Good Morning!
What should we talk about today?
Quote of the Day
“Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.”
Billy Graham
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Since it’s George Harrison’s birthday, I guess some Beatles is in order.
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QoD
What did you do that was fun this past weekend?
Wandering Views 
QoD. For fun? Nothing. I have a sinus drainage that has been a nusiance all weekend.
But we did go to a “Spiritual Formation Weekend” at the Methodist Church. It was led by William Paul Young, the guy who wrote The Shack. It was interesting. He says “The Shack” is autobiographica. He had a difficult life. At least until he wrote his books.
Maybe more later. I need to get to the Y for now.
😦
I feel ROTTEN. Not sick. It’s the sinuses. I was awake over two hours last bight because of it. But I’m keeping on today.
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My answer to AJ’s song of the day
I think I might need some scuba gear to get to my truck this morning
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I wouldn’t exactly call it “fun” but we have a Prayer Shawl Ministry at church and on the fourth Sunday of each month those of us who participate meet after the late service to pray, crochet, and chat. Due to other commitments, there were only two of us yesterday and we ended up sharing past experiences where we can look back and see God’s hand in how things unfolded. It was quite uplifting. And we had a powerful sermon yesterday – our Pastor is preaching on the life of Abraham.
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I am fixing tilapia for our lunch. Someone I work with has said she will not eat the stuff because she knows too much about it. Are there foods you feel that way about? When I was young rumors would go around about how McDonald’s used worms in their hamburgers. Also, I heard things back then about KFC. I guess if we knew too much about anything on our plates we could find a reason not to eat it. Now there’s a diet for ya!
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Janice! I bought frozen tilapia at Publix yesterday! So how are you fixing it?
Not that it was that much fun but I cleaned up the alcove that I used as an office when I worked from home. It had become a catch all for any and everything. I could barely get into the space. I threw away three garbage bags of paper and junk yesterday. I cleaned the house and wiped a lot of thinkgs down with Clorox or Lysol wipes. I also gagged, choked, and almost threw up cleaning out Moe’s litter box. The house is clean for the patient to come home. He was walking his rounds of the hospital floor last night. They put off a decision of whether he gets out today or tomorrow until this morning. I have a sales meeting at work so I am going on in. From work it is almost closer to the hospital and I may as well not burn the time.
Linda, what exactly is a Prayer Shawl Ministry?
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Kim, those of us who crochet or knit make shawls. They are available (inconspicuously in the narthex) for anyone in the church to give to relatives, friends, or neighbors who are experiencing grief, lonliness, pain, or even joy (several have gone to new mothers). We attach a nice note card that explains that our group prays for the recipient and intends for the shawl to symbolize a warm, loving hug from our congregation. They are well-received and we who make them enjoy trying out new patterns, sharing old favorites, and getting together once a month for fellowship.
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Sounds like a great ministry.
So there is a QofD for everyone. What is something special your church does that you like.
We fund several missionaries and a school in Africa. We also help with charities our church members are involved in like a drug rehab program that one of our members is the director of. We also do Waterfront Rescue Mission and we have a Men’s Barn Ministry where the men of the church get together one Thursday a month for hamburgers and fellowship. So many churches have forgotten about the men.
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QoD: I had to work most of the weekend, but managed to throw an Oscar party for some friends and family last night. We recorded it and started it an hour in so we could skip commercials.
It was a costume party, costumes from a nominated movie. With my hair I could have been Anne Hathaway from Les Miz or Martin Freeman from The Hobbit. I chose Bilbo 😉
Btw, I said I would never watch the Oscars again if Anne Hathaway did not win for Les Miz. Whew!!
