Friday the 13th! Good luck or a Bad luck day, --- I guess we will wait to see how it turns out. However, so far it has been just fine. It is a beautiful sun shiny day; the temperature is 45 dgrees and is supposed to climb another 10 degrees by afternoon. The breeze is light, just enough to occasionally move through the Corinthian chimes and make them peal. Yep, I'll call that a pleasant morning. I'm on my second cup of coffee and I've had my Toaster Strudels, ---- what else could a fella need? Perhaps a second pot of coffee??

This being Friday means that this is my day off; so I need to figure out what I'm going to do with myself today. I'll have to first check with Ms. Kate and see what's on her list for me. I do need to run to the churches and move that Operation Christmas Child stuff from one church to the other. I was going to do that yesterday but spent the day at the computer instead and got a lot of work done there. I also need to practice my horn for a bit in preparation for Sunday. Wednesday our keyboard player and I went over the number a couple of times and worked out the kinks. If it goes as well Sunday as it did the second "run through", we will hoth be very happy. We have several musicians in our St. Lucas church. Off hand I can think of a flute player, a clarinet player, a trombonist, a saxophone player, and at least four of us play the trumpet; and we have a wonderful keyboard player or two. So how come it is me, the asthmatic old fart of the whole group, that is the only one who will stand up and play a solo?? I think it would be so neat to put together an ensemble of us and play during the Christmas season. But, the reality is that it would be nye to impossible to get folks to commit to the time that would take. The sad part is that we are wasting a gift and talent that God gave us.

Mr Fuss-a-lot and a friend are here this morning as are several of the other "big-billed" birds such as the starling, the red-headed woodpecker, and the mockingbird. There have been some interesting challenges at the feeders full of peanuts. Yesterday I threw out the remaining dog food that was left in Auggie's bowl and the birds cleaned that up pretty quickly. Then I threw out some stale bread and that went fast too, and finally I emptied the remainder of a bag of Sugar Pops that had gone stale and they have just about cleaned that up too. As I look out there, I think I need to re-fill several of the feeders again too. The weather is colder, and the harvest is done in the fields, so the birds are moving back to the neighborhood feeders again.

Last evening we were invited over to neighbor  Dan's house for supper. His lovely wife , Minh, cooked up a delicious meal and even sent home leftovers for our lunch today. Tonight we are invited to another neighbors house across the street for a late Halloween party. What is going on with all of this friendly neighbor stuff?? I almost feel "social" again.

On that note; I'll simply wish you a very blessed day and weekend. Carve time out of your weekend to visit you house of worship and give thanks and praise where it is due. Until next time.