November 16 - The whole family spent the day at a youth group service day. Crazy busy. We put up a ton of Christmas trees at a local thrift store. The trees will be moved out to their sales floor as the weeks go by and they sell more and more trees. Our youth also enjoyed trying on clothes and creating crazy outfits. Think high school boys wearing knee length leopard-print dresses with thigh high slits and yellow terry cloth, zippered bathrobes belted with a narrow, red patent-leather belt and covered with two adult-sized clip-on ties and a short, cuffed sleeved, blue linen 90's era blazer. We had a great time and even managed to get quite a lot done!
The highlight of my day came in the form of a plastic church that has stained glass windows, a light that plugs in and a music box that plays "Silent Night." My family has had one since my father was a child. He grew up with it in his house at Christmas and so did I. I have many wonderful memories of sitting in a dark living room, squinting at tree lights, listening to the church play a tinkling version of "Silent Night." I can't possibly explain just how thrilled I was to find one for four dollars for my house. Niko will get to grow up with similar memories as I did!
The day concluded with sermon writing. Success!
November 17 - Taught Sunday School and then it felt like the Hope show for worship. The theme of the service was prayer so I led the congregational prayer, dedicated a junior high offering project, dedicated the congregational offering, preached the sermon, and did the benediction. There were a few tears during a story I shared in the sermon but I expected that. Overall, it went well.
After church we headed home for lunch and a nap before heading to a community Thanksgiving meal and service. We filled up on fabulous food and then enjoyed some bluegrass and gospel music while waiting for the service to start. As a community pastor I had a small part in the service. It was a long but good day.
November 18 - Monday's are often full of meetings for me and yesterday was no exception. I was grateful that Niko took a nice long nap because I took one too. Nothing really unusual happened for a Monday but after last week I could have used a Monday off. The nap helped as did a slower day today.
November 19 - Today was a pretty good day. I made supper for a first year teacher at Monty' s school who has been joining us fairly regularly on Tuesday night's. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and applesauce. We also had ice cream and apple crunch for dessert.
Niko had his first bubble bath tonight. At first he wasn't very excited about it but he ended up having quite a bit of fun with it.
All in all a pretty good few days. There are few days when I am not absolutely exhausted at the end of a day right now but I really wouldn't trade the time with Niko and productive work that I enjoy for anything! So many, many things to be grateful for as we near Thanksgiving! I am blessed.
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