Was last week only seven days? It seems like so much longer. I managed to cram those seven days – was it only seven – full of drama! With the click of a finger, I managed to delete all the emails from five, YES FIVE, Gmail accounts. I also managed (over two weeks) to revamp a lot of my blog and now if you click on Non-fiction reviews you get nothing.

Ever want to beat your head against the wall? It’s been one of those weeks – was it only seven days? I worked with Apple for several hours. Believe it or not, there actually is a human at the other end of the line – if you have the patience required to work with the virtual lady. The woman I spoke with was patient and kind and tried her best to help me figure out a solution. We finally reached the conclusion that I needed to work with Google. She even helped me figure out how to reach them.

Google took another couple of hours – it actually became my full-time job that day – but I was finally given a link to a form to fill out requesting Google restore all my emails. Then, I received an email stating the emails were irretrievable. I may or may not have screamed at that point. When I checked my emails, I did find several thousand emails in two of them. Turns out, most of them were trash. Seems trash is retrievable, but the good stuff is not. So, I spent the better part of two days deleting trash emails.

It’s odd how God works in mysterious ways. I have been working on simplifying my life and one of the ways I am accomplishing my goal is by cutting back on my book reviewing. I am in my third/fourth year of Dominican studies and the material is piling up. There is not a lot of time for frivolous reading these days. I will still review a couple of times a month; maybe a few more times, we’ll see how things work out. We also plan on doing a bit of traveling – on our houseboat and by car. Other plans include purchasing a camper as we want to visit the national and state parks.

Getting back to the simplifying part, you know how those emails begin to add up – the ones that you hope to explore more thoroughly when you have time, but time never comes. Those emails added up in my files quickly. Point being, I don’t think if I lived to be 100 could I possibly go through them all. My emails were jammed. One push of a button took care of that! I was freaked out for a while, but now I’ve come to see it as a good thing. The emails are gone. No more worrying and wanting to go through them.

It hasn’t been without its drama, though. I lost a lot of emails from authors and publicists that I still am obligated to review books. Some of the emails I was able to retrieve, but I’m not sure how many were affected. I can only wait until the author or publicist contacts me because they haven’t heard from me. Those emails were in my blog email account. The only other account and most important were my public emails. I had all the emails from several commissions that I am on as well as a ton of Dominican emails. Those I am still disappointed in not having. Luckily for me, I am in the habit of saving important documents to Evernote. Yes, thousands of emails gone, with a swipe of a button. Now, THAT was a Lucy moment. Simplifying life.

Then, there was the aggravation of the internet service at our house. I have not had any problems up until now with the service, but the last two weeks have been non-stop interrupted service. My phone and my MacBook have spent more time filtering than what they are supposed to be doing. I finally figured out that when they begin filtering, it coincides with the lights on the modem going out. Then, when they come back on, all is well in Whooville. This went on for several days before I phoned the cable company. The person I was speaking to frustrated me so much, I wanted to go and slap him. He kept checking the modem remotely and remarking how “beautiful it was”. And, just because the lights were on at the time, didn’t mean they were flashing off and on and mostly off at other times.

I unplugged and re-plugged and rebooted and since the modem “was beautiful” he said there was no problem. I finally told him (none too nicely) that the next time the lights went off, I’d call him back. It’s happened once since the phone call and I didn’t call. I’m too tired of dealing with “stupid” this week – are you sure it was only seven days?

Oh and I’m not finished! On top of that, I am seriously considering handing over my position of coordinator of music ministries at church to some other unsuspecting person. Why is it people who play music are so temperamental and egotistical? About half of our music ministers are playing music in church for the wrong reasons. I don’t think they get it. They seriously think they “own” their mass. Wrong! The mass doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to God. We are stewards of the mass, but the mass belongs to Him.

We had a meeting five months ago to lay down a few ground rules. The diocese is working on strategic planning and the church is trying to adhere to Vatican II a little more than it is currently doing. You know the old phrase, give someone an inch and they’ll take a mile. This has been true in the Catholic Church. Long, long, story short, once the priest begins the procession down the aisle, all music should be liturgically correct. It should also be music from the hymnals so the congregation can take part in the liturgy. Some churches may practice this, but some of our music ministers do not.

This is the reason I say that not all ministers are there for the right reasons. They give concerts. A parishioner commented to one that she gave a nice concert. I don’t think she got it. Without music, the liturgy is not the liturgy; it goes hand in hand. The music should complement the readings, the gospel, and what is happening on the altar. By doing this, it allows everyone in the church to take part in the entire liturgy. When you hear the readings, the gospel, the homily, and the music all reiterating the same message, chances are you will remember something when you leave.

On top of that, one music minister missed mass for four months to go hunting. When I contacted him to find out if he was returning to the music ministry, he replied yes, if he could have his same mass back. He informed me of the date of his return. Five months ago, I checked with each minister and asked if they were open to having an alternate. All said yes. So, when I told this minister there was an alternate for this particular mass, and he would be playing two weekends a month and the alternate would be playing two weekends a month, his reply was to let the alternate play all the masses and if he missed, he would substitute. It was an all or nothing; this coming from someone who missed masses on a regular basis without letting anyone know to take his place. See what I mean? Playing for the wrong reasons and giving a concert, because Sunshine on my shoulders is not in the hymnal.

What I have been trying to get across is that they should all be a team ready to have each other’s backs. If one can’t make it to a mass (we have 4), then someone else should be ready to help out. It doesn’t threaten their spot at a different mass. They all want ownership of their mass. They don’t get it. Anyone in the congregation who would like to play music at mass should be able to, but they won’t come forward as long as the attitude is “my mass”. And, I am very close to telling them all how selfish they are when they play music that they like, that the congregation doesn’t have access to, and doesn’t not know the words. It is not a concert. Needless to say, I am frustrated, and our priest is out of the country until sometime in February, so this problem is not getting fixed for a while.

If you’ve made it this far down the blog, stay tuned because there will be another excerpt from Kat Martin’s book this week and also one from Kristen Higgins and giveaways!

Hopefully, the next time we chat, WordPress will have ironed out my problem with Non-Fiction and we’ll be great!

Enjoy your week!