Last night Becky and I were over at my parents for supper and we didn't leave til late in the evening. It was a night of good food and good company. The supper was amazing. I won't go into the delicious details but I'll tell you that it included watermelon and "roll-kuchen" (mennonite specialty), and Becky's delicious apple pie with ice-cream.

After sunset, the conversation was taken outside and kept warm around an open fire. I think it was myself who suggested to my parents to have a fire pit in their backyard, and I have to say, it's among the best ideas I've ever had. Over the years I've enjoyed, so much, my time with my parents on a summer night around their fire pit. That's when we "let our hair down," so to speak, and humbly reveal ourselves to each other comfortably.

In the past, there was only us three: Mom, Dad and me. But now I'm so happy to experience this time with the love of my life. I've told Becky before, how much this time with my parents means to me. But now that it's the four of us, our time together is that much the richer.

I couldn't tell you about all the different topics of conversation that came up, but no matter what the topics were, it's often my experience that something greater is happening in these moments. I think my Dad described it best when he said, "I love this, just sitting under the stars, enjoying nature."

And that's exactly what it was - natural. To me, these moments tap into the fundamentals of family life, cultivating relationships that are forever.

I was just thinking, "There is no better description of me today than my blog name - 'caught between the worlds of sleep and waking,' daydreaming." But I'm not entirely sure about that.

I feel like my whole self is in Limbo, nowhere in particular. I don't know how I got here, and I don't know where I'm going. You know the look of astronauts floating in space? That's how I feel.

No intentions, no desires (they're half asleep), no motivations. My thoughts and emotions exist, but they're in a haze. No, I haven't been smoking anything. No, I'm drug free.

I don't feel lost. But I don't feel "anchored" either. I don't think I'm depressed. When I get depressed I usually get inspired to create. And now that I'm articulating how I feel, it sounds depressing because it's not optimistic. But there's no pessimism, either.

My blog title was chosen to represent an optimism. A place where the Muses work, inspiring me to feel, think, act. It's a title about re-birth, waking up from the sleep of old ideas into new ones. I am not among the Muses today.

I haven't touched my novel since before last Christmas. I don't know how many books I've read since then, but I like where they have taken me.

I opened up my novel and started reading/editing. It was fun! Hard work at times. But fun nevertheless. I could see that I had definitely taken a long enough break to gain new and better perspectives on what I had created.

Right now I'm on the 14th of 35 chapters. So far, I've only bumped into at least two chapters that were complete bombs. Wow, were they horrible. I did what I could with them. But I'll have to wait until next time around to do any tidying up.

A new chapter is brewing in my mind that will probably have to be between chapters 5 & 6. But I'm not putting anything to paper until it becomes a need.

I must confess, working on my novel isn't the only thing that's kept me from writing here. Over the last week I was heavily involved in debate/arguments on other people's blogs. I enjoyed it, for the most part. I learn a lot when I have to explain myself. And I think fighting (if I can call it that) reveals a lot about people. In one of the Matrix movies a character says something like, "You don't truly know someone until you fight with them." Nice.

I hope the others that I sparred with enjoyed it as much as I did. The main theme was about "objective knowledge" and whether it exists. Personally, I thought this was a no-brainer. But I was surprised to find a lot of opposition. All I can say is, the only way I would believe all is subjective is if that subjectivity included all that is objective. And if God exists, then you have someone who can do that.

But to be fair, they were talking about what can be known by a human being. And my response to that is, "A person without objective knowledge couldn't add 2 + 2 or say, 'Today, gravity exists, and the earth is round and it revolves around the sun.'"

As you can see, there was also a sub-theme about whether science has de-mystified ANY of our natural world. I don't know how anybody can say it hasn't. How else would doctors be able to do what they do with internal organs, and then patch the bodies up without stopping them from working? (I didn't say this in the dialogues, but as far as I know, it doesn't contradict my other comments.)

I hope I didn't offend people. I tend to do that quite easily on the net. Was I offended? Not by the people.

So, I 'm off to work on the novel. I just thought I'd drop by and say a little something of what's been going on.