I'm truly grateful that I've figured out the library's system for loaning out videos.  While the wait time can be rather long since DVD's can be checked out for a couple of weeks to accommodate those who might have trouble getting into town more often than that, so far we haven't had to wait too long for any of the movies that we've reserved.

Today, I was able to pick up Ant-Man, and was certainly entertained.  The boys were even more-so.  Rowen announced to us that he is now Ant-Man before the movie was even halfway over.  Since that point, all three of the boys have been diligently reworking their imaginative game (which includes Minecraft, Terraria, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and any superhero they know of).  There has been a definite uptick in the overall decibel level in this tiny house. 

The movie was certainly more humorous than the other Disney Marvel movies.  It also had loveable characters and plenty of action.  It did, however, feel a little too much like a set-up for the upcoming Captain America movie (especially considering the bonus scene at the end of the credits) and Evangeline Lilly's hair really bothered me (even more than when she played Tauriel).  Still, it isn't as heavy-handed as the last Avengers movie and is more family-friendly than some of the other movies.  I recommend watching it if you haven't already.

On these rare, nearly-every-four-year occasions, I'm reminded of Grandma Marks who, although her birthday was actually on the 28th of February would occasionally (and conspiratorily) confide in me that she was actually born on the 29th and that we just celebrated on the 28th to make things easier.  This would have been quite a trick as she was born in 1918, two years away from the nearest leap day in either direction.  Thus, yesterday was her 98th birthday (unless she actually was born on leap day in 1916, in which case today would have been her 25th birthday).  

That line of thinking also reminds me of The Pirates of Penzance and its overarching plot of a young man with an overdeveloped sense of duty who was born on leap day and apprenticed until his 21st birthday.  I even confided in someone today my not-so-secret desire to someday play the role of the pirate king in a production of Penzance.  I hope I get the chance to do so.

Today also had a strange start to it as we had rain/freezing rain/snow last night that coated poor Mera.  I've been using a windshield screen to help speed up our morning routine, but it was so hardened to the windshield that its anchor to the driver-side mirror ripped off when I tried to detach it from the car.  This strange trend was further continued when my scraper broke off of its handle as I was trying to remove the ice from the windows.  I probably should have called it a day at that point, but making lesson plans for subs is just too much trouble.

Although I tried to wish everyone at school a "Happy Leap Day," I found myself snapping at my students more than I would have liked, especially my advisory class at the end of the school day.  At first it was going well.  I started the lesson on food and its connection to physical and mental health with the "four corners exercise" as suggested in our "canned" lesson plan, but two minutes in, one of my more disruptive students made an entrance and proceeded to make a big deal about not having shoes due to having to "rush" to class.  I sent the student to get the shoes that had somehow been accidently shut in a locker (which is on the opposite side and lower floor of the school) and managed to regain the lesson just in time for the student to return and announce that the shoe laces must have jammed the locker.  I told the student to let the office know.  We were actually making progress again when the student returned and immediately stated, "I don't know what we're doing; this is stupid."  To this, I responded (and I quote), "Just shut up.  Shut up.  Shut up!"

Not my best moment.  At least these days only come once every four years ...

In today's first reading, God presents Himself to Moses, telling Moses His name: I AM.  God wanted to establish a relationship with Moses, just as He wants to establish a relationship with all of us.  He speaks to Moses, offering him comfort in the face of his doubts, just as He does when we doubt our abilities.  He also gives Moses a monumental task of freeing his people from slavery, so to does He give us tasks that test our abilities, but that are always within our reach.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that disasters are not signs of God's disapproval.  He even presents the parable of a fig tree that hasn't produced fruit for three years.  Rather than chop it down, the gardener begs to have another year to cultivate a fertilize the tree.  Sometimes, that is also what we need: time to enrich ourselves spiritually so that we too can bring fruitful deeds to our world.

In both cases, these stories about God's love for us, and His belief in us.  Today's homily pointed out that God doesn't give us boundaries as a way to point out how we fall short, but rather as a way to guide us to greatness.  When we fail, we so often feel that we are unworthy of God and sometimes go so far as to hate Him for the judgement we feel He has placed on us.  We forget that He loves us always, and that He does not point fingers when we fall, but rather stoops to pick us up and take our sufferings into Himself. 

We watched the movie Bridge of Spies tonight and enjoyed it immensely.  Like many movies, this one has as a theme the person who stands for a higher purpose in the face of adversity.  In this case, by doing what is right, he puts his family, his career, and his very life at risk to do something that was massively unpopular, but ultimately the right thing to do.  He is referred to by another character as "the stand up man."

