jeff's back!

It's awfully nice to have The Boy home for a weekend!! For all you Blissed fans out there - Texas, California, North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, Tenessee, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and more - you guys are AWESOME!! But I think I speak for band wives everywhere when I say we are grateful for the occasional gig-free weekend. There's an art festival downtown today...can a hard rock electric guitar player make the transition? We shall see!

And, on a more serious note - I am praying today for the public school principal I met a month ago, whose passion for people and vision for empowerment of the marginalized are incredibly contagious. He has since resigned from the school for medical reasons. God - be with him and with his family.

my world makes me laugh

Today I tricked myself into going for a run (the self-deception is often necessary on a Monday, when I don't feel like doing anything) - and a deer literally ran across my path! I think it was a deer. Truthfully, it looked like a pony, because I thought I saw a mane. And it had short legs. But then it left the mane behind on a bush as it ran away. And how could it be a pony? I know there are deer roaming the area, but I've never heard of wild ponies. So it must have been a short deer. Right? Any other ideas??

There was also a black and orange fuzzy caterpillar which managed to get all the way to the other side of the path by the time I ran back.

And right now, there must be a weird air current going across the balcony, because I can see a solitary leaf swirling around like a hovercraft - not quite touching anything, but swooping and dancing around like it's got its own source of power.

BTW - had a great time last night hashing out some thoughts about the quote in my last post! And for those that were there - you made a great band!

what is success?

This is Halalu, the clown at the party on Saturday. He could do balloon creations that were AWESOME! (including the incredibly popular monkey climbing a palm tree)

I read a great quote in the paper this week, by an Anglican priest, whose church has adopted a school in their community:

For me, a church is successful when the mere thought of closing it would cause a huge outcry in the community, because they would be deprived of the kind of support and ministry that churches are intended to do. The parishioners' anxiety wouldn't be heard over the anxiety of the community.

Hmmm. That's one answer to the question - "When is a church successful?" I wonder how others would answer that question.

mini Shania

Went to a playground opening party today - what a blast! A bunch of us went from our church, ran some games, handed out a lot of candy, made friends. You know - we've done our own festivals before, and they were great - but it sure is a lot easier to join someone else's! Something about making friends with people in their space, instead of demanding that people come to ours.

And oh, the karaoke! I think I found some singers to recruit...and some to definitely NOT recruit. One little chickie - maybe 10 or 11 years old - belted out an amazingly solid rendition of "Man, I Feel Like A Woman" - how does she even know what that feels like?? Impressive, none the less, and a lot of fun.

in honour of George

George...board member and survivor of the Christian church in general. A guy who could tell any number of stories of things that had happened in his lifetime...some good, some bad, and some really ugly. But he saw the humour in all of them. Every time he told one of those stories, he would wipe the tears of laughter off his face, shake his head, and say, "Isn't that the craziest thing?!"

I've adopted it as my philosophy of life.