New Year’s Eve and Ms. Kate and I are sitting around in our “lazy clothes”. I didn’t go to work this morning because I wasn’t feeling well and was having some stomach issues that kept me close to certain rooms of the house. Ms. Kate is still deep under the weather with her chest cold. This is day six and I’m concerned that it might be walking pneumonia. She is worn out and tired from all of the coughing and hacking that she has had to endure. So, our New Year’s Eve celebration won’t amount to much. Maybe another swig of Robitussen. LOL

It has rained much of the night and most of the day. Our winter forecast for this year was that we woud have a wetter than normal year. So far that has come to fruition. We’ve had at least two days of some amount of rain every week. The ground never has a chance to dry out. But I am not complaining one bit. At least I’m not having to shovel anything.

Yesterday the elders of the church gave Pastor Art and I our annual “report card” for lack of a better term. Mine was an an excellent report but I know it could have been better. I’ll make no excuses for it. It is done by giving the congregation a survey to fill out about our performance. I averaged above a 2.75 out of 3 in every category. There were a couple of negative comments and they were valid. People have great expectations of their pastors and those expectations are “personal need driven.”  We can’t be all things to all people. We were both contracted to continue into 2019 until the permanent pastor is hired. I expect that will be very shortly.

2018 is done. It has been a very rewarding year n that I was given the chance toonce again fill a pulpit and even better than that, —- to fill the pulpit of my home church. That was a dream fulfilled and I and feeling truly blessed. It has been a wonderful year for our family and I am now looking forward to June when we get all of the family together for our week long family reunion in Virginia Beach. Beyond that, our last grandchild will finish high-school. We will travel to CA for that.

I pray you have a wonderful 2019 and I pray that whatever dreams you have for 2019 will be filled. I also pray that whatever relationship you have with Jesus Christ will grow. Until next year, (tomorrow) I bid you peace.

Hello Saturday, you’re certainly a dull looking day. I was hoping that maybe we’d have a bit of sunshine today. But it is cloudy and thirty two degrees and it “looks cold” out there.

My Backyard Buffet guests are sparse this morning. I filled feeders yesterday but don’t seem t have a lot of takers this morning. One squirrel and a couple of Cardinals are all I have seen for mmost of the morning. Maybe they are all gathered around a campfire someplace keeping warm. I wouldn’t blame them at all.

Ms. Kate and I are still nursing our colds. She is much rose off than I am. I’m holding mine at bay with Mucenex pretty well. She still has a deep chest cough but it sounds better than it did, so perhaps she is on the mend. I really hope so because she has been absolutely miserable. I fixed her some chicken broth noodle soup last night and this morning she is having an apple. Nothing else sounds good to her.

It is New Year’s weekend. Again people will be traveling for parties and family visits. I pray folks will be careful and not let the enthusiasm of changing to a new year override their common sense and send them out driving drunk.

I heard the sorriest story this morning about two teenagers than had been shot over an argument about who’s mother makes the best Kool-Aid. And the two teens that were shot weren’t the two who were arguing. But can you imagine that even happening? An argument over kool-aid gets so out of hand that two young kids pull out guns and start shooting, not really caring who they hit. A young by-stander was interviewed and he said; “well, guns are easier to get than candy, and when you don’t have anything to live for — you don’t care about you life or anybody else’s.” And of course, “no one knows” who the kids were that did the shooting. You know, I guess you would expect me to say we need to pray for them but I’m not going to say that. We need to hire, we need to educate, we need to promote community standards and we need to somehow get our society back to putting value in human life. We need parents to be examples and provide discipline; and yes we also need to pray. We need communities to take responsibility for themselves. The answer can’t be to create  another “handout program”. That has been the answer too long. Frankly, all it does is create slaves, slaves to the system, slaves and votes to the group that is “giving away”. The “givers resent it” and the recipients resent it. ——- Sorry, I don’t mean to go on a rant because I don’t have the answers, and I can only see the problems. Let’s hope that in 2019 that as a nation we can come together and work together and once again create a society that knows how to respect one another and will share the blessings that God has provided every human being.

See ya’ Monday! Have a great weekend.

It is the last Friday of 2018 and the temperature is forty nine and the sun is shining bright today. I have a yard full of guests and there are several empty feeders. I guess I know what I have on my agenda then today. I must replenish the feeders so the word doesn’t get out that I am a bad host.

We had a fantastic sunset last night. The way our house is situated, being surrounded by other houses and a lot of trees, I seldom see a really good sunset from my house. But last night was perfectly stunning. You know, one of my oldest and dearest friends is an artist and paints beautifully, and I know several other artists; however, I have never seen an artist paint anything as beautifully brilliant as that sunset that God painted last night. I took a couple of pictures and posted them on Facebook but they didn’t truly capture the reality of the view. So, I just want to stop and give our great God credit and thank you for that extra helping of blessings last night.

