Category: Diary entries

Today, Nate spent the day with me. A friend of Jenni\’s family was killed last night right in front of her boyfriend. It\’s been a sad, shock-filled day for them. I brought Nate home with me so we could clean out the pool and run the filter for a while, but it rained pretty hard, along with a good bit of thunder. So we just hung out and then went to church at 6. After church, we melted marshmallows over a candle and made s\’mores. Right now, it\’s nearly bed time. Nate is upstairs working on his latest business idea–he has a lot of those. I am watching The Fugitive.

It\’s back to work for me tomorrow after three days. And for this week, i am taking the evenings off. I\’m not going to go out for any reason; just hang around the house, turn my phone off at night, maybe do some stuff in the house. I\’m just going to do what I want to do.

Maybe I\’ll write some more, too. Sure need to catch up.

and it\’s going to be a beautiful day. Part of my problem, I admit, is that I haven\’t been as faithful in my Bible study lately, and that made such a difference in my outlook on life. I truly do need to study the Word daily in order to keep my life in balance/perspective.

It\’s not about me, y\’all. It IS about HIM. Studying the Bible reinforces that for me and sets my life back in order.

It\’s going to be a lovely day.

So, last Wednesday night was my last night as the youth director at our church. I had been at it for five years, and at my age, five years represents quite a change in the physical aspects of keeping up with a bunch of teens. I\’ve been to camp with them four times; jumped up and down with them at several hundred concerts (and spent one year with a bulging disc as a result!); shown approximately 5000 movies; bought $100,000 worth of snack foods; driven hundreds of miles to different events; etc…… I\’ve prayed with them as they made decisions for the Lord, I\’ve loved and counselled them in the Word, I\’ve prepared a gazillion Bible studies to encourage them to learn as much as they can about Jesus. I still love them and my desire to see them grow in the Lord is the same as it ever was. It was just time, and we all knew it.

In the past five years, we have had 12 teens graduate out of the youth group into the college and career age level. The numbers have fluctuated from three to 21 to eight. In all the trips we took, I never once had to bring a kid home from a group function. They knew that I loved them, but they also knew that I wouldn\’t hesitate to remove them from an event in order to ensure the pleasure of the rest of the group.

It was a good five years. I\’m thankful to have had them.

Getting ready to begin a new personal study entitled Epic, by John Eldredge. Stay tuned in. I get all excited when the Holy Spirit teaches me stuff and I love to share!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Well, VBS went well, but we didn\’t have any major decisions made during that week. Of course, who knows what seeds were planted in those precious little minds. Time and eternity will tell, as they say. By the way, who is \”they\” anyhow? Does anybody really know? And why do \”they\” get all the credit for stuff? Is that fair?

Saturday I had the youth group over for supper and a movie at the house. I fixed spaghetti, and the guys seemed to like it pretty well. Took us about 10 minutes to figure out what movie to watch. Ended up watching I Am Legend. It wasn\’t as scary this time as the first time I saw it, but it was still scary.

I woke up during the night with a terrible stomach ache. Apparently the acid in the sauce didn\’t agree with me. So even after preparing to teach and take the boys to church, I wasn\’t able to go. Bummer. I spent the day resting much as possible. Dave took me for a drive in the mountains, which was nice and peaceful. Then I worked on my pictures some more.

I know, I know! I said I wouldn\’t go on and on about the pictures, but I just can\’t help myself. I\’m having so much fun finding all these pictures again, and I even talked my mama into letting me have her pictures so I can scan them in. Her albums are all yellowing and the pics are fading, so I plan to fix them all up and give them back to her in new books at Christmas. She should enjoy that. I have some other ideas, too, but they aren\’t totally formulated in my mind yet.

I don\’t really have much to say. I\’m reading Dean Koontz\’s Frankenstein trilogy. I had already read the first two books, but it\’s been three years and the third book is just now coming out. So I\’m re-reading them. The new one should be here this week. I\’m looking forward to getting it, even though I have a really bad feeling about how things are going to turn out in the last few chapters. Who knows, though? Maybe I\’ll be surprised.

