dreams of dead people

Last night, I dreamt of my grandpa. I was going to his house for some family event, I think just a get-together, and when I drove up, I saw cars parked all around, in their driveway and on the street, and in the parking lot for the church next door. It kind of annoyed me, and I couldn't tell if anyone was home. I went in anyway to see if they were, and inside the porch I found my dad, one of my uncles and my grandpa. Now, I should've said that I was going to my grandma's house because my grandpa has been dead for nine or so years. So you can see that I was probably surprised when I saw my grandpa standing there, and I was. There was something different, though; he was much taller than he had been. My grandpa was shorter than my dad in real life, but here he was maybe ten inches taller than I am. I ran up and hugged him, and then we all proceeded to try to find out how to get the gas stove which had appeared on the porch, to work. We were cooking something or other for our meal, I think beans, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, it was good, and I got to see my grandpa again.

genesis 1

At church today I heard a really good sermon about Genesis 1. There's still a lot to process, so I don't know what to think about it all yet, but there's a lot of good stuff, and it's definately worth a listen. If you get a chance, you should listen to it. Basically, the emphassis is on the fact that God is present, that creation relies on Him and still relies on Him. If He were to remove Himself from here, everything would stop existing. That's a very basic summation of what he (John Walton) said, so there was lots of other stuff. It was good.

anonymity

For some reason, with this blog I'm not too eager to put in specifics of who I am, or where I am, although I do think you could figure our fairly easily where I am, and so on. But I'm not sure why that is. Most people are pretty open with who they are when they're posting on their blogs.

I'm also kind of reluctant to let people know about, even though I do filter in my head what I put here. In fact, I think I'm more comfortable with strangers knowing about me than I am with certain people I know.

I'm not sure why all this is, but maybe I'll try to be less careful? I'm not sure.

weird things

I had some a strange series of events happen to me today.

Today was my second day at work, my first day running the cash registers. The first in the series happened a couple hours after I got to work, when I was already comfortable with normal transactions. While a woman was checking out, she and I were chatting about different things, and she decided to confide in me that she didn't think it was all that nice in our store when the "other people are here," but that it was always nice whenever I was working with the woman who happened to be helping me out this morning. Keep in mind that this is my first day. She proceeds to tell me that her son likes me, too, and that he knows me from the gaming store, "what's its name?" I told her the name, Misty Mountain Games, and she confirms it, saying that I'm such a great guy, and that her son really likes me (she did say it twice). She talked with me about gaming, and how her son used to be into Mage Knight, but didn't like it because of how the other kids act, and he's now into some sort of live gaming. She also told me that she sometimes plays a "Kinder" (she meant "Kender") in her son's game, and asked me, "what have you got in your pockets?" (very kender-like)

After work, I decided to go to Wendy's for supper. As I was waiting at the stoplight to turn in, someone started honking at me, trying to get me attention. I looked and wasn't sure who it was, but didn't recognize any of the cars in the area from which the honking was coming. As I started to make the turn, I heard more honking and looked again, this time seeing the car and the person leaning out of the window waving at me. I waved back but was sure that I didn't know the person. You need to know that my car is very hard to mistake with any other car, so I don't see how they thought they knew me.

When I got into Wendy's, there was one person behind me in line who apparently knew the cashier. They started talking when I got up to order, but I just kept smiling like I often do. Someone behind the counter said something to the cashier, to which she responded that she was helping her friend. Her friend said something like, "that's me," but the cashier said no, the guy standing over there, motioning to me. "He's my man, he's in here all the time." I don't know this woman at all, and I'd only been in the store twice or three times. After I finished eating, I finally caught on to everything that was happening enough that I started to play along. I went to the counter to ask for a refill, and said "Flo." (Her name was Florencestine, or something strange like that) She turned around and asked what she could do for me, so I asked for the refill. She said, "sure, anything for you, your my man. You're in her all the time." When she handed me back my cup, she asked if I wanted anything else, and I'm sure she would've hooked me up with whatever I wanted. But I just said that I wanted to go home.

Like I said, it was a strange day; I almost felt like I'd been transported forward in time to when I actually knew all these people. I don't know.

differences

I guess this is the day of posts for me. What'd this make, five posts, or only four?

I'm encountering potential differences which I wouldn't have thought would make a difference. I'm still not sure they'll make a difference. Since my new roommate and I will be sharing a room, I've noticed that he needs much less sleep than I do. I've had a few friendly jibes, which are hard for me to take in general, about how much sleep I need, but my body really needs it. If I stay up as late as he does, then I need to sleep longer. I don't think it'll be a huge problem, if it will be at all, but it might be.

I wish I needed less sleep, but my body just can't take it. I can go a few does with sleep deprivation, but more than that will make me cease to function.

Oh yeah, if I want to get up early, I need to go to bed earlier than anyone else, and that's a problem, too. It's hard for me not to be social, and so when other people are staying up late, I want to stay up late. It's hard to make myself go to sleep. I'm also a relatively light sleeper. So, in spite of how much my friends joke about nothing waking me up, I do actually get up, it's just that I pretend not to so that I might get a bit more sleep. Of course, that leads to being in bed longer, since I keep getting interrupted... It's all accumulative.

(ok, i guess i'm not finished posting) - relying on God

Sometimes I think about what it means to rely on God. My last post brought this to my mind because of the way I'm easing into this ministry work. I get to thinking, what if I just put my all into working on ministry stuff? Would God then provide for me? I think that He would, so why don't I just do that? Then I think about things like, there's no evidence of anything being there for me to do, so what would I fill my time with if I decided to jump in full-time with the ministry. And then there's the fact that I'm not good at managing my own time, so would I even be able to motivate myself to do the work? I suppose these things cannot refute God or stand up to His promises; the first is me not seeing what He might, and the second is my weakness. So what do I do? Well, I've already told these people that I'm going to help them out by working for them, so that's what I've got to do. But should I have done differently?

i forgot, here's more about the new job

I forgot to say what I'm thinking about in relation to this job and the ministry I'm trying to start. Right now, my Salvation Army job is going to be full-time, and I'm not sure how much free time I'll have to work on my ministry. Since I will be working forty hours, five days, I will have the sixth day to work on ministry stuff, but I'm hoping to expand that in the future. You see, right now the Family Store is quite understaffed, so I figure I'll try to help them out while they get some staff back in place, then I'll cut back on my hours. Hopefully, things will have started to show themselves fruitful with the ministry by then, and I'll be able to fill my extra day with that work. But for now, I'll be doing full-time work.

new job

I found out today that I'll be starting my new job tomorrow. As I was waiting to pick my friend up from school, I got a call from the Milwaukee Salvation Army, they handle the hiring here, and found out that I'm to report to work tomorrow at nine in the morning. It's nice to have a job again, and I think that this is the shortest time I've had between jobs.

blog spam

Ugh. I hate blog spam in my comments. I get excited to see a comment from somone new, only to realize it's comment spam. Why oh why does that happen?

speed limits

There's this interesting thing that happens on the main thoroughfares where I live; on the biggest artery of the city, people tend to drive ten to fifteen miles over the speed-limit, with a few cutting people off and weaving in and out of traffic. But there's this other road, with the same speed-limit, where people usually drive five to ten miles under. That is, until the limit drops ten mph, then they decide to treat it like it's the original limit, and drive five to ten over, which is actually now fifteen to twenty over. I don't understand it.