Neighbor Dan and his wife texted me last night that they were heading out at 0400 this morning for Virginia. He said it was going to be an extended trip and they may not be back until March. I don’t know how they can do that; I never could. First of all, I couldn’t leave my house for that long and secondly, I couldn’t go and stay at someone else’s house for that long. I would feel like a total imposition. But they have done that ever since I have known them. With her it is a cultural thing I guess. She is Vietnamese and her brothers and sisters are spread aroud the country. But, her family doesn’t come here to visit them and stay, so I don’t get it. His family is all here except for some in Texas. So, they just go visit and stay, and stay, and stay!! I’ve always lived with the old thought that company and dead fish are about the same; after three days, it is time to throw them out. But, different strokes for different folks, as they say. Maybe I’m the weird one

Ms. Kate and I are neither one doing very well this morning. I have a sinus drip page that is keepinga Kleenex at my nose and she has acid reflux from something and has had for a couple of days. By now her throat is burning everytime she coughs and she is coughing or clearing her throat constantly. So, say a little prayer that we both get to feeling better. I had hoped wwe could go out and do something today but I suspect that is going to be totally off the table.

Having said that, I think I need to refill my coffee cup and grab a new box of Kleenex. It’s going to be a long day. Hope your day is much better than this. Peace, my friends.

A good Thursday morning to you. I’m just kind of sitting here, watching the Backyard Buffet, having my coffee and going through Facebook messenger and conversing with the family across the country. It is a warm morning, much warmer than one would expect on the 27th of December, and we are expecting high winds and rain today. That will usher in a cold front that will take the temperatures back down to at least seasonal if not lower. The forecasters still hint at snow in the forecast and the country is getting hit pretty hard from coast to coast, but it looks like Evansville is the middle of the sandwich and we will mostly get rain.

Thursday mornings are always “new case” mornings on my silly Criminal Case computer games. Ms. Kate also gets a “new land” on Thursdays for her Klondike computer game. Suffice it to say, we don’t talk much in the morning on Thursdays. LOL That’s “Nerdvana” time for both of us. Actually, we start most mornings like that; her on her computer and me on my IPad. I really like my IPad. I only had a Nook for a long time but the Ipad has has opened up so many options for me. I sit here and write my blog and watch my birds. I jabber forever on Facebook Messenger with the girls and or friends. Heather and John also bought me a Microsoft Surface Pro laptop computer and I carry that with me anytime I travel. It is so much lighter than the Lenovo laptop that I was using. The Lenovo had gotten old and slow and just didn’t meet my needs. So, the kids heard me whining about it and rectified the situation last year. Between my IPhone, my IPad, and my Surface Pro — I’m geeked to the max and I still have my PC down in my office that I use for all of my work.

I told you we had a great crowd for Christmas Eve service. Well the count in in and we had 136 people there. I am so very pleased with that. That is a record attendance for any service in recent history. For me though the blessing is that from what I saw, people really enjoyed the service. Folks came away from it full of the Christmas spirit. As far as I am concerned, it was “goal achieved”. If a pastor can do their best and people can walk away full of God’s love and grace and warmth, then that pastor and pastoral team have done what God asked them to do. It doesn’t get any better than that.

On that note, I shall go get more coffee, check to see if the wash cycle is done so I can switch the clothes to the dryer, and then head downstairs and get some work done. Have a most blessed day. God loves you and so do I.

December the 26th; the Christmas holiday is over. The Christmas events are over. But, I hope the Christmas spirit isn’t over. It would be wonderful to think that the spirit of love and joy would continue to linger on and on. But, folks are back to work today because Christmas fell in the middle of the week which is going to make the rest of the week feel weird. The same thing is going to happen next week when New Years Eve and New Years Day also fall in the middle of the week. Pastor Art and I worked with Karen to get her whatever she needed in order to have her bulletins all done so she could have today off of work and we have taken today off too.

How was your Christmas? Ours was great. Julie, Jim and the fur-babies came over on Saturday and left yesterday afternoon. Ms. Kate out-did herself with cooking this weekend. We did a ham and she also did a Prime Rib. We stuffed ourselves without shame. She also made an angel-food cake. It’s sad that she had to do all of the cooking for her birthday to include making her own birthday cake but that was what she wanted to do.

Our Christmas Eve program was wonderful. We had a record number of people in attendance. The church was packed. The chancel choir, the bell choir, our guest violinist, and even I made beautiful music for the service. But —- the the premiere performance was by Diane, our organist and choir director. She played our new Kurzweil keyboard for the service prelude and it literally brought me to tears. I was so full of joy and. When I said something to Ms. Kate, she said she was the same way. I had really fought for us to get this keyboard for the church and she proved that I was right in my efforts. I predict that a lot of great music will come out of that keyboard in the coming years.

