Weekend Update

Quote of the Day:
I've reached retirement age. And I don't need to see any more depictions of the crucifixion.
—Evelyn Taylor, after we saw Son of God Friday night.

Picture of the Day:
A so-so picture of Dale Reeves preaching a mighty fine sermon this morning at Christ's Church at Mason. Our three preachers were each speaking at different venues this morning, and Dale spoke at the Classic service in the chapel.
We were attending that service so we could sit with Alan Guttman who had promised to come back to church this morning, for the third week in a row. He sits with Lloyd and Shirley Bradshaw, but Lloyd is in the hospital with a serious infection (he's been there since last Sunday and won't go home yet for several more days). I told Alan at our Thursday-morning group that Evelyn and I would sit with him today if he wanted to come back to church.
It was a nice service, and all three of us agreed that Dale did a good job. We ate breakfast/lunch with Alan at Bob Evans (he treated!) after church.
Wendy Wagoner came to visit us Friday. We ate out at El Rancho Grande before catching the 7:40 showing of Son of God. I enjoyed it, even though most of it we'd seen in The Bible miniseries on TV last year. The crucifixion segment was the second-most graphic depiction I've seen (after Passion of the Christ, of course.) Evelyn served us scones for breakfast Saturday; Wendy left to visit her friends the Carters in Springfield about 10 Saturday morning.
Evelyn and I took a walk in the glorious spring-like sunny afternoon. Later  I visited Lloyd in the hospital along with getting the car washed (had to get all that winter salt removed), picking up Despicable Me2 at Redbox, and grabbing a few groceries. We had egg salad sandwiches and tomato bisque soup (from Costco) for supper. I did some reading and planning in The Story and then fell asleep in the middle of the movie before we headed for bed to get a full night's sleep before Time Change Sunday.
Today we were away from home by 2:45 and in New Stanton, PA by 7:10, the first leg in our trip to see our kids with friends for a spring break vacation this week.

Weekend Update

It was a fine weekend.

Friday night we grabbed dinner at the Indian restaurant and then retreated to the family room to watch a couple of TV shows.

Saturday I took my taxes to the preparer. It was not good news, and I went to our HR department today to have my withholding increased. (I should have done this sooner, even though there are a couple of unusual circumstances this year that really socked me.)

Saturday afternoon we went to see Megan Lockhart's basketball game at the Mason Community Center. I had told Matt some time ago that we'd love to see her play, and this was the day. It was great to visit with Kim and Logan, and it was GREAT to see Megan's sixth-grade team, the Lady Shock, soundly beat their opponents. Megan herself had a great game, including making 3 of 4 freethrows, allowing me to grab some good pictures of her.

That evening we ate at Relish Modern Tapas (I had a Groupon) and then went across the street to the Regal Cinema to see The Monuments Men. Paul Friskney had told us, "Every ordinary person I've talked to likes the movie. It's only the critics who didn't like it." Call us ordinary. We liked it!

Sunday we awakened to rain, with the promise of snow and sleet before the day ended. The church decided to combine all worship in the main auditorium ad 9:00 and 10:30 (instead of two or three venues each hour). I would guess our attendance was 50% or less. When we arrived a little before 9:00, the parking lot seemed empty. (The crowd grew in the next 20 minutes, though.)

When we left about 10:30, it was sleeting. "Let's go to the store now, on the way home, so I don't have to go out again," I said, and Evelyn readily agreed. We stopped at Kroger's, and when we were leaving, the sleet had changed to snow, big flakes of snow.

Evelyn made cranberry-orange scones for brunch. We enjoyed them with scrambled eggs and turkey bacon and some strawberries. It was a wonderful meal!

I wrote a draft of an editorial after lunch and went outside about 3:00 to shovel the first round of snow while Evelyn graded papers from her Human Development class. (It snowed again later, hard, till about 9:00, and you couldn't tell I had shoveled.) 

When I came in I began assembling vacation pictures into a Shutterfly book till suppertime. Evelyn made vegetarian flatbread pizzas on purchased Naan, and we watched Dateline while we ate it. Then we saw a few Oscar guests on the red carpet before settling in to watch the whole show, starting at 8:30. (I can't remember when Evelyn and I both have stayed up all the way to its end. I guess it's a retirement thing with her!)

