NaBloPoMo -- Friday Five Edition

This week's Friday Five at the RGBP site asks:

For Friday Five this week, let’s keep the light, love and laughter going with a random selection of things to make your heart sing:

1. Music: a song or orchestral piece that stirs your soul
2. Indoor Place: have you got an oasis at home that you can hide away in?
3. Outdoor Space: is it water, hills, woodland? Is it the fresh country air or the bustling city?
4. Picture: this may be a piece of art, something you created, something someone gave you…
5. Person: do you have a go to person, for when the world is crowding in?

1. THere are a number of them that but one that often comes first to my mind is Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserables.
2.  1200 square foot house, 6 people and a dog.  You do the math.  Luckily (or not so much perhaps) I can zone out into the computer screen if I really need.
3.   Given a choice, the lakeshore at Camp Maskepetoon.  But that choice really is not often available.  Green zones in the city will take its place, particularly river valleys.  But what I have learned (repeatedly since I often forget) is that sometime it is just being outside that is needed, even if it is mainly to shovel snow.
4.  Depends on my mood.  But honestly I am really not much of a picture person.
5.  TO be honest, when the world is crowding in my introversion kicks in and I go interior.  Which may not always be the healthiest thing to do but it is the truth.  I am lucky to have some colleagues that I can go to if need really kicks in.

Friday Five....Books

Each week the RevGalBlogPals post a Friday Five.  Haven't done one for eons.  Thought I would this week:

Share with us some of your favorites:
A cookbook One of my favourites is a volume put together by the congregation where I attended during seminary. They called it "Grosvenor Does Gourmet"
A novel Lord of the Rings, one I first read in Grade4/5 and have read MANY times since.  (and the movies are no where near as good as the books)
A nonfiction book Hmmmm, hard to name a favourite here.
A well-thumbed book to which you turn often, or with affection, used in our profession well there is the Bible....most of the reading I return to frequently now is online.
An author you recommend frequently to others Not an author but a book...Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf
Bonus: what are you reading now? Working my way through Les Miserables

Friday Five--Because I should really post something....

SOme people marked the month of November by posting every day.  I appear to have marked it by not posting ANYTHING on this blog....

SO I thought for that for the first time in I don't know how long I would do the RGBP Friday Five.

This week's prompt is about Christmas Trees.  Our tree won't go up for t more weeks but here we go.  Let's start with a picture of our tree from last year:

ANd the prompting questions are:
1) Real tree, or “fake?” My preference is real.  But after spending as much on real trees in 2 years as we spent the entire time we were in Atikokn we bought a fake one.  This will be its third year.  Our 10 year old hates it--keeps asking why we put "a piece of plastic" up instead of a tree.

2) White or colored lights? coloured, no question.

3) When do you put up and take down your tree? because we always used a real tree the tradition was to put it up around the 20th and take it down on New Year's Day (in my childhood my mother would often de-decorate the tree while watching the Rose Parade).  Even with the "piece of plastic" we tend to keep to that schedule because we have limited room in the living room for the tree as it is.

4) Tell us about your favorite ornament (share a picture, if you can). Not sure I have a favourite...but I will mention the set of 6 ceramic bulbs that have the Irish "May the Road Rise to Meet you" Blessing on them I was given years ago and then did not use for a while due to using "bush" trees with weak branches.  Now we can use them because the fake branches are plenty sturdy.

5) What goes on the top of your tree (again, share a photo, if possible)? We have an angel and a star, both in the same material and style, that we alternate.  Mind you we have to rely on the girls to tell us which year is which...though I see above that last year was the star

Bonus: Are there traditions about decorating your tree that you’d like to share? Every year we buy an ornament for the girls.  (Soon we will have more ornaments than we have tree but that is another issue)  Here in town there is an annual Ten Thousand Villages sale in mid-November so every year we go to that and this is where the girls buy their, fairly traded, ornament for the year.  For the last three years running our second child has gotten ornaments with nativity scenes on them--says she is starting a collection.

