Lice, chickenpox, and anniversaries

I've been slacking (again) on my blogging, as I'm sure my loyal reader has figured out.

I apologize to the one or two of you who have actually noticed the lapse. Life has been crazy the last couple of weeks. My sister's kids contracted head lice, which didn't really have any personal bearing on my life, except that it made me really paranoid. Chickenpox has been flying around at school. The innoculation is required of all the students starting school, and it has been required for a few years. The older students, though, started school before these requirements were in effect. So, our upper grades have seen several cases. Since Friday was grandparents day, meaning a large music program, the chickenpox-infected students had me scrambling to cover parts last week.

This weekend, our school had several celebrations for its 50th anniversary. Our church also had celebrations for its 30th anniversary. I'm feeling like I could use another weekend just to recover from this weekend. The problem with leaving the small town in which you grew up and returning to the school and church you attended as a child the year before they both celebrate significant anniversaries is that they both expect you to share your perspective at their celebrations. They asked me several times to share something at the school's Friday night banquet. I declined the invitation. When I left the banquet (which took 4 hours, by the way), I was very glad I had not agreed to share. I only wish I had made the same decision about the church anniversary. For that one, they videotaped our testimonies. My clip was shown in a short blurb in church, and in a longer video that included pictures of me with a series of bad haircuts, perms, and braces. The long blurb is (thankfully) not publicly available. The short one is on the church website, here if your interested. It would have been OK, but the pastor really liked what I had to say, so he referenced it in both services on Sunday morning. When will I learn to keep my big mouth shut?