A Great Dog

Lady was the best dog a person could have. My earliest memories about Lady come from when I was in third grade although we had her long before I was in the third grade. She was a little black and white dog, and a mix of something or other, basically a mutt. Lady was one of those dogs that was an indoor/outside dog. Since she had free reign of the house and the yard she had many routines which she did most everyday. In the house she had a favorite place where she would lay and take her naps. We lived in a two story house the stairs were in the front of the house and there was a small landing after two steps before turning right to go up the rest of the stairs. There is a window at the landing and Lady would always take her naps with her head on the window sill looking out the window. I would be able to go up and down the stairs and she would just lift her head up to see who it was and then put her head down to continue her nap.
In the summer time there would be this worn path around the house. We didn't really know what it was from. One day we saw Lady doing "laps" around the house. She had other various trails going from here to there and there to here.

Lady

Delilah's various topic series have been a real hit. Soooo, I have decided to follow suit and do a series. This series will be a short lived series and the posts won't be very long because my stories come from about 20 years ago. They will be about my beloved dog I had named Lady. Tomorrow will be my first post on Lady and I will post stories about Lady every Tuesday there-after. I hope you enjoy them.

WV

Our short, short trip to WV went really good. We arrived to the property around 12:30. Everyone was asleep but were soon awakened. Jude and Elise did really well traveling. They both slept at least half of the trip. Jude was asking many questions as we were leaving Stow, mainly to attempt to stay awake.
When we got to my parents house, the kids did not want to go to bed. Jude stayed up for a while but Elise went to sleep fairly well in a "new" bed.
Saturday was our only full day. We spent the majority of the day playing a card game called Garbage, it's a fun game that takes forever to play. The day had various weather moving through. It was cold the whole day but it snowed, was sunny, cloudy, and hailed at one point or another.
Sunday we went to church with the family. After church Steph had a baby shower and Delilah attended. I took Kellen and Jude geocaching. They both really had a fun time despite the chilly temperture and periodic rain. We were geocaching at Wine Cellar Park in Dunbar, WV. It is a neat little park with old wine cellars on the property. I was hoping to find all 3 caches on the property but since we all got a little sidetracked with the wine cellars we only attempted to find 1 and we found it. Both Kellen and Jude were excited about the find.
The trip back home went well also. Both children slept over half the way, they woke up almost an hour before we got home. All in all the trip went really well. It was a lot of work for only one full day of visiting.

Whirlwind of Activity

Today was suppose to be a simple day. The kids wake-up, we all get dressed, get something to eat, get in the van, goto Sam's Club, get gas, come back home, and then go to work at 12:30. Let's see it is 10:20, Jude - still in pj's, Elise - still in pj's and taking a nap now, Delilah - still in pj's, and me - dressed but no breakfast yet. The phone has been in use non stop since 8:45. Delilah is trying to get some last minute stuff done for work and find a baby sitter for the next two weeks because I will be working days. Yessss.
I only have 14 more working days until my new job at Control Systems. Very excited and a little nervous. We have to find a baby sitter for the rest of the school year because Delilah will still be working.
Welcome to the Miller way of life.

Feeling Numb

Last night I worked at the middle school until 11:15. I now have to go into an elementary school and be there by 6:30 am. I don't not like working these kind of hours back to back. At least I knew about this two days in advance. It is must better than waking up to a phone call at 6 in the morning to hear I need to go to a school to work.
I feel so numb this morning that I almost want to puke. Speaking of puke. Last night at the middle school, there was a mother/daughter dance from one of the elementary (actually the one I'm going to this morning). One of the girls puked in the cafeteria. Russ and I had to clean it up even though it was not in our area. The reason being was because the person working in that area had left for dinner. So being the professional custodians we are we cleaned up the mess instead of leaving it for her when she got back (some people would have just left it because it wasn't in their area). Before the dance I was checking the bathrooms on the first floor. Now part of our job with bathrooms is to throw away the feminine product bags. This task is not usually a problem. Except for tonight. All three containers were overflowing. The were used products on the floor of all three stalls. Mind you, I checked these boxes 1 hour after school let out. It's hard telling how long they had been overflowing. I can only surmise that they have been this since about lunch time. Which is sad because this means that the 2 day custodians were not doing their job. Hmmm.

More to follow, I must leave for my wonderful day of work as a custodian.

And, if you are ever at a school and a restroom is not clean, don't feel bad about going to the office about it.

Did you know?