I think today is gong to be a relax day around here. Maybe we’ll take down the Christmas treeless Ms. Kate wants to keep it up through New Years. The laundry hamper is full so maybe we’ll do that and maybe not. It has been hectic long enough to warrant a day of relaxation. I sat down at my computer last night and started to look at the lectionary scriptures for my next sermon I have to write and I couldn’t begin to focus on what I might want to write. I have two and a half weeks to get it written so it isn’t like there is a rush. So, I think that coffee, music, and watching my guests at the Backyard Buffet will consume a great deal of my day.

I hope you hve the opportunity to sit and relax today too. It is almost the end of the year 2018. Maybe you can take some time and reflect on how your year has gone and be grateful for the year of God’s blessings that have come your way. But, whatever your day may hold, I hope it is full of God’s peace.

Christmas Eve! It doesn't seem or feel like Christmas Eve. I'm at the office for a couple of hours and then will head home. It not only is Christmas Eve, it is also Ms. Kate's seventy first birthday. So, we need to do some celebrating of that. For lunch today we are having Prime Rib. Ms. Kate picked up a beautiful Prime Rib at Fresh Market on Friday. I'm looking forward to that for lunch. I don't know what else we may be having but when you have a fresh prime rib -- ya' don't need a lot else. Besides, Julie is on a fairly restrictive diet due to the huge ulcer she is having to deal with.

Our Sunday services were great. The children did their program and it was cute as it could be. As I said on Facebook, when the "shephard boy" is holding the lamb by the tail, you know it is going to  be a great kids program. The worship service went extremely well too. All of my characters did their part very well and with a lot of enthusiasm and I think brought the picture home that I was trying to paint when I wrote it. Now, I just want to get through the Christmas Eve program tonight without dropping the communion host or flubbing up the notes of my solo. Then I can relax.

I think this afternoon, Jim and I will take the mower deck off of the mower and put the snow blade apparatus on. I think that I'll put on most of the apparatus except for the blade itself. That way it will take up less room and we won't have to navigate our way around the blade when we are walking through the garage. I'm always afraid that one of us will trip over that blade or something. When the snow does come, it won't take more than a minute then to attach the blade.

Also on my list for today, I think that I'll need to fill birdfeeders. A lot of them look empty. So, I have a busy day bcause at some point, I be;lieve tht Santa Claus is coming too., --  but not until we have cl;ebrated Ms. Kate's birthday. I always try to ensure that we separate Christmas and Ms. Kate's birthday. If it runs together, then she doesn't feel as if she has a birthday. That always bothered he a kid.

That's it. I'm signing off for today. This is a holy night. It is a night of prayer and thanksgiving for tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we believe to be the Son of God. I hope you will have a blessed Christmas full of fun and family and faith. I probably won't write tomorrow. I pray God will bring you nothing but peace. Shalomn.

It is Saturday and the Christmas holiday has begun! Millions of people are getting in their cars and heading out to visit family or head to the airports and stand in line and wait because the weather across much of the action is causing delays. We just got a text from Julie thatJi was just now going out to do his Christmas shopping (a bit last minute) and they will be getting on the road and heading this way too. So, I offer up a prayer for safe travels for all.

It is a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music kind of morning. I really am a creature of habit. This album has been around since 1984; that’s 34 years and I am still listening to it. BUt, it is good music, so why not? It is 34 degrees in theBbackyard Buffet and mostly sunny. At the moment my only guests are the squirrels. I had three or four Cardinals out there earlier but that is about it. No doubt there will be a bunch of guests fly in all at once before very long; that’s the way it happens.

Yesterday was “schrooms and beer” day with Bob and Brenda. Ms. Kate and I always enjoy that. We catch up on what is going on with each other’s families and just have good conversation. Yesterday though much of the conversation centered around the fact that their pastor has announced his retirement and the question of how much longer will I be doing the interim pstorship at my current church. The innuendo being of course that I could return as the interim pastor back at Ft. Branch. But, as I said, that is all a year away and lots could happen before that. I’m just concentrating on getting through this Christas season. Tomorrow we do the Christmaas drama and Monday night I have to play a solo at church and don’t want to mess that up. So, as a former boss of mine once said, take life at a Pac Man pace, ie one bite at a time. Or as Jesus said, “don’t worry about tomorrow.”

However, last night I re-read my sermon that I have prepared for next week, and as I often do, I decided that I need to do some tailoring on it and rewrite portions of it. So, I got started it but I need to finish that up sometime this next week. I don’t know why I do that to myself. Or maybe it isn’t me. Maybe it is the Lord saying “you don’t have it right; — redo!

Well, Ms. Kate has started moving aroud here getting things dry for Jim and June and the pups to get here and that men’s that I’ll be doing some “honey, I need ya’” duties. So I better sign this off and haul my tail out of the recliner. I hope your day is bright and sunny. If you plan to travel this weekend, please take care. Peace.

