Yes, Rick. I am still happy.

In fact, happier all the time. The more I get to know the people I'm working with, the more excited I get about the future and what God's doing.

The temperament I have been blessed with has meant that I experience life in vivid shades... there are few pastels in my life. The highs are incalculably high and the lows are desperately low, and the in-betweens zip by rapidly. For the photogs among you, it's like the saturation and contrast have both been turned way, way up.

Occasionally in my life there have been very long, long plateaus, where things have been dry and flavorless. In those times, I can be convinced to appreciate the subtle shades of grey, but eventually I simply MUST have color. I feel as though I landed in Oz last November, and everything is colorful again. Not everything has been PLEASANT... but at least there's color... and even though there have been some deep lows, there have been some stratospheric highs as well. I think I prefer the up-and-down to the eternal sameness.

New projects and unexpected challenges have met me around this bend in the road.

I think sometimes when a colorful person is stuck in grayscale, there are a couple of responses. Either the person subjugates her personhood and pretends to enjoy it, or she becomes bitter and miserable. I was released from that cloud into incandescent newness, and I won't be packed back into the wet woollen blanket again. There are a few people around me in this new place who, like C.S. Lewis' dwarves in The Last Battle, seem unable to see the beauty around them and instead sit grumpily in small groups, complaining... stuck in that miserable smelly place. A few others around me are drifting around, enveloped in false cheer, but also completely unable to enjoy the presence of the Living and Active God among us.

Briefly for a couple of weeks recently, I detoured and almost slipped back into the old role... but I am grateful to a few wonderful friends who have been more than encouraging to me, who now know the Real Me and want Me to stick around: Rick, Cindy, Steve & Jill, Jeff, Tim, Amy -- thanks. I'm in debt to you all.