Quick Catch Up

So I hit the ground running this year, and it has been crazy. I am trying very hard to finish two books to take with me to the conference in March, and have found that the more I want to write, the less time I have. All I have, really, are my weekends. But it seems that this year my weekends have been a continuous string of wedding & baby showers, overdue visits with friends, phone calls, etc. And as much as I want these books to be great and to get published, I can't put them before people. I just feel that it can't be honoring to God to blow off people he loves. And that is partly why I am finally blogging.

Biggest news of the day: my car, after $900 of repairs, is leaking (still / again). UGH. When do you make the hard call to just get rid of a car? I own this one outright, and don't want a car payment. But is this repair REALLY going to fix it? Or will I be wishing $1000 down the road that I had just donated it to a charity to begin with? But this car has been mine since I was 16. Memories, man. How can you put a price tag on those? But I guess I have to...

Kurt and I are talking about moving. We don't need to move really, but our friends manage a great place and we could get a good rent rate on it. Its a tough call. It would cost a lot more to live there than what we're paying now, but its also a WAY better palce. So we're basically trying to decide do we stick it out in our little place with no amenities, and save to buy a real home, or do we move to the better place and save less? I'm thinking stick it out here, but it would be WAY cool to live just upstairs from our friends. Maybe it would be like I Love Lucy and we'd all get in capers together.

Last night Kurt and I hung out with our friends Dylan & Amy, who just recently got engaged. We've known them since they started dating several years ago, and it is always fun to hang out with them. On this occasion they convinced me to play poker with them, even though I REALLY don't like poker, or most more-than-two-player card games in general. I also don't enjoy being the only one present who doesn't know how to play a game and has to learn on the fly. So, of course, I was very frustrated at first, and made some dumb mistakes. At one point, for example, I was very proud of myself for having gotten a straight, and got to the last round of betting ony to find out that a Queen, King, Ace, two, three hand is NOT a straight. That would have been nice to know five hundred chips earlier. But ironically, as often happens when inexperienced players hit the table, the moron (me) cleaned up and won big time. I give full credit to my poker face: a constant (unintentional) expression of bewilderment and confusion that could either mean I have a royal straight flush and don't know it, or a 3 and a 7.

Don't mess with the ignorant.
;)