Rapidly Deflating Mood

Today was Sunday, so I went to church. Amy informed me that I seemed more energetic about signing in the Choir then I did singing in the praise band. I would have to agree with her on that matter this week. I just did not feel like we practiced the songs for today enough, and it is different singing without the actually sheet music. The new worship leader pauses in different spots then I do, so there can be a bit of an awkwardness at this point.

This afternoon we went to the big city for the Pre-(Annual) Conference meeting. It was enlightening, and like all good Methodist meetings, what was scheduled for 1 hour took 1.5 hours. There was a large turnout which is a good indication. I will be working (completely unavoidable) and Amy will go in my stead (how did you like that word?). I did not use my camera today, but I did finish painting part of a wall in the back room. It was the trial to see how the paint did on the wood paneling. I have to go to work tomorrow, which is really deflating my current mood rapidly at this point. Below is a picture that I snapped the other day. (You will be happy to know that all the words are spelled correctly.)

Jack of All Trades

Today was a day that I did everything from swimming to helping my dad hang a temporary doggie door at his house. That is correct, a temporary doggie door to the back yard, it was fun. Cap, Amy and I went swimming this morning, I would define it better by saying floating, I did swim a couple of laps, and it felt good. The feeling of the water as it goes across one's body... I mowed the grass, and have the "tractor" watering the back right now. I have found that this is the best time to water the back, becuase Mazie (the wonderdog) is in the house and will not be wet and muddy at bedtime. I do think that this is probably bed time or past bed time for many adults in this world.

Cap had an exciting moment this eveing, when he went "pee-pee" in the "potty". Cheers of celebration rang out from the bathroom as I painted a wall in the back room.

Before everyone in the house woke up, I took some Saturday Morning Pictures.

New Nikon

Once again, I have lapesed several days without writing anything. This is primarly due to feeling a bit ill, having a lot of stuff going on, and have two days of live fire training (it was hot). It was a busy week at work, and at home. I finally managed to put the dinning room back together, now I am going to strat painting the living room, or as amy likes to call it, "the back room". Of course, my initial thought when I hear the term, "back room" is that it is a room behind a bar where shady mobester, and cops make deals. Rest assured that does not happen in our "back room." The only shady deal that goes down, is when the lamp is pulled down.

Last night I was going to watch part of Star Wars Episode VI, "Return of the Jedi." The opening starts off with the shot of a large Empire battle ship, the new death star and a small shuttle landing in the death star. I feel asleep before the shuttle could land.

My new camera arrived. It made it from New York to my house is less than 24 hours, which I find amazing. Below are two pictures that I took. I am pump, I can take great pictures, and not have to pay for the developing!!!!

Thy WIll Be Done

C. S. Lewis wrote, "There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'Thy will be done,'" in The Great Divorce. I though that was an interesting thought. As I have said before, I am waiting for the E-Mail from God, the only problem with that, is he generally does not send us an e-mail. In the old testament he sent the profits, like Isiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel to warn the Israelites of their clamity. They did not listen.

Today, Bear and I installed the last window of the window exchange, I am happy about that. The window had been sitting in my garage since ~July, and now they have all been installed.

Today is Sunday, which means that tomorrow will be "Manic Monday."

It is heart wrenching to look at the Sanctuary and see if spars with Church member who have come to worship.

The Week In Review

Sunday
I worked around the house, trimmed the "front room of the house, or some of it." I also attended Church, went to the annual St. John's School Spaghetti dinner. Of all of the churches in town that have city wide fund raisers in the form of meals, St. John's is the only one that does the meal on Sunday. I asked Amy if they had a letter from the Pope or someone that said that was okay. The spaghetti was really good, I had two plates and left feeling quite "stuffed". This is actually a reduction in the amount that I ate when I was in college and high school. In those days it was three plates, plus several pieces of bread. The sauce is so good that when I was in college I made an effort to plan a trip home the same weekend as the meal.

Monday
I went to work, and it was Monday all day long... That night I did some more trim work in the front room, and started to feel bad.

Tuesday
I went to work did not feel good all day long. Did not do anything when I go home.

Wednesday
Slept poorly, I had a fever during the night, it was gone in the AM so I went to work. In the evening I skipped the church activities, and laid in bed. After Cap went to bed, I did to (not in his bed though).

Thursday
Slept poorly, had a fever during the night. It was gone when I left for work, I went to see Dr. Wally. He said that I had strep throat and I go a shot in my hip. That's right boys, I had to drop the drawers for the nurse, a total of 1 1/2. Went home, watched Cap during epic and then crashed on the bed.

