I did it.

I finally finished changing the spark plugs and wires in my big car.

I know you're asking, "Why didn't C do that?"

My simple answer, C has not one "handy-man" bone in his body. He does ok at the plant - with the machines he works with. But not at home.

My neighbors were getting a kick out of watching me crawl into the engine of my car. At one point, I was laying on the car with my feet off the ground. I'm sure it was very funny and scary to watch.

Funny, in the fact that it looked like the engine of my car was eating me, and scary, in the fact that my hinder parts were sticking out in rare form.

I'm sure you're wondering why all the rush to get this car fixed.

Well, C informed me that they're switching him to second shift but that he did turn in a request to remain on third. He still must go to second, but his supervisor and the 3rd shift mgr are trying hard to get him back on 3rd.

So, he will probably take the little car and I'll take the big car. It's been really nice, these last few months. We've been sharing the little car because the big car was having issues. Now, I'm trying to fix the issues because we won't be able to share a car anymore.

Pray for me. I'll be calling my real mechanic to see if he can work the big car in this afternoon or tomorrow. All I know - it needs to be on the road by Monday. That's when the big "schedule shift" starts.

Pray for C. Another guy from our church started right after C. They've done the same thing to him. He said the adjustment from 3rd to 2nd isn't fun. He's been on 2nd for almost a month. He told C that it was veeeeeeeeeeeery sllllllllllllllllllllllowly getting easier.

I'll let you know how the car thing works out...

Where was I?......

Oh, yes. I was telling you about the long weekend, but I've had a few long weeks at The Office where I've not been able to finish my story.

I know you're terribly distraught.

Anyway, I did manage to change clothes in the 2 minutes I had left after walking from the van into the room where my clothes were. I did manage to change and be out for starting time. A little (read: lot) sweaty perhaps, but there and ready to lead congregational singing while being out of breath. It's a vision of loveliness, isn't it? (Do you think I can't hear you laughing?)

The thought for the weekend was "Farther On - I Can Only Imagine", and it became more than I could imagine that weekend. We started the evening off singing "The Unclouded Day". You've never heard it sung til you hear 200+ women singing it in 3-part harmony. Wow! What a sound.

We had some special music by one of our new good friends, Patty Ross. She wrote her own songs - and played them on a 12-string guitar, no less. They were beautiful.

The girls from my youth group did a fantastic job, too. I'm so proud of them.

Kyla was the speaker for this meeting and she was truly led by the Spirit. She just laid out what God wanted her to say, and we had one person go to the altar. Her mom goes to our church. She'd gone to church when she was younger and stopped coming. I was surprised to see her there, but I'm glad she was. She rededicated her life and committed to raise her daughter in church. What a big step for her.

After the altar call was over, we broke for light refreshments. By this time, it's about 9:15. That's almost 3 hours of church. It didn't seem like it at all.

When we came back from the break, there was a slideshow of cross and sky pics. This was one of Bop's projects. She'd gone to different churches in the area, as well as any road trip that was taken, and took pics of crosses on the outsides of buildings, crosses that were standing in the "church yards", windows that had crosses in them, she even went to the cemetary and took pics of tombstones. (You get some of the best cross and church pics from the cemetary.) Well, while these were rolling thru like a slideshow, we'd picked some scripture about the cross and had different women read these passages. Then, the slideshow was turned off, and a recording was played. It was a man reading scripture in monologue style, telling the story of how man fell, God sacrificed Christ to be the redemption for man's sin, and how we can take all our cares and lay them at the feet of Jesus for Him to take care of. During this recording, there comes a black-robed individual dragging a cross up the aisle. When the voices on the recording came to where Christ was crucified, the black-robed person laid the cross on the floor and drove spikes into it. Then, some music started to play - the first song was titled, "Nail it to the cross". One by one, the ladies came and nailed their prayer requests to this cross. After the ladies were finished, the black-robed person went into the room behind the platform. Then, a white-robed person came out with a huge, red piece of fabric and draped it over the cross.

Women were shouting and praising the Lord. It was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever been a part of. After we were done praying for the requests we nailed to the cross, we dismissed for the night.

Stay tuned to find out how Saturday went...

I'M BACK!!!

Where to begin? Hmmmmm. (This might get a little long - sorry!)

#1 - Long weekend.

I spent the long weekend working on the Ladies Meeting that was coming up. Lots of time spent at the sewing machine. I finished my costume and a couple other projects for the upcoming meeting. Then, we (Mom, her BFF - Bop, C, and me) spent all day Monday at church decorating. Bop & C took care of the fellowship hall (seperate building). Mom & I worked on the main building.

Lots of wreaths, flowers, potpourri, and such flying around in the sanctuary. It turned out beautiful, if I do say so myself. There was also much ladder lugging. Do you know how heavy a petrified wooden step-ladder is? Waaaaaaaaay to heavy.

