Friday, August 29, 2014

Friends, Pizza and Games

This is the start of a four day weekend - woot! 

Michael surprised me by driving to Roseville with me at 0800. I leaned back and listened to Jazz for an hour while the hygienist deep-cleaned my teeth. Michael ran a few errands.

We picked up pizza and headed home.

Singing a country song
We love Friday nights - filled with friends, pizza and games.

After dinner and conversation the kids settled on Quelf. This is an odd game - but they do enjoy it. ::snort::



We enjoyed watching the hilarity.


 
What could cause such a range of expressions?

 


Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Holy Cow!


Yes, that's right. A whole cow!  Why in the world is a vegan buying a cow? Well - three are not vegans... one is a nutritarian and two are meat and potato "teens."  This way I know that when we DO have beef it is certified organic, no antibiotics, no hormones....and so I split a cow with a couple of friends. We should have 127# of beef - though we've lost some beef. The rancher has asked us to recount the entire order....so we'll be playing with beef again this afternoon.....playing with beef is close enough for me. LOL  Michael is dreaming of a steak - tomorrow dear, tomorrow.


Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Smart Dog

Michael had a piece of food in his hand and began pacing. Yuuki paced after him. Michael went around the island twice; Yuuki followed. THEN - she turned around and doubled back on him.
 

Smart Dog



Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Cleaning Day

 
And with ANY move in comes - CLEANING. This is magnified if you are moving into an old school building that has set empty for 10 years.  Several of us have already spent many hours clearing furniture and STUFF out of the rooms which are to be our new home, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning....but it still needed a good cleaning.
 
Tuesday Chapel staff will move stuff over from our current facility. A group of us met over at the Far West Campus to clean before the furniture arrives - again.

 
Looks much better with sparkly windows....
 
She's a communication fiend....in contact with grandparents and siblings every day.....on a break



 
The carpets have been professionally cleaned - with a truck. Each and every surface has been scrubbed several times. It still looks old - but at least we KNOW it's clean - right? 
 
I especially loved that this was a joint cleaning project between PWOC and CWOC. I love that - working together for the good of all....

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

"That Place"

Tuesday was spent preparing for Wednesday. Wednesday we left home at 0740, arrived back at 2030, ran out to pick up some donations for the new chapel facility.....

We kicked off our PWOC Bible Studies today. We had a combined study with the Catholic and Protestant women and learned about spiritual gifts and how they should function. It was GOOD STUFF. I should have taken more note of all those saying they have the gift of admin. It's a running joke around those who know me well that  God ALWAYS stacks boards I lead with lots of admin types....and he has this year.  Unfortunately, one of our sweet gals is going home for an upcoming deployment. She's been amazing at her role...God will provide.  One thing we've implemented this year is moving the participation tables to the parking lot and having "greeters." Think the OLD SCHOOL Walmart.  It was fun to see our women out front welcoming new gals.....I smiled when I heard Gen's cheery voice ring out, "Welcome to PWOC" at Rally.

Honestly....God is screaming at me that self-care is not selfish. August has racked up 109.5 PWOC volunteer hours - not total hours; just PWOC hours, we're also moving chapel facilities. The Rally and Kick Off are over. Things should begin to settle down....

But I've not worked out on a consistent basis since right before the Board training retreat..... I realize much of "this pace" has had to do with moving things from two chapels to a new facility, setting up for a new year, having a "retreat" without a retreat coordinator....but I'm aware  God worked drastically in my life to teach me margin and self-care....and I need to do better to carry those lessons into this season of service.....

Not much more to say about the past two days. It's been wonderful. It's exciting to see a new team begin to pull together - I've seen that. God's moved. Women have shared some of  what God is ALREADY doing in their lives this year and it's exciting to be a small part of it. I'm excited about our upcoming studies.... I just know I need to dial back the volunteer hours now that things have "kicked off" - or I will end up burned out as I was 2 years ago - and I'm not going back to "that place."  Or maybe I have gone to the outskirts of "that place," but my eyes are opened and I'm pulling back.

The other big thing happening this week is our Protestant Ministries/Service and some Catholic Ministries are moving into an old school. We've worked a lot already but the final push is this week and next....and then we'll have a spacious facility, in housing with room to grow. PWOC and CWOC meet together here and we've really maxed capacity at both of the current chapels.  We knew in the spring we'd have to make changes or find a bigger place to meet. At that point nothing was on the horizon. We prayed. God was already working to provide the answer.  It's worth a few busy months to see the fruit for the upcoming year.

PWOC and CWOC are women's ministries of the Chapel. Protestant Women of the Chapel and Catholic Women of the Chapel.

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Monday, August 25, 2014

Hello

Last week was busy (and the couple of weeks before that too come to think of it). This week will be busy. BUT  today was not busy.

I actually got a work out in. I committed to take care of that from here on in.....Self care is not selfish. I've been pushing so hard with every spare kid-free moment that I've not taken the time to work out for about 6 weeks.

Today I got to say HELLO - Holly! Holly is a new chaplain's wife. She and her daughter, Eliza, have driven all the way from NC to CA by themselves!  They're rock stars.  Tim, Mr. Chaplain, is at COT - officer's training school of some sort. This is their first assignment.  When we found out where they were staying we offered to give them a base tour and host them for dinner. The Gherkins were 100% supportive of our endeavors to pull this off. Keep in mind this is MONDAY  - they day after SUNDAY - AFTER a Fall Rally - AFTER a vacation....so um...this house needed some TLC to be company ready.  I was proud we didn't let the lack of fancy food rob us from visiting with Holly and Eliza. LOL I'm progressing in this hospitality thing. I was hardly flustered at the lack of fancy food at all. ::wink::

We had a great time figuring out which base home may be the one offered to them....we even got out and looked as closely as we could. LOL

It's been a wonderful day. The Hellos make the Goodbyes a bit easier to handle.

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Sunday, August 24, 2014

A Weekend to Remember

Friday found me scurrying around, loading the car, decorating for Fall Rally and well - there simply isn't a reason to list all the snafus that eventually resulted in a great event. LOL  I spoke a bit on our local year's theme "Be Imitators,"  "Therefore Be Imitators of God as beloved children. Eph 5:1"  The remaining four sessions were Beth Moore via DVD. I believe we heard a sustaining word - a word that will continue to grow and bear fruit in our lives.
 
Stephanie

Saturday we were back at the chapel by 0715 to set up and be ready for the women by breakfast time. It was a great time.

I enjoyed working well with a new team. I enjoyed hearing women share how God had met them where they needed to meet him.

The chocolate fountain did not work. User Error - I didn't check the auger....BUT we handed out spoons, plates, and put a mess of chocolate on plates with the dippers. LOL Chocolate fondue - a pretty good idea Katie and I had. LOL
Katie and Rachel
 

S'more Bar worked....
At 1500 I saw the G team walking in the chapel....Michael and the Gherkins!  They loaded things into the van to take to Far West. The kids went with Stephanie to play with her kids - we had a party to attend that evening.  Michael vacuumed and we mopped... then we unloaded things at Far West and headed to Father Lowe's for dinner. It was nice to just relax after the busy weekend.

Sunday was church. Always a joy to gather with God's family. I made copies for Wednesday morning's study kick off.   I think I took a long nap Sunday afternoon.

Choosing Joy!
©2014 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...