Today's strage episode

Bradley O'Leary left this morning about noon. He was here since Friday evening when he arrived with Our Bradley and David Quinn right before the snow storm of the winter hit. We had twenty four inches in Ivy. They arrived just when the snow started to fall. Rick arrived home about a half hour later from his bike ride. He said the snow started to fall when he was riding by Peacock Hill. By Saturday morning we had an amazing amount of snow on the ground. It snowed all day. Our Bradley, Brad O and Rick shoveled for two days. The drive way was perfectly cleared by Sunday. The deck was also clear.
I have gotten to play lots with David Quinn who can talk and loves to play and especially chase balls and play with balls.

I am not sure why he left but I feel very sorry for my daughter to have been abandoned in such a strange way. They seemed to be arguing alot. I am not sure what some of what was going on. Some is just Bradley's personality which is very assertive and bossy.
Supposedly he was going to go back to California or to Chicago.

Yesterday was filled with fun. We baked cookies with David Quinn. Brad made soup with the leftover ham. We drove the big Dodge they had rented to Rick's office and took David Quinn for a hair cut. Then went to Timberlakes for lunch. We met Walker there. I ate a cheese sandwich. We walked with Rick to the Ice Skating Rink where we rented skates. I skated some. Both Bradley and Brad seemed to be having a great time with David Quinn. I need to write more tomarrow.

Bradley is leaving Cresent City

Bradley called about two hours ago and said they were just leaving Crescent City for San Fransisco and they fly an overnight to Philadelphia and finally arrive in Wahington , D.C. at 11:30am tomorrow. I am a bit worried about David Quinn but she seemed okay with the delay. She called this morning at seven-thirty our time which would be four-thirty their time. She called to find out about which Rental car company we used. I told her Hertz but Rick really rented from Budget. hope she calls back so I can get it straight. Rick is out at Spin class. We have a box of barbecue ribs sitting on our front door steps. They are for our Christmas Eve dinner.
I have been buying a lots of food the past few days. Our freezer and refrigerator are full. I hope we have enough room for everything that is sitting on the front stoop.
I ate lunch with my Tennis- MJ lady friends at Savour. It is a very nice restaurant on Twenty- nine north. We had our own room in the back. I sat beside Jean Carver. I enjoyed talking with her. Usually she gossips but she did not do as much today. She does book buddies and likes to talk about that. I too
I gave away two Christmas presents, one to the Snows and the other to Finley's gas station. I gave the snow's a round ot Edam cheese with crackers. There was no one home at the Snows so I just hung the bag on the door. I took a big box of cookies from Sam's to Finley's because they are always so nice to me. I am so glad to have such an honest, reliable garage to take my car to. Yesterday, I took Hallie a birthday present. I gave her an outfit which I bought at Maternity Motherhood. I was worried about her not having sweaters to wear and now it it starting to get cold. Rick just arrived home so I will write more later.

Joining The Watercolor Guild

It is freezing cold today. The weather reporter, said "the coldest day so far this winter."
About two months ago I joined the Central Virginia Watercolor guild. I am going to take a workshop after Christmas and I got a letter from the teacher telling us what we should bring to the first class. I have some of the materials but will probably buy the brushes she recommends since they seem different than oils. Although I did take a couple of watercolors classes from Trilbe Knapp and she did not care what kind of brushes we used. I guess because we were beginners. Trible made me very observant. She never let her students move forward unless they got it near perfect. whatever they were copying. We began with postcard she brought to class and then moved on to our own creations. Art supplies can be very expensive. I also have been watching some tapes that I brought home from one of the meetings that give instruction. It is quite amazing to see the different styles of the teachers. My favorite so far is an Englishmen that sells his method with brushes and his mantra is: " If you can Dab, you can Do it" I keep saying that to myself. The others teachers seem like curmudgeons, very self absorbed. I like watching them all though because they take it so seriously.

I stayed home all day yesterday and wrapped Christmas packages and wrote addresses for Christmas cards and I did a couple of pages on the scrapbooks. This is the hardest project for me for some reason. I think the best way is to make myself do just one page then move on to something else. I am going to close off. I have wanted to write for several days but keep putting it off. It is a very quieting thing for me to do.

More about Emergent Christianity

The speaker, Phylis, Tickle, covered a lot of territory. I tried to put down phrases that were pertinent to me. One of her themes in church history is: "Who has the authority." This is a question that the church always struggled with and the answer has caused schisms. It is the struggle right now because of the gay question. She did not say that but definitely alluded to this. She thinks there is a cycle of five hundred years and every five hundred years something significant happens that changes the direction of the church. She went back into Jewish History and came up with different events every five hundred years. I did not follow this since I don't know enough Jewish history. Like most historians she saw the continuance of Jewish-christian history.

The Reformation started with the translation of the Bible. I think this is very accepted now. It would not have happened until the printing press was invented.

Emergence is born with Michael Faraday in 1842. I have to look him up and learn more. He is a biologist. She also talked a lot about women and their getting the vote and going to work. They become very important in the church since there are so many of them

Another theme that is very central to emergence is What does it mean to be human. this question is still being answered. this is all wrapped up in DNA, Einstein, and the idea that philosophy and psychology are now important to religion.

She ends by talking a lot about the Holy Spirit and how in the twenty first Century the Holy Spirit is going to be Central to religion. I have a list of books she handed out to read. I think the most important for me to read soon is "The World is Flat."

