Get Ready, Get Set...

Eeep! It just occurred to my crowded little brain tonight that a week from now we are leaving on our big vacation (well, big for us).

I have A LOT to do!!

...cue hyperventilating...

We'll leave this coming Sunday after services on our grand adventure to St. Louis, Missouri, where we will be meeting up with RevDad's family for some vacationing craziness. We'll be gone for almost a week and a half, which is a major trip for us. This means we need a lot of clothes for every kind of possible weather, plenty of snacks, many toys & books & movies for Lil' Princess, and so much more.

And then there's all the stuff to get done for work so that we CAN leave.

Uffda!

I do wish this was going to be a relaxing, recharging kind of vacation, so we could recover from all this crazy rushing around. But the vacation will also be the crazy rushing around variety, so take a deep breath, and dive in! It will be good to have time with the in-laws, it has been YEARS since we've had time together. Plus it will give me plenty of stories to tell, I'm sure!

Did I ever tell you about the time we went on vacation with hubby's family and...

I'll let you know how that sentence gets finished!

Hopes for Spring

We're supposed to get snow tonight. While we desperately need moisture, I'd rather have spring showers! So here's a little wishful thinking and lovely inspiration...

Never Works Out Quite as You Expect

Things just have not turned out the way I thought they would for this weekend. Because of poor weather, I won't be able to got away for the weekend, and now I've been asked to be a speech tournament judge all day Saturday at one of the local high schools.

Funny how things work out. I am actually excited to be part of the speech tournament. I loved competing during high school, and in the back of my mind I'd always hoped to be involved as an adult. I hope this will be a first step to this being something fun for me to be involved in, and a great way for me to have a greater involvement in local communities.

I do feel disappointment that I couldn't get away, but at least I still don't have to lead worship and preach on Sunday, and I'll be here for hubby's birthday on Friday. So Lil' Princess and I will finish our shopping for him tomorrow, and bake him a cake. She really wants me to decorate it with a dragon, but I think my cake decorating abilities would be pretty strained by a dragon! I'll have to think about how to manage this one. Another nice thing will be worshiping together. She and I will go to the later of RevDad's services. We get to sleep in!! Whoo-hoo!!

Monday is Our Sabbath

It's been a lovely day off. Went to the 60th birthday party of my pastor-friend down the road this morning, and ended up spending several hours chatting and having lunch with her. Haven't done that in ages! Did a quick bit of shopping to find a birthday present for RevDad, and then back home to hang out with Lil' Princess while RevDad takes a nap. We're watching cartoons and giggling on the couch, and snuggling all we want. It feels so good to actually RELAX. I think it is only after Easter Sunday that the feeling of joyous new life comes for many in ministry. Today is Monday, but it really is our family's Sabbath.

Tonight I have to go to an annual meeting for one of the church supported hospitals (delegates from all the Lutheran churches plus pastors are expected to attend). Not the most fun way to spend the evening, but it will give me the chance to meet more people from the area.

I'm still working on what to do for my weekend off. I'd like to go see friends where we used to live, but I'm not excited about the l-o-n-g drive. I'd like to truly be able to relax and have fun, not spend most of my time driving this weekend. So still pondering my options.

Happy Easter

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

It's been a good and long Holy Week, and I'm grateful that it's the evening of Easter Sunday. The schedule was grueling for hubby and me today, and we're both ready to just...sleep. Not think, not be "on", not be theological or even all that coherent. Just unconscious. So as soon as our lovely little one gets with the program and decides play time is over and it's time to sleep, we're join her in sweet dreams.

I think the best moment today happened at the last service, at the church that normally has absolutely NO children attending. Today we had a whole passel of them, with all the visiting families, so I got to do a children's sermon. They were mostly little ones, and so sweet, and so excited to come up and be a part of the service. The butterfly activity I had for them went over well, and you could tell they were enchanted by the whole thing. As I gazed over the mostly elderly faces of my regular attendees, you could tell they were enchanted too. It was good for them to have these young ones among them, and it fit well with my theme of "Signs of Life." Everyone was just beaming through the whole service, and as they left. Including me, even with the complete exhaustion dogging my steps!

I'm off this next weekend, so now I can shift focus to planning a little trip to visit friends in the town where we last lived. Aahh. Now that's something to look forward to in the morning!

Eeeeek!

Maundy Thursday part II

It is now around 3:30 pm

I got about a quarter into a sermon, hated it, and am now back at square one.

One and a half hours until I start freaking out.

Crunch Time

Today: Maundy Thurday
Sermon - none
Time: almost 2 pm
Service - 7pm
Anticipated time of hyperventilation and total freak out because of lack of sermon: 5pm

So I have three hours to write a sermon to avoid a personal melt-down and to be prepared for tonight's service, while at the same time I need to entertain a four year old and eventually come up with something for supper.

"It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer..."

Coffee Shop Morning

I'm sitting in the nearest local coffee shop, laptop open, cruising the internet, typing away, big mug of something hot at my side. Yeh, I'm so cool. I've joined the latest century! I'm just how many years behind on this technology?

