Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween


Sarah & I carved pumpkins Tuesday night. I would NOT recommend trying to carve a pumpkin designated as a "pumpkin pie" pumpkin--at least one that has been sitting out for a month or so, as they happen to be thick and VERY hard!

Juju loved all the Trick or Treaters--and then she realized that they had candy in their bags, which of course she thought they were bringing to her. So while I was doling out candy to the taller members of the family, Juju would be sticking her nose in the bags of the smaller visitors and stealing their candy. In fact, she took one kid's bag of animal crackers right out of his bag. The mom thought it was hilarious as she explained to her son, "See, the dog knew they were ANIMAL crackers, not PEOPLE crackers!" I also fished Smarties and jawbreakers out of her mouth!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Aunt & Uncle Break In

...the new dining room table. Unc A and Aunt Nan visited from Minnesota (on their way down to visit their son Mark stationed in Georgia) and we were able to break in the "new" table by having the first meal there: breakfast Saturday morning!

We were able to share a lovely Saturday lounging around in the morning (well, Sarah worked out at the Community Center), enjoying chicken noodle soup for lunch (also at the table), then touring the area: Community Center, Purdue University, Riehle Plaza & the Pedestrian Bridge, Tippecanoe Battlefield Museum, and the whole Faith Baptist Church complex!

We ordered Papa John's pizza for supper then had fun playing games: Apples to Apples, Scattergories, and Fargle!

Alan & Nancy came to church with us in the morning then took us out to Fazoli's before they had to head off to their next stop on the way down to Georgia!



New Dining Room Table


Woo-Hoo!! I'm so excited to have finally found a good deal on a dining room table! And it only took 2 years!
For posterity's sake, I am going to record the whole story here. So grab that cup of hot chocolate and settle in...
I have been keeping my eye out for an oak dining room table and chairs with removable leaves for a good price. I wasn't ACTIVELY pursuing every garage sale ad, but if I saw one I'd look to see if they happend to have a table. But nothing popped out at me. Then they started including items for sale in the church emails. A couple of weeks ago someone was selling a table and chairs, so I thought I'd at least email and see what it looked like. But it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Then another email came out Thursday afternoon at 3:00 saying an OAK table and chairs were available for $250 OBO. So, since I was still at work teaching piano lessons, in between lessons I emailed for a picture--it was exactly what I was looking for, but it looked really big in the picture and I couldn't tell if there were leaves that came out to make the table smaller, and the lady said she was also sending the picture on to 7 other people, so if I wanted it I'd better act soon. So I emailed back ASAP that if there were leaves in it I'd be interested in making an offer. She said that I was in luck, because there were 2 removable leaves, and the bids were up to $190 by that time. So I offered $200. Then she wondered if I wanted to see it before making the offer because there were other people planning to stop by to see it. (When I got home around 5:00 I even held up the picture on my laptop in the kitchen and thought it looked wonderful!) I figured by that time there probably wasn't a chance of my getting it if there were so many other people interested, and it didn't really fit into my evening plans of grocery shopping and cleaning to make an extra trip. However, I said I definitely wanted it for $200 and I could even get help to pick it up as early as Friday night because I could use the table right away for my company coming this weekend! I was so excited when (around 7:30) she said that I could have it!!

So I called some friends from church that have a truck and made arrangements to pick up the table after their family's birthday party and after I played for a recital at 7:00 (around 8:30 Friday night). This would HOPEFULLY be before my aunt and uncle arrived for the weekend (or even after they arrived would work--more help to move it)!

When we went to pick it up (it was only a few blocks away in the next neighborhood), the lady said she could have sold it 40 times over. I am so thankful I was able to be the "early bird" on this deal! The couple had had the table for about 15 years (apparently it was made in Pennsylvania) but she was getting a new country-looking table. So we picked up the table--David and the truck arrived just about the same time as Uncle Alan and Nancy. It is so wonderful to have an actual table now!

