Life is speeding by at record breaking rates out here in "Never A Dull Moment" life on the Dark Side of the Moon.  

We give you exhibit A:  

A Nigerian doctor of psychology was to have flown from Nigeria to Cameroon on our one and only Cameroonian airline yesterday.  But shortly before flight time the airline opted to cancel the entire flight.  No delays, no rescheduling, just an out and out cancellation. This set into motion a chain of events that touched our lives here at Shiloh, as well as uncounted other unknown individuals and events.  You see, reservations had been made to house the good doctor here at Shiloh during his eleven day stay in Cameroon.  He was being flown in by Rain Forest International School (RFIS) to do psychological testing of students with potential learning disabilities.  A frantic phone call from RFIS mid-morning yesterday put the doctor's reservation on hold for the moment.  Probably a month ago when the reservation had originally been made, we were asked to feed him breakfast each morning.  The school would feed him lunch.  Parents, faculty, and staff would sign up to take care of the evening meals for the good doctor.  No problem.  We were good to go.  Until mid-day today.  Another frantic phone call from RFIS informed us that the doctor would be in tonight, arriving on a different airline, AND we would be the one feeding him all his evening meals, starting with tonight.  (It seems that some unnamed individual forgot to put out a sign up sheet for the doctor's evening meals!)  We politely but firmly informed the school that we would begin serving him breakfast and dinner each day, starting tomorrow morning.  And we at Shiloh went into an emergency meeting.  A quick inventory of our pantry, refrigerator, and upright freezer acquainted us with what the immediate menu possibilities were.  Next we rolled up our collective sleeves and discussed menu options.  We racked our brains to come up with nine mouth watering options for the nine evening meals we will serve our guest.  And then we compiled two shopping lists for the missing ingredients.  Soon our cook was walking out to buy everything that could be purchased a short walk from Shiloh.  And Mama Alice phoned our favorite taxi driver to make arrangements to be picked up in the morning to go to the big outdoor market and buy the rest of the missing ingredients.  

Meanwhile, we were in the beginning stages of Spring Housecleaning here at Shiloh when today's phone call came from RFIS. That's right, the Long Dry Season is officially over, and it's time to tear Shiloh apart, cleaning up massive amounts of dust and dirt that has seeped into every conceivable corner of the house.  Today we were humming away in the library, removing all books, shelf by shelf, cleaning both the shelves and each of the books.  With 2,000 books in our library, it's a Big Job to put it mildly!  This is also the time of the year we discover just how many books we have lost this time around.  Historically we loose between 12 - 15 books per year, though a year ago we hit an all-time low of only 6  books.  Multiply that times the 13 years we have been running Shiloh, the spiritual retreat center, and you have some idea of the magnitude of our loss.  But I digress.

The library was quickly put back in order and all Spring Housekeeping plans have been put on hold until March 16th at the earliest.  The dust, dirt, and grime is not going anywhere.  It will patiently wait for us to get back to this major annual event.

We could go on to exhibits B - Z of  Life Speeding By At Record Breaking Speeds, but you would die of boredom, so we will refrain.  Suffice it to say, Blogging sometimes becomes a distant memory.  We don't even have time to feel guilty about neglecting you, our Dear Blog Readers.  So now you have some idea of why there are gaps in Blog posts.