Mom fixed a huge flower arrangement for the top of the piano (baby grand in the sanctuary) and one for the communion table, but they needed something between these arrangements and the wood. Our sanctuary has dark wood in it. The piano is kinda dark, but the communion table is cherry wood with mahogany stain. So, Mom bought 2 tablecloths in a country blue (the sanctuary has blue carpet and pews) , one was draped across the top of the piano and set the arrangement on top; the other, I cut about 15" off the end. It became a table runner for the communion table. The rest of it was used as a regular table cloth for the registration table.

We absolutely wore ourselves out on Monday. Now, I know you're wondering, did you cook out or anything, seeing as how it was Labor Day and all? No. We had a delicious meal, which was picked up at Subway on the way back from one of the numerous trips to Wal-Mart. Rest assured, we did not starve.

#2 - Practice with the girls from the youth group.

I can't remember if I told you that I was going to have the girls from the youth group help me with the theme song for the Ladies Meeting, but that was the plan.

I was going to use all 5 of them to help me. Then, one of them (SG), her mom had to have emergency surgery. She was out. Down to 4. Then, I got a call from a different one (S). Her parents decided to have her (and her younger brother) pick one sport to play per school year. (It makes sense to me. You can't be in 684 places at one time, so they get to pick one.) Well, she picked volleyball. It just so happens that this is volleyball season. I told her to go have fun. She's out. Down to 3. Yet again, my phone rang. It was B's mom. She explained to me that, even though B told me she would do it, she gets stage fright - so she won't be there, either. She's out. Down to 2. I told E and M that it was up to them. They told me they were up to the challenge.

#3 - Friday.

I left work about noon-ish. Then I stopped to pick up some ham salad, pick up C, drop off a deposit at the bank, pick up some lunch, and get to church as early as possible. We got there about 1:30. Which was good considering that there was a FOOTBALL! GAME! ON! SATURDAY! And there were only 9,670,000,000 people in our city - all for the game. You could say that traffic was bad. Actually, that would be an understatement.

Kyla came down to set up her stuff. We did a sound check while she was there - boy, did we sound good!! When we got done, she left to get a little rest, a bite to eat and the diva look going. Then about 5:30, Mom came back. No sooner did she set her purse down, her cell rang. One group of ladies (from a town about 2 hours-ish away) called and said that their bus was broke down at their hotel in the other end of town. They needed a ride. So, I asked Mom for her keys and took her minivan. (I would've drove my car, but I only have a small car.) By the time I pulled onto the parking lot with those women, I had 3 minutes to start time. Talk about pushing it.

To be continued....

Well, I'm outta here!!

I'm out of The Office until Tuesday and one week til the Women's Meeting.

Lots of stuff to do this weekend.

EVERYBODY HAVE A FANTABULOUS LONG WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?????

I'm not sure.

JUST KIDDING!!!

I've been right here at The Office. I've just had some real work that needed done.

I know all of you are wondering about "The Trip". We went, we saw, we even bought the T-shirt. That's it in a nutshell.

Ok, I'll elaborate.

We left the church later than planned. (Big surprise - NOT!) Anyway, we went one hour down the road and stopped for dinner. (What do you expect out of a van full of Baptists?) Then, we hit the road. We arrived at the hotel at about 11:30 on that Friday night. There were a few that were ready for bed. We did have 2 girls that stayed up til 3 or 4 am and the alarm went off about 6:30. Those 2 girls stayed awake the whole day! How do they do that?!

When the description for the hotel says "Deluxe Breakfast" we assumed it would be like the regular breakfasts that the hotels give you when you purchase a nights stay at their hotel. No such luck, but there was a McStablishment right across the street. We're in luck!

We took our time getting everywhere. Kinda. We got to the zoo and took the big loop around. It was a little bigger than what I remembered. (Well, in all fairness, when I was there before, half of the zoo was closed for remodeling. Most everything was open for this trip.) We spent about 2-1/2 hours there. We could've stayed a little longer, but we were trying to make the aquarium by 2. Some of my girls were taking pics with everything they saw. E & K were hilarious. Cracked me up somthing fierce!

The aquarium was too cool!!! At the end of the first section, there was a "Red Sea" exhibit. There was this little girl standing in front of this tank. As I passed, she said "LOOK! THERE'S DOREY! but where's Nemo?". It was the cutest thing. Well, upon further investigation of other tanks, we found Nemo. He was cute!