Jehovah-Jireh!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Quotables

I've amassed a few quotables to share.

Choir Member, referring to a Coda in the piece: "I ain't never heard of a quota before I got here. [aside] Is it a quota or a coda?"
Choir Director's Response: "No, a quota is what you put in the pop machine."

Me: "You know how sometimes you just have those 'bad piano days'?"
Student: "Yeah, I have one of those every Wednesday at my piano lesson!"

I was getting ready to make sure I had the Christmas song written down correctly for one of my precocious 2nd grade piano students and started to ask her what she was playing. I said, "You are...?" and she readily filled in "Beautiful!"

Is That Your Mother?

So, my SISTER was asked after church on Sunday (by a couple sitting nearby), "So is that lady playing the piano your mother?"

LOL

Friday, October 19, 2007

30 Years of Ministry


Donna Carpenter gave Sarah and I a good excuse to go home last weekend when she told us that the church was planning a SURPRISE party during Pastor Appreciation month to honor Mom & Dad for having served at Bible Baptist in Ishpeming for 30 years!

So when Mom & Dad arrived at church Sunday morning they learned that we were having a special service to commemorate their 30 years at Bible Baptist, including a fellowship dinner after the service. We had come up with an entirely new order of service, so Mom & Dad had the "fake" bulletin with what they THOUGHT was the order of service, when in fact the deacons had staged a coup and had printed off entirely new bulletins which changed the songs, Scripture reading, and even the speaker! We had a guest with us from Continental Baptist Missions, Tom Logsdon, so Dad didn't even have to preach!

We sang songs of God's faithfulness, had a moving time of testimony where several members shared what the ministry had meant in their lives through the years, and I put together a PowerPoint slideshow a "Walk Down Memory Lane" that Rachel & Sarah narrated with pictures of the last 30 years (thanks to Rachel for raiding mom and dad's photo albums). We sang a song as a family, Sarah sang a special, and we even had a special "virtual Tim" visit with a video testimony that he had mailed to us!

It was a special day for the whole family. During dessert we even pulled out some slides on the actual SLIDE PROJECTOR (thanks again, Rachel!).

I think it is good to have "stones of remembrance" of how God has showed Himself to be faithful in the past and will continue to show Himself faithful. It was a nice time to celebrate our ministry in Ishpeming!

Ephesians 4:11-12 "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ..."

Mom & Dad during testimonies:
Singing as a family:
A prayer time and also a special presentation of a plaque:

Rachel & Sarah during the PowerPoint presentation:

Little Dog Lost


So much has gone on in the last week or so it will take me a couple of blog posts to catch up, but I'll try to make multiple short entries out of it.

Sarah and I were able to go home (to Ishpeming, MI) this last weekend and surprise my parents. We left around 3:30 on Friday and I called Dad just before we pulled into the driveway around 1:30 AM (someone asked if that was to make sure he didn't answer the door with the shotgun...). So we surprised them! :)

Saturday we were able to go to a friend's (Melissa Hedberg's) wedding in the morning, and the afternoon was so gorgeous that I decided to get outdoors and take the dogs for a hike through the woods. Since my sister Rachel and her husband Matt were at the wedding reception with Mom & Dad, we also had their dogs at the house, so I had 4 dogs to take: Mom & Dad's Tippy, my Juju, and Rachel & Matt's 2 dachshunds Reeses and Baruch.

You might notice in the picture, however, that there are only 3 dogs in the picture. When I took the dogs off of their leashes as we reached the trail (around Baby Lake) the girls were pretty good at waiting for me to catch up, but Baruch (the littlest at just barely a year old) apparently just likes to run as fast as he can without looking back. I put him back on a leash but then decided to give him a second chance and see if he would stay closer...nope. So when he had run on ahead I thought I'd teach him a lesson by "disappearing" so I turned a corner (the rest of the dogs followed me) and hiked a different way for a while. However, Baruch never did join us. So when 10 minutes went by and he still hadn't rejoined the group I began to worry. I retraced our whole path, calling his name, then circled back to the next lake, thinking maybe he had continued on ahead after all. Then I thought maybe he had followed Sarah (since she had been jogging the same direction) so I tried calling her on her cell phone. I really didn't want to go home before doing my best to locate the puppy, as I really didn't want to have to explain to my sister how I had lost one of her dogs! When I was running out of options (probably at least a half an hour later), my cell phone rang, and it was Sarah. She asked, "Did you lose one of the family?" Thankfully Baruch had found his way all the way back home and was waiting for us there when we returned. But at least the "girls" and I had a nice long walk!

