A Beautiful Weekend

Yesterday started off chilly and gray, but by about 2:00 the sun was out and before suppertime the temperature was almost 70 under a beautiful clear-blue sky. I had picked a good day to attend a beginning photography class at Ault Park.
I signed up for it on a whim, with a desire to understand the manual settings on my camera instead of always depending on the presets.
It was conducted by the owner of a photography business in town called ernestography, run by a likable young man named ernest worthing.
It was a beginner's class, and I did learn some stuff, and I'm going to try to practice it this week so I don't forget it!
One thing we learned was how to use manual settings to put a close-up object in sharp focus while making the background blurry. This picture plus a few others from my practice session are posted in a Facebook album.
I came home and cut grass for about an hour but didn't have time to finish before dark, so I finished Sunday after church, errands, and lunch.
Friday evening  Evelyn and I went to the symphony. I had seen a Groupon (or was it Living Social) coupon earlier in the week for discount tickets to hear Andre Watts in concert with the orchestra this weekend. We didn't subscribe to the Pops season this year, so I thought we'd enjoy a chance to go to Music Hall.
Before the concert we went for dinner to Taste of Belgium, a restaurant in the middle of a two-block area in Over the Rhine that is filled with trendy restaurants and other venues. Many of

our friends are Taste of Belgium fans, and I've been wanting to get there for some time. We had their signature chicken and waffle for dinner and enjoyed it. I really want to get there for brunch someday!
We parked in the new garage under Washington Park and walked a few blocks to Taste of Belgium and then walked back to Music Hall. The evening was cool but clear, and it was nice to be outside.
I was really glad we got to hear Watts. The coupon tickets were for seats on the main floor. We usually sit up high, but this time I was glad we were so close to the guest artist. We could see his face as he performed, and I must say I've never seen anything quite like the energy and animation he infused into every passage, every flowing arpeggio, every strong chord. He commanded the instrument, almost attacked it with energy and passion. He mouthed the rhythms, threw his left leg off to the side as he finished a challenging section. His was a marvelous performance.

Tonight was Evelyn's Basin group, something new created this fall by our church's women's ministry: small groups of women, hosted by an "older" woman to give "younger" women the chance to get to know other women in the church and have the influence of an older woman in the church.
Tonight they enjoyed a potluck of Mexican treats. Evelyn finished the chicken for the tacos and made an apple crisp this afternoon while I helped around the edges and wrote a draft of my column to be posted at christianstandard.com Tuesday.
I retreated to the family room and TV and Facebook while the ladies had their dinner, and I snuck upstairs to steal some supper after they'd been through the lines. It was a relaxing and yummy evening to end a fine weekend.

Happy Birthday, Diane!

There are at least two good things about birthdays. if you're in the right situation. If you're on Facebook, you get lots of greetings from all kinds of people you may not hear from any other time.
And if you're on the Magazines staff at Standard Publishing, you get free lunch with all your other co-workers at the place of your choice.
Today was Diane Jones-Dunham's birthday, and she chose a place new to her--and me! The Rusty Bucket on Mason-Montgomery Road. I was surprised at how good it was, and how hard it was to choose what I wanted from all the interesting possibilities on the menu.
Happy birthday, Diane! Today's celebration was the perfect proof of a truth we sometimes forget: "It's more blessed to give than to receive." I've received another great idea for where to take Evelyn for lunch on Sundays or dinner anytime! (Or dessert! I had a couple bites of that cookies and cream sundae Diane got free for being the birthday girl. Let's see . . . just six more months till mine!)

