turn signals. It is one of my pet peeves. Well, today I think all the time spent behind someone not using a turn signal has evened out. I tried to drive to the other side of INDY today and I got behind three (3) different people who left their turn signals on. I mean, block after block of not knowing when this person was going to turn. FINALLY I got past him, and my blood pressure starts to decline when someone turns onto MY road and the signal does not go off. I am talking about 5 minutes after I got around the first one. Not again. So I follow this old lady about 3 miles when she finally does turn the way she had been signaling. And finally on my way back home a dump truck gets in front of me with his signal flashing. That does not happen for very long, because I can not stand a dump truck being in front of me so I just pass him through a double yellow line, I do not want and can not afford a broken window from following behind a dump truck.

TUESDAY

This morning before going, just after the kids left for school, I walked through the house and turned off 14 of the 17 lights you could have on in our house. I do not know how they all got turned on. This morning when I woke up, no lights were on. I think Noah or Josiah just goes around and turns lights on just to see how I react. You see, before I was laid off I would just turn them off and not say anything, but now, since the money is TIGHT, I have to mention to everyone that I am turning off a light. I know a lot of them are mine. Like right now, I am typing this in the living room with a light on. My house is so bright that I can not even tell the light is on. (just jumped up and turned it off). What else.....Oh yea, Josiah does not know how to shut a door. He is 12! Refrigerator, Garage door, front door, it does not matter. If he gets the milk out for cereal he leaves the door open the whole time he is making his breakfast, unless Susie or I mention it to him.

we have started recycling plastics. I decided to start slow and just do plastics. Well, it is amazing how much plastic we go through in a week. Then I go to throw it out at the recycling dumpster and it is so full that I can not get another thing in. I am tempted to just toss the junk, but I drive to another recycling dumpster and toss it in. OK, I saved the EARTH but I drove 10 extra miles to do so. Is it a push? Does the junk I put in the air by driving extra = the amount of landfill space? who cares? At least I got those lights turned off!

The Job Search

This is not fun!! Just thought I would let you all (2 of you) know that from the start. I have no degree, not yet at least, so I can not even get in the door to interview. I have no experience in supervising people, so I can not get in the door to interview. It does not matter that I get my degree in april and I have a 3.92 gpa. It does not matter that I have not learned anything new in my college studies since I have been living this stuff for the past 20+ years. I applied for a manufacturing supervisors postition. I could not even get an interview because I had not supervised people before. I guess my time as a sergeant in the Army taking care of troops does not count as supervision even though I had these kids for 24 hours a day and we were training for war not producing a product. I guess that was awhile ago but they did not even take into consideration that I have worked in high speed manufacturing for the past 19 years. I was a team leader the last year and I carried my supervisor for the past 3 years. I was in charge of quality and NCM in my department. All of this can not get you in the door, but the same guys who cannot make it at one place can go to another and get a job just because they have "experience". People may say that UNIONS have ruined American manufacturing, I say that is a factor but not the factor. HR people who have abandoned common sense for "paperwork" are as much to blame. When I got to Navistar the best supervisors I had were from the floor. The ones that drifted from place to place on "experience" were usually terrible.



OK my rant is done.......have a great day!

A political minute

OK, so I have no idea who I am voting for in November. I have watched both conventions and still have no idea. I like some of what Obama says and some of what Palin said last night. I really am not too enthused about McCain and Biden. I am tired of business as usual. I am tired of the two party system, with no one trying to make any headway into the real issues of today. I know first hand we are not moving in the right direction on the domestic front. I know that even though unemployment is low, there are not a lot of "good" jobs out there. The middle class base is shrinking. People are hurting. Schools should be teaching not preparing for tests. They should not be using the kids as fund raisers. Spending money on swimming pools, football fields and the like and not having enough money to hire new teachers when class rooms get too big. Houses are being foreclosed, people are filing for bankruptcy, bills are not getting paid. The big ticket items such as abortion and marriage are important but they are not the only issues. Actually, Like Joe Lieberman said, those issues can be put on the backburner when it comes to the real issues of today. Maybe (but unlikely) this year with people like Lieberman and Palin we can get people talking about the real things. The things that heal a nation not divide it.

