I'm Back!!!!!

And have lots of catching-up to do. One week of high-intensity youth ministry stuff (the goal being to exhaust the kids so they're begging us for bedtime), followed up by 10 days surrounded by my two parents, five siblings, five sibling-spouses, and fourteen neices and nephews ranging in age from 2 to 17 — two important details to note in that are that if you experience a family dinner at our place, you'd wonder how I turned out so quiet & normal (someone once said, "Oh, your poor parents" when I was describing our craziness; "Poor parents, nothing -- my dad's the worst of the bunch!") .... and I was extremely unsuccessful at convincing various younger members that (a) I am not a human jungle gym and (b) nor am I made of play-doh.

So now I'm airport-exhaustedly back, and have lots of reading to catch up on, and lots of e-mail to delete (since for every one offer of "ways in which to become the man my girl wants me to be" I have an "Undeliverable Mail" for my "I'm out of town" message).

Plus, I've been out of the news loop for two weeks now ..... and apparently I've missed a few minor tidbits here and there that I figure might be helpful to learn a little bit about. Stuff like, oh I don't know, bombings and battles and wars (oh my!).

And I think to myself ..... what a wonderful world! {Sigh}