Our Autumn Weekend

"Let's get together this fall and do something to see the leaves," I suggested to Evelyn's brother and wife, Ken and Susan Aulen.
They called several weeks ago with an idea I hadn't anticipated. "Let's ride the Loveland Bike Trail." We agreed that this weekend would be the time.
Ken and Susan got here about 5:00 Friday. Wendy Wagoner had been here much of the afternoon, doing some work, using our copier, and visiting with  Evelyn. Evelyn decided to fix white chicken chili for dinner; Wendy had requested she make it at least one time before Wendy goes to Tanzania in January, and Friday night seemed like the right time.
It was a wonderful dinner. The soup is a favorite; we had plenty of good relishes to accompany it. And I stopped by Graeter's to pick up a dutch apple pie and cinnamon ice cream for dessert.
Wendy (and Milo!) left about 7:30, but we enjoyed staying up and catching up with Ken and Susan.
The next morning Evelyn had pumpkin muffins, apple butter, fruit, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. We needed to eat hearty before our big day of exercise!
We got to the bike rental shop in Loveland after 10:30, and we were on our way after 11:00. Ken and
 Susan brought their bikes, and Evelyn and I rented ours.

It was a gray, chilly day. But the showers of the early morning had stopped by the time we were on the trail. But a breeze plus the wind chill of just riding the bikes made Evelyn wish she'd worn gloves and me happy I'd brought my ear  protection.
We rode 8.7 miles from Loveland to Milford, with a stop to rest our our legs and catch our breath (and eat granola bars and water) on the way. But even with the stop, we got there in about 90 minutes.

We rode and walked our bikes into Historic Milford (I didn't know there was a historic Milford!), and ate lunch at Padrinos on Main Street. Evelyn and I split a small pizza and a salad, and it was very good!
As it turns out, historic Milford has several little shops like you find in Waynesville or Lebanon, and we wandered through a few of them before taking out for the ride back to Loveland.
We had hoped the afternoon would get warmer, but it seemed to be getting chillier. We rode back with a couple of rest stops this time and made it to Loveland before 4:00—just before the rains came. We rode through steady rain in the car on the way home.

The trees are beautiful this year, but, oddly, not as pretty along the bike trail as some places in the neighborhoods we drive through every day.

We had about an hour to warm up and clean up before leaving for dinner. I had made reservations at Tellers in Hyde Park. It's a nice place, and we had a gift certificate and Groupon to use there. This was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a special dinner at a favorite place.
Evelyn and Susan had the salmon. Ken had the trout and shrimp. And I gave up the chance to eat healthy by ordering the pork shank. Oh, it was good--juicy, falling off the bone. Each couple shared a coffee creme brulee for dessert. We were full and happy.
We came home and visited for a couple of hours before giving up for the day.
At 6:30 Sunday morning, one of our smoke alarms started chirping, and we fumbled half asleep to try to figure out why, since Evelyn had replaced all the batteries in all the smoke alarms not long ago. I got the bright idea to push the "Test/Alarm" button on the errant device, which set of sirens, and a digital voice "Evacuate. Evacuate!" through every smoke alarm in the house (some time ago we upgraded to a system that connects all the alarms.) I was mortified, and  Evelyn went downstairs, where Ken and Susan had been sleeping, to tell them they did not need to evacuate!
I had planned to sleep till 7:00, but at 6:45 I gave up and headed to the bathroom to shave.
Sunday we enjoyed worship at 9:00 at Mason. Trevor DeVage's sermon was the wrap-up for our "I'm a Church Member." It was a nice challenge. "If you're a growing church member, you're a dying church member." Three attributes of a growing church member: He's serving, giving, and going. (I think I need to rethink all three in my life!)
I had received a gift card to Mimi's from the folks in my office for Boss's Day, so we used it to treat Ken and Susan to breakfast after church. They were on their way not too long after lunch, and Evelyn an I settled into an afternoon of errands: grocery, lawn mowing and other yard errands, checkbook updating, and assorted online visiting and task-completing.
We ate popcorn and leftover pie and ice cream for dinner while we watched 60 Minutes, Madame Secretary, and the episode of NCIS we had recorded last Monday.
It was a very pleasant autumn weekend. The weather was beautiful Friday and Sunday (not so much when we were out IN it all day Saturday!) . I'm guessing we won't have many more pretty weekends yet this year.

Road Trip

Oh boy, I'm SLOW in recording our fun September weekends, but better slow than never, I guess.
I promised to quick rundown of our road trip to Levittown, PA September 18-22.