I guess I wish it was Obama vs Palin. The issues would then rise to the top.

long day in Johnson County

Went to Franklin again this Tuesday. It is the home of Tuesday's Miracle. Long story, but free organic foods are given away. People get tickets starting at 7:30 am and recieve a time of 12, 1 or 2pm to get in line to get the food. I usually get there @ 8:30 and get a ticket for 2pm. Then I stay there all day. It is nice, I get a nap, do homework and catch up on my reading. I basically stay in line for 5 hours for some free food. It would not be worth it to drive home and back. It works for me. The cool thing is you never know what you will get. But, back to the wait. It is funny how I will wait forever for this but I have a hard time when two people are in front of me at Kroger.

Not so funny story from last time I was there. A lady was in front of me in her van with three children under 5. Those kids did great most of the time. But they were kids. Well in their not so good times she would yell at them. I mean really lay into them. I really had to bite my tongue. I was thinking dang lady, you brought them here, kept them in a van for 5 hours and are mad when they cry about it. It's one of those times when you would love to tell her what you really thought. But, I guess I do not know what is happening in her life. AND I have yelled at my kids but usually when no one can hear me.

On a different note, I am thinking about joining the National Guard. Yeah, you heard me right! I spent 5 years in the ARMY so it would be only 15 more to get retirement. I loved it when I was in. I have to lose about 40 pounds first, so if you see me with a cheeseburger in my hand smack me. I don't know, just a thought at this point.

Random Pictures

(some new/some old)

Noah third grade (2008)

Josiah in Middle School

6th grade (2008)

Having fun!

Went to the new stadium the other day. My neighbor has season tickets and gave his tour tickets to us. It is a great place, but 726 million dollars? 3/4 of a billion!! I wonder what else that could have been used for. I am not going to get into that, it is done and the place was fun, although it seemed the corridors/halls were really crowded and the escalator going up to the cheap seats is going to be backed up alot. Other than that we had fun touring the locker rooms and playing on the sidelines.

It is now been 90 days or so since I was laid off. I had so many plans for this summer but realized most of those costs $ and that is something we do not have in abundance right now. we have had fun this summer and now that the family is back in school I will begin a full time search for a job. Do not get me wrong, I have been looking but not with too much concern. I have had a few interviews and leads but nothing has gone anywhere. Today I will spend cleaning the house and I think I will go for a bike ride. I need to lose weight. I am considering joining the National Guard but need to lose about 40 pounds first, good luck huh?

The boys are back in school. Josiah is now in middle school at Eastwood. I was a bit concerned about that while he was in 5th grade but he has handled the transition. We are just now overcoming the anxiety of the "big" school. Noah is in third grade and still at John Strange. They are both growing up so fast. They both went to camp this year and Josiah really made some changes while he was away from us. He is 12 now and he seemed like a little kid before he went to camp but came bach a young man. This summer I have seen some tremendous changes in him and it has been fun. We get to talk to each other on a different level now. He is starting to be concerned about how he is perceived and how he looks. He has tried to change some of the things he used to do. Peer pressure can be both negative and postitive and right now i think it is for the better.

Back again

Greetings to the two of you who may read this. Well, after a long hiatus I am back. A lot has happened and I hope I can be more consistant with my blog from now on. Well, the main thing is I am back to work. The strike ended right before Christmas so I got a christmas present of going back to work, that was nice. Things are actually not too bad there, a lot of people have retired or are in the process of retiring, which is a good thing.

before I went back I had signed up to substitute teach. Well, they got back to me after I had gone back to work but i decided I would do it any way. At least a little, so last week i did a half day at nora elementary for 5th grade and all day friday for 8th grade at westlane. Both classes went well. I did not have to teach much because the 8th graders had a test and the 5th graders had lunch, recess, selent reading and group reading so it was easy. I am looking forward to teaching at Eastwood, the school Josiah will be at next year. After being at Westlane a day, my fears of middle school for Josiah have diminished.

Besides that, nothing new is going on.