This is the type of person we should have running our country.  Not people who are uncompromising or inflexible, but people who stand for what is right because it is right.  Too often, holding to the side of right is seen as a weakness or a lack of understanding about our reality.  To me, these people understand reality just fine; they simply want to make it better.

I worry about those who remind others that we live in an imperfect world as a way to justify putting up with injustice and intolerance, as a way to corrupt the moral fiber of our beings.  Yet I also acknowledge my own faults in this realm.  Oh, how I would love to be one of those "stand up" people!   ... But I know too well my own failings.  Try as I might to hold to the ideals of a greater Truth, I often flowing with the societal situations in which I find myself.  For that matter, I'm entirely capable of corrupting myself when alone with my thoughts.

I didn't mean for this post to take this kind of turn, but I don't have the heart to delete it either.  Let me instead turn back to the idea that we need more people of dedicated to the cause of Truth, and that I hope, perhaps one day, to be worthy to stand among them.

You should watch the movie.  Even already knowing the historical events around the situation as well as most of its historical outcomes, the movie had me enthralled thanks to a beautifully written script, marvelous acting, and superb direction and editing.  I'm a sucker for anything done by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, or the Coen brothers, so to have a film that combines those three forces should have been enough to get me to see it, but I had no idea it even existed until my parents told me they had seen and enjoyed it.  I'm glad they told me.

This weekend is an open weekend for Janelle and me.  The last few weekends and the next few weeks have been filled with appointments or work, but this one is at least open.  We already allowed ourselves (and the boys) to stay up much later than normal watching Spectre, the latest (and last?) James Bond movie.  Connor liked it, Rowen fell asleep, Trevor liked some parts and was bored by others, and Janelle and I were underwhelmed.  Still, we already had a nice dinner with the Soup Supper at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and the family-friendly stations of the cross that followed.

I have some grading to catch up on this weekend (which I will need to pick up from my classroom) and we plan to get our taxes done, but our only other plan (aside from the standard Saturday errands) is to watch Bridge of Spies.  Well, that and to sleep in tomorrow.

1. I need to take the two courses required by the state of Alaska to keep my teaching certificate.  The courses are offered online and for a relatively inexpensive price, but I was waiting until we had the funds.  I plan to register soon (like this weekend) and do the bulk of the work for the classes during Spring Break--in two weeks.  Once those are done, I will also need to complete some of the other paperwork required to better solidify my Alaska Teaching Certificate.

2. We plan on buying a house up here.  Currently, we are in the process of purchasing the house we refer to as "Weird House" (not to be confused with the "Tower House" that I talked about earlier).  We aren't at a point that I can say more about this on any kind of social media, just that we would like people's prayers for this to work out.

3. I have agreed to be an assistant coach for our middle school track team (hurdles).  The practices start in April, and the away meets will actually be my first time visiting Nikiski, Homer, and Seward.  I've already been sifting through some of the material given to me by the person who held the position last year.  I'm a bit nervous about coaching, especially something that I didn't like when in physical education classes.  This also means that I won't be taking part in the after-school crossfit sessions for most of the last quarter of school.  I will have to do some of the exercises and conditioning that we're assigning to the students; otherwise, I'm afraid I'll slip back into some bad habits.

4. I'm finally going to start up my Ed.D. program.  I was accepted to Walden University last summer, but had to put the process on hold due to our move.  While my main motivation behind this degree is financial, I also like the opportunities that this degree can open up for me.  Although I plan on being a classroom teacher until I retire, these past few years have shown me that what I plan is not always taken into consideration by larger forces in my life.

5. Our girls are currently planning on coming up for the summer, with Alex probably staying even longer.  While I know how excited I am about this idea, I know that Janelle is even more so.  We miss our girls.

6. I have my travel arrangements and roommate set for my trip to Salt Lake City for the AP World History reading.  Every time I think about this, I get more excited (although not really about the actual grading part).

7. I plan on getting some sort of summer job.  I really don't know what that might look like at this point in time.  Hopefully, some of my coworkers have some ideas.  Honestly, the most interesting opportunity that I've seen thus far is as an extra for some of the shows that are filmed up here.

8. I want to e-publish Dragon Hunter and maybe even There's No Chicken in Chicken, Alaska. While I need to still do some polishing and editing to both, the main thing holding me back is the cover art.  So far, my attempts to get that done have all fallen short, but I'm determined to publish this summer even if it means making the covers myself. 

