Just Hanging Around on a Thursday Night

The past few weeks we have had roofers overhead, even on Saturdays. The condo bee's usually prohibit Saturday work of any kind as not to disturb the weekends. This roofing work was scheduled to happen the week before Ike. All the supplies were unloaded one day and loaded up the next and stored in a warehouse for safety. The past few days there have been several times Buddy and I thought one of the guys might just fall through the roof and into the living room. On Monday the crane dropped something on the roof and the whole building shook. As loud as it has been, I have been able to sleep right through it in the afternoons. The sky lights have been repaired and cleaned. I thought the natural coating on them was some type of frosted Plexiglass. Nope it was just dirt that had accumulated on the outside all these years. We are greeted in the afternoons by warm sunlight in the halls. Also the fragrance of fresh cut wood is still in the air. The hallway's fragrance makes me think I have moved into a new home. Reality hits when I open the front door.

This week we in the Ministries Suite have been treated to free lunch both times by the Preschool Ministry. On Monday for lunch we had leftovers from the parent dedication on Sunday. Light lunch fare, cheese, crackers, fruit and veggies. OK, there were a lot of cookies too that were very tasty. Today, we had the leftovers from Director's meeting last night. So we were treated to fajitas and all the trimmings. Delicious! Free food is one of the many unsung bonuses of working at a church.

I had the first major test of dealing with stress yesterday. I found myself quite by accident in a situation where I reacted to a reactor. Midway through, I felt my heart beating so hard, I wouldn't have been surprised if I could have actually seen the beats through my jacket. I'll be honest, I was pretty steamed. Two out of three body stresses showed up, coughing and swollen legs and ankles. This morning at 3:00 am when I woke up, I rehearsed the event in my mind again, mind you with background music from KHCB playing, No Not One, Jesus Cares for Me, Take Your Troubles to the Lord, and Just as I am, I could not go back to sleep. Since I have been listening to a series of messages on gratitude, I decided I better start thanking God and thinking on gratitude things. God reminded me that about 5 or 6 years ago I made a quality decision not to argue or wrangle with words anymore. No brag just fact, I was VERY good at this. He began to reveal to me how much easier it has been for me to practice less stress now because of obeying Him those years ago. Yesterday, I didn't get into word wrangling with this person, but I reacted because I felt I was being unjustly accused of something...and dang it, if we just didn't have a Sunday School lesson on this and what we can learn from Paul. It was a wake up call for me physically and spiritually I know that I will stay in peace if my mind stays on Jesus.

I am keeping a count of extra mail pieces and catalogues that bombard our mailbox every day. Most of the stuff lands in the garbage or in the shredder. In the past week and a half we have received almost 175 catalogues! That is just a week and a half!!! We are still in November. The number of mailings from area churches has shot up as well. If we were so inclined, I believe we could find a Christmas program to attend every night for the first half of December. In today's mail we have received offers to join health clubs, one of the health clubs is in Dallas. Nope, a little too far out of the neighborhood. Magazine offers are plentiful too. Just this week addressed to me was the offer of taking Ode, the magazine for intelligent optimists. I wasn't aware there were unintelligent optimists...maybe this magazine has mistakenly appraised my intelligence. If I subscribe my world will be opened to food for optimists, the search for ethical bananas, what is to be learned from termites, how to free my eyes, and why 10 million giant crabs have been crawling south for the last 40 years. I was happy to see I would learn that God is not dead. That made me very happy intelligent optimists know this.

Roy has a photo shoot tonight at church for the Christmas program. He is a ticket taker on stage and a shepherd. Those are two different scenes. Although, maybe having someone charge entrance into the manger area might have some post modern commentary on social, ecomoic and spiritual matters in this fast changing world. I have $40.00 in Nord Notes burning a hole in my pocket. I know what I would like to go buy. Yet, I really need to mop the bathrooms sometime this weekend. What will win out? I don't know.... Stay tuned to find out if I am an intelligent shoppist or an intelligent moppist.