I was doing a short devotional today and I was suppose to read Matthew 18:11-14. The problem here is that my Bible which is a NIV does not have a Matthew 18:11. I thought this might have been a typo so I went online to Bible Gateway and typed in Matthew 18:11 for the NIV. There was no verse which came up. There is a Matthew 18:10 and a Matthew 18:12. How ironic. I recall from some years ago that the NIV "skipped" a verse. I had forgotten about it until now. I decided to do a little research to see what English Bibles did not have this verse. Here are my results: The Message, NIV, NLT, ESV, CEV, NIRV, & NIVUK. I thought this was interesting. Does anyone have any ideas why this is so? I plan on researching it further to find out why.

X-boxing, yet another xcuse

I apologize to those of you who read my blog I haven't been writing as often as I want. I have been fairly busy with different things. Church, teaching the Milestone class, small group, men's group, work, and family to name a few. Oh yeah and X-box. I have been on a real X-box kick recently. This goes in phases. I can go months with out playing it but once in a while I will play it every night for an hour or so for a couple of weeks. I usually play the same game during my "must" play phase. I am hooked on NCAA Football 2003. I love playing that game, I realize it is 3 years old but I still love it. When we use to have the Playstation I loved playing NCAA Football 1998 (I think). For some reason I just love playing this football game. So I am in the middle of one of those phases right now.
But I have been pretty busy the last week with all that I have mentioned before. I am so bored with work right now. Do you realize how hard it is to get excited to go into work to CLEAN. Oh it's so much fun to clean up after students who could care less if they made a mess or not or teachers that don't hold the students responsible for cleaning up after themselves, I won't even get into coaches. Seriously though it is almost impossible to get excited about going into work.
I can't wait for the day (lets say daytime) to come when I can start a new job whatever it might be.

An Amazing Wife

Delilah did an amazing thing during the past week. She showed me how to temporarily fix a head light that was out on the Corolla. I came home from work one evening and told her that I needed to get a new light. She said let me show a tip to fix it. She dragged me out of the house and preceded to start beating on the head lamp. I was like what are you doing? She insisted that it works. She pounded on it one last time and what do you know it turned on. But the fix didn't last long. I replaced the light last night. Anyways, she is an amazing woman that is able to do many amazing things.

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The Battle

I gave my resume to the church today for consideration of the youth pastor/christian ed director position. It's been a long road traveled. Delilah and I have had many discussions over the last 3-4 years about being a youth pastor. God has been tugging at me to jump into it. I have been reluctant to follow his lead. Why are we so reluctant at times. This has been a long process. I feel like I have been in arguments with Him. But it's not really worth trying to argue with God, is it? You never seem to win. So this on going battle came to a head two weeks ago. The pastor announced the church was going to hire a youth pastor. First thought was great.... this will really be good for the church. My second thought was uh oh........ this is the door I have been praying God will open for me. So the last two weeks the battle raged on with God and myself, He won. I talked to Delilah and others close to me about applying. Everyone seemed to be supportive of God on the situation. So I took the big first step in submitting my resume for the position. Stay tuned for more.

On being a Christian

Yes, I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N as the old Sunday School song goes. But being a Christian does not mean I am perfect. I don't try to act like I am perfect. I go through the same struggles that everyone else goes through. At certian points of my life I have struggled with depression, suicide, sex, self-esteem, etc, etc, etc. When I walk through the church doors I don't try to be fake, like everything is honkerdorry (sp?). Let's be honest, life IS hard, it's difficult, and life is not a grand time at the beach. One of things that is different from a non-christian and a christian is that a christian has Christ helping to carry the load. Remember the poem "Footprints in the Sand"? Christ desires an intimate and personal relationship with you. As with any relationship it takes time to grow and mature. We can not go about it alone. The Christian faith is about community and relationships with other believers.

Unconditional Love

Unconditional love is a concept which is hard to grasp. Jesus Christ loves us no matter what we have done. Although He loves us unconditionally there are still consequences to our actions. Even though His love is unconditional it doesn't mean we get a free ticket into heaven. We must do one thing. We must admit we are sinners and are in need of a savior realizing Jesus died on the cross for our sins. In doing the above, you begin to have a relationship with Christ.

I Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

How does your love compare? I know my love needs some work.

Something New

I have decided to update my blog template. This as been an interesting experience. It has been time consuming also. I like the look of it so far. I still want to tweak a few things. I hope every one enjoys the new look to the blog. I will write something with more depth probably tomorrow.