Hard to believe it's already been four days since my last post. Our lives are always busy, but they always get busier as the holidays approach. And work is getting more intense all the time. As I'm sure is true with many others, the pay raises never keep pace with the workload or responsibility. I'm in Peoria tonight (how exciting is that?) at the midpoint of a 2 day whirlwind tour of some of our plants in Illinois. It's cool to see the plants and meet new people, but I'd rather be home. What especially sucks is that the Packers and Cowboys are playing tonight and the greed-sucking NFL decided to only broadcast the game on their network. I hope they choke on it (but I'm not bitter).

Liz's choir had the first of two consecutive nights of fundraising tonight. They are presenting a dessert concert that includes group and solo performances as they serve homemade desserts to patrons. There's also a silent auction and some other stuff. They will be going to New York during Spring Break to perform in a national competition and need cash to finance the trip. Pretty fancy stuff--they're really quite good (obviously).

I finished up my series on the attributes of Jesus Sunday. This week was about Jesus as King; but not like that. It's not the whole "ruler of the universe" thing, but the warnings that he gave about what it means to commit to him. He has to be in charge of all we do and we have to know that up front and be willing to stick with it. He doesn't want us to jump in just to decide we can't handle it--and he won't allow us to use the excuse that we didn't realize what it would cost us.

We decided to spend Christmas in MO this year rather than travel back to Bama like we have been planning. Gas is way too high to afford to make the trip and still pay all the bills; plus the kids are kind of excited about just hanging out and decorating our house and seeing their friends. It'll be fun and I'm still going to take some time off so we can go do some stuff; like tour Meramec Caverns, hit the City Museum, etc. We do way too few family outings. I'm really looking forward to it.

Just one quick, predictable reminder about the season before I go. I think even the origins of Christmas didn't really have a lot to do with elevating Jesus just for the sake of elevating Jesus; but that doesn't mean we have to ignore that opportunity. The angels were spot-on when they said that his birth (which was actually sometime in the Spring) was all about peace and good will. We have so little of that any more, whether we're talking about countries or each other. Try committing some Acts of Random Kindness (ARK--was 'Evan Almight' a sweet movie, or what?). Forget the crap and focus on the good stuff. It really is contagious.

Pray for peace; celebrate life.
Mike