EXTRA BONUS:
There are stories that always get told in families.  Here is one of ours....
One year, I think I was in Grade 10, I had a play rehearsal (for Our Town which we were performing in January) on the Saturday before Christmas.  We had not yet decorated our tree.  At that point in time my father and sister did brunch on Christmas Day.  Often they had grand plans (which over the years faded into simple bacon and eggs but since at that time my grandfather only got bacon and eggs once a year [cholesterol diet] he did not mind) and this year they had a fancy bread they were making.  That afternoon while they were trying to make it and my grandmother was giving helpful advice my mother decided that the kitchen was not where she wanted to be.  SO when I got home from rehearsal the tree was totally decorated.  I was less than impressed that I did not get to help.

Friday 5 -- Encounters

It has been an epoch since I have done a Friday Five...

Over at the RGBP site we have this prompt:

In this week some of us are preaching about a woman who encounters Jesus at the well, please name five encounters in your life leading to unexpected results. They might include learning a new skill, making a friend, falling in love, discerning a call or anything around or far off from those ideas.

1. I have told this story before, but it just fits so well.  After all, who goes to a Presbytery meeting to find a spouse?  But that is what happened to me at the first Presbytery meeting after I started in ministry. 
2. When I was in Grade 5 there was a chance to take part in the production of A Christmas Carol.  I decided I would, had never done anything like it before (and ended up playing Scrooge).  And from then until the end of high School being involved in theatre was one of the things that saved my sanity (such as it is) and indeed my became my major in university.
3. I needed a summer job.  ANd I had fond memories of having gone when I was a child.  So I applied for a job at Camp Maskepetoon.  There is a very direct (if not exactly straight) line between that choice and where I am now.
4. It was for Integration Seminar, a class in social ministry in my 2nd year at St. Andrew's.  Part of the class was to volunteer at a social agency.  I met with the Placement Co-Ordinator and we decided a good place for me was the Saskatoon Crisis Nursery.  In the end it may not have been the best placement for me to meet the goals of the place and my own learning needs (though those learning needs may not have been met in any placement as it is probable I was not yet ready to face my demons), but that experience prepared me for the time two years later when I needed a job and got a job at an equivalent agency in Edmonton -- Kids Kottage and spent almost 3 years there.
5. Wandering through the mall in Atikokan during my first 6 months of ministry the Catholic Deacon called me over to have coffee.  Did I know that that coffee group would become my main non-church contact point for the next 9 years? But it did.

Pictures and Baptism....

The RevGalBlogPals have recently moved to a new site.  As a part of the set up of that site they asked for pictures of women in ministry in action.  And so I submitted this picture:

Of course there is always a story behind a picture.  And now they are asking for those stories for the Wednesday Festival this week.

When you are clergy and you have children who baptizes them?  I am not their Pastor, I am their father.  So for Princess and Scalliwag we had colleagues come out to Atikokan for the baptism--colleagues who were at those times retained without appointment.  On both those occasions all of their grandparents (and for Scalliwag also her great-grandfather) were able to be present.

Then came Monkey.  There was someone we really wanted to officiate at her baptism (because said person was unable to officiate at our wedding as Beloved sorta kinda hoped).  However said colleague was also in full-time ministry, which makes it more difficult for her to come to Atikokan.  At the same time it was becoming more and more difficult for Beloved's mother to make that trip.  So we came up with a rather unique solution.

Have the baptism at a Presbytery meeting.

We suggested this to some of the key people in Presbytery in the fall and there was great excitement.  As the chair that year noted, as Protestants we recognize 2 sacraments but in our Presbytery meetings we are only able (generally speaking) to celebrate one of them.  So we made plans.  The Board in Atikokan agreed that Monkey could be baptized on their behalf at the February Presbytery meeting.  Wonderful friend and colleague agreed (with very little pleading) to officiate, we planned the service and it was done.  I led most of the service and wonderful friend and colleague did the baptism.  Thanks again!!!!!

Oh and I was told by wonderful friend and colleague to include this piece:

Gord, be sure to mention that it is a highlight of my ministry. One of those Spirit-filled moments that always brings a smile.