Friday
Went to work, was chastised by the Administrative Assistant for coming to work. I informed her that I had no temperature, and I did not want to sit at home and be bored. I felt better, on Friday, but I did not push it to much, so I was in bed by 11:00 pm.

Saturday
Oh, that's today. Honey came over and we painted the front room, it went much faster with her assistance. Cap and Amy went to a birthday party. This evening there were thunderstorms in the area, so I cleaned the garage out so the mustang would have a cover place to spent the night. It all miss our town going either to the north or south, we had a short rainfall event that totaled 0.20 in of rain.

Spagetti Dinner

Today was the annual St. Johns Spaghetti dinner, an annual event in this small town that brings out the masses. I have many a found memory of eating, and eating and eating some more until I was ill. The food was great this year, I only had 1.75 plates of spaghetti, I shared some with Cap who seemed to enjoy the entire experience. He has sauce all over his hands and his face, you could say the, 'It was good enough to wear on your face!'.

Saturday Night LIfe..

Tonight I was reading the local newspaper and noticed something that I find amusing. On the "Opinion" page there was the policy for the "Letter to the Editor" submittails. It is all petty standard until you get to 350 words. If you break that mark then the paper requires $25.00 for a fee to publish your letter. Additionally, if the letter is over 450 words then the fee is $50.00, and letters over 600 words you can just forget because it will not be published. I have not called but I am planning on calling to see how much an advertisement cost. If you pay a fee for your letter to be in the paper are you not advertising your point of view? I think you are simply paying for an advertisement. Why don't they change Thur policy to 350 words max, otherwise submit an actual article? Right above this policy there is a letter from Kay Bailey Hutchinson about the Republican tax cuts, my question is, did she have to pay $50.00 because it looks like more than 600 words.

I have been a busy fellow this last week, which has kept me from writing anything. I had some sort of "event" every night except for Tuesday, and tonight. On the brighter side, my mom bought Super Troopers for me, it is a funny movie. Be warned that it has some... crude... behavior.

Last night there was a "Date Night", I think that is what it was called, at the church. I, with assistance from Brandon and Bradley (they did a lot of other things getting ready and cleaning up)cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on the outside grill. When we started there was some light drizzle. During the cooking process I experienced the drizzle, light rain, moderate rain, ice, and finally snow. The snow was pretty, it was large and white, it was mostly gone by 3:00 pm today. It was okay, I felt a little out of place, which is unusual at the church, epically since I have been hanging out there for 32 years.

Today I went to the Transfer Station and dropped off 2 doors and some old trim. They wear busy with lots of other people dumping trash. When I was a kid I would go with my dad to the "Dump" and there was a fellow at the gate that inspected each load. He had a small "Dog House" at the gate. (The term "Dog House" in this sentence means a small normally portable building that one can take shelter from the weather, eat lunch or take a break while working. I always though that that old man lived there in that "Dog House." Looking back I am sure that he did not live there.

Crash Celebrates...

Last week I wrote about the Beer and Wine Easter Sale that United is having over the easter weekend. I decided to send them a comment about that advertisment, and have since recieved 2 letters and one phone call. One of the letters was the standard form letter thanking me for my comment and for my shoping at thier stores. The funny thing about that letter is the letter head has a Lubbock, Texas address but the letter originated in Atlatna, Georga 30339.

The second letter was personeally signed and was not a form letter. To summerize the letter, the ad was printed in Houston by and outside firm. United did not catch the error in the add, which they called, "...a disserivece to all our store guests..." Additionally, they did no desire to disrecpe the celebratio of Christ's resurrection.

I still have to call the local store manager back, all in all I think they took my comment very seriously and did not brush it off. Of course, I will continue to shop there because they generally have the best food and service in town.

When I was a kid, we would stick black olives on our fingers at christmas dinner, much to the sigrine of our parents, and grandmother. I think perhpas Father though it was an okay thing to do. I base this comment off of the following story...

Everyone had sat down at the dinner table for Sunday lunch, a long standing traditon in our family. Marian, my grandmother whom we all called "Marian" announced it was time to bless the meal. Father, my grandfater whom we called, you got it, "Father" said the following pray, "Dear Lord, I think thee for the viddles, and please do not let them add to our middles." The grandkids laughed, Marian was displeased and I used to tell the story that she threw her show at Father, but I am not quite sure if it is true. That was the only time I ever heard a pray like that at Sunday lunch, and do not know what got into Father to provoke it.

