Vacation update 2

This week we celebrated Nick's 17th birthday. The rummage sale last Thursday not only helped us get rid of some stuff but developed into trips to Goodwill, the Seventh Day Adventist "Dorcas" thrift center, the County "landfill"to get properly rid of a computer monitor, plus want went into our own garbage container. The screen porch got spiffed up and well used. An old steamer trunk that I bought at a rummage sale last fall (from a family that came from Trondheim) finally got the lift hinges I had planned to give it. More than a few things got cleaned up, sorted, and painted. I was going to replace a light dimmer switch only to find that the wires in the electrical box didn't seem to fit the part I had so I let that project die. Anybody want to give me some basic electrician lessons! The wiper arm fell off the '94 Buick but the used auto parts store had just what I needed. Oh..and I got in a little more family time! We watched several movies with "Sweet Land" and "Chocolate" being on my recommended list.

Its back to work tomorrow. Doing this kind of a vacation for a third week would be tempting. Maybe I will have broken down some overly committed work patterns... and will do a better job of pacing myself but with the memorial services, weddings and additional pastoral and program events coming up this month, it will be a challenge.
I didn't get around to any reading these last two weeks but I am more than satisfied with what I did instead.
For a worship service this past Sunday I went down the street to St Paul Episcopal church for the farewell service of Father Stephen Haptonstahl who has been their interim for two years. I will miss him in our Lenten and Thanksgiving services!

I have my sister and her husband from Arizona coming to the Brainerd area for the 4th as well as my parents from TRF and my brother from Moorhead. Its been a few years since we were all together..

Some future blogs I might get around to: There is a cable TV show called Black Gold, and its supposed to something like the "Deadliest Catch" series. I had some brief time on an oil/gas service or "work over' rig in Colorado back in 1979. It wasn't as dramatic as the TV show makes it but terms like tool pusher, driller, tongs, elevator, are still in my memory. I thought of this when I had to decide whether or not to throw my old plastic hard hat with this recent cleaning binge. The plastic is now so brittle it almost cracks a part just by handling. I noticed it had a Haliburton sticker so I used it to say I was around Dick Chaney's company once. But the deeper part of the oil rig experience was what I discovered about myself in that time. I will say no more for now.
The other future blog topic would be how my mother "integrated" two churches that had been in the habit of seating the men on one side of the sanctuary while the women and children sat on the other. I can still remember that tradition in the little country Lutheran church of Ringo township. My mother's theology wasn't too fancy but in her words "doing it that way was just stupid!"
Grace and peace