 

Five Firsts

As the RGBP site prepares to migrate to a new home, I thought I would play teh Friday 5 (while trying to set up a "new" desktop in the den).  This week is about firsts...
Your first "place" - whether it was an apartment, dorm room, or home with a new spouse, the first place where you really felt like a grown-up:  Well it wasn't the first place I paid rent at but I think it feels like my first "real" place because it was the first place I went apart from a temporary residence for the school year.  A bachelor apartment just a few blocks from where I was working at the time.  And as it happens, I was going through old pictures last night and found some pictures of it:

Your first time away from home. Construe this any way you want. College? Girl Scout Camp? Study Abroad? As with many of us there are several of these.  I think I will go with my first year in Seminary, 1992-93.  Lived in a dark basement suite and really did not like it.  (In hindsight there was other stuff happening in my psyche that may have been augmented by teh darkness of the basement suite).

Your first job in your field of endeavor (so, not babysitting, unless you are A Professional Babysitter today): How does one define the first job in ministry?  My first charge?  My first internship? My work at Kids Kottage (which would match the apartment answer above)?  All possibles but I am going with my work at Camp Maskepetoon.  My first summer on staff there was 1989.  And arguably without going there I would not be here now.

Your first time hosting. Again, construed broadly, this could be a dinner for the in-laws, your first time to have guests for a holiday meal, etc. During my first year at seminary our class developed a pattern of taking turns hosting class gatherings.  There were 3 of us who lived in basemen suites that had no space for hosting such a gathering.  And so we compromised.  We "borrowed" the home of one classmate and we provided the wine and cheese for the gathering as the official hosts.

Your first love.That can be a person or something else!!  I am going with not my first love but my first crush.  I was in grade 4, her name was Evelyn, we had been classmates since grade 1.  And I thought she was great.

RevGal Carnival -- Galship

Teri laid out this challenge over at RevGalBlogPals:

This week's blog carnival topic is: What does Galship mean to you? The phrase was originally coined to refer to RevGal Fellowship--all the ways we build community, share our lives, support each other, and have fun. So blog about Galship--have you had an experience of galship in person or online? Has galshipping changed your life or ministry? what's your favorite part of our galship? Or whatever way you understand the question--there are no wrong answers! What does Galship mean to you? Ready, set, write!

And well here is my response.....

As it happens this is a fitting time for this post.  Because my 8th Blogiversary is this coming Friday, and my link to the RevGals goes back pretty much the entire time I have been blogging.

One of the reasons I started blogging was reading the blog of my friend and colleague at Inner Dorothy.  And through her blog I followed a few links to "meet" folks named Songbird  or Will Smama at Preacher, Blogger, Procrastinator (admittedly that one I grabbed to read because I am an unrepentant procrastinator) or St. Casserole or purechristianithink or the Peripatetic Polar Bear or NotShyChiRev and many many others.  I watched as some of these people formed a group that called themselves the RevGalBlogPals.  I was intrigued but as an onlooker as I saw it a group primarily for the "Gal" part of the title.

Then in this post from late September 2005 (when RGBP was just over 2 months old) I was invited to join the ring [mind you now that I re-read the invitation there was a bit of an instructional tone to the invitation).  Which I did.

I remember the first book, ordering it, ordering extra copies for some people in my congregation, getting even more extra copies because the printer screwed up the cover in the first run.  Then I remember the second, BIG book (Ordinary Time is a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG season) in which I took part.  I read about the various Big Events and other blogger meet-ups with a touch of jealousy, because I knew the chance of my being able to make those travels was pretty small.  Mind you, I am strongly thinking of going to the Festival of Homiletics next year so maybe a meet-up with some of these virtual friends will in fact happen....

One of the grand debates in the world of on-line communities is if they are true communities.  It is my experience as a member of the RGBP community that they are.  There are times when (in blog posts or in the RGBP FB group) the community supports each other, rants together, celebrates together.  When I shared concerns about early birth as we went through the last month of our third pregnancy there were prayers abounding from the community.  And when we we got back home after her birth I found this post and this post as the community celebrated with us.