Thursday, Thursday, what are we to do with you today. It is the last official day of autumn and it is obvious. It is a rainy chilly day and there are none of the fall colors left anywhere. In fact, were it not for the blue tarp I have covering the yard sweeper, there would be no color at all in the back yard. That is why I so look forward to seeing my cardinals show up. They read the last of the birds with color. The goldfinches have turned color until spring and the rest of our birds are either brown, black, or some mixture there of. 

This is one of those days where it seems hard to get motivated to do anything. Maybe that haas to do with the weather too. I didn’t sleep all that well last night. I woke about 0330 and never got back to a deep sleep until Ms. Kate got out of bed around 0700 when we got one of those stupid “Robo-calls’ that woke us up. She went on and got out of bed and I slept for another hour and a half. I expected that I would find her at her computer when I got out of bed but instead she was sitting in her chair in the living room still snoozing too. But, I had “work” on my mind a good part of the night, goingover worship services that are coming up and stuff like that. So, it was a toss and turn night. 

Luckily we don’t have much on our agenda for today. I need to practice my trumpet for awhile and Ms. Kate wants to go to Dollar General store to get some gift bags for putting Christmas presents in.   I think that gift bags are one of the better inventions of the 20th Century. There are people who can wrap presents like a champion but I’m not one of them. I finish wrapping a present and it looks like a blob of tape and scrap paper. Then when the first tear of the paper occurs, all of the beauty of that wrapped present is gone. At least with gift bags, people generally fold them up and re-use them. 

I have lots a nd lots of guests here today at the Backyard Buffet. For awhile I had a dozen starlings out there being rude to anything else that wanted to eat, but they have since left. Now, it is mainly cardinals and finches and woodpeckers. The titmouse and wrens kind of flit through and fly away and come back for more. I had a couple of squirrels here but they have since moved on. So at the moment, the cardinals rule the roost. 

We had a nice Christmas gathering at one of the parishioner’s house last evening for the choir. I took a crockpot full of “BBQ sausages” and most of them were eaten. Ms. Kate fixed those for me because she said that men always gravitate to them; and she was right. 

As I have sat here the starlings have returned for another round but so has the blue jay. My blue jay will give the starlings a “what-for”.. It becomes a battle of the long beaks. 

That is all for today my friends; no witicisms of sage advice, Not even a sermon. Just a prayer that you have a most wonderful day. Peace. 

Thirty-two degrees and sunny this morning and the feeders are full in the Backyard Buffet. I filled nineteen feeders yesterday as I promised I would. There were birds chirping at me as I filled them, I guess telling me to hurry up. Some birds landed on the feeders as soon as I hung them back up. And of course, the squirrels don’t miss a thing. I think they literally post sentinals to keeep a watch on when I’m refilling the feeders. Right now though the squirrels are in the trees and fussing a warning. There must be a cat in the yards or approaching the yard so they are sending out the warning. Or maybe they are just getting ready for a territory battle claiming the full feeders. If so, there will be squirrels casing one another all over this yard and across the the roof. They are fun to watch.

I went out and worked in my flowerbeds yesterday. I finally got the peonies cut off that I should have done two months ago, I raked one flowerbed and got it cleaned up. If I have time today, I’d like to rake this back flowerbed and get all of the leaves off of it. It just looks messy. The leaves being on it doesn’t hurt a thing and even serves as a mulch of sorts but I think it looks unfinished. I have office hours this morning, but it is supposed to get up to about fifty-five degrees this afternoon. The problem is that there is also supposed to be a lot of wind coming in, so I don’tknow how well raking will go. Tomorrow and Friday we are supposed to have rain. But, it still looks like we are going to have a mostly mild and dry Christmas with no snow.

Speaking of office hours, I need to get my shower and get ready to go to work. This is staff meeting day and Art and Karen and I need to make last minute changes and detail for the two services coming up. It seems that we just started Advent and now we are only six days away from Christmas. Time seems to fly when there are deadlines to meet.

Have a blessed day, and take time to give thanks for your blessings. Don’t forget that God gave you those blessings to share. Peace.

It is “brrrrr-eautiful” out there in the buffet this morning. So far my guests have been limited to a couple of downy woodpeckers and a couple of cardinals. I see more birds off in the trees but I still haven’t gotten around to filling the feeders yet and they know it. I promise I’ll do that just as soon as I finish my blog and my coffee. It isn’t like there is no food out there, but they have to eat it off of the ground from where they have thrown or spilled it. I guess it is shameful to make them have to be like “wild birds” and do natural things. I told you that I went to Wild Birds Unlimited the other day and stocked up, so I do have everything they need. It is just a matter of taking the time and getting the job done.