We had been looking forward to this trip for a long time. Why?
• Extended time with our buddies Bill and Verna Weber.
• Opportunity to see our grandson, Miles Johnson, perform with his high school marching band.
• Celebrate Miles's birthday Friday night and Saturday.
• Spend time with our whole family, Jen and Matt and Geoff and Lisa, in addition to Miles.
• Hear Matt preach and attend church at Levittown Christian Church.

And all of the above is exactly what we did.

Evelyn got home from teaching Thursday afternoon after 4:00. The Webers had arrived here some time before that (they drove here from Indy--this was a long day on the road for them), and soon after Evelyn rolled in, the four of us rolled out, on our way to PA. We chattered all the way to New Stanton, where we spent the night (after a nice dinner at--where else?--Cracker Barrel!).
We were on the road in good time Friday morning and made it to our hotel outside Newton, PA by 3:30 and to Jen's by about 5:00.

We stopped and got sandwiches and made it to the football stadium in plenty of time to get good seats for the whole evening. It was Homecoming, so we got to see floats and the king and queen and court.
But the main attraction was the marching band. (Oh yeah, the home team won the football game!)

Geoff and Lisa made the long and challenging trip to be there--Geoff drove with Frankie, and Lisa took  no planes but trains and automobiles to meet us there. I really appreciated their effort to join the party.

After the game we retreated to Jen and Matt's for wonderful birthday cake (four layers, cookies and cream cake--it was wonderful!).

The next day we met late in the morning to ride together to Philly, where Jen and Matt had picked a wonderful Chinese restaurant for a family birthday dinner to celebrate Miles's 16th birthday. We had wonderful food--just too much of it. Evelyn and I wished we had split a meal. We walked around the city--to the riverfront, to a festival--enjoying the sunshine and the company--and a stop at a favorite
tourist site to try Mr. Franklin's ice cream.
And then we crashed at Matt and Jen's place before supper.

Geoff and Lisa left for the trip home, and then the rest of us enjoyed sandwiches and salads for supper, followed by a bonfire and s'mores in their backyard. What a fun, fallish evening.

Sunday morning we enjoyed worship, including one of the best sermons preached anywhere in America that day, all about Gideon by Matt. Jen fixed a wonderful lunch (country ribs in the slow cooker!), and after lunch we went to a state (?) park for a nice long walk. Nikki enjoyed the walk and we enjoyed the scenery. For supper we went to the Johnsons' favorite Mexican restaurant, and Bill treated. (Thanks, Bill!) The evening was still young, though, so we decided a stop at their whippy-dip place (I'm writing this too long after the events; I'm forgetting the names of things!) would be the best way to end the day. Oh, it was good!

We stayed as late as we dared (Matt is an early-to-bed guy, and Miles had school the next day). Jen wanted us to hang on after the guys went to bed, but we had a long day of driving ahead of us Monday, so we said good-bye about 10:00. It was a weekend we'll always remember.

It's a long drive home from Philadelphia, but we made it in OK time (lots of bathroom stops for us oldsters, plus a nice lunch), and said farewell to Bill and Verna about 7:00 p.m., thanking them for the weekend of fellowship as they began two more hours on the road to their place in Indy.

Weekends with Friends

We've had three nice weekends in a row, and I want to jot down the highlights so I'll always remember them.

