Friday

Hello, Blogosphere!  It's been a while since we've talked.  Don't expect to get much out of me tonight, though; I'm just here to say hi, let you know I'm still around . . . that sort of stuff.  Life's been busy.  Life's been good.  I hope to share some more thoughts with y'all soon.

For now I'm content to note that it's a lovely Friday night here in my corner of the Internet.  It's been a productive week.  I've worked hard, and now I'm enjoying a peaceful evening at home listening to the crickets chirp outside.  It feels good to relax, and one thing of which I've been reminded this week is that relaxing is best done after a longer period of not relaxing.

At least three years have passed since Friday has meant anything significant to me.  For two of those years, there technically was no actual "weekend."  Much of the day was available on Mondays to do reasonable weekend-y things (like shopping and playing), but anyone who's been on a mission might know that those aren't necessarily the most relaxing hours of the week (quite the opposite!).  Then for the third year, life was basically stuck in "weekend mode" all the time.  Granted, there were classes and plenty of other responsibilities that needed my care, but no such structure as would put too much difference between Saturday and, say, Wednesday. 

Finally re-joining the ranks of the employed recently has given me a lot of fresh insights, but perhaps the simplest is just how much I've come to appreciate there being a true difference between weekday and weekend.  It adds a new degree of color to my life that has been missing for a while, and I feel really good about it.  Being able to relax is something that came too easily for too long, so I love working hard and knowing I've earned a little bit of rest when that break comes.  Sounds like God had it right all along:

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.  (Exodus 20:9-11; emphasis mine)

Here's to Fridays, and the weekends they represent.

Baconnnnnnn!!!

Breakfast was already being cooked when I got up Saturday morning at Scout camp.  Some pieces of bacon had been dropped on the ground, but that test turned out to be one of the greatest moments of the campout as the boys remembered the eleventh commandment:

THOU SHALT NOT WASTE BACON.

I wish there was a Scout badge for this.  One of the boys took those strips of bacon and cooked them over the fire... on rebar.  Coolest.  Thing.  Ever.

A little gritty, but you can't beat that smoky flavor!

Yes, I'm proud to say these boys are champions.  Even when I was concerned about doing stuff like going down the zip line because of my weight (I was just five pounds short of the limit), they sent me down anyway and took video... just in case.  Yee-haw!

Past Blast: Expired

Final Fantasy: Red Mage and White Mage