And that gets me through the next couple of months and into the summer.

While it looks like my snow dance worked for Michigan (as I was writing this, Lincoln just cancelled school--you're welcome, Ann), it certainly has not worked out so well here.  We've not only had rain instead of snow today, but much of the snow we did have is now melted, creating massive puddles on the road and slick spots where the water is covering some of the more stubborn ice.  Unfortunately, only more rain is in the forecast with daytime (and some nighttime) temperatures staying above freezing for at least the next two weeks--and likely beyond).  While I wore one of my snow sweaters today and still plan on wearing the other tomorrow, it feels like the equivalent of pulling out a Bears jersey at this point.

I ran (well, jogged) a mile today.  An entire mile.  Without stopping.  A few months ago, even the idea of that would have worn me out.  Today I ran (again, jogged) it in exactly nine minutes.  Now, I won't be running a four minute mile any time soon [read: ever], but this was a significant milestone in the road of my physical improvement.  I'm not eager to try it again; I don't have the "runner's itch" because of this, but it's nice to know that my chance to outrun (out-jog?) zombies has increased.

I spent a good deal of the day after work playing taxi with Trevor as he had pep band again today.  He said he enjoyed the experience (this was his third and final time doing it).  The experience made me equally look forward to and dread the day when he can drive himself to these events.  Since our the beginning of our long trek up here in August, I've been trying to get him to be more observant while I'm driving, especially noting landmarks and how to deal with icy conditions.  We are planning to wait until this spring to get him behind a wheel; I'm just surprised at how fast spring is approaching.

I've also figured out the Soldotna library's online catalog and reserve system.  We have now checked out Spectre and Bridge of Spies to watch one of these days when I'm not taxiing and Janelle isn't working (most likely, that means this weekend; Janelle's schedule picks up substantially next week).  I have a list of other titles on order and feel strangely proud of myself for that fact.

Lastly, I spent much of my free time today practicing with guitar the songs for this coming Friday's stations of the cross and Sunday's mass.  I've had to creatively change some of the chords that I simply won't be able to learn in time.  Janelle said that only one of the songs sounded noticeably odd, but the workarounds I've tried haven't improved it ... yet.  I'm a little concerned that the guitar won't be picked up enough by the area microphones at the church.  I will have to play around with it a bit before the actual events.

I feel like I've accomplished quite a bit for a Tuesday evening.

Our house in Michigan is our house no more!  The closing was today!

I don't do well with gag orders, and sitting on good news is almost more stressful than dealing with bad news (well, not quite), so the past month has been slow torture for me.  Within three days of relisting our house with our new agent (Heather Herndon), we already had a handful of showings and received an offer.  They then accepted our counter offer (which kept the price within $1,000 of our list price but had us paying their closing costs--still $14,000 more than the last offer), and we have been going through the process since.

I don't think that I need to express what a relief it is to have the house sold, freeing us up to look more seriously at houses up here.  More importantly, I can talk about this on social media now without worrying that I might somehow screw up the process (even if only by jinxing it).  I've been able to tell people directly, but it's been tough writing posts this past month with this major news occupying most of my brain.

Now that we're at this point, it almost doesn't seem real.  There are a number of people who helped us get here.  Foremost is my mother, Cheryl, who put in a superhuman amount of work into making the house presentable.  Selling the house would have been much more difficult without her efforts.  Our new realtor and her team, as noted above, were the turning point on a process that was taking much longer than I expected.  Katrina and Peter helped in a number of ways, especially in the changing out of the insulation in the basement.  A number of choir members from St. Mary's Star of the Sea put in shifts of much needed help.  Steve and Alana made a large difference in ridding the house of much of its trash.  John, my brother-in-law, did a number of repairs before helping Janelle with her move up.  Katie gave us suggestions and help with updating the house.

... And there were certainly more, including the many of you who shared your advice and prayers.  My deepest thanks go to everyone!

Now it's time to get house up here ...

Our Gospel today is from the 4th Luminous Mystery: the Transfiguration.  Peter, James, and John have accompanied Jesus up the mountain, and as usually, have fallen asleep.  This time when they awake, they find that Elijah and Moses have joined Jesus and that Jesus has been transfigured into His heavenly form.  Today's homily brought up a few points from this story.