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AQoD: Ours is a large church and our pastor likes to say that church is the locker room and the community is the playing field so it is hard to know where to start. We are a large church so woven into the community that it is hard to differenciate between “church” and “civic” activities. We do a summer sports camp that brings 1400 children from the commiunity together in what the mayor has described as, “One of the events that keeps our big town feeling small.” (1400 kids, really? 😉 We have two different homeless ministries begun by people on our church other area churches help with provisions and manpower. We have over 70 missions–mostly indiginous–partners around the world, but one of the coolest is we support an entire Coptic Village in Upper Egypt in education, health services and job training.
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I went to see a play with some ladies from my church. That was fun.
To cook my tilapia, I first put some olive oil vinegrette in the bottom of a shallow Corning Ware dish and I swirl the fish around in it on both sides. Then I sprinkle on some Nature’s Seasons, basil, celery seed and paprika. Then I microwave it for about four minutes on 50% power and then 2 1/2 minutes on High. It is very quick to cook like that. I do overlap the skinny sides of the fish with each other so it is more uniform in thickness throughout the dish. I use to bake with foil over it for about 15-20 minutes and then remove the foil for about 10 minutes at the end. That works nicely, too. How do you cook yours, Kim? A friend gave me a new recipe that uses a pack of frozen veggies in with the fish as it bakes. That sounds good, too, but I have not tried that yet.
Our church does an arts ministry for the community. We have drama, visual arts, music and a few other classes. We also do a Living Nativity at Christmas. We support some missionaries in other lands and have two church plants for people from other countries in our building. Some members are involved with a pregnancy resource center and others help tutor refugee children.
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What did I do for fun? I practiced with some parchment craft patterns and made two butterflies and part of a bookmark.
What does our church do that I like? It has the class for children taught by the fathers (rotating, with all the parents in the class but rotating who teaches each month). A couple of elders who don’t have children in the class (theirs are grown) are also in the teaching rotation.
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I watched a the 9/10 year old Wildcats lose their last game by four points. It was fun until the last minute or so when we knew there was no time to get those four points back.
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Tilapia- don’t know much about it, have never eaten it, but last week on the news was a story about a hog farmer in Alberta who converted several of his hog barns to fish barns. He installed several large, waist high tanks and was farming tilapia. It just didn’t seem right. 🙂
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I noticed on the package that my tilapia came from Columbia…not Canada! I got it at Sam’s. I don’t think it is pork flavored. 🙂 I just have to make sure it isn’t drugged!
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What is tilapia?
The rain Kim is talking about is due here tomorrow. That’s ok.
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Tilapia: delicious. Broiled for six to eight minutes with butter and lemon pepper seasoning. I found I can still eat that, just not salmon or tuna.
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Our fun for this past weekend was to watch a couple superhero movies – Thor & The Incredible Hulk. They were okay, but not great. The only reason we watched them is for their backstories for when we get around to watching The Avengers, which is supposed to be very good.
Next up is Captain America, which I hear is good. We’ve already seen & enjoyed the Iron Man movies.
Our church is a small-but-quickly-growing one. A pastor of another church in town has said that revival is coming to Stafford Springs, & it’s starting in Hope Springs Church (my church). It is so exciting seeing God bringing people in & saving souls, especially since New England is so notoriously cold to the gospel.
Of the various things my church does, I think my favorite is supporting the Daya Project in India. (Our pastor is in India right now, preaching & ministering.) They have homes for boys & homes for girls, where they are loved, educated, & taught about Jesus. They are given “a future and a hope”.
We are aiming towards fully supporting one of the girls’ homes. We should reach that goal pretty soon, I think.
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We went to dinner Saturday night at a church couple’s house–it was the weekend of dinner for eight/twelve at our church. Wonderful meal, fun company but heavy, heavy conversations. (Do I have anything but heavy conversations these days? Someone tell me a joke).
My husband sat across from the guy dying of prostrate cancer. I was on the other end of the table sitting across from the woman whose 14-month-old grandson died two weeks ago. We both heard far too much, but that, apparently, was our ministry that night.
