Sophie's Story

   I came home from work Wednesday and sat down at the computer. First thing I wanted to do was check my email. I had several messages, but one caught my eye immediately. It was from Bishop Campbell and had one word in the subject line, Church.  I was pretty sure I knew what the note would contain. I was going to be asked to help teach a lesson or speak at Sacrament Meeting.   A bit of background is in order here. A few months ago I was asked to offer a prayer before a lesson of the women's group. I has been under the impression that, as a non member, I was not permitted to do this and told this to the woman who asked me. She looked pretty confused, I can understand. Unless you pay close attention to what I do at church, you can't tell that I'm not a member. I thought it might be a good idea for me to make sure I was right, since it looked like such requests could be made to me in the future.   I sent Bishop Campbell an email with my question. He let me know ...

   Running season started today.  I've been waiting for this day since it started getting warm enough to go out with just a light jacket. Every morning I'd peer out the window at 5:30 am to see if it was light enough to go running. (It's not safe to run here in the dark.) The last few days it looked like it would be light enough. Yesterday I decided that it was time to start running.   I decided to buy a new pair of running shoes this year. I think you are supposed to have new shoes every year, but since I don't run that much it seems wasteful to do this. My old running shoes will now be my new walking and tennis shoes.   About five minutes before the alarm went off, I got out of bed and grabbed my gear. I put on a long sleeved tee shirt,sweatshirt and running pants. I laced on my new shoes. Then I went outside and began to stretch. The weather was perfect. The clouds in the sky were breaking up and it was not too hot or too cold.    My ...

The vacation shouldn't start when you reach your destination nor should it end when you pack up the car to head home. C and I consider travelling to and from part of the trip and we make it as fun as possible. Our friends,Kent and Susan,occasionally take trips where they stop at various cheese factories in Wisconsin. Since I am a Wisconsin cheese snob, this sounded like a good idea. Our cheese stock was getting low and we would be going past several places that I had not been to. Over breakfast we looked at the cheese map that we had brought with us. (Yes, it is a map with most ,if not all, of the cheese factories and stores in Wisconsin listed on it as well as their locations.) We plotted out our route and found several stopping places along the way. I knew that we wouldn't be able to hit all of them, but there were a few I wanted to see. The first one we went to was a really nice place. It had something for everyone, Packer themed items,local wines for those that partake and ...

Actually that isn't true, there is a lot of good in Milwaukee. C and I had a little time off together and decided to take a long weekend and go to Milwaukee. C had been looking at things to do and wanted to eat at Mader's, a German restaurant. Mader's is on Old World Third Street. After we dropped off our stuff at the motel and freshened up a bit, we headed in to town. It was a bit tricky as we accidentally left our Milwaukee city map at home. We did find a ramp to park on and went for a stroll down Old World Third. We found the Spice House, Usinger's Meats and Mader's. We went inside and were given a table in the Knight's Bar. Our table was near the entrance to the restaurant so we could see people coming in. There was some sort of special dinner that night. People were coming in wearing fancy dress. Some of the women were wearing cocktail hats. I think I saw a couple of tuxes. (I didn't think you could wear a tux outside of a wedding.) We ordered something...

I found an article that someone posted on Facebook titled "I'm Christian, unless you're gay". The article wasn't a scathing diatribe on religions that teach that homosexuality is a sin as I expected. It was about hate and love. It got me thinking about hate. There has been a lot of it in the news lately. Was Trayvon Martin killed because of racism or was he killed in an act of self defense? Was the Iraqi woman beaten by people who are anti-Muslim or was she victimized by her family? What about the shootings in Tulsa? Everyone at one point in their life has hated someone. Be honest now. Do you now or have you ever hated anyone? How about strongly disliked someone? I have. There are a lot of reasons why someone would hate someone else. She stole my boyfriend. He had an affair. That should have been my job/promotion,but she got it. My boss is so unfair. She is always given preferential treatment. He's a Republican/Democrat/Green Party/Tea Party. He likes Rush Lim...

I collect quotes. This is something I've been doing since I was a kid. I had them written down in a nice notebook which got lost in one of the moves I've made. That meant that I needed to start my collection all over again. I get my quotes from many sources, page a day calendars,fridge magnets, coffee cups, speeches from Toastmasters and other speakers just to name a few. Today I'd like to share a few of my favourites with you. My favourite quote is one I found in high school, "We do not know what is normal, we only know what is customary." I have no idea who said it. Once in awhile I try to track down the source with no luck. This quote got me through high school. High school can be pretty tough when you are different from everyone else. While other girls were interested in things like fashion, boys and make up, I was interested in becoming a ham radio operator. (Does ham radio even exist anymore?) I was editor of the school newspaper and spent my free time tryin...