Important Issues

Quote of the Day:
Remember, God’s will was for John to be exiled, Paul to be jailed, Jesus to be executed. Why do we assume God’s will for us is to have a great job, a happy wife, and a large bank account?
—Kevin A. Thompson in his February 20 blog post

Picture of the Day:
Bill and Verna Weber were with us today all day. Bill taught the "Perspectives" class last night in Dayton and tonight at the Cincinnati Vineyard. Evelyn enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with them this morning while I went to work. I joined them for lunch at Mimi's, and they treated! Mimi's serves not only a tasty lunch, but a well-presented lunch. Witness my choice of lobster bisque and harvest salad with fruit cup.
We had leftover vegetable soup and grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches for supper with Verna while Bill was off to his assignment.
It's always good to visit with them. We always find so much to talk about--beyond surface into important issues quickly and always.

Thinking Future

Quote of the Day:
The main part of Fallon's audience wasn't watching a one-hour show at 12:35 a.m., rather going online. Fallon created a lot of snackable media - and it is his digital audience that really matters. Those viral videos, tweets, Facebook likes, those are the real consumers that NBC is after. Leno, for all his fan loyalty and competitive TV audience metrics, didn't deliver digitally. 
—"The Real Reason Jimmy Fallon Took Over 'The Tonight Show,'" at Mashable

 Anyone thinking about how to engage in our digital future should follow the link to this whole piece. Some insights here for the church.

Picture of the Day:

This is just part of the panoply of medicine, home cures, and desperate strategies I've assembled to help
myself get over the worst cold I can remember having in a very long time. As I mentioned yesterday, it went into a wicked cough yesterday, and by the end of the work day today, I felt flushed and wrung out. I went to the grocery to get the stuff on Evelyn's list, warmed up some leftovers, and vegged out in front of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy before attempting to do anything productive.
I did plan our study of The Story for our Thursday-morning small group, but that's about all I got accomplished this evening.
I had planned to make progress on a major project with some extra hours yesterday and tonight (remember that picture book I mentioned a couple of weeks ago?). But this cold has taken away all my margin of energy, so alas, that good task has been shuffled farther into the future.

Sunday Guests

 Ajai Lall spoke at our church this morning--he brought a passionate challenge to act on our concerns for the poor and powerless and the lost. Evelyn and I had welcome center duty, and I hosted at the 8:30 service. At that service, we sang a worship song that was popular some time ago.

No other name but the name of Jesus
No other name but the name of the Lord
No other name but the name of Jesus
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honor
And worthy of power and all praise.

For some reason, the words struck me as particularly meaningful today. I've been thinking too much lately about my own glory and honor, perhaps.

Later in the morning we had a nice visit with Ajai's lovely wife, Indu, and I was able to snap a wonderful picture of her with Evelyn.

We ate lunch at Olive Garden with a gift card Evelyn had received at school for leading her "D" group. We cut grass and I did some other yard work as soon as we got home. And after a shower, I went to Lowe's to pick up what I hope is our last batch of mulch for this year before heading to the grocery store. We had a nice visit with Jennifer on the phone, and then Evelyn fixed grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches on rye bread; I talked her into strawberries with ice cream to finish it off. We watched "60 Minutes" and then later both struggled to stay awake during a PBS "Masterpiece Mystery."

Busy Work Day, Relaxing Evening

Spent most of the day working on art and illustrations for the February issue. Jim Nieman and I met with Mark Haas in two different hour-long meetings. Chose dates for web postings for the month of December (none too soon, since tomorrow is December!) and handled some correspondence. Evelyn and I decided to eat in and stay home this evening rather than our usual Friday night out. I stopped by Fresh Market and bought some food to heat in the microwave for supper. We needed a night just to be at home after a busy, busy week. Tomorrow we're up at 5:30 to be at church by 6:45 (that's a.m.!) for a daylong outing with Evergreen (our first!) to the Christmas show at Purdue University.  We're due to be home by 7:30 in the evening, which is earlier than I figured, and I'm sure it will be fun.