Other than that, though, the conversation was fun–Pam and Jerry celebrating 40 years of marriage, so I brought little cakes and theirs had a princess and a knight in shining armor on top.
This, of course, was after a full day of WWI research–so thankful for you guys posting those happy songs. I may know all the words to Over There and It’s a Long Way to Tipperary now.
But where are my car keys? 🙂
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Good Morning, Y’all!
Enjoyed my weekend by NOT watching the Academy awards…
Did watch “Tuesdays with Morrie”.
Kim, my SIL works at Sacred. Hope they treated y’all well.
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Good morning all!
QOD1: I did not go to Mom’s for the weekend. Spent an enjoyable weekend at home with my husband (We had all day Saturday to yourselves) and celebrated my daughter’s birthday on Sunday. She came over for birthday brunch after church.
My church has a soup kitchen every Wed fro lunch, plus an English as a second language program. In the past 5 years, our church is starting to look more like a melting pot. That is a good thing.
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This is for Michelle. It’s a silly song, don’t nobody else watch it.
The Army parody was:
KKKKp dirty old Kp
You’re the only Army job that I abhor,
When the mmmmoon shines over the bunkhouse,
I’ll be mopping up the KKKitchen floor.
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Chas,
It’s a small fish, like a sunfish or crappies. White meat, not pink.
Not just farmers are raising them now. You can do it in your backyard too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DfScfxkmWw4
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Adios,
You forgot to tell us what you thought of the highlight of the Oscars, Michelle Obama’s presentation. Is there anything these 2 don’t hijack for their own? I guess it’s kinda fitting, since Hollywood helped bankroll the Obama campaign. I heard Barry was upset that he didn’t get an Oscar for Best Actor Portraying a President.
🙂
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Chas asked the question I was going to ask (what IS tilapia?) but I don’t really think I want to know the answer anyway.
I’m a picky eater and can quickly talk myself out of going to a fast food place when tempted just by thinking about how we have no idea what’s going on in those kitchens, how clean they are.
It actually is a handy thing when dieting. 🙂 I don’t go to fast food joints often, maybe once every 1-2 months at most, but kind of nice to know how to talk myself out of the temptation.
Fun. Hmmm. I worked Saturday so that’s out. Hung out with some friends at the dog park late Sunday, then I followed the tweets from one of my young colleagues who was at the Oscars last night (didn’t watch the show myself, but it was fun to watch her tweets come over where I learned most of what there was to know about who won plus some fun side notes from her vantage point).
Our church is part of a network of local churches that support a men’s homeless mission on the waterfront. Our pastor preaches there on a rotating basis and one of our members was instrumental in building a companion shelter for women that opened a couple years ago — this one focuses on single women (there already are several shelters for women with kids and families).
We take collections several times a year for those facilities (a big one is coming up at Easter) and once a month several of us women in the church make casseroles for the dinners at the men’s mission.
There are lots of other ministries we are involved in (ours would be considered a medium sized church, I suppose, with around 300-400 members and growing). I’ve been in smaller churches where I was more involved, but love the church I’m in now for its clear preaching of the gospel, attention to sound doctrine and form of church government (Presbyterian) which I think avoids so many of the pitfalls found in pastor-centric churches.
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Aj, I didn’t have a problem with Michelle Obama’s thing, even though some media critics said it jumped the shark. MacFarlane’s boob song was mouth droppingly sexist. In fact it unwittingly emphasized the good ol’ boys club that Hollywood is. Huge ouch that they overlooked Andy Griffith in the in memorium.
Loved that Anne Hathaway won for best supporting actress!!!
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But speaking of fun, I am off work today (in exchange for having worked Saturday), so that’s a treat. I’m meeting a couple friends for lunch at the Mexican restaurant on the waterfront in a couple hours — if it’s warm enough, we may eat on the patio.
