Michigan governor outlines ways to save money - NewsFlash - mlive.com

Michigan governor outlines ways to save money - NewsFlash - mlive.com

Gov. Jennifer Granholm is riding her bike to work a couple of times a week,
an example of a way she says Michigan consumers can save money.

The 49-year-old governor lives just southwest of the city center, about 3 miles from
her office near the state Capitol. She rode her bike to work Wednesday,
accompanied by her security detail.

I know she is trying to do her best to set a good example but I wonder how much extra her security detail spent by having to accompany her on that ride rather than if she'd have just drove in as normal. Hmmmm.

Redemption: roadmap of life

Pride can paint one in a corner. We say to ourselves, "I am this" and proceed to form our lives around being that, even when that starts looking like a burden we are not fashioned for, equipped for, or impassioned with. If everything goes according to plan we can look back and think ourselves 'very fine indeed' for having achieved just what we'd set out to achieve and forget that for us to achieve whatever it was we'd set out to do a hundred billion actions, unlikely circumstances, had to align themselves with our will in order that we could even get beyond potty training. I can find humility down that gravelly road. I can find a path not of my choosing that somehow is more beautiful than anything I could have planned for myself.

Dance

GOD BEING GLORIFIED

Redemption: the Lifestyle

I worked until 9:30 p.m. tonight, alone. Its physically more demanding to try to do a land survey alone but it gives me alot of time to think and tonight what and who was on my mind doesn't matter as much as the concept that I was mulling over. It was really more like a song...or a prayer or, some otherness that I can't quite describe. Anyway, we postmodern followers of Jesus Christ cringe when we see that little box beside the "religion" question. If you are on Facebook there are many mainline denominations and then simply "Christian", which is what I chose. I was trying to figure out what I really am tonight. I'm not really "Christian" because with that comes a ton of baggage that "Christians" over the past 1700 years have included in a tradition that doesn't even resemble what I believe. I'm not "non-denominational" because I'm really "all-denominational" in a sad, lonely way. What I am is "redemption people". I am with the Jesus of the ages and also the God of the law, the prophets, and the psalms! I don't believe that redemption is only apparent in the lives of human beings but it permeates all of creation and the God who is Creator planned it that way and came and died to pay the ultimate price for what he thinks is worth it...everything! What better way to defeat Pain, Death, Suffering than to go to work on the story to play it out for the glory of the suffering and the ultimate glory of God himself? That's who I am, redemption people. I've got to put some chords and words together on that sometime. Sometime soon.

Shalom - the Peace that passes all understanding....

Redemption

I can't think of anything more like redemption than my ex-wife coming to the house to teach my wife how to make the best apple pie in the world! Alot of water under the bridge but one thing you cannot take away from my ex-wife is her apple pie! She made me one to thank me for something, my wife had a piece and invited her over to teach her her secrets. In exchange, my wife the coupon queen, shared her couponing program. Color that R-E-D-E-M-P-T-I-O-N!

Oh, add to that sweet sweet Wings victory!

Shalom

A Day

I'm sick. I'm setting up with a cup of honey and ginseng tea with about a 1/3 cup of brown liquor topped off with hot water and trying to get rid of this nagging cough so I can get to sleep. Busy day today (actually yesterday). I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. and hit the snooze until 7:00, mixing prayer in with light sleep and birdsong in through the open window. Someone convince me it wasn't heaven. I dressed and drank some coffee with Les and was out burning precious gasoline through the rear-tine tiller by 8:10. Leslie and I have some new friends and we're doing a garden with them. Well, its more like a little farm. We're planting a 1/2 acre this year. Yes, a 1/2 acre, 85 feet by 267 feet! I'm still only getting paid for 24 hours a week while my company tries to set itself right after a winter of no real good paying work. I contend that we're more content than we've ever been. The girls haven't seen their allowance in a couple months but never mention it, they are very frugal and I'm so humbled by their understanding of the circumstances. We've never been wealthy but they've never really wanted for all that much either. We got rid of satellite television and we talk a lot more - hence the contentment.

We're waiting patiently for our chicks to arrive. Mike Havens and I are in the middle of building a coop from scrap lumber but the chicks will have to be brooded indoors for a few weeks before they need the coop. The kids ask us every day when the chicks will be here.

Tomorrow (today) we'll plant most of the garden. We're planting everything we eat and many things we don't. Some things sell so well at the produce auction that we're planting for an abundance with the hopes of putting some money into an account for maybe building a greenhouse or adding a few meat goats to the mix. Pickling cucumbers are the big money-maker, easy to grow and hardy - they will be the big money-maker. We're also transplanting some raspberry bushes and will put in a strawberry patch in early autumn.

I went to a wedding earlier today. Now I'm really getting a sense of my generation. Kevan's daughter got married. It seems only a few months ago that I was standing and watching Kevan and his brother kill ants with rubber bands while his mother and my mother chatted on Mrs. James' two-track drive. Hers was the only drive I knew that had violets growing down the middle, between the tire tracks. We met the Smiths in the shade of a huge White Pine and the ants were plentiful along that sand drive. "Kevan, you know Sam from school don't you?" and he replied "nope, don't know him" and he was lying through his teeth which was easy because he didn't have but one on top and that one only half way in. And now his daughter is married. The twins thoroughly enjoyed the festivities. They were running around hitting each other with balloons and grabbing watermelon chunks out of the fruit salad with dirty hands. Had I been at any other place I might have felt the need to curtail that but here, among the Smiths, it was not only accepted but expected and maybe even encouraged. Kevan's sister Brenda Kaye threw mints across the room for me to catch in my mouth and embarassed her 16 yr. old son completely by hammering on the table until the groom would lean over with a mouth full of food and kiss his new bride on the lips. The staunch Nazarenes got up and went outside after eating so they didn't have to sit through the PDA and the noise. God bless that people and that couple. I pray they worship you in freedom and in grace all the days of their life, no, all the days!

shalom, the cough is gone and my heart is full.

I Want To Believe

I had a chance to do a read on Mel Lawrenz's "I Want To Believe". I found it a satisfying personal apologetic loaded with insite. Lawrenz does a quick synopsis of world religions and a serious critique on Western Christendom. His anecdotes are humorous and thought-provoking. I'd recommend this to all of you out there that have found yourself sitting in church and all of a sudden think, "How did I end up here and is this what it is about?". In this present age of cynicism and skepticism Lawrenz gives sound reason for belief.