Over the years I have enjoyed being a member of RGBP.  Yes there are lots of blogs in the ring now I have not read.  But there are the ones I happen upon in reading the posts at the home blog and check out.  And for the last year or so I have even been a contributor.  An easy task (as long as I remember what month it is) to write a weekly post for the Tuesday Lectionary Leanings each month.

One last note.  For the Friday 5 meme when the blogring was a year old we were invited to reflect on the community.  Here is what I wrote then. I still stand by all of it.


PS: this post took an incredibly long time to write given its length and content.  Why?  Because I got lost in reading old posts.  Always a dangerous thing.  But I was downright well written in those early months and years.  Now I hardly blog at all....

Friday Five

Over at RGBP Deb writes:

In these last few weeks there's been all kinds of bad news. Tornadoes and a blizzard. Gun violence and a legislative body squabbling like toddlers over budgets, health care and who knows what else. For those of us in the US, it's tax season. Yuck.

We're only in the second week of Lent. Easter's a long way off. And here in the Mid-Atlantic region, the weather can't seem to make up its mind. Is it winter? Is it spring? Will it snow? Will it rain? Are my daffodils doomed if they actually BLOOM next week like they are threatening to?

So this week's Friday Five is courtesy of my good friends Frodo and Sam. Tell me 5 things that are good in our world. Or your world.

 And how can I not do a meme naming Frodo and Sam???? (and since I will be traveling to and in a meeting all day tomorrow I am doing it early)

1) Princess, Scalliwag, Monkey and Bear (even if they do stress me out on a semiregular basis)

2) Beloved

3) The Congregation with whom I minister

4) Sunsets like this

5) The fact that the event I described in this post is a first for me, and a rarity for most of us

Friday Five

For Lent this year I have resolved to blog more.  And so doing the Friday Five for the first time in a LOOOOOONG time fits that goal...

1. Oddly this year, the second day of Lent was Valentine's Day. How was this for you? Was Valentine's Day any different being in Lent? Truthfully made no difference either way. 

2. Did you celebrate Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday this year? Any memories of memorable celebrations past? this congregation always has a Pancake supper co-planned/hosted by the Men's Breakfast group and the Outreach committee.  This year the proceeds are going to support the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.  When I was young the United Church building was shared with the local Anglican congregation.  The one event a year that was shared between the two congregations was the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper.

3. How about Ash Wednesday, past and/or present?   Never have done much for Ash Wednesday.  In fact I remember exactly once (outside of seminary) where I was at a service on that day, and that was because it was the year we were experimenting with an evening service the last Wednesday of the month in a year when Ash Wednesday happened to be the last Wednesday of February.

4. Do you have a personal plan of give-ups, take-ons, special ministries, and/or a special focus for your own spiritual growth between now and Easter?  I have signed up for this (but have yet to read about any of the acts), and I have committed to try to blog much more frequently. 

5. Do you have a book or a website you are reading often during Lent? Nothing yet, although I would like to get much farther through Saving Paradise before Easter

Road Trippin' Friday 5

Over at RGBP Jan gives us this challenge:

Tell us about five road trips--in your childhood, in your family, in your recent past, with friends, and/or hoped-for-places-to-drive-to. Don't forget the one that stands out as the BEST or as the worst time. 

 1.  in 1984 we drove from Alberta to Chicago, up through Ontario to Sarnia, Toronto and Ottawa then back via the north shore of Superior.  Highlights included driving past Flint in the midst of a storm that was spawning tornadoes (quote from that section as my mother was looking at a map: "remember that mall we just passed?  that is where they just said a tornado touched down") finding out just how long the trip through Northwestern Ontario could be, and lots of grasshoppers through the prairies.

2.  worst road trip ever.  in 2002 Beloved and I were planning a trip out to BC for my grandparents 60th Anniversary.  WE were to leave on a Monday.  4:00 Friday afternoon the alternator light came on in my car, no garage open until Monday morning.  So we spent Saturday arranging for alternate transport to Edmonton where we could continue with my parents -- 28 hours on the bus.  On a full bus for most of it.  Not fun.

