Tired

It's been a long week. We had meetings all day Tuesday and Wednesday. It helped that it was here. I love that place. But I still have ADD, so sitting still and paying attention for hours on end is difficult for me. So I snacked. And snacked. And snacked. I'm very thankful that it's over.

My work to-do list is long from being gone those two days and busy with lots of stuff today...it includes (but is definitely not limited to):
1. Looking over the Discovery 101 class material for Pastor Marvin's class next Sunday
2. Finding some closing ceremony skits for our VBS meeting next week
3. Helping Steve start to plan the VBS All-Volunteer Meeting
4. Making a CD label for the VBS music CD
5. Working with Michelle to get everything ready for the VBS registration table next week
6. Send out next week's worship set (good thing I just remembered that)
7. Figuring out what to do for a VBS promo poster to put up around the community

I can't think about what else right now...or the to do list at home. I am just glad I can go home tonight. There is a graduation open house every day this weekend, but I am not too worried about that. I'm just glad there IS a weekend!

By the way, I really want to share the great stuff God is doing in my life. I just haven't had time to type it all out. But He is awesome and so faithful.

Oh, the Horror

I just found a grammatical error in an old post of mine. I changed it, so don't even try to find it. I am mortified. I must proof my posts more diligently in the future. I am glad this blog isn't more widely read; some of my co-workers may have found fodder for great teasing.

Whew. Good thing I avoided being teased at work.

Blog Name Confirmed!

OK, so we're going with "Under the Bell Tower." I like it. Now we have to take a picture and figure out how to make the header, but someday we'll get it done.


Other than that...this week is not as busy as recent weeks have been for us. I am embarrassed to say that (because of visitors) we finally put away the Christmas mess that had exploded in our living room and never went away. Yes, we had Christmas trees in our home in May. Actually, we still do but they are now evergreens instead of decked out "Christmas" trees. Matt created a park scene by grouping a bunch of evergreens (we have a lot of trees) and some other plants around our church bench. It's creative. It keeps me from having to dismantle Christmas trees...um...evergreens...only to put them back together in a few months. Now I wish we had another bench from the church to put in the entryway. I like having one there. I think I might stalk some former members of the church and see if anyone knows where they went.

That's all I can come up with now. I wish I had a picture of the park scene. I'll see what I can do when I get home and maybe post it later.

New Blog Name

I need help - I want to change my blog name. My husband will design me a header, but I need a name first. Here are my options (keeping in mind that the above is our home minus all the cars in the driveway):

Church in the Lurch
Churchbound
Under the Bell Tower
God in the Living Room
Life by the Cemetery
Learning Patience from...a House

If you have any other cute ones...throw them out for me. I need something fresh.

Six Words

Amie tagged me (again :-), so I will happily take on the task of listing 6 words or phrases that best describe me.

Here are the rules:
1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

So I will give it my best here:
1. obsessive
2. ever-changing
3. hopeful
4. faithful
5. thoughtful
6. God's
I tag T, Judy, Natalie, Hannah...who else...that will have to do for now.

Great Friends

I wish I had time to write a tribute to all of the great friends in my life. Just this week, one godly woman ministered to me in an incredible way. She is like a second mother to me; I have known her for over half my life. I wish I could quantify what she means to me, but it's just not possible. Thank you, Sharon, for reminding me what it means to be a godly wife and woman.

Another friend e-mailed, and it was a God thing. That's all I can say. She has been through a lot, a LOT in her nine years of marriage. What an encouragement and a support she is.

Other friends have been so loving and caring in the past few months, and some are going through their own hard times. To all my girlfriends, far and near: I love you. I can't imagine my life without you. Thank God for friendships that draw us closer to Him and give us a glimpse of His love for us.

Stealing Creativity

I am a woman.

I like romance.

I love to surprise my husband.

However, I can easily get stuck in the same ruts, and we have only been together for three years and married for two years. I found this book a few months ago. I have barely touched the tip of the iceberg in flipping through it, but here's a sample:

94
Give her one Hershey's Kiss.
Give her one thousand Hershey's Kisses.

Remove all the little paper strips (that say "Kisses" on them) from a couple hundred Hershey's Kisses. Fill a little jewelry box with them. Wrap 'em up and present them to her.

Write a clever certificate explaining that the little paper slips are coupons
redeemable for one kiss each.

Not only are there 1001 ideas, but I think it inspires creativity and thinking outside the box when it comes to romance. Some ideas are far beyond my budget, and others are free. It is incredible the ideas you can come up with if you devote some time to it. (Since we don't all have a bunch of time, I'm recommending the book instead!)

If your husband complains about not being romantic naturally, get it for him. Take away his excuses! (Just don't tell your husbands I suggested it; I like them and still want to be their friend.)

