Alright, alright, now I hope to be back to some serious writing. I'm thinking that I've got the latest round of computer issues settled.

So what's been happening lately? Hmmm, I'll try for the recap:

I've been grateful for the past eight days - they have represented a return to a regular schedule. I won't go so far as to say that life is "normal" - not really sure what that looks like in the post-fire era around here. Perhaps I'll find out some day. In fact, that day may (or may not) come fairly soon. It looks like Matt and Marge (and their troop of critters) may be moving into a rented home in a few weeks. They still don't know how long things are going to take with the rebuilding of their home, and they're ready to be in their own space. At any rate, the schedules have become more predictable, which helps me and my personal spiritual rhythms quite a lot.

One change that looks like it'll stick is that last week Michelle started a different schedule at work, where she'll work four 10 hour days, and have Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays off. That's really cool for a few reasons - one less commute, more us time, etc.

The church start in Ramona, where I live, is going pretty slowly still. I'm spending time in the coffee shops and just hanging out trying to meet people. I'm beginning to wonder if God might want me to start riding a motorcycle or something. Seems like half the people I meet are riders, and that's the thing they're most interested in. I'm not opposed to motorcycles . . . but I'm not passionate about them either. Maybe I would be if I actually learned how to ride one.

I've been exploring the possibilities of a ministry project lately. A lot of stuff has to happen in order for this thing to go down. But the potential for some amazing stuff is mind numbing. Can't say much more than that right now.

Oh, and on the side, I've begun to try my hand at writing fiction. I had this crazy thought process a few weeks back that turned into a little bit of an obsession, so I'm trying to put it into a story. I'm all of four pages into this thing, so I'm not ready for a literary agent just yet, but hey, you never know.

One week ago today I got to hang out all day with my mom. She and my dad had gotten an invite to a movie premier type thing in Orange County, and my dad was out of town, so I got his ticket. I'll be writing a review of it on Next-Wave, so I won't talk about it here just yet.