Friday, October 05, 2007

Grandparents' Day 2007

Whew. (Big sigh of relief.)

We've made it through another Grandparents' Day at FCS. It's quite a production! I'm not generally involved in the picture taking, food preparation, registration, or any of that stuff that goes on, my "baby" is the Grandparents' Day Program! We had a packed auditorium for our program this morning. The theme was "Raised to Praise," and each class is given an opportunity to present a song or skit or whatever else their class (i.e., teacher) wants to come up with. Then I get to make up the PowerPoint, help run the sound, and play the piano for it! Oh, and I found out about 2 weeks ago that we were bussing the preschool kids over from the Community Center across the parking lot so we had to have a song for them, too! (They're the only music class I DO teach now.) (In case you're wondering we sang "The Butterfly Song"--that a lot of them knew from last year--and did "Grandma's Glasses.")

The program went quite well, and thankfully I had an aide (thankfully) to help run sound. I was able to find the right pictures for the PowerPoints and all, too. And find enough piano kids (of mine and other teachers') to play for a 15-minute piano prelude. Before the prelude, I put a few pictures together for a presentation and threw in some quotes from a forwarded email. I'll share some of these with you.

These are on the theme "What is a Grandparen?"--taken from papers written by a class of 8-year-olds:
1. Grandparents are a lady and a man who have no little children of her own. They like other people's.
2. A grandfather is a man and a grandmother is a lady!
3. Grandparents don't have to do anything except be there when we come to see them. They are so old they shouldn't play hard or run. It is good if they drive us to the shops and give us money.
4. When they take us for walks, they slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars.
5. Usually grandmothers are fat but not too fat to tie your shoes.
6. They wear glasses and funny underwear.
7. They can take their teeth and gums out.
8. Grandparents don't have to be smart.
9. They have to answer questions like "why isn't God married?" and "How come dogs chase cats?"
10. Everybody should try to have a grandmother, especially if you don't have television because they are the only grown ups who lke to spend time with us.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Stay Away from the Edge!

So last week I was asked to speak in 3rd-6th grade chapel today. We've had a couple of chapels where each teacher was asked to give a brief testimony of her life and her salvation testimony. So when the original speaker fell through for today I was given the opportunity to share some of my life! I was excited to get to show pictures of my growing up years, my family, my summer, and my dog! I started with Proverbs 22:6, saying how I was thankful for the training I had as a young child (related a little to training my puppy). I came up with an object lesson on "A Lesson from Juju," too. I told a story from this summer of when Juju came really close to falling down a steep slope into the Wabash, and then again when I was afraid she would fall off a cliff. So that was my example for how we should "Stay Away from the Edge," imagining our Christian walk as an uphill trail, and as we climb the Mountain of Godliness we can be tempted to walk (or stand or sit--Psalm 1) near the edge and fall into sin. So we should stay as far away from the edge as possible (from temptations with friends, TV, drugs, drinking, gambling, purity)--and "If it's doubtful, don't do it." So we should stay as close to the "mountain" of godliness in church attendance, reading the Bible, and friendships as possible. That was basically the gist, although of course I made it go longer and more in depth, which I'm sure you don't want to read about. But I have a PowerPoint of about 70 slides if anyone's interested, although sharing with kids is a whole lot easier than talking to adults! It was fun...but I would be ok with waiting another year or so to do it again.