It was $11.53 at Amazon. It was a great investment in my marriage. I look forward to using the ideas for a long time.

Transparency

I am preparing a workshop for the women's conference at our church next weekend. I am very excited to share and believe that God has a message He wants to share through me. However, I am thinking today about how hard it can be to be transparent in life as well as in a leadership role. It's even hard to share the blunt force of my true feelings with friends or my husband at times. Can he handle the ugliness of my feelings, my pain? Can they still love me when they see the unpretty parts?

Transparency is a gift we give. Often, when I give it, I receive it back as well. So I will step out, be transparent, and allow what others "intended to harm me" to be used for good (Genesis 50:20).

So be it.

Planning a Wedding...or Building a Marriage?

Wedding season is coming. I have been contemplating what to get for some of these couples. I hated getting a slew of gifts that weren't on my registry, I didn't need, couldn't figure out where to return, etc., so I am sympathetic to that perspective. I also know that they will receive many things to fill their home but not much to help their minds and hearts adjust to being a husband and wife. This is one of the best (if not the very best) books I have read on marriage. It challenged me and changed my thinking in many ways.

What if God created marriage to make you holy more than to make you happy?

I think I will throw this in the gift bag along with a cookie sheet or cake pan. I wonder which will do more good for their future?

I love Amie

I've intended to come back at random points in the past few months. I'm back because Amie tagged me. I needed to come back anyway. Thanks for the excuse, Amie.

The rules for this meme are as follows:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog; some random, some weird

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by linking to their names/blogs

4. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know they are tagged

I will do my best here to find 7 things of interest about me.

1. I love Hostess 100-calorie packs; specifically, the chocolate cake and cinnamon streusel ones. I eat one almost every day.


2. I bring my own ice to work. At some point, bags of ice in the freezer were nowhere to be found, and I like to drink my pop with ice. So I started filling Ziploc bags with ice in the morning and bringing it with me a few times a week. I don't think it's that weird, but when Bill made fun of me and my ice, I realized other people may see it as so. I'm not terribly concerned about it; I brought ice again today.


3. I am 30 years old and do not have a washer or dryer hooked up in my home. (That's not weird as much as it is very, very sad.)


4. I love "What Not to Wear." I constantly evaluate my wardrobe on the basis of "The Rules."


5. My sisters and I grew up playing church in our front yard. We sang worship and special music with the legs of our trampoline as microphones. Not the huge trampolines they have now, but the little ones with the super-short legs. I also preached and prayed. I guess it was a pre-cursor of things to come...


6. I always thought that my love of NASCAR and some other spectator sports would be a big "plus" in getting a man. After all, they love sitting on the couch with the remote watching sports all weekend, right? I found the one who does not. And, ironically enough, I am very grateful. He is creative and interesting and, although he boggles me with the things he comes up with, I am glad we don't obsess over football games or baseball stats or even NASCAR points. (Trust me, I have seriously lightened up on the NASCAR thing since being married to Matt. I even gave up the chance to see a race this year.)


7. I love pictures. I get pretty upset if an important occasion passes and I do not have a picture by which to commemorate it. I am usually willing to ask passing strangers to take a picture because the chance of not getting one at all is too much to risk. Thankfully, we have some pretty great pics taken by total strangers, such as this one from our second anniversary:

As for tagging people, I have no idea. I'll go with Haleigh and Mary. I know it's not seven, but it will have to do.

Donuts Rule

I just want to say that Dunkin' Donuts is awesome. The Boston Kreme is my favorite. My husband introduced me on our Chicago trip last year, and we have been best friends ever since. You should try it sometime.

Purple Weekend

This was my purple weekend. I won this book at a conference.

And I won this bathroom by having the best husband in the entire world.

Before:

Three days and very little sleep later:

He picked out all the fixtures without input - we had talked a little bit about it, but in a future, this is what I might want someday, kind of way. He even asked me while I was gone how tall I am. He was trying to decide where to place the wall sconces so I could get the best light for doing my makeup. Does it get any better than that?

Think about a few days without your spouse - even though you miss him or her, you try to think of the things you can do with a little alone time: read a book (or a magazine if you're my husband), watch your favorite TV shows, watch a movie he or she wouldn't like, eat what you want, follow your own schedule, work on your hobbies...all the stuff you have very little time for during a normal week. He gave up all those things plus a lot of the basics like food and sleep so he could finish this bathroom for me.