So there you have it. I\’m going to go talk to hubby for a bit and then read some more. And maybe work on my pictures some more. I know! I know!

After several sleepless hours last night, I got up and went to the church to decorate for VBS. I got there early with hopes of getting finished fairly early and getting other things done at the house. Since I\’m just coordinating this year, my task for today was decorating the chapel where the kids will have opening session each evening. I noticed it was a little warm in the chapel and in the other rooms of the building as I walked around checking things out, but I figured the a/c either hadn\’t been turned on or was turned on late last night.

When hubby got to the church, he used his air compressor to blow up the big kangaroo that is part of the decoration. He also commented on the a/c and asked me when I had turned it on. Hmm? Me? Um, I didn\’t turn on the a/c.

It wasn\’t long before we realized that the a/c just wasn\’t working. This is not good news. We have 50 or 60 kids going to be in the building for the next five nights. No air is just not good at all. Dave called the a/c man to come out and check out the system. (He didn\’t get there until 5:30 or so.)

Meanwhile, I am setting up the chapel and trying to get this big 9\’x6\’ poster up. Dave comes in and helps me get a lot of it tied and taped up. The poster is in three 3\’ pieces, so we have to lay it on the floor and tape the pieces together. By this time, the Children\’s Director has arrived, and she is helping us by tearing off tape and holding edges together. It takes the three of us about an hour to get the pieces all together and taped on the cardboard background.

As I am straightening up some other things, I notice that there is a piece of tape extending about 6\” from the bottom of one of the poster pieces. \”Sweetie,\” I say to my hubby, \”could you please cut that piece of tape off that poster so it doesn\’t get stepped on?\” He said he would and that\’s the last I thought of it.

A few minutes later, after doing a bit more decorating to the front of the chapel with Melody and Daina, Mel asks me to fix something at the front of the poster (she is behind the poster at this time doing something else). I go over and fix what she was talking about. Unbeknownst to me I have now STEPPED ON THE PIECE OF TAPE that hubby has forgotten to cut off the bottom of the poster. As I step back, my shoe–stuck to the tape–catches and trips me up. I stumble backward and then fall and my shoe, with the tape stuck on it, RIPS the poster and yanks it off the cardboard we have just spent OVER AN HOUR fixing! I hit the floor, the other two ladies in the room jerk around to see me and the poster lying on the floor with a big rip in it. \”Oh, no!\” we all gasp at the same time. Mel comes over and removes the tape from the bottom of my shoe and helps me up. After looking the poster for a moment, we all laugh and decide we can fix it.

Just as I am getting up off the floor, hubby walks in, and seeing the damage, says, \”Uh oh.\” Mel tells him what has happened and then tells Dave, \”And she didn\’t even say sh*t or anything.\” At this time hubby decides he might better leave the room. And he does.

My first thought as I was falling and watching that poster coming off the board was, \”I wonder if Lifeway has anymore of these posters at the store?\” I didn\’t even realize I was falling until my backside hit the floor, because I was too busy watching the poster RIP OFF THE CARDBOARD backing.

Then I notice that one of the ladies decorating her room upstairs has been crying. I make an excuse to go look for something so that I can talk to her. She is clearly upset about something and we spend a little while talking until she calms down.

The enemy is clearly at work, which leads me to believe that this is going to be a GREAT VBS this year. I can hardly wait to see what God does this week in the lives of these precious little ones.

Now, if you will excuse me, I\’m going to go take an Excedrin PM and hit the hay. Goodnight.

Well, here we are at the end of the weekend and a new work week beginning in the morning. I had a great weekend. Spent Friday evening with my husband and my mom-in-law. She bought a new car Friday and gave us her \’95 Buick LeSabre. It\’s still in fairly good condition, too. What a very nice thing for her to do.

