Next year will be a longer year, at least by 24 hours.
That’s right, because on February 29th we’ll get to do more.
This is probably a big deal for union labor since that’s an extra day that
they have to work.
Salaried employees get to give 7-24 more hours of work to their employers for
free.
However, the truth be known we’re so blessed to have the jobs, clothes and
niceties we have in the USA.
After all today the former dictator (AKA
Richard Potato) was found in a dirt hole hiding.
Of course once we found him we gave him a nice warm shower, a medical
check-up, a nice shave (I don’t know if they gave him a razor or an
electric shaver – sharp objects may not be good for him) and a news
conference announcing his capture.
They don’t do that for me at work when I come out of hiding on the
weekends.

But this is America.
And Today in America we opened the Christmas presents we got for each other
before we hit the road (figuratively, we’re flying).
That way we could have a week of playing with toys, things and such before
going somewhere else and playing with more toys and things.
This also allowed us to have a little bit of private, intimate, family time.
Of course family time with Abigail consists of reading short books over and
over and then deciphering some of her hand gestures to figure out if she’s
saying she wants a banana or that there’s a hand grenade in the piccolo -
her sign language is a wee rough.
Anyway, back to the present(s).
Jessica got Indiana Jones and the Temple of DVD’s, some gloves for kneading
bread, Pirates of the Carob Bean, a cutting board, a spatula, and a Creme
Brulee kit (without butane[!?]).
Abby got so much stuff that we had to have an addition added to our second
story apartment, so now our apartment building looks like something out of
an M.C. Escher picture, but at least we can fit all of her toys in her
room.
I got socks, underwear (Sponge Bob Boxers!), a calendar, magnets (words for
the fridge), Cranium, and a Dave Barry book (Boogers are my Beat).
There could have been other things, but frankly I can’t recall, it all
happened so quickly and I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.
Abigail helped unwrap the gifts, in fact if she wasn’t helping unwrap she was
pretty upset.
I think that the next 5-6 years of our lives will be filled with this as our
child(ren) grow(s) up.

So, as I think of overthrown dictators in small holes with $750,000
USD on them, I think of
all of the other Iraqis who are stuck living in their smallish villages,
waiting to see if they’ll be able to turn in another person who’s face
showed up on a list of most wanted men via playing cards.
I am sad for them, not because playing cards encourage gambling and they may
not have the money to lose at the tables, but because I know that they are
right there with their families this Christmas, and when they see a
United States soldier dressed in a red suit they’ll be confused.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Overly Affluent American” Peterman

Baah

It’s the ‘holiday season,’ which translates in today’s world as two things:
Dollars and Political Correctness.
Dollars because of the amount of money people sill spend outdoing Santa.
And Political Correctness because we need to make sure that we market to all
of the religious holidays.
I’d like to turn people’s hearts and minds to the manger, where Christ was
born in Bethlehem.
When a Savior for the world was born in a place that only God expected and
the arrogance of man had no hold.
Where the sheep said “Baaah.”

Hummmm

Last night we had Christmas music on, which was fun, at least some of it was,
some of it was pretty poorly done.
So we fast forwarded those tracks which needed it.
I was glad to have been able to hear “Oh, Come Oh Come Emmanuel.”
That is one of my favorites because it is so emotive.
I like to sing along, even if my voice doesn’t have the range it used to when
I led the congregation in singing.
So, even if you don’t know all of the words this Christmas, humm along!

Bug

Prayer requests abound this season, but do pray for the people with this new
Flu strain.
It’s apparently a doozy.
Pray that folks don’t get it.
Pray that those who have it will get better – and pray that those who will be
traveling (us and so many others) will have safety in their journey.
And remember that prayer is part of your relationship with God – keep it real
and keep it constant.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Punny Guy” Peterman

The message that I’ve been getting this year is this: Read your Bible every
day.
A simple message.
One I’ve been getting since childhood.
However, it has taken 25 years for me to put it into practice – and still I
have days where I foolishly don’t make it a priority.
But here’s the thing: doing so makes renewing your mind a lot easier.
Romans 12:2 says:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is
good and acceptable and perfect.

The part of this passage which I have struggled with at times is the renewing.
If you think about how much you are bombarded by this world and its media,
advertisers, your social peers and your own flesh’s desires you see that
we’re not in a light weight paintball battle.
So renewing our minds, conforming them to Christ, will

• enhance our relationship with Christ – our savior
• help us to stand against the schemes Satan (Ephesians 6:11)
• help us to edify other saints (Romans 12:4-9)
• help us to know what the Lord’s will is
• help us to be lights unto the world

With this in mind, even though I read/listened through the whole Bible once,
and am wrapping up a New Testament read/listen Jessica and I are going to
read through the Bible together (separately, and then discuss together)
this year.
Paul Henebury encouraged me towards this early this year and I’ve made it a
priority.
The sad thing about Seminary is that this was not a priority emphasized by
any teachers I had, save one.
John and Karen got me the Bible on audio CD for Christmas last year and its
been great listening through.

Make the time, it can only benefit you!
If you’ve got questions about what you read ask someone you trust as a
spiritual leader.
And if you’re not sure who that is, you’re more than welcome to ask me and if
I don’t have an immediate answer I can find out from my resources.
Pray for the Holy Spirit to open your eyes as you read – it will be a bright year, if only lit by the Word of God!

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

Footnotes

1 The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, (La Habra, California:
The Lockman Foundation) 1996.

However, I’ve got one of their video cameras now, and its digital.
It even uses a memory card if we’re crazy enough to use one.
However, I’m already giddy due to the fact that it supports Firewire.
Firewire is super fast.
So now I can take video footage of Abby and then put it onto the computer at
lightning speed and so far my limited tests have shown that my PC can
handle such a high speed video stream.
My old Dazzle USB connection would mess itself up horribly when we’d try to
record more than 5 minutes worth of audio and video.

What this means for you, the reader/viewer is that I can make videos of Abby,
life and crazy comic sketches and then stream them from this website.
It also means that I’ll probably start pushing some bandwidth limits on my
site if I put up much video.
I might have to put them on my yahoo archive, but all of the segments will
have to be 5 megabytes or less to be put up there.

Jessica and I went to dinner tonight with Abigail and she was really
impressed with the animal heads mounted on the wall.
I pointed to a stuffed buffalo head on the wall and said, “Buffalo” (surprising, huh?).
Abigail said, “Buffafo.”
I was shocked!
I dropped her in astonishment, she sustained a sprained appendix, has an
involuntary wink and talks backwards now, but the buffalo thing was cool*.

Resting in Him,

Randy “I’m a digi-geek” Peterman

*This is a joke, though not funny to some, it is part of my weird humor.
Abigail is doing fine and was not dropped.
Ooooh, look at all of the pretty buttons on that camera.

The lethargy around here is high.
We’re tired, we’re physically drained and I think its just because we’re
coming down from our weekend.
We stayed up late, got up early, and now – we have to get back to normal.
So with that in mind – this is my entry tonight.

The only other things I’ll say is that last night I put up some pictures of
Abby.
In case you didn’t see them, they’re here.
I think my favorite is the spaghetti ‘we want you’ picture.

Resting (literally and figuratively) in Him,

Randy Peterman