Welcome to a cold Monday and start to the new week. God has the sky all bright and blue and the sun shining brightly. It is a welcome sight. The sun will make it feel a little warmer despite the ambient temperature of 31 degrees. This Thursday will be the day of the "big prediction"; aka Groundhog Day. It is the day that the rodent will or will not see its shadow and based upon that we will or will not have six more weeks of winter. It is all very scientific you know. The fact that it's coincides with the middle of meteorological winter and we actually have six more weeks of winter, --- well that is irrelevant. But, it's nice that it works out that way. God created groundhogs for some reason --- it might as well be to predict the weather.

How was your weekend. Ms. Kate and I stayed fairly close to home because it was too cold to get out and run around too much. This week we have a couple of things that we have to get out and about for including a trip over to see Julie. She is having her Harry Potter Book Night over at the university and we are going to drive over and see if we can be of any help without being in the way. She works her tail off to make this event happen and it is now becoming an annual event. This is her second year in a row and hopefully it will be as successful as last year's presentation. She has spent months creating wands for this thing to give away. People really look forward to getting one of them. Ms.Kate is going to take pictures of the event for Julie. I hope the weather holds out and it isn't a snow or rainy night for her.

We tried out another church yesterday. This was another nondeminational mega-churrch. It was a good service and the pastor had a good sermon. There was probably 900-1000 people there and so it becomes the "Church of Blessed Anonimity". One can go and no one knows you went which may or may not be important to you. My one complaint was that they served communion, for which I was grateful to receive, but there was no explanation really of why. So, if I were a first timer in a Christian church, I would have had no idea why I was receiving this sip of grape juice and speck of cracker. In my way of thinking and training, taking communion requires much more ritual and explanation. I love taking communion beecause it has great meaning to me. Other people, not so much. But this was done in such a manner that I actually forgot we did it. Ms. Kate asked me afterwards what I did or didn't like about the service, --- knowing I'd talk about the way they did communion; and I said I thought it was a good service. That surprised her and she said she just knew I talk about communion; and I said: "Oh, I forgot we had communion." That's not a good thing at all. Oh, well, it meets their needs, and next week we'll try another church.

One of my beautiful cardinals is sitting here having a drink and the bright sun on its red feathers makes a beautiful sight. Just another blessing form God handed my way. Have a great week!