This is the report I promised if it turned out well, and it's better than well, it's excellent. Not outstanding, but excellent. No picture because it's already half eaten, but I think it's the first pie I ever made in my life.  Baked strawberry pie. Following a recipe found on line, it turned out well. A bit too sweet, so if I make another one I'll cut the sugar in half as a friend does when baking desserts. Also, it was more a strawberry jam pie because I cooked the strawberries too long in the saucepan before pouring them into the pie crust for the trip to the oven, so nobody gets a whole strawberry, but I've got it down now for next Time if there is one. Strawberry pie with hot & black for my protein breakfast, eh? Starting my Wednesday with a sugar high. Mox nix mir, we're having smash burgers for noon dinner, with spinach soufflé. On my burger sans bun I'll have either Swiss cheese or that crumbly Leister red cheese from England. There's a h...

Today is Tuesday and my last blogpost was Friday. Why? IDK, I thought I'd written on Sunday about one of the lectionary readings, but not so, there's not even an unpublished draft up. We voted yesterday, Vote Early! The pollsters' certainty of a Democrat sweep is absurd, the pollsters have made fools of themselves in recent years but they keep at it. As well, their predictions cause their "winners" to relax and stay home while flushing their "losers" out to vote. CFB is interesting at the moment, though I wonder why Auburn fired X Atkins. My teams are Go Gators!! and Go Blue!! Also Go Noles! while a granddaughter is still in school there. She's a senior at FSU, played trumpet with the Marching Chiefs her first two years and I have an FSU ball cap. Mind, my love for FSU football does not hold over the Thanksgiving Weekend.  Who else do we cheer? Penn State - - we lived in Harrisburg eight years back in the seventies and eighties when Joe Paterno was t...

Developments here have been ongoing without pause recently. Saturday morning as the hurricane was still blowing, our HOA team showed up to look at our flood damage - - water coming down the inside of the side wall and gushing up into 7h through the vinyl tile flooring we had installed after Hurricane Michael in place of the ruined wood flooring - - and within an hour a contractor arrived to assess, then bring up dehumidifier, dryer, air blowers as a step toward less damage and preventing mold from getting started.  The noise from the drying equipment has been deafening, but tolerable thanks to our deafness and therefore ability to turn off our hearing aids. Yesterday the contractor took measurements, determined that all water was dried away, and removed the equipment. As they say, now the silence here is deafening, but we can get used to it. Looks like the flooring is dry and we don't have to worry about mold or replacing the flooring, TGIF. Simultaneously, the HOA has co...

This coming Sunday we begin a several-weeks reading through First Thessalonians. It's fascinating, for one because, being Paul's earliest extant writing, it shows his soteriology at least early in his ministry.  Paul was an apocalypticist who believed the End of Days was near when God would send the Son of Man (Daniel 7) to overthrow earthly powers and establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.  This would be heralded by the General Resurrection with the Second Coming of Christ as that Son of Man, when all dead and living (Paul expected to be among the living, it was that imminent) would be raised and lifted into the clouds to meet Christ for judgment.  Those under the umbrella of the faith of Christ, and whose lives passed judgment, would be saved into the new Kingdom of God on Earth, with Christ the Son of Man as God's regent. The letter that we call First Thessalonians was meant to be read to its intended audience (members of the church in Thessalonica that Paul had founde...

Almost certainly, it's Tuesday out there somewhere, may even show up here in 7H, where I sit midst the deafening hissing shriek of the contractor's dehumidifiers, air warmers and dryers working to remove water that came in under our vinyl tile flooring during Hurricane Isaias last Friday evening. They checked yesterday and there's still substantial water in an apparent low spot under the dining room floor.  But if this quick preventive action is successful, maybe it'll be the end of it, no mold and no ripping out flooring =that was installed after Hurricane Michael. TGIT, thank God it's Tuesday we didn't replace the cracked and buckling wood flooring with more wood flooring: in fact, we selected this vinyl tile flooring specifically for its water resistant promise, and it seems good so far. The insurance adjuster is due here about one o'clock this coming Friday, it would be nice if we can cancel the damage claim, or hold it in abeyance pending the outcome. I...

  We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins     and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, ... . We do earnestly repent The imperial "We" - - humans are not alone in our sinful nature. But first, it's Monday. Here we go: From warm, peaceful sleep, Father Nature summoned me just after two o'clock this morning, and I stayed up with a thought that's been nagging me since yesterday's Bible reading. Here I go again, rambling off path into the brambles. Our OT bible story for yesterday, Exodus 32:1-14, is theologically far more significant than the passing piety with which we commonly read and hear it.  The story of Moses and the Golden Calf perhaps inadvertently - - though we should never assume the naïveté of ancient Israelite writers and editors, who someTimes work subtle humor into a good campfire story - - lets slip a flaw in God's character. YHWH is as human as the rest of us: the story conclude...