Then later today I landed an appointment for both dogs at the vet’s for catch up on some shots they were 1-2 months overdue for; nice to get that taken care of, it’s been one of those things on my list of things to do that was hard to squeeze into my schedule (the vet is a good 20-25 miles north of me and it’s a pretty heavily traveled traffic corridor all the way, depending on the time of day).
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Michelle – Re: the lady who lost her 14-month old grandson (how absolutely horrible!). Does the mother of that grandson have a Facebook page (not personal, but relating to mom stuff) or blog?
The reason I ask is that Emily follows some mom-stuff-related (my term) Facebook pages, & she mentioned that one of the moms recently lost her 14-month old child due to something like SIDS (but with a different name).
May God comfort this/these family/families with His great love, as only He can. I can only imagine the fearsome ache in their hearts.
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I forgot to mention that my pastor & his wife coach softball teams in town, for fun & for ministry.
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Time to babysit my sweet (& a bit crazy) little grandson. 🙂
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Ok, if we’re doing church-sports brags, our pastor coaches a big beach volleyball camp every summer. 🙂
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Tammy, I wrote a very long reply in yesterday’s thread.
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Good Morning..ummm…afternoon!
Yesterday church was cancelled! We had a blizzard and received 11 inches of snow which was blowing every which way. But, friends from church who had been invited for lunch braved the storm and actually made it to our place! We had a delightful time!
Saturday we had coffee and a hike with friends. I then stopped at my favorite Antique shop before heading over to my dreaded HOA Board meeting at the Library. I then ventured home and crashed on the sofa and watched “An Affair to Remember”..all was good after that! 🙂
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Tilapia: My husband always fries it in butter with a flour, salt and pepper coating. I let him, even though, it is not the healthiest way of eating it, since it is healthier than some other food he would like. He may use some olive oil for frying, too.
My husband played (vocals, guitar and fiddle) in a show on Sat. evening, which has a potluck included. It usually is a lot of fun and this was no exception. One of the older women insisted on his joining in with his fiddle on one of her songs. After a short practice of it, he declined, because it is not a key he knows well, nor a song he plays. She invited him up anyway during the show and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She really is a sweet woman, so he was stuck. While he was shaking his head ‘no’ the band was playing an insistant melody and people started clapping and chanting his name. As I said, he had no choice. He got a lot of teasing for the rest of the show. All this makes for some very relaxed musicians, a good show and a lot of laughs. Just good clean fun. Yes, it really is possible.
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What a beautiful day it is here. Windy, sunny, blue skies, cool but comfortable temperatures. I love having Mondays off. 🙂 And lunch out on the waterfront, what a nice treat.
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Thanks, Cheryl. Read it. 🙂
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Just hired a tree trimmer who’s coming Saturday to tackle all my overgrown trees in the back (and the bougainvillea bush in the front). So overdue for that. Yikes.
Pretty good price estimate (he’s working on my neighbors’ trees today), less than what my gardeners usually charge. But I think it’s going to be up to me to load the branches into the green trash can every week (probably for months!) until the cut pieces are gone. Gardeners used to haul it away, which was nice.
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He’s Spanish speaking (very little English) so I think that’s what we agreed to do. 😉 Guess I’ll find out Saturday.
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Mr. P is still in the hospital. They will decide in the morning whether or not to let him out. He is still bleeding from the incision. 😦
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Sorry to hear that, Kim. Hope the bleeding stops, and that he can go home soon.
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My gardeners are out working as well, though they all speak English. Well, one is debatable, but he is getting there. They are trimming the lilacs. It is a big job that has not been done in years. No flowers this year. Well, they are only trimming two of them so there will be flowers. They are generally quite laden. But they are quite overgrown and it is time.
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Well, Here in OKC, we have not seen the snowfall that they did in Woodward Ok. A roof collapsed there and killed on person.
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“My husband sat across from the guy dying of prostrate cancer. I was on the other end of the table sitting across from the woman whose 14-month-old grandson died two weeks ago. We both heard far too much, but that, apparently, was our ministry that night.”
