 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Halloween was fun. We went trick-or-treating and also passed out candy from a friend's spooky 150-year-old house in town. My family had a lion, black cat, zebra, otter, and princess. Had an animal theme going, not sure what happened... Every year this week, the big Episcopalian church next to my work has a HUGE used book sale. It's an all-week sale with literally thousands of used, even rare, books of all types that raises money for a wide variety of community charities. This year's finds include the Redwall set, and a large 1986 picture book of Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker's ministry before the Great Fall. I have fond memories of visiting their Heritage USA as a teenager. That was also the 1st trip my future wife and I took together, about a month or 2 after we met. So, that picture book is like a scrapbook for me, since I don't really have any pictures left from those trips. Unfortunately, the former 2,300 acre property has mostly been divided up into luxury subdivisions. A local church turned most of the old Grand Hotel into their sanctary, but they remodeled and still rent out some of the original rooms for conferences and retreats. My 2-1/2 year old son has the flu. His doctor can't confirm or deny whether it's H1N1. It hasn't really been severe, but we keep the symptoms under control with Children's Tyenol, Motrin, and homeopathic cough syrup. The girls were sick too with coughing & congestion, but they didn't have the high fever, so who knows? Please pray for healing and a speedy recovery, Speaking of kids, my son provides a good excuse to play toddler games & watch toddler shows. One of my favorites so far is "Yo Gabba Gabba", kind of like a funky, hip-hop Sesame Street. The main characters are funky costumes, incluing a red rubber Cyclops, a pink bi-pedal flower, a yellow "magic" robot, a short green furry ?????, and (my favorite) a blue Cat-Dragon. There's lots of dancing and hip-hop & techno kid's songs. Mark Mothersbaugh, the founder of Devo, makes regular appearances, and I love some of their sayings, like "There's party in my tummy!". Next week Sunday the 15th I'll be preaching at that Mission again, where last time the "prophets" kept interrupting me to tell me what God thought of my sermon. That was disconcerting & frustrating, but I like what the place is trying to do in their community. I discussed the issues with the leadership & I think we reached an understanding. Hopefully, it goes smoother this time. Current Mood:  nostalgic
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I was supposed to preach this past Sunday for the first time this year. I thought it'ld be very satisfying, but it turned out to be frustrating & not satisfying at all. There were only 8 adults & 8 kids at the little Mission. Don't know why, but I thought there'ld be more. The woman leader was like, "Mark's sharing on unity today, but I feel we should turn these chairs around in a circle & do it as a group discussion." I was expecting to preach! From a pulpit! I was not prepared at all for that format, but I thought I can do this. I do similar things at cons all the time. The only other man there didn't say a thing, but the women kept interrupting. I could barely get through a sentence. Most furs & geeks are fairly quiet by comparison. Do you know how hard it is to teach/preach that way? I had been ASKED to preach on unity, which I mistakenly thought everyone would agree on. One woman didn't like what she called "false unity". She felt that the "true" church (i.e. Pentecostal) should not compromise on the Holy Spirit and try to unite or even fellowship with mainline (i.e. non-Pentecostal) churches. She said that "God says He's grieved by this". The church leadership let her rant, perhaps to not offend her. Of course, I completely disagree with her, but I believe in freedom of speech, even in church. It sure makes it hard to preach & I felt very unsatisfied. I deeply regret giving up my own church, but it was driving us to bankruptcy. Yesterday my girls had the day off, so we headed off to the Columbus Zoo. I wanted to spend some time with the otters. We left home with a little sun, but by the time we got to the city, it was drizzling & raining. It would have been miserable with kids, so we went to Chuck E. Cheese at Sawmill instead. The girls had fun, but I still got no satisfaction... In fact, the trip to Columbus was so stressful for me with 4 kids that I'm wondering if it's worth going to Pittsburgh WPAFW next weekend or if can I leave the kids at home... Just a few minutes ago, I also learned that I did not get the Technical Lead job here at work. Still no satisfaction... Current Music: I Can't Get No Satisfaction
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It happens every year. I look forward to Anthrocon and try making plans, but something comes up and I have the weekend from you-know-where instead. 2 years ago it was the camping trip from you-know-where. Last year I preached the revival/campmeeting from you-know-where. This year was no different. Quite simply, I had some unexpected expenses and just didn't have the money to make the trip. Instead, we had a weird, horrible weekend. My attitude, as well as the attitude of the rest of the family, was pretty bad as a result. It started off great because we finalized the adoption of our 2-year-old son, but it quickly went downhill afterwards. My laptop appears to be having progressive failure of the main Vista partition. We were worried for a while because we had just downloaded 100's of pictures from the camera, but I was able to boot to the command prompt & copy them to a flash drive. I have the skills & tools to fix it, but it's been slow -- both the laptop and the fixing process. I'm already impatient of the time involved and I'm ready to just pay someone to restore it Then Friday morning, my 14-year-old accidentally stabbed my 11-year-old's foot with the sharp prong of a 5-pronged cultivator--think a straight rake with heavy, twisted prongs for tearing up dirt (or feet!). So we spent most of the afternoon in an express care clinic -- no stitches but still unpleasant for everyone. Saturday evening my big black Lab dog disappeared. We walked up & down our road, looked in ditches & ravines, and hiked deep into the woods several times in case he was hurt or caught on something. Most of the time it's great being surrounded by 100's, probably 1,000's, of acres of rugged, hilly woods, but it's a nightmare when you're searching for a lost dog. I got a 6-inch-long cut on my leg and I'm still sore. It's Monday morning & we still haven't found him. We're going to call the humane society when they open at noon to see if he was turned in there. Their hours were heavily cut due to budget cuts. It's been a depressing, stressful July 4th weekend. So how was your weekend??!! Current Mood:  depressed
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Last week's trip to Michigan was a lot of fun. The 3-bedroom rental cottage was only a few hundred feet & 50 steps from a long sandy beach. The water temperature was only in the upper 50's and the high air temp in the 70's, but I had to play in the water anyway. Most of the time I was either at the beach or visiting my old 'hoods where I grew up. Except for a couple of spectacular thunderstorms at the end of the week, the weather was great. One small issue is that I forgot about the Michigan mosquitoes. That part of Michigan has a lot of inland lakes & wetlands so we have lots of natural mosquito habitats. We used a lot of repellent that week, but we still all had a lot of bites. My 2-year-old is doing better. The doctors are still not sure why he gets the blisters & infected sores, but we all think they might be allergic reactions (like hives) to something, possibly bug or mosquito bites. Either way he will be ours forever in 1 week. Thurs July 2nd is the adoption finalization. We're not having a single big adoption party this year like we did for the girls. Instead we're celebrating on our different trips with the family there -- Michigan, Pittsburgh next week, Tennessee next month. I was looking forward to Anthrocon, but according to SwiftFox's latest LJ, I'm already missing it. ;-( 2 childhood idols died yesterday. Growing up in the 70's/80's, I've watched both of them over the years. R.I.P. Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett. Current Music: TAPS
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rev_marcus's journal
Previous
tired