Do you know what he said? He knew that I wanted a finished room in our house, and since he knew the basement bathroom couldn't be completed in 3 days, he decided to do this room so I would have one room that is completely done. How amazing is that? He totally put himself in my shoes and did what he thought would make me happy. Holy cow - I knew I married an awesome man, but this is so over the top and amazing. He works so hard at his job that he's often pretty beat when he gets home. For him to set aside so much time to complete this room for me is beyond what I could have dreamed. He finished it from top to bottom: ceiling tiles, baseboards and all the trim, fixtures, a new half wall to hide the plumbing, new electrical and plumbing, new laminate hardwood-look flooring (I absolutely love it), new wall color...there's probably even more I'm not thinking even thinking of right now. That makes ME tired! And thanks to my wonderful father-in-law, Vern, for pitching in on Saturday to get it all completed before I came home!

Thank you, baby. I feel like I won the lottery for the greatest, most loving and giving husband that can be found. You inspire me to keep thinking up new, fun surprises to show how much I love you.

I suppose I have to finish soon. I could write about this forever. Here is the very awesome wall sconce he picked out:


It is all even cooler in person, so please come over and see it soon!

And here is my wonderful baby at 3:57 a.m. on Saturday morning (it's hard to see the time in the picture):


I couldn't ask for a better husband. You were SO worth waiting for!

My Office, Part 2

I took some pictures. I hope they turned out okay. This is my new office! I am so stressed today that I am not enjoying it very much, but it is a great office. And I like it very much. I just prefer to be putting on my workout clothes and walking out the stress in just a few minutes.

Change Can Be Good

I tend to resist change. But I moved to a new office this week (same workplace, just a new office :-), and I am absolutely loving it. I loved cleaning out the desk and making room for more stuff. I loved rearranging furniture and decor. I loved buying a new picture frame into which will go a collage of pictures from our recent vacation. I am (gasp) excited to be in my office! Not that I don't like my job, but it's been a while since I actually can't wait to get to work.

I am going to enjoy this for as long as it lasts. And hopefully I'll get a picture taken soon so you can see it, too!

Oh, Sweet Bliss

Vacation is long over, but it sure is fun to reminisce! So I'll do my best in summarizing the 12 days that we were gone. We'll see how far I get in this first post.

We flew into San Francisco and had quite an ordeal just getting to the car rental place, but we finally picked up our white Nissan Xterra. We really liked it, but we returned it on Tuesday in exchange for a little cheaper vehicle. It was definitely necessary for the off-roading we did, though! Anyway, we drove across the Bay Bridge and I got to take a bunch of pictures of the Port of Oakland for my husband. Only a few turned out, but there were a LOT of containers being loaded onto and off the ships. We hit the traffic jam of the year...it was crazy for a LLLOOONNNGGG way out of Oakland. We stopped in Tracy for some In-N-Out Burger. Have you been there? It's crazy good. By the time we got back on the road, the traffic had thinned out.

We stayed in Modesto on night one. We loaded up that night with road trip food and a cooler for our drinks. We planned on being in the mountains for a few days and didn't know what kind of food or how often we'd be able to find anything.

On Saturday, we drove to Jamestown to see Railtown 1897. Lots of movies ("Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again," "Back to the Future III," etc.) and TV shows have used the park to tape their train scenes. We rode the train and then took a tour of the roundhouse. (This is us at Railtown.)

We also visited Matt's cabin from when they lived out there in Long Barn, CA. That was the beginning of our journey across Sonora Pass. We got some beautiful pictures (see the last post), but the driving was pretty insane. Nightfall came about halfway through the Pass, so we spent a lot of the drive in the dark, which is pretty crazy when you have no idea what the drop off right next to you is like. I am glad I was driving - I get more scared when riding then driving.

Anyway, after discovering I have acrophobia (unlike him), we made it to Judy's Tahoe cabin. We were SO tired, and we had quite an ordeal just getting a cheeseburger at McDonald's (I think they were closed but forgot to turn off the menu board, so they made the burgers for the starving travelers.) We had the alarm code and punched it in, but then we set it off trying to find our way around (it's quite a big place). We figured out she had switched the "arm" and "disarm" codes around in her note - possibly on purpose. She's quite the practical joker. We decided not to figure out the hot water heater until the morning, so I washed my face in the most freezing water I have ever used in my life. And we fell blissfully asleep.

This is already too long, so I will have to continue with day 3 and on at another time.

Vacation!

I have been a blogging slacker, but I desperately want to write some things down about our vacation. At the very least, I'll post a few pictures and hopefully get some stuff written soon. Above is a location we found while driving across Sonora Pass (a.k.a. Insane, Crazy, Winding Highway to get across California). It was a beautiful drive while it was still light, and this area was gorgeous. We were finally able to watch some of our video last night. That was so much fun!!

This is from our dinner at Lou's Pier 47 Restaurant in San Francisco. It was a fun restaurant, very cute, and one of the pictures that we were able to get of both of us! Anyway, I will try to post more soon. Whatever "soon" means. It probably means "after VBS."

What Do I Do?