Our January issue goes to the printer Wednesday. It's in proof now.
Final tweaks and late copy happen next week.

Halloween Is for Children

Communities throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast postponed Trick or Treating this year, including some towns not far from here. But the weather here wasn't bad enough to postpone it, just drizzly and cold enough to make it less than fun.
But we had our Halloween party anyway. Donovan and Jocelyn Weber brought Nora and Ruby to see us, and Grandma and Grampa Verna and Bill Weber came along too. They brought all kinds of good bread and crackers and cheese to go along with Evelyn's vegetable soup and hot cider, and we had a big time.
Even though it was something close to miserable outside, the younger Webers visited several of our neighbors, and Ruby especially was excited to see her stash of goodies after they got home. We skipped our tradition of sitting in the driveway with hot cider for the neighbors and stayed inside to visit with our friends instead. We made the cider anyway, and it was great. The younger Webers especially enjoyed it after being outside in the chill.
Maybe we've established a new tradition.

What Did You Do for Mother's Day?

Here's what WE did:
Went to church.
Ate breakfast for lunch. (Even Marie's Scrambler was packed with a Mother's Day crowd. I sometimes cook for Mother's Day lunch to avoid the lines and the wait, but this weekend there just wasn't time to shop and prepare.)
Cleaned the garage amid a steady rain outside, which required moving stuff from one side of the garage to the other or taking the stuff outside to sit in the rain while we cleaned the inside.
Used the neighbor's power-washing machine to hose off the floor. ("Power" and "washing" are two words that, when put together make Evelyn weak in the knees.) The contraption made me weak in the arm. (I had forgotten that you have to turn the fuel knob from "off" to "on" before pulling the cord to get the motor running. I had worked up quite a sweat and stripped off my rain slicker before I read the fine print on the little sticker on the engine and remembered the neighbor had told me about the red knob.)
Batted at a small bird that had enough sense to fly into the garage out of the rain, but not enough sense to fly back out through the open garage door or windows we opened to entice him with the wet wonders of the great outdoors. It was a little entertaining to see him ride the chain on the electric garage door opener pulley from the front of the garage to the opener, the first couple of times he did it. We madly opened and shut the door hoping he'd get flustered enough to fly out. But he just perched on the garage door rigging or fluttered around at the white walls and ceiling or sat on the open garage door in the small space it created beneath the ceiling.
Left the garage door open, hoping he'd fly out.
Went to the grocery store to get tomato soup for supper and spaghetti sauce for Monday's dinner. Picked up some bird seed while I was there.
Put away groceries while Evelyn talked to Jennifer on the phone. Shut and opened garage door to see if bird was still there. He fluttered around the ceiling but didn't bother to ride the door-opener pulley.

Snapped these pictures of Mother's Day helium balloons
crowded at the ceiling above the floral department
at Kroger's. Even at 3:00 in in the afternoon, confused
fathers and grade school daughters were mulling through
a bounty of flowers (and balloons!) trying to redeem the
day. I didn't buy a flower or a balloon.

Rigged up the bird feeder on a shepherd's crook (usually used for a hanging basket) at the edge of the driveway straight in front of the open garage door. Figured our visitor must be getting tired and maybe a little hungry.
Heard Evelyn's report from her Internet research. "Just leave the garage door open for two or three hours. The bird doesn't want to be in the garage any more than you want him there." Didn't bother to ask how this web poster knows that.
Retreated to the inside in frustration. Tried to concentrate on the Christian Standard proof I was reading while wondering if we'd need to re-clean the garage floor after a nervous, frustrated bird had been roosting in the rafters for the whole afternoon.
Talked with Geoff on the phone.
Checked outside, after two or three hours. The bird had either left or found a place to hide from us overnight.
Did some Christian Standard editing with a clear mind.
Apologized to Evelyn for being grumpy much of the afternoon.
Made little crostini to eat with our tomato soup.
Enjoyed "Sixty Minutes," supper, and the knowledge that this is a Mother's Day we probably won't forget.