I was reluctant to take a PSA test. To scare me my urologist showed me a PSA of a man who refused to have a PSA and is now terminally ill. So I got mine done. I am not dying of cancer. Yet.
I am working on filling out my “last wishes” documents for when I die. (In case I will be too weak to throw out someone prating to me about Jesus as I lay dying. As my youngest sister did to my demented mother.
I am still chortling over Ree saying to me with a straight face that if a demented person expresses belief they will be saved. Of course, they will. That makes perfect sense.
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Kim, I imagine Mr. P will be more than ready to get out of their by tomorrow or so.
I mentioned to my neighbor (who originally hired the tree trimmer) that he was going to leave all the cuttings for me to haul and and she said she’d have a talk with him about that. 😉 I told her I’d pay extra but she said it should be included in his estimate.
Last time my gardeners trimmed my trees, maybe 3-5 years ago, the entire backyard was piled high with branches so I know it’ll be a lot to take care of.
Back from the vet, dogs are now all caught up on everything.
Saw a large Komondor dog with a shorter style haircut, I asked Tess if she thought he was a sheep. Awesome dogs.
http://www.akc.org/breeds/komondor/index.cfm
And met a woman whose 2 cats will be feature on the program My Cat From Hell in April. 🙂
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Michelle, You and your husband did have a tough, but important ministry on Saturday night.
The most amazing thing to me about World War I was how the countries really stumbled into war. None of the major powers wanted a big war. The Guns of August helped me understand the beginning of the war. One man lit the fuse, and all of the people who could have stopped the explosion failed to act.
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I guess my fun was reading. I finished two books.
I’m not much good at cooking fish, so I buy frozen parmesan-crusted tilapia. I just have to bake it and it’s delicious – my son and I enjoy it every Thursday evening. My husband asked me to please go back to buying him “regular” fish, so he gets his breaded fish fillets, whatever kind of fish most frozen breaded fish is, while Al and I eat tilapia.
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When I signed in at the Y this evening (can you call it “signing” in when they scan a barcode?), the lady at the desk told me about an incident that afternoon. There was a snowball fight going on in front of the Y, in the street and on the Y property, so she went out and yelled at them to stop. Then a woman came out and demanded to know why she (the Y staffer) was yelling at her (the woman’s) husband and kids. The Y staffer said it was against the rules to have a snowball fight on Y property. The woman was very indignant, and pointed out that there were no signs posted saying no snowball fights…
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I ordered The Guns of August from Amazon on Thursday night and it arrived at my house Saturday morning. I didn’t need it that fast, but was astounded Amazon went to such lengths to get it to me!
I’m reading, right now, A British Wife in Berlin, written by a member of the aristocracy–a memoir. She actually knows the Kaiser and is puzzled why everyone is fighting. It makes no sense–just a slaughter of manhood.
Someone told me the other day the reason French men are so short is Napoleon put all the tall ones at the front of his battle lines and they were all killed, thus making the gene pool shorter.
I wonder if that’s what happened across Europe after WWI; then WWII finished off the rest of the leaders–which explains, perhaps, why so few are willing to fight for their civilizations anymore?
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We just got word the middle-aged man who painted the room I’m sitting in, died during the night. My husband worked with him on Saturday at the food basket ministry; I watched him and his wife walk down the aisle into the service yesterday. Way too much death in our church these days.
And the wife is helpless. He took care of her.
Very sad.
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The slaughter in World War I was unbelievable. Even more than in The Civil War, the weapons were ahead of the tactics. It did crush the spirit of the French. There was no glory on the ground. The new cavaliers were the pilots, but they had very short life expectancies. Good luck with the book!
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Random,
I deleted 2 of your posts.
Both were unkind and mocking in nature. I won’t tolerate that and you know it. Also, avoid the cussing. Refrain from it in the future, or I will moderate your comments.
AJ
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I appreciate the warning.
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