I had a good practice session with Diane yesterday. Hopefully the number will go just fine. I’ll need to practice it again today. I don’t know why I keep volunteering to do this. It is a pain in the butt to get ready every time to play a solo. It doesn’t take any time at all for the lip to be out of shape. I guess I could practice very day, but to what end. No one is going to ask me to play. I mean, if someone else was planning this Christmas Eve service, they would have not come to me and asked me to play.

Along that same line of thought, Ms. Kate and I were talking last night about how we have gotten to the age where we have become “the forgotten generation”.  I think most senior citizens get to that point and it is harder to accept for some than it is for others. I see it at church all the time. Our senior generation comes and sits there and worships and a few people speak to them as they come and go, but no one expects anything of them. I realize that many probably feel they “have done their duty” and may not want to be called on; but the reality is that a new generation has now taken the lead and is doing things the way they want to do them. And frankly, it is the same way with our kids. We are loved and we know we are loved, but the kids and grandkids really don’t have time in their lives for visiting. They are busy working, and trying to make a living a having a life of their own. I fully understand it because twenty years ago we were the same way. To visit the parents took days of travel each way and then you had to spread your time out between families. It became a total hassle and we ended up not really enjoying our visit at all. I think I have come to the realization that maybe the reason I try to keep working is simply that I don’t want to become “forgotten”. From my experience as a visiting pastor to nursing homes, I think the worst thing mentally that can happen to an elderly person is to be “put in a nursing home”. They realize that they have now been “put away” to eventually be forgotten. I’ve done so many funerals for people like that and maybe only ten people show up. It’s so sad. So, —- my message is to remember our folks in the nursing homes and remember our elderly. You might be the first bright and friendly voice they have heard from in a long time. ——- Are you depressed yet?   Sorry.

Time to finish my coffee and then feed my birds and critters and make sure the back yard buffet  is open for businesss.  Have a most blessed day.

Happy Monday morning to you. Here in southern Indiana it is a sunny thirty-nine degrees with little to no wind thereby making it a pleasant morning. That is especially pleasant for a December morning. I've been watching the forecast and it appears that snow is going to be out of the question for Christmas. While that may be very disappointing for many people who want a white Christmas, I'm just fine with it. Other than the pleasure and fun I have using my John Deere to move snow with the snow blade, I don't ever need to see snow again other than in a picture.

We had a really wonderful day at church yesterday. We had a record number in Sunday school (58) and we had a large crowd for the 1015 worship service (94). The chancel choir presented the the Cantata and it was wonderful. We had so many great comments on the performance. I came home from church "full" of the Holy Spirit and I imagine many others did too. This coming Sunday should be another "full-church-Sunday". We are having the children's Christma program at 0845 for the Sunday school hour and the for the worship service are doing a dramatic reading that I wrote that represents several people that "were there" for the birth fo Jesus Christ. We had a rehearsal of it yesterday and the character's all did a really good job. I'm looking forward to it. Then, on Monday night we will have the Christmas Eve candlelight service with communion. So, it is going to be a long but inspiring weekend.

I finally made it out to Wild Birds Unlimited on Saturday. I spent a lot of money ($135.00) on restocking my larder. I shouldn't have to go back for quite awhile. After I get home from the office today I'll fill all of the feeders again. I have most all of my work done that I need to do for the services etc. so I'll have time to sit in the sun porch and enjoy my Back Yard Buffet guests. I don't sit out there as often I would like mostly because it is considered a "three-season" porch and is not heated. A couple of years ago I did have a contractor run an air vent to the room but it really doesn't do much. The room still gets cold air from the soffets and there is no insulation because it is made up of all glass. I have a space heater that I use sometimes when I'm out there but I hate to do so because those things draw a lot of energy. I'm already ready for Spring and Winter doesn't actually arrive until Saturday. We leave the doors from the family room open to the sunporch at night so that the plants don't freeze that we keep in there all winter. Ms. Kate is always cold because if her blood thinner medicine so we keep the doors closed in the day time.

I'm waiting for our organist, Diane, to get here this morning so we can practice my trumpet solo that I'm going to play Christmas Eve. I've been working on it so it should go well as long as I don't flub it up.

That's it for today. I hope your day goes well. Peace.

The song says “It’s a rainy night in Georgia”, and it may well be; but it’s been a rainy night in Evansville too. In fact it has rained about three inches over the past two days. But, the rain hsn’t been constant. It rains for a while and then stops for a couple of hours, then we get a little more, etc etc. At the moment we are between showers, but it is really a grey day with no sunshine forthcoming.

Ms. kate is getting ready to go to a baby shower this morning for a former parishioner of our. The young lady is just a real sweetheart and her husband is a super guy. I married them several years ago. In fact, I married all three of those kids and they are all just plain good people. This couple have really wanted to have a child and have had bad luck trying to do so a couple of different times. But, God works as God works and we don’t question it. Her parents are some of our favorite people. I pray for nothing but blessings for the entire family.