This is a funny question. People ask, "You're a children's pastor? So, what do you do during the week?" I try not to be insulted. :-) But seriously, I kind of wonder, too: what do I do? It varies so immensely based on the season, the activities that are going on, etc. And if the senior pastor asks you to do something, then you do it regardless of whether or not it's on your "job description." So...I thought I would take a sample day of yesterday and see what I actually DO.

• We are beginning to switch over to a new church management system. More than just a database, it will help us track volunteers, assign kids to classes/events, securely check them in and out, identify students by school/grade/birthdate, and a host of other items too detailed to list here. I am in charge of the implementation project with the awesome T as my sidekick (seriously - that's what they call it, a sidekick). We're very superhero-ish. Anyway, yesterday we had some problems entering data, so I worked on that. I also reviewed T's bunch of e-mails about a meeting we have scheduled this week to train data entry volunteers and attempted to line up child care for the meeting.


• I entered into this same program a list of as many schools as I could find in the phone book if I knew that we have children who attend there. I also set security rights for all the staff who are the only users we have entered at this point.


• I counted the offering from Sunday's kid's services.


• I cleaned up some curriculum that was returned to me and took it to a closet upstairs.


• I met with the leaders from our Sunday morning kid's church program. They have kicked off a new program in the past few weeks, and we talked about getting schedules put together for those volunteers. I helped them make one up in Excel and I will follow up with them next week to see if they were able to plug volunteers into all the spots as needed for the next 3 months.


• I updated a quarterly schedule of youth volunteers for my pre-school classes. Each quarter, I get new curriculum for these classes. I have to update and copy new schedules, list the quarterly Bible verses, schedule youth volunteers, assimilate and distribute the materials (6 separate sets of teachers during those 3 months), and create a quarterly calendar for the entire children's ministry with a note to parents regarding that quarter's lesson themes and other activities or news. I am going on vacation at the end of May, so I need to finish all this work ahead of my regular schedule.


• I made a few phone calls and sent e-mails to find substitutes for next month.


• I have a meeting on Tuesday, so I printed off some materials to go over with a new teacher so I would be ready to meet with her.


• I looked over the VBS volunteer list and considered who to ask for some of the empty positions still to be filled.


• Last year's VBS materials were on a hard drive that crashed, so I have to create any documents used from scratch. I began yesterday with the creating schedule for the week.

I don't know if that sounds like a day's worth of work or not. I may have done a few other things in there, but that is the bulk of what I can remember. Anyway, it seems as though it's never a regular "to do" list but rather a constantly revolving door through which many events and people pass. There is no "typical day" in ministry. Not that I have ever experienced, anyway.

The Great Getaway

We are beginning to plan our summer vacation! We have purchased our tickets and are going to spend 10 days in the San Jose/San Francisco area next month! I can't believe how quickly it is coming. Matt has a list a mile long of train and railroad-associated things to see and do. My list currently consists of malls and coffee shops to visit, but I hope to check out some of the tourism sites and find some other things that appeal to me. What I enjoyed so much about our honeymoon was the opportunity to just chill and relax - no pressure to go anywhere or do anything. Hopefully we can take at least a day to just do that. We are staying with some family friends of the Gidley's, and they have a separate guest home that will I'm sure be awesome! I've seen a few pictures - I'm not sure if they're still on Matt's website or not.

That is my exciting news - our first year of marriage was filled with so many fun trips and outings, and I'm looking forward to starting the second year off with a bang!

The more of this that happens on vacation, the better! Who wouldn't want to be doing this right about now? Bet it's not snowing there!

The First of Many

What a year of firsts! The first year of marriage has been just wonderful, and we celebrated our first anniversary on Sunday. It was so special to spend time over the weekend reminiscing about our wedding and everything surrounding it. We have done so much in this first year - it's really been full of a lot of fun trips and memories. God has blessed us incredibly. He has kept us healthy and provided for all our needs and given us the ability to travel and enjoy our "DINK" status. I have learned so much about my husband and about myself this year. I am determined to be a better wife in the second year than I was in the first. I am so excited to see what God will bring our way as we grow closer to Him and to each other.

Thanks for an amazing first year, baby. You have shown me more love than I ever imagined I would experience in this year, and I believe God has blessed me with the most incredible husband - even more than I could have asked for. I know the best is yet to come for us!

Awesome God

I don't know what else to say today. God is awesome. He did so many miracles this weekend in my life - every moment worked together and brought me to a place I have never been before with Him. I can't calm the excitement inside me. I feel like a different woman! I cannot fathom what He is going to do in my life that could be greater than this feeling, but I am reveling in every moment of it.

I'm also very glad that the super strong burning smell in my home this morning was not the house burning down. I forgot that when the weather gets warm, the Asian beetles get in the halogen lamp in our closet and they smell like the house is burning down. Thanks to my husband for driving all the way home to figure that out.