Great Aunt Stacie

Ok, it's official! I am now a "Great Aunt",, tho' if any of my faithful blogees (all 1 of you) call me that, I'll have to physically harm you!! His name is Kirk Michael and he was born this morning 11-28-06 at 5:30 am *early little booger*. He weighed 7lbs, 11ozs. and was 20 1/2 inches long. Mama and baby are doing fine! Praise God for this little miracle

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!

How lovely are your branches! Here's our Christmas tree. Yes, it's a small one. Partly because our home is small, but mostly because it allows me to change decorations every year. And since I am a person that likes variety, this works perfectly. This is the first year that we've had a white Christmas tree and personally, I LOVE IT! The decorations appear to be red, but they are in fact a vibrant pink! Now, normally I am one of those people that refuse to put up the tree until after Thanksgiving, but this year since we were going to be out of town I just couldn't bear the thoughts of coming back home after Thanksgiving and not having the Christmas tree up, so I put it up last weekend. And since I'm not one of those folks that take the tree down the day after Christmas, this gorgeous pink tree will stay up until Epiphany Sunday. For you non-Methodists out there, that's January 14th. With the tree up, I think I'm really getting into the holiday spirit. Now, I've just got to compose my Christmas list and get started buying the gifts. Oh vey!

What a Week!

Whew! Am I ever glad this last week is over! The first of the week was spent in Nashville for a "training" exercise for work, then in the middle of the week, preparations for Thanksgiving *YES, I cooked*, and then the end of the week was spent rehearsing, decorating, and preparing for my nephew's wedding. (Pictures coming soon.) Now, Craig and Danielle are hitched, the party's over and now it's time to relax. Well, sort of, because coming up next at church are our annual Advent activities. It cannot be time for Christmas yet! Where does the time go?

Ban Religion?

Elton John says we should ban religion. I don't think this is something that will ever come to fruition, but I can certainly see his point! He's right. Religion has promoted hatred and bias against homosexuals, and also against Hispanics, African Americans, , women, and I could go on and on. Some would disagree with Sir Elton and say that religion doesn't discriminate, but when there are "so-called" religious groups that stand on the roadside and shout "God hates fags" or protest at soldier's funerals claiming that their deaths are our punishment because we have accepted homosexuality, or when shooting at an illegal immigrant attempting to cross the border is considered acceptable, or when keeping an entire race of people enslaved for a century, or when a gender is excluded from teaching, pastoring, sheperding a flock, for no other reason than because of their gender, then one must stop and say "HELL YEAH! religion has promoted bigotry!

Why do we, and by we I mean those of us who are accepting and compassionate towards these groups, allow such things to happen? How can we enact change on the parts of those who are discriminating? I don't have a clue as to how to change people's minds, but I don't think banning religion is the answer. Any ideas?

Too Many Irons

I'm sure everyone has heard that old saying "too many irons in the fire". Well, that's exactly how I've felt the last couple of weeks. From planning the Laity Sunday worship service, to planning and leading the Wednesday night bible study of Acts 2, to planning the church's Fall Festival, to finding appropriate wedding attire for Shelby, Tad, and myself, not to mention all the practicing I've been doing on the piano, to preparing for an event at Eastern Star....well, to say I'm too pooped to pop is an understatement!

And now, it's time for Thanksgiving! WHAT?!?!!!! It is so hard to believe that Thanksgiving is indeed only a week away. By this time, I've usually decided what dishes I'm fixing and have even started Christmas shopping. This year I just cannot seem to get "in the mood". I normally love this time of year, but for some reason... I'm lagging, stalling, however you want to put it. I don't even have a Christmas list written down yet, let alone started buying anything! Although, I do have my decorations purchased and ready to go up, we're going all PINK this year...woohoo, I'm sure my husband is going to hate it, but oh well. We had his favorite color last year...blue! Not that pink is my favorite color (it's green, btw), but when I saw these decorations, I got a wild hair and decided that was what I wanted. Maybe after I get the tree put up, I'll get more in the spirit. At least I'm hoping so.

Honored

What an honor! Craig, my favorite nephew (one out of five) called me up the other evening to ask if I would be willing to play the piano at his wedding. I was thrilled, nervous, but thrilled. Of course, I immediately said "YES!" My next thought was "OH CRAP!" I don't have a lot of wedding material, so I went out and bought some. As if being asked to be the instrumentalist wasn't enough, Craig also asked if Tad could be the ring bearer. Well, this was soo sweet because Craig was the ring bearer at my wedding... here he is at about the same age Tad is now. Ain't he cute?

Not great quality on that picture, but I had to make a picture with the digital camera and then well, you know the rest. Anyhoo, I think you get the picture here. ha.. Now, it's a rush to find Tad a tuxedo or suit or something decent for a wedding and I've got to start practicing...

From Preacher to ???

Ok, as if preaching a sermon wasn't enough, I was tagged to lead Bible Study tonight as our pastor is away in Mexico with a mission team building churches, ministering to the people, and engaging in worship services. My adoring husband nominated me for this job last week at Bible study. I reallly didn't want to accept this job, but as no other person was willing to, I was trapped! Lucky for me, we are studying the book of Acts and chapter 2 in particular. Seriously, I lucked out on this one. The Pentecost story is one I'm well familiar with, having planned Pentecost worship services in the past. So, we talked about the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and ran down a few denominations. No, really we didn't speak derogatorially (is that a word?) of other denoms, we accepted that they may have different interpretations of Scripture than we do and that that's okay! We also talked about how different our world would be if all Christians were united by the Holy Spirit as those believers were on the day of Pentecost and in the days following. Imagine it if you can.... no hunger, no homelessness, seeing all as a brother or sister. What a wonderful thought....too bad that's all it is.