I did my Christmas and birthday shopping for Ms. Kate yesterday. Traffic was heavy and the lines were long, but I got it done and I think she will be pleased with what I bought. I went from one side of town to the other looking for what I had in mind and even called Julie for a bit of guidance. But, everything is under the tree now so I’m done.

I’m still working on my solo that I’ll be playing on Christmas Eve. I have it down, but I need to go over it every day just to keep the lip in working order. I need to get a practice time lined up with our organist so we can practice together. I’m doing “O Holy Night” and using the version from our Cantata, so she knows the music well too. But, we need to be in sync when we do it.

My sister’s shoulder replacement went well so I thank God and I thank any of you who may have said a prayer for her. I imagine by this afternoon they will begin the first therapy on her, enough to make sure the alarm and shoulder don’t freeze up. Boy, I sure remember my PT. It was no fun.

Time to get cleaned up. When Ms. Kate comes home from the baby shower, I hope it will have quit raining and we plan to go to Wild Birds and stock up the can with goodies for my Backyard Buffet guests. In the meantime, as always, I pray your day will be blessed and full of joy. Take time to tend your local house of worship this weekend. You have so much to be thankful for. Peace.

December 14th; my sister’s birthday. Happy Birthday Sheila. She’s getting a new shoulder for her birthday. That doesn’t sound Iike much of a birthday present does it? But, I reckon the good part of it comes after the the operation and the physical therapy is over and done with and you can use your arm again. So, lift her up in your prayers that all goes well if you will.

Can you believe that December is almost half over? It is amazing how the year goes along at what often seems like a crawling pace and then viola’ the year is suddenly over. A week from today will be the first day of winter. And it will also be my youngest daughter’s birthday. Then just four days later it will be Christmas which means that Christmaas is eleven days away. That means of course that I better get my rear end out and shop for my wife’s birthday and Christmas present. I still don’t know what I am going to get for her; any suggestions? I saw a video on Facebook yesterday talking about what to get for your wife for Christmas. The lady said to not go but jewelry, or candy or things like that. She said to give her a weekend to herself, or spa treatment day or plan a trip for her with her girl friends, or clean house and wash dishes and do the laundry for her for a change. Well, I’m here to tell you that none of those suggestions work for Ms Kate. She already has more time to heeerelf than she probably wants, I already help her around the house, and she takes vacations with her sister to Vegas. And the only thing she has mentioned that she wants is a set of ear rings. So —- I’m back to scratching my head.

Despite the rain, I have a lot of guests at the Backyard Buffet this morning; Cardinals, wrens, junkos, Mockingbirds, finches and several varieties of woodpeckers as well as a couple of squirrels. It has been a busy morning out there. They are the bright spot on a cloudy day. So, I lift up gratitude to God for blessings received again this morning. And with that, I’ll leave you today. I hope that no matter what your outdoor weather might be like today that you’ll have a day of sunshine in your soul. Take time to stop and talk with The Lord today. Peace.

Thursday morning and this week is going quick. We’ve had one thing after another going on this week. Tuesday morning I had a clergy meeting all morning and then when I came home we had a bunch of things going on around here. Ms. Kate has been busy baking cookies, I’ve been busy getting the Christmas cards out. I was supposed to have a physical on Tuesday but my doctor is sick. He’s come down with the virus or cold or flu, whatever it is, that has been going around. I had gone and  had my bloodwork done on Monday so when I get rescheduled I won’t have to have that done again. And I’m still waiting to her from the Neurologist to get an appointment for whatever testing they want to do on my arm.

Yesterday of course was my morning staff meeting and then I made a couple of trips to the post office tomail out Christmas presents to the kids. I’m $85.00 poorer but at least all of the present are in Santa’s sleigh. Now, to just finish putting away the boxes from decorating the Christmas tree. Last night we had cantata practice dress rehearsal. I’m looking forward to us doing that. For a relatively small church, we have a large choir. I think we have fifteen now. I know we are out of room in the choir loft. How great is that?

Did I tell you about my garage door? The other morning, I went to raise it up and the spring cable broke and it shot the spring across the garage. I was out there and was lucky not to be hit. Anyway, I called the company that we deal with and they sent out a repairmen fairly quickly. But they are coming back today to replace the system that is currently on the door. It is supposed to be much more safe.

It is raining today and is supposed to rain on and off through today and most of tomorrow. But, the temperature is supposed to remain in the upper forties so that won’t be terrible. It isn’t slowing down my backyard guests at all. Although, I still haven’t made it to Wild Birds to pick up the special foods so they are looking around for that. Maybe if the garage dooor folks get here soon and finish up their work, I can maybe get out to Wild Birds. I also have to go Christmas shopping for Ms. Kate. Time is running out and I have a Christmas and birthday present to buy. I only have a “kind of” idea so this could take me awhile.