RevDad quite suddenly and dramatically got sick yesterday afternoon, so this morning I got to drive Lil' Princess in to school. There's no point in adding so many miles to the van, so I'm not going home. I'm staying in town until it's time to pick her up. So here I am with my brand-spanking new spiffy laptop being so cool at the coffee shop.

I've got a Maundy Thursday sermon to write, so I've been cruising the Biblical commentary sites, looking for inspiration. I have a few ideas. One site had a nice breakdown of the main points of the Gospel lesson (John 13:1-17, 31b-35), and pointed out that it has to do with living in relationship with Christ, which means living in community, which means living in service to others. We'll see where this leads. I need to get it done soon so that I can move on to the Easter Sunday sermon. Ah, Holy Week. A pastor's joy and terror all at the same time.

Hopefully hubby will be OK, and can make it through Holy Week. He's feeling REALLY exhausted and dizzy. I'm wondering if his blood pressure is going wonky again. It did that a few months ago, due to stress. So now I need to get him to the clinic ASAP, whether he wants to go or not. I'm very grateful that I'm feeling so good right now, so I can take care of him and our little girl.

Grind, whirr, grind.
Dark roast coffee smells fill the air.
Old friends tell stories, laugh, sip.
The earnest typer eavesdrops.
And smiles.

Where, O Spring?

Our weather has been showing its multiple personalities again. We had some absolutely lovely warm days, with the scent of spring in the air, and only light jackets needed. And then this morning we awoke to a light layer of snow and thick fog. Now this afternoon, blue skies, and mild enough temps for us to play outside.

It has been a mild winter, but we're all ready for spring. Visions of planting flowers and creating a vegetable garden are dancing in our heads! Lil' Princess and I have grand plans, which RevDad is bringing back into reality with some good common-sense suggestions. There's a spot in the back yard next to the alley that is mostly dirt already, so we're hoping it can convert easily to a small garden. Our girl wants to try out some carrots, I'd like a few tomato plants. We'll see what else we give a whirl!

And So It Begins

Palm/ Passion Sunday is always such a good yet difficult day to walk through. You're trying to do so much, and so much GOOD stuff, can you really do it justice? It went pretty well at all three of my congregations, though I did have give up on reading all two chapters of the passion
Gospel, and we read a narrative of the shorter version. I like doing the narrative, since it gets the whole congregation involved in reading and experiencing the trial and death of Christ. To actually be the one to say "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!" can be quite moving and thought-provoking.

The really cool news is that I'm typing this up on my new church-funded laptop computer!!! I had considered this purchase as a long-term dream that maybe a few years down the line they might consider. Instead, my leadership said, "sounds like a great idea! Go for it!" So yesterday we went to the Really Big Town and found this lovely laptop. RevDad got it all ready today, and now I'm taking it out for a spin. Whee!

It's a nice beginning to Holy Week, a meaningful Palm/Passion Sunday and a new computer that will make work much easier. Now to just make it through Easter with our sanity intact, and we'll call it good!

Book Meme

One of the blogs I enjoy reading posted this meme, and since I was tagged, I thought I'd play! Here it is:

1. Find the book closest to you with 125 or more pages.
2. Go to page 125.
3. Read the first five sentences on the page.
4. Post the next three sentences on the page. (sentences 6,7 & 8)
5. Tag five people.

The book closest to me is the Lutheran Book of Worship (I know, I know, Worship Geek!!!). Page 125 is actually the last page of the order of worship for Holy Baptism, which is cool. However, there are not enough sentences on the page. Bummer!!!!

So here's the quote from the next closest book that is long enough:

"Knock, knock, knock. If we hear a knock on the door, we need to know where the door is. If we hear a knock on the door, we need to find out who's there."

from the book Ring, Kings, and Butterflies: Lessons on Christian Symbols for Children.
The quote is from a children's message about the symbol of a door or doorway to be used during the season of Pentecost.



Tag, you're it!

Good Day

It was a good day. How nice to be able to say that! Got quite a bit done, felt good and positive, had plenty of energy.

I'm having a quiet little celebration here at my desk while I wait for my turn to read stories to Lil' Princess. Whoo-hoo! It was a truly good day for the first time in a very long time!

It's one day at a time, but after so many steps back, how wonderful to have a day that counts as a big step forward.

Tuesday March 4th 2008 was a good day.

Technology Woes

Holy Week is fast approaching, and my wonderful long-distance church secretary (she lives 30 miles away in another state and works from home, we communicate primarily through email and phone calls) dropped off a 3by5 disc of the services they have done in the past so that I could figure out what to do this year. For some reason the files wouldn't transmit over email, we can't figure that one out. So we have to do this via disc.

Anyway.

So I'm finally well enough to get busy and get working on these services, which is good considering that they're not that far away! Time to get busy! I get out the disc, and proceed to try to put it in my computer. And try. And try. And try. This lovely new-fangled computer that my husband convinced me to purchase this year apparantly doesn't have a drive that accepts the 3by5 disc. It takes CDs and DVRs, it takes Mobile Disc Drive and a bunch of other things that I don't even understand. But it's too advanced for the good ol' 3by5.

Crap.

OK, plan B! I'm not sure what plan B is just yet, but I'm sure it will be impressive...

Oh is hubby going to hear about this one!