As the grand kids grew up our fingers got bigger, and the black olives would only fit because the sides would split. I have found the solution, or at least Amy inadvertantly did...When they say "Colossal" they mean big, these bad boys fit onto my pinky finger with no problem.

Today was Crash's birthday party. It was fun, the cake was neat, and the company was excellent. I played with Cap, Mr. W, and Crash while I was there. The theme of the party was Pirates, Arrrh mattie.

Below is are a couple of pictures of the feastivities (including the cake, and the little pirate on the cake walking the plank.)

New Cousin...

Cap has a new cousin (well second cousin I think if you are counting, I think that the spelling out the different degrees of cousins is overblown.) I believe the baby was named Charles Alexander Mounce and I know they are going to call him Cam.

Today I went and assisted my dad put a new toilet in their bathroom. The house had been running with only 2 toilets for the last several months. It occurred to me that after years and years of testing and research the wax seal is pretty generic and common.

The thursday rush...

It has been a few days since I published or "posted" anything in the worldwide web. It is easily explained by stating that I have been working away on the house. Below is a play-by-play of the home improvement projects.

Monday...

Pitcher gets nailed in the head and does not remember what he worked on, but was up until midnight

Tuesday...

J is up to bat, and he hits a triple while painting the ceiling, it would have been a home run but he left a spot unpainted, and had to hold up at third (the crowd roars!!!!)

Wednesday...

J is on third and does the suicide squeeze (that is what it felt like this morning when I woke up) and slides into home with a newly painted ceiling in the dinning room. Another midnight bedtime.

Thursday...

J is on the pitching mound with three blinds to install (on one window) it was a three up (installed) and down inning (they work). The crowd roared because I made to much noise after bedtime. There is a lovely photo below.

That little story reminds me of a time that seems like yesterday when I was introduced to Meatloaf (not the dish). Fat-boy, his dad, Steven Renegar (who has fallen off the map, in the event that he reads this he should call me) and I were heading up to wolf creek for a ski trip. I think I was 17 or so, and as we passed the mile markers on the highway Harry says, "okay boys, I am going to play ya'll a song. Listen closely and don't tell you mother." He proceeded to put Paradise by the Dashboard Light into the tape deck of the white Ford explored. As the song spun its weave we began to laugh at some of the lyrics and the message. Towards the end was a dialog about baseball that was the cake topper. There is nothing bad about the song, and I purchased the CD when I was in college. It has some good ballads on it, along with the above mentioned song.

Amy is a little upset with the weather men. On Monday they were predicting Sunday (Easter) temperature to be in the 60s. Amy went and purchase El Captain a short sleeve shirt for the occasion. On Tuesday the weathermen said the temp would be in the low 50s. By Wednesday the prediction had dropped to 45. Today they said it would be in the low 30s for Easter Sunday.

Other note worthy events... Cap got a hair cut.

At Epic the kids played (we had that tonight before I played baseball with the blinds.)

Sunday BLues

I really have a limit of knowledge of the news in America as well as the general global news. I have not watched, nor read much news at all, and none of it has been interesting today. My main focus these days is the completion of the home update, which will include new kitchen cabinets.

Today they had an "Easter Egg Hunt" at church for the little kids. I say little, because I still feel like a kid from time to time. This is epically true at church. Cap was more interested in collecting rocks then Easter eggs, so I ended up with pockets full of eggs, and Cap's basket full of rocks. Speaking of church, we had Communion today, and the choir sang while everyone took the sacraments. This was a subject that I wanted to list with the preacher about, but had not found time to do it (there are several items that I would recommend changing). I though that it was very nice. I also do not know why the choir could not sing during the offering.

This morning our new (for lack of a better title) "Worship Leader" started leading the 15 minutes of "Gathering Time." As always there is a certain level of apprehension and fear when a program is changed or a new leader starts. The hard thing is putting your personal pride aside and trying new tact's or a new way to play a song. The new guy likes to call out the verse before we sing it and he will sing the choirs however many times suit him. While he may be filled with the spirit to do this, I prefer singing the songs though the way they are written.

If we are striving for a more modern feel I think there are a few things that should be done. First, is the bulletin, make it smaller and more modern, the current 10 x 17 folded in half is a lot of paper. I would also not put the words of the bible verse in the bulletin. There are a few songs that we sing that sound like they could be part of a, mmmm, funeral march.

Of course these are just opinions, and what I enjoy will not be what someone else enjoys.