The start of a great weekend

What a different attitude this weekend as compared to last! This a.m. I welcomed an e-mail from Jen P. regarding VBS last week and our head count and demographics, etc. Victory's daytime VBS which also had a fee charged, I believe of $25 each child, had 20 kids. Good Shepherd's VBS which was free and in the evenings had an average of 35 kids nightly, with about 40 families represented, the majority of them being non-members. This is not to say the children are unchurched, but at least all of those attending heard the stories about Jesus and his saving work for them, which is the measurement to be used in addition to the numbers. At Victory, they reached out to many of their VPK students/families through the VBS and have recognized new members via their VPK program.

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During this week I have been working on the Flock Talk which seems like be shorter than usual given there is little going on, except for VBS and the preschool anniversary. Most programs are on recess for the summer leaving little to report on. Next month will be busier as programs get up and running, Bible studies resume, Sunday school gets underway, and so on. When there are fewer articles to post, I will often use photos to speak, but then it is difficult for some readers to open in their e-mail. The copied versions of the newsletter have the photos included but in black and white only, so it loses something. It is a delicate balance, to be sure!

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This weekend is my opportunity to serve by vacuuming the church which I will be doing when done with this posting. My plan is to put on my swimsuit under my clothes so that when I get home I can immediately get ready for the pool, as it might rain this afternoon. Brenda N. is coming over to enjoy some poolside fun with me and I will make an exception regarding the sun not shining. Usually I will not enjoy the pool if the sun is gone but Brenda might like that better since her skin is fair. I will also take my sun screen along down to the pool in case she needs some, and might take a dose or two for myself. Tomorrow I am going Victory with Justin, the day before his birthday, but will not expect him to be available for anything afterward. There is a pot luck taking place after worship and then a meeting but I likely won't stay after the luncheon.

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Yesterday I went to Office Max after lunch at La Napolera to get the compressed gas and to look at floor mats for under my desk. An employee tried to help me with this, showing me, of course, the wood floor-looking mat which was about twice the price of the clear plastic one. Fortunately he loaded the plastic mat into the cart but I had to unload it into the car myself. It did not remain in its rolled position and in fact took over the whole back of my car! I could not see out my back window, so I pulled over in the lot and wrestled it down lower, yikes! I sent Justin a text message asking him to stop over on his way home after work to carry it upstairs for me, which he did. Since the mat has the lip on it, which would be where one would put their feet under a normal desk, this would not work on mine. However, I had a brilliant idea of putting the mat under the desk, the whole desk, leaving enough of the plastic sticking out for the chair. And it worked! Justin held up the desk as I slid the plastic pad underneath. And then picked it up again because I needed the edges of the plastic to align perfectly with the boards on the floor. He knew that the minute he saw it and did not hesitate one second in picking the desk edge up again. Justin told me a little joke he heard about OCD-----a true OCD person would call it CDO, to make it alphabetical!!! We all have a few things about which to be quirky and that is just one of mine. I CAN mount my photos crookedly in my scrapbooks and do so regularly!

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After Office Max I was planning to go to Home Depot to get storage bins which are being advertised on the radio at $4.44 but Justin was coming to get that chair pad out of the car. So, another day for the bins, perhaps after cleaning the church. Justin had a few minutes before he had to leave (he was holding a party for himself at Ron's house last night) so I made sure to be home when he swung by. He also moved the leftover floor boards to the storage cubbie in the elevator lobby and reinstalled the cover on the ceiling vent in the hall bath after the leak incident. I am going to get some paint for the ceiling in the bedroom hallway and the hall bath, and he peeled a nice strip for me to use for matching. There had been a leak awhile ago which caused the paint to bubble and I just helped it along a bit. Now, it needs a putty knife or a blade to remove the rest of it in that area so Justin can repaint. The ceiling is low enough there that he likely won't even need a stool to reach it. He didn't need the stool in the bathroom for the fan, either, it was simply a reach for him. Humpf!

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Later on last evening I went up to Great Hang Ups to see the 'Dueling Demos of Donna and Dee: Part Deux'. Dee and Donna Grasso, set up their easels in the front window of the shop and folks could sit on chairs in a semi-circle to watch them paint. There were about 4-5 people there when I left and I do hope that more came later. They are doing it again on Sunday afternoon and we'll see if I go back again or head to the pool. After the demo, I went to the pool and found some folks with whom to enjoy the evening.

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Penny was there with her visiting family so I did not crash her party. They had eaten already, since I was 'late' in arriving. Some of the others had gone in already and others did not come out. I did set up camp with Randy, the guy who last year kept after me to sing torch songs as he played the piano at The Club during Happy Hour, and his lovely wife, Carol. I had spent part of Saturday evening with them last weekend, and it was nice to hang with them last night again. We had such a lovely visit, talking about travels in the Mediterranean as well as traveling to Fleming Island! Carol has a mental block when it comes to driving from north Orange Park to Fleming Island but no problem riding the trains all over England! We had a good laugh about that!

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She was telling about having boxes of personal papers in her trunk which she had taken to work to put through the shredder, but realized the documents and such were too new to be ground up. Less than two years old and such. Carol said she has a checklist (oooh, I love checklists!) of what to keep and how long, and what to get rid of from our personal records. She is going to make a copy of it to share with me. We laughed about the affection I have for long distance phone bills from 10 years ago, as she lost her mom in April and has been going through all her parents' paperwork and such since then. My theory, then, was a good one, about if I died this weekend, how would anyone go through those old papers and make sense from them? I must make sense of them myself long before my time to go home comes.

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At the table next to ours was my new friend, Mary Lew, who also had friends over, including one man from Mexico. Not sure how she knew him, I will have to ask her Tuesday. But she also introduced me to her gentleman friend who is an evangelist of some sort, with his adopted son, who celebrated his 22nd birthday poolside. Mary Lew brought me yet another book which she claims I will read in a day and a half! It is by Nora Ephron and is about women aging, called: "I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman". Carol and I both feel it will be a hoot to read, as this is something many woman complain about. I love it that Mary Lew thought to share this with me. I sense a conspiracy in people trying to make me read again!!! And watch movies, as Mary Lew gave me a bag of old movies last weekend, and Carol is bringing me one this weekend, called "Tea with Mussolini" which was filmed in Florence. Nice! I am much better about watching a movie than reading. There is a "Seinfeld" episode where George joins a reading club and finds out he hates to read! Really? Instead of reading the book, "Breakfast at Tiffany's", he tries to rent the movie....It is already rented to another family, so he sneaks a look at their address from the video rental store and goes to their home to watch with them. Only in Seinfeld would this happen. When it comes to book club meeting time, he totally blows it because evidently the movie and the book do not match. No book club for me either, because I am so lame!