So, are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? I am. I’m looking forward to dong the cantata this Sunday. Then next Sunday we are doing a dramatic reading that I wrote. Then I’m doing the Christmas Eve service with communion and candlelight. It’s going to be beautiful. I’m playing a trumpet solo for that service so wish me luck. The the next thing you know, it will be 2019. I think Art and I will be still interim’s for the first couple of months of 2019 or maybe even all the way up to Easter. We’ll just have to see what God has in store.

That’s got me caught up. I pray your day is blessed and I pray you feel the full affect of God’s love in your life. Peace my friends.

Monday morning and we are busy running around and trying to get some things accomplished. We’ve started off at the doctor’s office having bloood drown. Ms. Kate has a standing blood draw every month to six weeks for her Protime medicine. I’m having a “fasting physical’ tomorrow at 1400 hours and I didn’t want to go without somethng to eat until late in the afternoon so I asked if I could do the blood draw today. It took a few minutes too get the order from the doctor but we got it and now we are all set.

From there we stopped at McDonalds and picked up breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee and headed out to the church for an hour or two of “office hours”. From here we are heading back out to the south side of town and to another doctor’s office. I have a Neurosurgeon appointment to check on my shoulder problem. I really hope he can zero in on the problem and get it taken care of. It is driving me a bit “nutso”. I’m losing sleeep over the darned thing because it wakes me up in the middle of the night and I can’t get comfortable.

My birds and critters were really looking and acting cold this morning. Everybody was fluffed up and puffed up. The squirrels were looking like they were really fat and the Robin had puffed up his feathers to where he was twice his normal size. I really have to stop at Wild Birds and pick up some stuff and put out fresh food and refill the birdbath. .

OK, time to head out to the doctor’s office. You have a great day. Peace

Happy Friday; and it is a happy Friday because Ms. Kate has already started making more cookies. She is making chocolate chip this time. Most people like their cookies warm and chewy and right out of the oven. Not me; I like crisp cookies and will eat my cookies out of the freezer. She baked up all of the Springerlies from Wednesday afternoon’s work, and I have to tell you —- they are delicious. Of course, I knew they would be.

I think I have finished with the Christmas cards now. I addressed a bunch more last night; so far that is ninety cards. I just took the last thirty or so out to the mailbox. That will be something I can check off of my “to-do” list. But now —- it is carry the boxes up from the basement and dig the boxes out of the garage storage area to get Ms. Kate’s Christmas ornaments out. I went out and moved a whole bunch of stuff from in front of the storage in the garage and realized I needed a ladder to get to the stuff. So, I went out to the yard and searched for my ladder in both of the yard barns and could not find it. I went back to the garage and there it was, just four feet from where I had been working. (Heavy sigh!!) So now, I’m back here to my blog which I started three hours ago and seem to be writing in patches of time. I’m warming up from being outside, having a cup of coffee and then will get back to it. Or, who knows, I may get pullled away and start doing something else. In fact, I know I will because I need to run up to Haubstadt, IN and pick up a meat tray and a cheese tray that we ordered for the church tomorrow.

So, I’m going to just wish you a good day and sign off. Peace.

Thursday already?? Who took my Wednesday? Actually I know where it went; “stuff” took it. I started out with my usual Wednesday morning staff meeting. As the year draws to a close, we find that we have less things to plan because all of the events for the remainder of the year are already in the works. But, with us two, that doesn’t mean that the meeting will be any shorter. We do like to talk together. Since Pastor Art and I are only interim pastors our need to plan too far ahead is limited. There is talk that the search committee appears to be zeroing in on a candidate for the job and that if they take the job, they want to be in place before the start of Lent which starts on March 4th. So, we’ll see what happens. There are still steps to be taken before all of this gets solidified, but I do hope and pray that the church will find a permanent pastor that they like and one that is good for the church. After-all, I’m not just the interim co-pastor, I’ve been a member of that church for almost seventy years. That seems strange to say since I was gone for thirty two years with the military and then another twelve and a half years as pasto of the two churches in Ft. Branch. But I’ve always maintained my membership at Zoar and we always return there. So, that is my “home church” and I am considered a “Son of the Congregation”.

After coming home from the office I find Ms. Kate in the middle of making her Springerlie cookies. I am the original “Cookie Monster”. I’m sure that character was based on me. I have several different Christmas cookies that I like but as I have said a hundred times, it just can’t be Christmas untiil the Springerlie cookies are made. She mixes them, cuts them out and then they have to set over night. This morning the house smells wonderful. She’ll start baking when she gets done with her computer stuff. Yummm!

After we finished mixing and preparing the cookies, I started on addressing the Christmas cards. Ms. Kate has spent months making all of our Christmas cards. I got the first sixty addressed and stamped last evening. I’ll drop them off at the post office here in a bit. I could put the in my mailbox but I have to go get more stamps anyway. I have maybe another sixty cards to address. I’ll do that stuff when I go get my haircut after while.