September 12-14
Friday night Evelyn and I splurged and ate out at Embers restaurant in Kenwood (or is it Madeira?). We called it an early birthday dinner, because it's such a nice place, but we couldn't wait till her birthday because I had a Groupon that was going to expire September 17!
The food is good. The presentation is wonderful. The portions, at least for my short ribs and macaroni and cheese combo, were huge. And I felt compelled to eat every bite. It's been a long time since I've been that full, and it will be a long time before I allow the memory of such a good meal to be spoiled by how uncomfortable I felt for nearly 24 hours afterwards!
Saturday night Shirley and Terry Wuske came over for a simple supper on the grill in anticipation of helping us with a service project in Mason later in the evening.
About the supper: I cooked chicken with a teriyaki glaze on the grill, along with pineapple and green peppers. Evelyn made an Oriental rice dish (from a microwave pouch), and I had bought frozen egg rolls and fortune cookies at Kroger. Our dinner was simple, but it was also fun.
About the service project: Christ's Church at Mason provided most of the volunteers for the city of Mason's annual Heritage Festival. I cajoled several fellows from my small group to help; I chose the assignment of clean-up. We were at least a couple of people short, though, which is why I asked Terry and Shirley if they could help too.
The tasks weren't difficult. The evening was chilly, but dry. We were finished folding tables and chairs and putting away the arcade games by 9:30 (we had arrived at 9:00). But they needed some help with more tables and chairs after the 10:00 fireworks display. So we hung out and laughed with Dave Wick and Mike and Jessica Browning till the big ka-booms. (Evelyn was in charge of turning off and then on one of the large generator-run light banks, and Terry and Shirley each "manned" another generator-light combo.)
Collapsing the large metal and fiberglass picnic tables on the grounds was the hardest part of the evening. But we had a good crew working on it (some city employees as well as us volunteers), and we were on our way by around 11:00. It was fun!
Sunday morning, for the second week, I stood at a book table where we were distributing each attendeeI Am a Church Member. The whole church is considering the book as our preachers preach through each of the chapters. I was one of six folks who wrote a week of devotions to accompany the study; we wrote 6 days of devos for each chapter of the book. We were giving away the devotional books with Rainer's book.
family a copy of Thom Rainer's book.

Next entry: September 18-22: Road trip with Bill and Verna Weber to Levittown, PA where we had a fun reunion--and a birthday party for Miles!--with the Johnsons and Taylors.

After a Long Weekend

Vacation: a break from work, at the end of which you're ready to get back to the job.
That's the way it's supposed to be, right, but as I crawled out of bed and drove to the office this morning, after a long weekend away, I wasn't quite ready to pick back up the routine.
But it wasn't long before I was feeling productive and satisfied again as I looked at the proof for the November issue (it looks good), handled correspondence, and made a decision about how to promote our app at the International Conference on Missions this November.
The highlight of the day, in many ways, was our birthday celebration with Lookout editor Kelly Carr. According to our tradition, she chose the place for lunch, and all of us enjoyed her choice, Mimi's.

We're having beautiful weather. Evelyn cut the back and side yards this afternoon, and I mowed the front, trimmed, and watered plants after work before supper.
I'm ready (I think!) to tackle a long list of tasks that need to be accomplished this week. After a good day of getting back into the routine, I need to be more productive tomorrow than I was today.

Weekends with Friends

I've been preoccupied or pooped, and the blog has suffered. But I want to remember how we spent the last two weekends.

The FOUR-Day Weekend: Labor Day

Our four-day weekend began Friday afternoon when Wendy Wagoner came to see us. She did laundry, and we ran out to supper, followed by a stop at the Cone on the way home.
Evelyn made pumpkin-pecan pancakes for breakfast, accompanied by a bowl of fresh blueberries and raspberries. Better than First Watch!
Saturday afternoon we mowed grass and I did some other yard work.

Then we got cleaned up and left home by 5:30 for dinner and a movie. I had a Groupon for Kenwood Theater, so we saw the film Boyhood after a delightful visit to Dewey's pizza, just a couple of doors away from the theater.

I'm glad I saw the movie, because it achieved something unique, filming the same cast each year for 12 years, with a script to portray the life of a boy from ages 6 to 18. The film was well-acted, I guess, and the premise was unique enough to keep us watching. But I'm not sure I'd go so far as to recommend it. 

For one thing, there's a lot of rough language, especially in one particular scene featuring a circle of teenage boys trying to impress each other with how crass they could be. I'm not a prude about such things, but it did get wince-worthy more than once. 

