stuff from my week

Sometimes the hole in my heart feels as big as God. Then I wonder, if I truly have God living in my heart as I have believed and professed, how could I have any remaining hole in my heart at all?

I get amazed at the things that knock me for a loop. Okay, I've decided that it's time to study my instrument, so I go onto the website of the premier studio in the area for classical guitar study. Then I realize I'm going to have to specify some things, particularly that I'm going to have to find a way to stay out of their classical ensemble class, which appears to be full of kids. *sigh*

I really needed another opportunity each year to lament. Thank you, "national siblings day." Seriously, though: I don't think of Karen nearly as often as I wish I did, so I really am grateful for the reminder.

Day by day:

• Sunday: the crockpot chicken and pineapple experiment fails. chicken gets way overdone and dried out. i'm awake every two hours during the night, each time for longer than i need to be because of the repeated impression i have that it's almost morning.
• Monday: dinner: fend for ourselves - i make due with some cereal; i finish and hand-write confirmation letter for friend's niece, then work on e-mail requesting info for m&b prayer couple letter; tv on, i go to bed.
• Tuesday: i do a short ride; dinner: sloppy joes made the way my wife grew up with them and never remembers that i've never really liked much, made by mixing a can of (full-salt) condensed vegetable soup into a lb of ground beef, served on enriched white sandwich buns - gotta love a meal i don't like that's also not at all good for me, but at least i'm not going hungry; after prayer group i buy lunch meat since there hasn't been anything in the house for lunch, either; i watch one of wife's shows with her, then have two ME e-mails to write, then we go to bed mad because she wanted me to do them the moment she mentioned it, maybe she had an agenda for after? i sleep lousy mostly because of legs after ride.
• Wednesday: dinner: fend for myself as wife babysits and taxis grandkids - flounder fillets on flatbread wrap form the best meal of the week; i write m&b letter, read book while baseball on tv. turn tv off to focus on reading before wife gets home, turn back on to check o's score while she watches tslotat in her room before we both go to bed tired.
• Thursday: if there's one thing better than Tuesday's dinner it's having it again as leftovers; wife goes to look at potential apartment with daughter, comes home and announces in front of daughter and without consulting me about it that if daughter takes this apartment and has surgery on her ankle that she'll be staying with us extendedly because she won't be able to handle the entrance steps to the over-garage apartment. wife suggests that o's might be on, and she's right; she watches with me until she gets bored, then takes a late phone call from the west coast. i invite wife to join me in going out for dinner on Friday, as i am determined to enjoy one meal this week.

Pope Francis is right: when we complain too much, we lose sight of Jesus. Completely. (he's completely right. and we completely lost sight.)  So my immersion in Kolbe and the Kommandant is to remind me what I'm supposed to be about and the danger of not being about him.