Apologies All Around

First, let me say that I have not been abducted by aliens and that isn't the reason I haven't been able to write.  I think.  I mean I guess I wouldn't really know if I was really abducted by aliens so I guess I could have been and did not even realize it, again.  Second, I did not need to go to "a facility" for "a vacation" like so many of you have wondered and I do not know, for a fact, that straight jackets chafe under the arms and in the crotch.  Third, I suspect I need to emphasize that there were no aliens involved in my disappearance, this time. 

As I sit down to write for the first time in two weeks I considered using the title, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" but I already used that before when I wrote about saving a little boy from drowning.  I know how sophisticated my readers are and you all would have expected something equally noble from a title such as that.  No such luck.  I considered titling it "I'm Back!" but that would insinuate that some of you noticed that I was missing.  When I came home there were no cards from well wishers concerned about my well being.  Sniff...that's ok...I'll survive...somehow.  I also thought about using "Did You Miss Me?" but that too could be misconstrued and I might get smart aleck comments back like, "I didn't throw anything at you!"  As you well know, I do not want to invite smart aleckness (yeah right).  More importantly I don't want to get people thinking, "Hey!  We can throw stuff at him?  Cool!" 

What I really did for these past two weeks is a closely guarded secret, important to national security, holds the fate of the nation in its secrecy, but I think I can tell you.  I, along with my wonderful family and 31 other members of our church, drove to Ganado, Arizona to a Presbyterian mission on the Navajo reservation.  We spent a week cleaning, painting, building, creating, playing, wiring, and interacting.  There were many other 'ing's I'm sure, but I don't want to ruin the surprise and have everything here on the blog.  I want to write something about our trip for the church (on the more serious side) but I wanted to update y'all first.  That's right!  I said, "y'all!"  If people want to read the serious piece I write for the church I suppose you can let me know by asking here and I will post it.  Otherwise it will be in our church's newsletter.

After our trip to Ganado my family decided to continue on and see what we could see in a new part of the country.  Again, I plan on milking this trip for at least ten or twelve blog ideas so I don't want to put everything we did right here.  Let me just entice you by saying that we went to several national parks, we ate foods that we wouldn't normally have eaten, we drank more water than was previously thought possible, and I sat in four states at one time!  And one of them was Nebraska!  (You see the joke there is that the four corners area, where four states touch at one point, does not include Nebraska...so I would have to have a rump of outrageous dimensions to cover four states starting in Nebraska.  I just felt I needed to include everyone in the joke.  And it is unlikely that my Slovenian readers have ever been to four corners.)

There were a few other 'jokes' on the trip but we didn't know about them until we were securely situated smack dab in the middle of the Navajo nation.  I sat down to write, while there, and there wasn't an internet connection to be found.  I could have imposed on the wonderful and accommodating pastor to use her computer but, honestly, when the day of work, in greater than 100 degree heat, was over it was all I could do to flop myself down in the general direction of our bed.  I am proud to say that I made it mostly to the bed most nights.  I even managed to remember to put on my jammies once or twice...but that was about it.  I considered writing things up to send out when I got an internet connection.  One problem was that I usually, as I am now, write my silly little blog in the morning before everyone else gets up.  The dog is my alarm clock and I just stay up with him at my side as I write.  I have an actual alarm clock on my phone but I generally never need to set it since I am an early riser to start with.  Usually.  This trip, if the alarm didn't go off, I would have slept til noon at least.  We worked ourselves silly.  Also, even if I had the time write, when I turned on our newly 'fixed' computer I found out that when I paid to have everything put from the old hard drive onto the new one it didn't include Microsoft Office so I had no place to write and save anything.  (I know, wordpad or notepad would have worked but I have lost things to those awful programs before and I didn't want to go there).  Also, our computer...did I mention that it was 'fixed'?...decided that it would stay powered up only as long as it felt comfortable.  If the camper shook, shut down.  If a dog barked, shut down.  If it was being operated by someone who had teeth, shut down.  If it was turned on, shut down.  But don't worry, it only shut down on days that end in 'y'!  (I'm not sure about Slovenia but all of our days end in 'y' here so that means it happened all the time)  My dad, who loaned us his truck to haul our camper, also loaned us his 'newly repaired' laptop so I would be able to write.  His did not have all the troubles that ours did...I think.  I'm not sure what troubles his has because we never got past the blue screen that says, "Your computer is dead.  It has been taken over by mutant aliens (who have not kidnapped blogwriters...wink wink) and should be restarted so you can see this blue screen again.  (snicker snicker)  No seriously!  Just turn it off and turn it on again and everything should work fine.  (hah hah hah)  If you see this blue screen again, I am sure it is only a fluke and you should just keep trying it.  (BAH HAH HAH)  If you have just 'repaired' it, don't worry.  That was money well spent.  (I CAN'T TAKE IT!)  We are now erasing every bit of information off of your newly 'repaired' paperweight, I mean computer, and we have contacted Skynet to begin taking over the world.  (I can't breathe!  My sides hurt!  STOP!  It's Too Funny!)

So needless to say I didn't do any writing while we were away.  I apologize.  I will try to get back into the swing of things here soon and let you in on more things that happened while I was away...but apparently only my mom noticed I was gone, so please go on with your regularly scheduled lives. 

It's good to be back.