Man On Fire

It's been five days since my last posting and man, have I been busy. I've been totally on fire and have been burning through my to-do list with unbelievable rapidity. It feels great and it definitely is what makes it easier to handle Daleen and Colin being gone for the past two and a half weeks. (See, I told you their month-long visit to her parents would go by quickly.) I'm doing a lot now, but when they get home, everything will be done, and all I will have to do is relax and enjoy their company.

This past weekend was especially crazy though.


Friday:
Up at 4:00AM and off to go hunting with my friend Russ. (Hey, I said I was busy. I never said it was all work....) On our trip I had three bucks and eight does walk out in front of me and I let them all walk away. Too small. To be honest, that's the best kind of hunting in my book. The deer come in, so you know you've done it right, and then afterwards you get to go home without a lot of extra work.

After I got home, I made some lunch and then got to work on painting some new cabinets for our laundry room project. In between coats, while the paint was drying, I went out and worked on getting up the 5 tons of leaves covering my lawn. Every year, I promise myself I am going to keep up with the leaves and not let them get all crazy. Then I promptly break that promise and let them pile up.

After the leaves/painting, it was time for dinner (grilled steak, brussels sprouts (love the sprouts), and a salad. Dinner was followed by dish duty and then on to the main event for the evening: laundry and ironing. Like the leaves, I had let the clothes pile up too. I like ironing in front of the TV though. My friend Chad loaned me his "John Adams" DVD. (It's an HBO miniseries.). Two episodes, three hours, more than enough time to finish with the clothes. I thought it was very well done and I can't wait to see the other DVD's in the series.

In bed at 11:45PM. A long day.


Saturday:
Slept in until 6:30 (that's sleeping in for me usually). No hunting this morning. It was around 20 degrees out and I am simply not that crazy.
Spent the morning finishing up painting the new wall cabinets for the laundry room. They are a very handsome avocado green color now. I also managed to get the kitchen cleaned up from Friday night. Late morning and the entire afternoon was devoted to getting up the last of the leaves. I burned some of the leaves along with some brush I had piled up, but this ended when the breeze started kicking up. The rest of the leaves went into the woods. Thank goodness that job is FINALLY OVER!

At 4:30 I headed out the door to head to my next function. Our church had it's annual membership meeting Saturday evening. This is the one time of the year where we come together to vote on church business items which require the members approval. We also have dinner together, followed by some music and reflection on what we've managed to accomplish in the past year and what we have to look forward to. It was really nice. The business meeting part was VERY short as usual and the food was excellent.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay very long after dinner as I was then off again to a work function. Our night shift guy, Joe, was going to be relocated to our NY office. He didn't really want to make that move so he found a new job in NC, close to his wife's family. Anyhow, we had his Hail and Farewell party Saturday evening. Joe was a great coworker and he will be missed, but everyone feels good when they see someone who makes a job or career move, not for themselves, but for their family. I made it home by 10:30 and watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on Netfilx Online. It's a great movie which I had seen before, but man, Stanley Kubrick was whacked!


Sunday:
Up at 5:00AM. Ran the lights at church Sunday morning. Our church is in the process of building our permanent home, but in the meantime we are mobile. I like to think we are nomadic, but we really go to the same place every week. Every Sunday, the trailers carrying all the stuff needed to run a church are transported to Powhatan High School and are unloaded. We do church. Then everything goes back into the trailers and is driven away until next Sunday. In between the unloading and reloading, something really amazing happens. If you attend Powhatan Community Church, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't... well... I'm not going to tell you. You'll just have to come and check it out for yourself.

As I mentioned I ran the lights for the service rehersal and two services. The Tech Team to which I belong also is tasked with setting up and tearing down our stage setup, which is fairly complex. Running the tech gear during the rehersal and two services is generally fun. However, as you can guess, tragedy does occasionally strike, but somehow, the problems always get fixed and we move on. No matter how crazy things get, my friend Beth always says "It'll be fine!!", and it always is.

I almost lament our moving into our new building. I hate to think my son is never going to know what it's like to be a part of a mobile church. Right now, when you say PCC, people think of this awesome group of people doing amazing things. After we get our building, when you mention PCC, people will think of our building. We're going to be able to do what we do so much better when we get moved in, but we're going to lose a little something too. I think we should, one Sunday a year, fill our trailers up and take them somewhere and play a bunch of old photos and DVD's to remind ourselves of where we came from. I know it sounds crazy but it would be good to remind ourselves the building we are moving into is just another tool for us to use to do what we do.

After the second church service, it was time for the first rehersal of the Christmas play I am in. Believe it or not, I actually pretty much have all of my lines memorized. The rehersal was fun and it was cool to start to visualize how we are going to pull this thing off. My friend Chad and I have the two big speaking parts and we got a chance to ham it up for the rest of the cast. They all laughed when they were supposed to which was encouraging.

After rehersal, I got back home, loaded up my truck and took all of our trash to the dump. Once that was finished, I fired up my lawnmower and cut the grass, then spread out the last application of fall lawn fertilizer. I then sprayed roundup on some trouble areas around my driveway, put everything away, and headed indoors. It was dark then anyway.

Once inside I cooked dinner (baked salmon, more brussels sprouts, and a salad), did the dishes, and washed some more laundry while watching the beginning of the movie "2010", which is not nearly as wierd as "2001". I like Roy Scheider and I think Helen Mirren is just awesome.
I had a glass of wine with dinner and that's all it took to finish off my weekend. I was in bed at 7:30.

Unfortunately, my alarm went off early at 4:00 this morning. Time to get ready for work. I feel rested, and good this morning. This is going to be a busy week for me, but I am ready for it. I am a man on fire.