Yeah, the car still hasn't arrived... but the dealership has told me that it'll be here by the end of January... which means about a week or less! It's very exciting.
Although... they did mention that they couldn't get a hold of a car with side airbags. Makes me slightly nervous, and I'm a bit disappointed, but it seems the manufacturers aren't making 'em with side airbags -- or at least not enough that I can get one in the next year or so. So, that saves me $650. Rather than just save the money (save the money? Bah!), I ordered the extended service plan (6 years bumper-to-bumper!) and a car cover. Hey, the car will sleep outside in Ithaca -- I know I'd want a blankie if I had to sleep outside! :-p
Anyway, I'm getting pretty excited about all this...!
You may notice that the nav bar on the left has shortened considerably. Well, it's 'cuz I figured I should archive all my old entries, given that it's a new year and all. "Out with the old, in with the new" and all that jazz. I'm also thinking I really need to get my butt in gear and get a couple pictures up here. I have a few, but they could stand to be cropped and touched up.
Anyway, the pictures I have are photographic proof of my flying lesson, described in this entry. The pictures can be found in a very quickly-slapped-together page over hither. Enjoy!
We're having a rough go of things with the youth groups lately. I think I mentioned before that, because of the fall musical at church, the kids were swamped and weren't making it to meetings. Well, we expected that when the musical ended, the kids would come back. They haven't. We haven't had a full meeting of SHAC (the senior high group) pretty much all year. JHAZ (the junior high group) has been going at about the same rate it did last year -- five or six kids a week. That's a very positive thing, and it's a great group. But both Gibson and I are getting quite concerned about our senior high crew... and our supervisor, Kristin, is too. She's been very supportive, though, and I'm thankful to be working with a director who's like that -- but I wish I knew what to do. A big "fr'instance" of how our youth group goes: today, we had scheduled a group trip to the movie theater to see "Narnia" and then go out for dinner afterward to hang out and discuss. Five kids signed up; then they all pulled out at the last minute, so we cancelled -- and I'm updating a website instead of hanging with my kids.
It's very disappointing. I can't help thinking that it's personal -- the kids don't like me and/or Gibson, don't like the activities, or something similar. They say it's just that they're too busy with homework and sports and rehearsals and stuff, but again -- I can't help thinking "if they liked the groups enough, they'd make the time to be here." It's troubling and depressing.
Ah, well. I've been talking with Kristin, and we're going to try to call a meeting with all the kids and find out what's going on. Until then, I'll just have to keep hammering away and trying to improve what I'm doing.
Well... I think that's it for me for the time being. There's other stuff I could talk about (like how I'm trying to clean, but mopped myself away from my cleaning supplies... by mistake! Honest!), but I've got other stuff to do with this site. So anyway, thanks as always for reading, and drop me a line and let me know how you're doing in this new year! God bless!