One, while Elijah and Moses are representatives of God's prophets and law, respectively, they also form another specific club with Jesus.  No one has relics for any of the three.  Moses's grave is in an unknown location, Elijah was taken to heaven on a fiery chariot, and Jesus ascended.  As humans, we build stronger connections with those things that we can touch, yet none of these men have left any such reassurance for us.

Two, Jesus is transfigured into a brilliant and beautiful form, almost to the point that his best friends cannot recognise him.  This transformation is what so many people who come to Christ are seeking: to be transformed from our mundane existence.  We know that we are more than our outward appearance, more than what people around us have witnessed.  We long to show others our purest selves, but only after some of our baser impulses have been somehow changed into something greater, something holy.

And three, Peter suggests that he build tents for the three men with no consideration for how practical or fitting such an idea might be.  We, too, rush and stumble forward in our excitement to do God's will.  Occasionally, this means making missteps, sometimes ones that embarrassingly foolish.  God loves us despite our failings.  If He could not only forgive Peter for such recklessness, but make Peter the foundation of the Church, then there is hope for us as well.

A side note: Today was Connor's first Reconciliation.  He was nervous at first, but seemed to have a good experience.  The event had several stations that included the parents in the ceremony, reminding the children of the elements of their baptism.  It was a nice experience.

It's been a while since I haven't kept up on one of my daily posts.  Usually, the reason is either because I'm travelling or hanging out with friends until the wee hours of the morning.  Yesterday, I just plain forgot.

Actually, I thought that I had written my daily post yesterday and was thusly surprised this morning to find that I hadn't.  I've tried to write a post every day (or at least for every day) since I made it a resolution of sorts in 2014.  It's strange that I would simply forget to do something that has been part of my daily routine for so long.

I suppose that I was a little busy yesterday.  We did our standard dump/library/post-office/miscellaneous errands run and were gone for a while because of that.  I spent two sessions during the day picking out songs for next week's mass and practicing them on the guitar.  Time really got away from me both times.  I also spent a little bit of time playing Undertale as well as playing StarCraft II with Trevor.  It's amazing how fast time can fill.

On a side-note, the snowstorm that was expected yesterday didn't hit until during the night, switched to rain during the afternoon today, and has turned back to snow at the moment.  It's nice to have the winter wonderland back.  I hope it doesn't cause people too many problems.

It's been a draining week.  Between my common cold (which is completely in its euphoria phase right now), my strained neck, and the taxi-driver role that I've had to play for Trevor several evenings this week, I need some time to recover.  Thankfully, Janelle isn't work late at all this weekend so we should be able to get to bed sooner.  

We also don't have anything planned for the early morning tomorrow, so my plan is to try and sleep in for a while to make up for my sleep deprivation.  Hopefully, my younger children are willing to go along with my plan.  

I'm sure that will work out just fine ...

Yesterday, I was informed that not only will our choir leader/accompanist not be at church a week from this coming Saturday, but that none of the people who normally substitute for her.  This gives me a couple of options for that Sunday: sing a capella or dust off the guitar and start practicing church music.  I figure that I can always fall back on the a capella option as a last resort, so I agreed to give the guitar option a try.

I now have two massive books of music as well a guide that suggests possible songs for the liturgy sitting in my house.  The idea is that I will try to find appropriate songs for the liturgy that I know how to sing while also sticking to the chords that I know.  I'm a little concerned that this means some of the songs will be in a key too high for me to pull off without the occasional squawk, but I'd prefer that over trying to play songs beyond my rather limited guitar-playing ability.

I have a little over nine days to get ready.  I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge.  It was in preparation for situations exactly like this that made me want to learn the guitar in the first place.  While I'm glad that I practiced Christmas music this past holiday season, I'm wishing that I had been better at practicing these past few years.  Perhaps this will be incentive enough to not only keep my skills sharp, but to even improve my repertoire of chords and strum patterns. 

Whether it was my cold, the particular exercises we did on Monday, or stress, I have had a terrible crick in my neck since I sat up from our couch last night after playing a video game and then reading the boys a story.  Despite taking plenty of ibuprofen, I was up for much of the night, completely uncomfortable.  The pain reached its high point after school today when I was no longer able to turn my head in either direction without bolts of agony shooting up from my shoulder blades into my head.

This experience has again reminded me that I would not do well under torture.  Considering my low threshold for pain, it's hard for me to tell at the moment (now that the pain has largely, if not completely, subsided) whether I really was in that much pain or if my mind has made it out to be greater than it was.  Either way, I didn't like it and don't recommend it if you are thinking about giving a similar pain to yourself.