3.  a trip we plan to take.  Beloved and I would dearly love to fly to Halifax and take the train back across the country.  With stops to explore various places along the way.  But we want to wait at least 5 years until youngest is 6.  Sadly it will be a very expensive trip.

4.  most recent trip.  LAst summer.  Our big move.  Thunder Bay to Edmonton over 4 days, travelling in a convoy of 3 vehicles, with a 1 month-old.  It was a bit of an adventure.  Then after a couple of recovery days a final day up to our new home.

5.  last fall Beloved and I joined the other members of this Presbytery for a bus trip up to Whitehorse for the fall meeting.  First time either of us had been north of here (not surprising since the move was the first time we had been this far north [apart from interview and house-shopping on my account]).  And in 2015 the PResbytery should be due for a bus trip to Yellowknife.

FRiday???? Five, Also Blogiversary

What with the parade and the Canada Day Festivities last week I didn't get around to the Friday Five over at RGBP.  However today is my 6th Blogiversary and so I thought these queries would fit well today:

1) Have your blogging (writing/reading) habits shifted since the days of yore? In my first 6 months of blogging I posted 206 times.   THus far this year--31 (on this blog, there have also been posts on my "church blog" and worship resources posted on my "worship blog").  I'd say the numbers speak for themselves.  Reading is on a similar track, although I tend to read more blogs as part of my worship preparation now than I used to.

2) Do you have some favorites that you miss? There aer some who stopped blogging that I used to read.  ANd many folks whose blogging has slowed so much that I miss following them now.

3) Are there some blogs you still put in the 'must read' category? Certainly, most of the ones in my sidebar.  But to be fair I rarely find time to read all of them.

4) If we gathered at your knee, what would you tell us about those early days of blogging? That I spent too much time doing it???  But there was a growing feeling of community, a feeling of getting to know these people in some way.

5) Do you have a clip or a remembrance of a previous post of yours or someone else's that you remember, you know an oldie but goodie? Nothing that really stands out.  There were posts that made me laugh out loud, and posts that have made me tear up.

A Matrimonial Friday Five

As found at RGBP

1) Will you be watching? If so, is this your first royal wedding? I had better things to be doing at 2 in the morning. (although in hindsight I may as well have gotten up at 4:15 instead of tosssing and turning for the next 45 minutes or so).  But 30 years ago I remember getting up at o-dark-o-clock to watch Charles and Diana.

2) The bride has chosen as her wedding cake a fruitcake. Where do you stand on this pastry? It is regrettable she did not choose real food.

3) The dress code for royal weddings has not seen the same sad decline as that for most other weddings. If you could design your own royal wedding hat, what color would it be and what special decoration would it feature? Being male my hat choices would be rather limited would they not?  BUt there is the temptation to have something in a rainbow of colours with a giant plume--or even better mulitple plumes--floating on behind....

4)  Any chance the Archbishop of Canterbury is using a Sustainable Sermon (tip of the mitre to the Vicar of Hogsmeade)? What would you tell the couple were you offering the homily? Generally my wedding message is about the hard work of building a relationship and the power of love in the bumps and twists and hiccups of life.  ANd I seriously doubt the Archbishop did the Sustainable thing. Although I almost always do for a wedding.

5) Believe it or not, kathrynzj is getting up early mostly to see the wedding dress. By the time this post is up, the world will have seen it. Did you like it?  I haven't seen it yet....

A Perky Friday Five

Over at RGBP we find:

Thanks to #snOMG this week has had a different rhythm to it for me. Fortunately, one of the perks of ministry is a fairly flexible schedule and quite often the ability to work from home. Another perk of ministry is that I will be part of a worship service that celebrates my friend's gifts in ministry and the ministry she will do with the church she has been Called to lead.

These two things have me reflecting on the gifts and perks of ministry and what else I would put on that list.