Saturday at Saint Paul's Ivy

Saturday we woke up to a threatening snow fall. While we ate breakfast there were pellets of snow hitting the windows. Before breakfast Rick had read the religion section of the newspaper and showed me an announcement of a lecture at St. Paul's Ivy entitled Emergent Christianity. The newspaper is filled now with stories of change in the Churches both Catholic and Protestant. I thought I would get some insight on to what is happening so I decided to go even though it was not originally on my agenda. It was a spontaneous happening.

The speaker was very old women but she had a young persona. I heard later Phyllis Tickle has been famous in the Episcopalian church for years she was very witty and engaging. The lecture was three and a half hours but we got a break.

The first half was really the history of Christianity. She said the first written accounts were people who knew Jesus than people who know the people who knew Jesus. the story is intertwined with the rise and fall of the Roman empire. After the Barbarians invade. The city of Rome becomes completely illiterate. She said the monks in the monasteries sneak the biblical writing out one book at a time.

I met Rick at Church for the installation last evening at six'oclock. I took cookies and cheese to the party afterwards. The cookies were from the freezer. They were frozen and all I had to do was put them on a cookie sheet. I thawed out the freezer yesterday. I arrived at the service early and sat behind the Drayers. We always sit in the same section but not the same seats. David Drayer is always asking me about Bishop Mc Devitt where I went to High School. He grew up around Harrisburg but he is never very specific; I think it was Steelton. I am going to take my year book Pridwin, and show him the next time I go to church. They often sit in front of Us. He always has a huge smile on his face.
The sermon preached was by another minister named Paul who seemed to admire Paul Walker a lot. He kept referring to him as Walker. What I remember of the sermon: Winston Churchill told the English people. " We will never, never, never, never give up." But Paul
sid we should always tell ourselves: we will always, always, always always, always give up. Because god is there to take care of us. I don't completely understand it but I'll think about it.
I moved on yesterday some with my scrapbook project. I seem to always procrastinate. At
five-thirty I am going to go to dominion Book store for a book signing by my former professor who taught me twentieth Century southern history probably ten year ago. It was thie first coursee I took to acclimate myself to the University before I enrolled. I had to take at least two cource to see if I could handle the work. It was probably one of the best courses I every took. I also learned a lot about my adopted homeland,"the south" Southerners have a different mind set then northerners.
I can't decide whether to buy this book but I am leaning that wasy since I can give it to rick for a Christmas gift.

A Rainy Wednesday

It has rained all day and it is still raining. I am glad I did not have to leave the house although I am going to go down to church in a few hours to the instillation ceremony for Paul Walker who will be installed as the new rector of Christ Church. I just finished making cookies for the event. I might also take some cheese and crackers too, but I think they probably have tons of food which they usually do at church events.

I want to write more about our trip this weekend. On Friday we had lunch with Joe at the Ecumenical house, a retirement house that we are all urging Joe to move into. We met Megan who is a young girl ( she told us she was thirty) in charge of recruiting new people to move in. She was very bubbly and friendly to us and also to Joe. She showed us three different living situations that Joe can move into. He seemed to like the one which was only one bedroom with a sitting area and a bathroom. This is the least expensive too. We also saw the common areas and the recreation room. Everyone in the community has their name on the door and they are encouraged to decorate it. Megan told us about the activities that Joe could be involved in if he moves in. Next, we had lunch in the dining room which was in the bottom floor. We took the elevator whit lots of older residents. It was very clean and I thought cheery and not too large. The portions of food were small but that was okay with me. The rolls were freshly baked. We bought a few items from the little shop which sold all the craft items the people made. Before we left we walked around the grounds.
But all we can say right now with Joe is one day at a time. He does not seem to be very anxious to move although I think he will eventually.
After lunch we drove to Lancaster. Rick had bought tickets to see the Sight and Sounds of Christmas Carols. the performance was in a small theater close to the town we stayed in, Leola. We saw lots of Amish in their small black carts driving through the countryside. There are lots of big working farms in the county but also lots of shops that sold Amish furniture and souvenir items.
The next day we drove into Lancaster and went to the Amish quilt museum. We learned how the quilts were purchased and the differences be tween the Amish and the Mennonites.

Thanksgiving and Aniversary Celebration

Yesterday evening I wrote a long entry into my blog but for some reason it did not go through so today's is going to be a shorter version
than I will do another.
We spent the weekend in Harrisburg and Lancaster celebrating Thanksgiving and our forty first wedding anniversary. We had dinner with all the extended Bradley clan at jay Foerster and Jenn's house. I brought the shrimp. I also brought cheese but they had so much food we never put it out. We
left home early in the morning and arrived in Hbg. exactly four hours later. We checked into the Hilton and drove up to Joe's house. We spent some time with him looking at wedding pictures because he did not come to either of the boy's weddings. He gave us a big
box of od papers and music which Rick put in the car and I am beginning to decipher. There was a big clean out of the house last week when Erin Brytus and her husband came from Dayton and put some of the old furniture in a uhaul and drove it back to Dayton. they put any thin they thought I might want in a box.

We spent a lot of time with Joe the next day. First, we took him to a Notary Public to have his documents for a Living Well signed. The office was in the old Knights of Columbus building which is right across the stree from St. Patrick's Cathedral. Homer was a Knight. Each year the members would have a party for the kids in the neighborhood there at Christmas. Santa would come and he would give out gifts.We went there other time but not too much since there was a bar there and Homer was not much of a drinker. In fact I never saw him drink. Joe and to sign six different documents and Rick and I witnessed them. Rick kept track of the papers and made sure Joe initial all of them.