Saturday, I just did what I wanted to do. I cleaned some in the house, cleaned up the car, took pics of the birds, made a cake for the grandsons, and bought groceries. Then I took a nap until the boys came over to spend the night.

Many times, when the boys come over, we\’re ready for them to go home after about 30 minutes. They tend to be wound up and going full-out. It wears us out. I don\’t know, either they were tired, or we were just really relaxed, but we really enjoyed having them over and had a nice evening with them. I took some pictures of the boys, which you can see on Facebook.

Today was just a great day. Good Sunday School class, great worship hour. Restful afternoon. Good evening service. Nice, relaxing evening. Sigh.

Now I gotta call Josh and ask him a question. Later, y\’all.

Number one grandson, Nate, is spending a few days with his uncle Josh. I\’m sure they will have a lot of fun. I remember when Nate was born and Josh was coming to see him. He had said he\’d be home in the morning. When i got up around 6:30 to help Jenni with Nate, i looked out the window and there in front of the house sat Josh, asleep in his car. He had been so excited to meet Nate that he drove down and got to our house about 5 in the morning. Not wanting to wake us up, he just went to sleep in the car until we got up. Somewhere in my stack of pictures, i have one of Nate asleep on Josh\’s chest. It\’s where Nate slept the first six months of his life, on somebody\’s chest. We spoiled that child to pieces.

So Nate is with Josh. Josh will take him to the movies, to a ballgame, to play with the dog, and just generally teach him how a good man lives his life. I\’m glad Nate has Josh and Dave (hubby) to be examples for him. He has a real chance at succeeding in life with these two men to encourage him.

i\’m not sure why, but i feel a bit depressed tonight. maybe i\’m just tired. nothing happened today to cause me to feel this way. in fact, the evening service was wonderful and worshipful. the teens did an excellent job of their number tonight. they performed under blacklight to Arise My Love. i tell you honestly, it was a very worshipful experience. more than one person was crying by the end of that number. so why do i feel sad?

ah, maybe i\’m just tired. i\’ll feel better tomorrow, i\’m sure.

After making sure that our grandson was safely tucked in his bed on Thursday (after his tonsillectomy), Dave and I headed off to Tennessee to the wedding of our niece, Holly. We traveled halfway and stopped outside of Knoxville for the night. aside:At the Holiday Inn Express, we slept on one of the most comfortable beds of our lives. If I could have figured out a way to get that mattress in our car, trust me, I would have done it.

We arrived in Nashville Friday afternoon. The festivities began that evening with a ballgame and cookout, courtesy of Chris and Holly. Don\’t even ask me who played. I was just there hanging out with my family, and enjoying the daylights out of myself.

Saturday started off with breakfast with my two sisters. Judy had to leave after that to get ready for the evening, and Veniva and I hung out. Yes, I said V E N I V A (Short story, very funny, I\’ll tell you in another blog). I caught up with hubby around lunchtime, and we spent the rest of the day together, until time to leave for the mansion.

Before you know it, it was time for the wedding. It was outside, the weather was perfect, the service was beautiful. The people were beautiful. My sister looked like a statuesque goddess. Holly was stunning in her wedding gown and looked so much like her mother coming down the aisle, I could have cried. Amber, my other niece, and the maid of honor, was as beautiful as a person could be, and she looked so happy. The groom was in his uniform, and in case I haven\’t said it lately, I think men in uniform are very cool. God bless our military.

My sweet hubby performed the ceremony, and it went off without a hitch. Hmm, wrong word. Okay, then, it went off WITH a hitch–Chris and Holly.

Actually, Chris and Holly were already married. They had a very small ceremony in their home in December 2007, just before Chris was deployed overseas. But they wanted to have a big, formal ceremony to share with their friends the commitment they have made to love each other for the rest of their lives. They did it in real style, and I, for one, will not forget the joy of that day.

God bless you, Holly and Chris. May you always be as full of joy with each other as you were on this very special day.