What about you? What are 5 perks/gifts of ministry for you?

1. the unestimable privilege of being invited into people's lives at key points like marriage, illness, death, baptism...
2. having decided what I want to do when I "grow up" actually getting to doit!
3. as kzj said, the ability to flex time and work from home when needed
4. a jop that includes eating with people, coffee with people, and being fed (especially by the UCW)
5. two words----book allowance
   

Favourite passages

Over at RGBP Songbird writes:

Twenty years ago, I was on a Pastoral Search Committee, and one of the questions we asked the ten candidates we interviewed in the first round was to tell us their three favorite passages of scripture. I loved hearing the variety of verses quoted and even learned some that I didn't know, such as the last line of one of this week's lectionary passages:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8) 

For today's Friday Five, list your five favorite passages/verses from the Bible and tell us something about why you love them.

 

Before I start let me say that I am SO glad that wasn't an interview question I was asked. ANd this is a real challenge, so many passages that don't make today's cut.  All the passages below can be read here

1. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 "I have set before you today a choice..." I once used this passage when writing a sermon for Ethics in seminary.  It is just such a great way to remind us that our choices matter.
2. Matthew 25:31-46 The Sheep and the Goats Is there a better answer to "why do good things?" than this passage, this is what love of neighbour means.  Besides I always love that way of telling people to go to Hell in verse 41
3. 1 COrinthians 13 Paul at his finest, the hymn to love need I say more?  OVer used and misunderstood perhaps.  But still the poetry and the vision rings out.
4. Ecclesiastes 4:7-12 a passage I always love to use for weddings especially verses 9-12.  They speak so well of the ideal of mutual support, and the reminder of the third strand in the cord in verse 12 speaks so well of the ideal of Christian partnership
5. Amos 5:21-24 let justice roll down like water I had to have something from the prophets and can you do better than Amos?

ANd of course there are sooooooooooo many others.  Depending on mood and circumstance of course.

Friday, Schmiday, I'll do it anyway

Over at RGBP a couple days ago the following queries were posted:

1) Who is the first friend you remember from childhood?  When I was 3 (or 4??) we were heading up to Miette Hot SPrings in JAsper.  As we were unhitching the trailer for the steep windy road a friend from church introduced us to another family who were new to St. ALbert and the church.  THis family is my surrogate parents and sisters to this day.  Another earliest memory (although a few years later) is of the classmate of mine who lived 2 doors down when I was in kindergarten-Grade 2.
2) Have you ever received an unexpected gift from a friend?  I am sure I have many times.  But I just can't name one at the time.
3) Is there an old friend you wish you could find again? Or have you found one via social media or the Internet?  THere are a number of folks I have reconnected with via FB, in fact I had the chance to chat with one on the phone last week who I haven't seen or talked to in 15 years or so. 
4) Do you like to get your good friends together in a group, or do you prefer your friends one on one?  Small groups is best for me.
5) Does the idea of Jesus as a friend resonate with you?  Honestly, it depends on the day.  SOmetimes it is really comforting, sometimes ti sounds kind of hackneyed.

Friday 5: Sing! PRay Twice!

Over at RGBP MaryBeth asks us these questions:


1) Do you like to sing/listen to others sing? In worship, or on your own (or not at all?)  Most assuredly yes.  We make up songs with our children (usually to a familiar tune like Row Row Row or Frere Jacques) at random.  Snippets of hymns or showtunes or other songs come out of my mouth at random times.  The whole household loves music.
2) Did you grow up with music in worship, or come to it later in life? Tell us about it, and how that has changed in your experience.  I grew up with an active choir member for a parent and many of the families in our circle of friends were choir families, I sang in Junior Choir...it birthed in me a liking for worship music.
3) Some people find worship incomplete without music; others would just as soon not have it. Where do you fall?  definitely worship would be not quite right without music.  I am of a mixed opinion if you can have too much music in worship.  It depends how it is done and how often I suppose.
4) Do you prefer traditional music in worship, or contemporary? That can mean many different things!  I say that a mix is needed, find the right balance--remembering that the balance is measured over time, not by one or two services.
5) What's your go-to music ... when you need solace or want to express joy? Songs from camp sometimes, thumbing through a hymn book sometimes, random paging through YouTUbe sometimes...