And then there was the message of the film. Or the lack thereof. The main characters in the movie lived generally hopeless lives, battered by their poor decisions and those of others around them. I figure it's very true-to-life, at least life as many people live it, and so I guess I should say, "See the movie and then go love your neighbor." But many of the non-Christians I know aren't as messed up as these folks were.

Sunday I led worship in the Classic Service and was really blessed to get to do so. Not only by the chance to plan it and recruit a couple of volunteers to take a special part in it, but also by Trevor DeVage's hope-inspiring sermon about Heaven, the last in our 31-week journey through The Story.

Sunday evening we met Dave and Carol Ray for supper at First Watch. We met at 5:00 and had to be kicked out when the store closed (early on Sundays) at 8:00. We stood on the sidewalk and parking lot still talking till after dark, and then a young, thin woman accosted us with a long story about being pregnant and kicked out of the house where she lived and she could stay at the Days Inn for $52, but she had only $24 and she swore she wasn't lying and she really didn't want to lose this baby and could we please help her. Evelyn and Dave and I gave her cash, and on the way home I think we all had "buyer's remorse." One side of me wished we had offered to follow her to the Day's Inn and pay for her room for her. I wonder if she would have let us.

Monday was a rainy day and a quiet day around the house. Jennifer called us late in the afternoon (a nice visit!), and by then it was raining steadily off and on. Instead of cooking on the grill as we had planned, we ran to El Rancho Grande for a quick Mexican fix. I was surprised to see a big crowd there on a holiday evening.

The plants always look prettiest in the morning. The light rain made them seem even healthier.
By Labor Day some years, the pot garden is looking pretty scraggly. But I was taken by how
nice it looked this year, first thing, on Labor Day morning.

Last Weekend: Road Trip
Once or twice or three times every year we get together with Todd and Lyn Dillon and Terry and Shirley Wuske, usually spending overnight Friday at one of our homes. This weekend we picked up Wuskes at 4:00 on Friday and headed to Dillons' place in Plainfield, Indiana. (I took off the whole afternoon so Evelyn and I could enjoy a long lunch with Bob and Sue Willson who were in town for a quick visit. We sat at McAllister's with them for at least 90 minutes.)
Todd and Lyn are the consummate hosts, and we couldn't have enjoyed more sitting around their table with them Friday night. Lyn said she bought all the food already prepared, and it was yummy. The laughter and the talking were even better.
We chose this weekend for the visit because Saturday was the Penrod Arts Fair, a one-of-a-kind event meeting on several acres of the grounds surrounding the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It is a juried show. The presenters of painting, pottery, leather work, metalwork, leaded glass, woodwork, handmade jewelry, and more are all top-quality. Add three areas of eclectic food offerings plus several performance stages featuring everything from bluegrass to ballet and you have a day more than worth the $15 admission--especially when you can browse the grassy aisles with good friends. (We arrived midmorning after enjoying breakfast treats--yogurt parfaits created by Shirley and homemade cinnamon rolls baked by Evelyn--along with healthy portions of coffee and conversation.)
Actually the grass turned to mud in several spots, because it rained hard overnight and drizzled off and on all morning. We wore long sleeves and carried umbrellas (we only actually used them a little), and weren't daunted at all by the weather. Actually it was nice to have a cooler day without beating sun.
We were back at Dillons for a wonderful supper of cauliflower soup and chicken salad croissants. It was pleasant to enjoy the meal on their screened-in back porch, and again the good food was enhanced by the good conversation.

It's wonderful to be able to laugh hysterically as well as talk about deep issues that concern us, all with the same group. It's an experience that provides encouragement and accountability, a sharing of Christian fellowship that can't be manufactured or programmed.
We left after 8:00, drove to Wuske's house to pick up our car and were home well before midnight. It was a short night because Evelyn and I had volunteered to be at the new Starting Point (replacement for the old Welcome Center) for its trial run at 8:30 Sunday morning.
Sunday afternoon included grocery shopping, bill paying, and a nice phone visit with Geoff.
Two great weekends--too nice to forget.