One of the really cool things about the aquarium was the "tunnel" style hallways. The walls and celing were a really heavy plexiglass. It was really cool to "walk through water". In the middle of the second section, they had an alligator pit. YOU WALKED ACROSS THE ALLIGATOR PIT ON PLEXI FLOORING!!!!! It was kinda creepy. They had the same type of plexi in the floor when you walked through the "big tank" tunnel. Really neat! That's where we found Mr. Ray! They have sting rays in the big tank with some different breeds of sharks and a couple of shark rays. They were really cool!! (At one point in the big tank tunnel, I heard myself singing: "Let's name the zones, the zones, the zones...". It was very scary!!!)

At the end of the aquarium tour, they had a shark petting area. They also had this scale you could sit on and it would tell you what shark you would be based on your weight. Yeah, we didn't sit on it! I really don't care what kind of shark I would be. And in actuallity, I very well might have turned into one if I'd have sat on that thing. It wouldn't have been pretty.

Anyway, I'll be posting pics when I get copies of them from E & K.

SLACKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I know I'm a total slacker!!!! I've been busier than a one-legged man in a back-side kicking contest, one-arm paper hanger, and...well, you get the idea.

Anyway, I've also been working on some other projects. Stuff to do with the kids during youth meeting, stuff for the women's meeting that I usually just help with but am now doing a whole host of things, and generally losing my mind. =) I hope you understand.

Kids Stuff:
We're taking the official "Summer Trip" this Saturday. We're going to go jump off a cliff the Cincinnati Zoo and the Newport Aquarium. I think they will have loads of fun! This trip does include an overnight stay. "THANK YOU, YO BOB!" for thinking of the people who would be doing all the driving. Although, I've done it before. Drive 3 hours, walk around in the heat all day while the kids get baked on crazy rides that would make you throw up dinner from 2 decades ago, pile back into the van, stop at "The Golden Hog Trough" on the way home, deposit children at the correct address, meander your way to your house, careen the van into our parking spot, pile into our house, take out contacts that are permantly sealed to your eyeballs, fall in the bed, and die......until morning. Then, you've got to get up and get ready for morning worship service and are expected to be in the "oh, so holy" vein. (Man, what run-on sentences you have! Says the big, bad wolf.)

WHATEVER!!! This trip works out really well. Every place we were going to go (we trimmed it from 4 different locations to visit down to 2 different locations - I was proud of them) opened at 9am-ish and everything was closed by 6. Ummmm, ok. So, out of the last 6 or 7 years we've been taking them on trips, this will be the first that we'll be getting to bed about the same time as normal! I'm liking it!!!!

Women's meeting:
My mom is the president for the WV State Women Active for Christ. Which means I get to help with the ladies retreat that will happen in about 3 weeks. The theme for this fall's meeting is "Farther On - I Can Only Imagine" and will be all about Heaven. Mom asked me to sing "I Can Only Imagine" for the meeting. I decided to spice things up a little by having the girls from my youth group doing the sign language to the song while I'm singing it. That should be good.

Mom and I went shopping last night. We bought some fabric to make a drape for the top of the baby grand in the sanctuary and a table runner for the communion table. Those will look nice!

Then, while in deep discussion with Mom about all things retreat-ish, she told me that she hadn't talked to anybody about doing a skit for the Saturday morning session. I offered a suggestion that maybe she give somebody an idea like doing commerical spots. Like for Philadelphia Cream Cheese "It's so heavenly, it's almost sinful!" kinda thing. So, since I came up with the idea, I'm going to work it out with Em. Oh, what fun. (It's kinda like slave labor, but not.) KIDDING!!!

I'm also in charge of the spoken word service (I stole the idea from Boomama's church. We did one last year and it tore the place up real good.). This will be interesting. I'm going to have about 3 weeks to get it all, and everyone who is going to participate, together. Lots of fun stuff!

Well, I think I'm tired of rambling, and I'm sure that you're much too busy to stay here much longer (that's why you're "doing reasearch online" right now, isn't it? Ok, if you say so.). So, I'm going to end this fun-fest. I'll be back at "the next appointed" bloggity time (we Baptists always refer to service times as "the next appointed time". You'll catch on quick.).

Oh, the amount of links and parenthasis' (I'm not sure I even spelled that right. I used spell check and it gave me 3 different possibilities. I don't know - that's why I'm asking you, stupid computer.) in this paragraph.

SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!

The store is now closing please take all purchases to the check out registers.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOMEBODY STOP ME, PLEASE!!!!!!!

They've found me!!!!!

Yes, they have! The kids from my youth group have found me - well, at least one of them. The comments from the last post are from one of my kids.



She's too funny!



We (me & C) have a joke with the girls in the group. "If you line them up, what do you get? A wind tunnel!!!" I hope they all know we're kidding. Sometimes they search for the answers to your question on the celing, but they're my girls.

I'm kinda like a momma bear with the kids in my youth group. I just love them like that. I hope they all know that. ;)