Friday 5 on Saturday--I overslept?

1. Are you prone to sleep challenges? Insomnia, snoring, allergies? Other sleep challenges?  I am a really light sleeper and wake often most nights.

2. When you can't sleep what do you do? Toss and turn? Get up and read? Play computer games? Toss and turn, play math games in my head sometimes (to try and distract my mind that I have trouble turning off), some quieting/meditative exercises

3. When you do sleep do you remember your dreams? Or just snipets of them? Never

4. Can you share a funny or confusing dream you've had? Or a dream you have over and over? As above, I don't remember my dreams

5. When you don't sleep how do you get through the day? Lots of coffee? or a nap later in the day? Soemtimes a rest, only a nap when the sleep debt is quite high (or it is Sunday)

Friday Five: Clutter? What CLutter?

From RGBP:


1. What things do you like to hang on to?  Well Books of course.  ANd photos (even though I have multiple sets of unsorted photos, thye all fit into a box).

2. What is hard to let go of?  Books. And (apparently) kids toys.

3. What is easy to give away?  Old clothing.  I like the  "haven't taken it off a hanger for years" test.

4. Is there any kind of stumbling block connected with cleaning out?  Both Beloved and I have family backgrounds that include a hoarding tendency.

5. What do you like to collect, hoard, or admire?  Not really a collector of anything per se.  WE just sem to have lots of stuff--far more than we thought as we discoveredd as the kitchen was being packed up.

Bonus: Tell us about recycling or whatever you can think of that goes along with this muttering about cluttering.  I am a big fan of free-cycling, expecially of the informal variety (having never tried a more formal free-cycling system).  When we moved we offloaded a variety of outdoor toys simply by letting folks know they were available and it all disappeared.

Friday Five -- Let's Get PAcking

Some of my Blogging comrades are heading on a cruise.  Alas the only travel in my near future is not nearly as exotic (but far more costly) -- house hunting next week.  And so the RGBP FRiday Five focusses on packing.
1) Some fold, some roll and some simply fling into the bag. What's your technique for packing clothes?  Generally I roll.  SOme things don't roll well (sweaters for example).  Mind you if it is a short trip and I am prepping quickly the toss in the bag option comes into play.

2) The tight regulations about carrying liquids on planes makes packing complicated. What might we find in your quart-size bag? Ever lose a liquid that was too big? GEnerally it is not a problem because I put my shaving kit, which contains a bottle of shampoo, in checked luggage and only take a backpack or the laptop as carry on.  However the last time I only travelled with a carry on bag I forgot and ended up giving away the shampoo.

3) What's something you can't imagine leaving at home?  Largely that depends on the nature of the trip.  But in the end most things can be either managed without or replacements bought.  I guess my wallet and id would be the most irreplaceable

4) Do you have a bag with wheels? Nope.  I do usually use my travel backpack and if needed I can unzip the compartment and use the straps.

5) What's your favorite reading material for a non-driving trip (plane, train, bus, ship)?  Pretty much depends on my mood the week preceding the travel.  But often I choose something light and "mindless" over something heavier.

Friday Five--Planes, Trains and Automobiles

From RGBP

1) What was the mode of transit for your last trip?  Car, well van actually.  The most cost-effective way to travel with 3 kids and a dog.

2) Have you ever traveled by train? That I have.  A few times: when I was about 8 with my mother and sister, during University I went out to my grandparents ahead of the rest of the family by train, and then when I wen to Britain I traveled exclusively by train (well other than the plane to London and back home).

3) Do you live in a place with public transit, and if so, do you use it? No public transit here.

4) What's the most unusual vehicle in which you've ever traveled?  Not sure I have ever traveled in an unusual vehicle.

5) What's the next trip you're planning to take? The next one will be to PResbytery in February.  No idea what will happen for holiday time next summer