As I look around at the buffet this morning, I see that almost all of my feeders are empty and I’m being a bad host. I also know that I’m out of certain kinds of food, but I have pleasantly of sunflower seed and all of those feeders are empty. Just another job on the “to-do” list for today.

Having said that, I need to get cleaned up and get started on my days activities. I know it is cold outside and I’m not in a hurry to go out there, but gotta do it. So, you have yourself a blessed day. Take the time to slow down, count your blessings, and smile at someone today that isn’t expecting it. You just might be the bright spot in someone’s day. Peace.

Happy Tuesday. I don't have a lot to say this morning so I thought I would just include this pictire of what peace looks like to me. If your day is going hectic and the Christmas season is creeping up on you and making you frantic with all that you have to do --- just stop! Sit and look at this picture for a few moments. Place your self in the setting and listen to the wind blow through the pine trees and the silence of the world around you. Take a few deep breaths. What I see here is the purity of God's creation and the advent of the birth of the Son of God; the advent of the Prince of Peace.

Take time today and calm yourself. There are still plenty of days left before Christmas and if you don't get everything done and it's not perfect; guess what --- December 26th will arrive the day after Christmas and the world will still be here.

Breat5he in, breathe out --- God loves you. I love you and I'm saying a prayer for you right now that your life will be full of peace and joy. Shalomn

Hello Monday morning people! I hope you had a most excellent weekend and are ready to charge out into the world and take on a whole new week!

Our weekend was good but busy as heck. I thought we would get the Christmas decorations put up but that didn't come close to happening. Ms. Kate was busy putting together the last of the Christms cards. Now I can begin addressing them so we can get them in the mail as soon as possible. We also have purchased the last of the Christmas presents, (I think) and need to get them wrapped and in the mail too. And then, --- at some point Ms. Kate needs to go down to the basement with me and start deciding what she wants me to carry up for decorations. And if she doesn't find enough down there, we have a ten foot by twelve foot storage area in the garage that is stacked from floor to ceiling with nothing but Christmas stuff. I hate to even think about getting into that stuff because we haven't been in there for at least three years. I hope it hasn't become mouse heaven. But, I'll keep my word and get out whatever she wants.

Yesterday we went from one thing to another all day. We started out at Sunday school, then church. Then we went to the east side of town for lunch and that was followed by a trip to Michael's Craft store so Ms. Kate could find and buy some artificial flowers for the parents graves. From there we made a quick trip home to pick up the rest of the tools that we use to deeorate the graves. Then it was off to the cemeteries where we decorated seven graves for the winter season. Then it was back to church for a piano recital. Our organist was giving a recital of all of her  piano students. Ms. Kate and I went to just support her. Her students did well. She had every level of accomplishment there. Some did really well and some were just beginners and "one fingered" it. We finally got home around 1800 hours. We were both hungry but neither of us knew what we were hungry for. So, I hit the cereal box and Ms. Kate did something on her own.

Today is office hours day and then I'm going out and do home visitation and home communion with some parishioners. I always like doing that. It brightens my day when I get to go out and visit with folks.

Well, my friends, that's my gossip for today. This afternoon I look foward to getting back in the sunporch and watching all my guests for awhile. In the meantime, I hope your day and week have started off well and that you have a great week. Remember that we are approaching a wonderfl celebration in the life of Christians and take time to remember that Jesus is the focus to the season, not a full shopping cart. Peace.

Welcome to the weekend. I don’t know about wherever you might be but at my house it is a rainy but warm morning. I guess it rained a good portion of the night. I know tha we were under a slight chance for thunderstorms but if that happened —-I sure didn’t hear it. But forecast today is for rain on and off until this afternoon.

Welcome to December. Gosh, only twenty five days until Christmas. I still have not bought anything for Ms. Kate for Christmas or for her birthday which is on Christmas Eve.  Frankly, I’m at a loss, as usual as to what to get her. We’re at that age where we don’t need anything and if we do, we buy it. The last thing we need it to have more “stuff” sitting around our house. We hardly have room for what we have now. Her present to me this year is the new bird feeder that we just put up last weekend. She had said that could be a “communal present” but I’m not satisfied with that answer. She did give me one idea so I need to go shopping and see what I find.

I know I didn’t write yesterday but we had a quasi-busy day. She worked on Christmas cards, I did some sermon work, and we went out for ‘schrooms & beer” with Bob and Brenda at lunch time. We had a really good visit and got all caught up on our family gossip, and church gossip, and who’s doing what to who. We always love our visits and look forward to them. With the busy Christmas season coming on, it is possible that we won’t get together until after Christmas now.

So how about you? Are you getting in the Christmas spirit yet or are you dreading all of the “things” you have to do between now and then? I think todayMs. Kate and I are going to root through the storage and pull out Christmas decoration stuff and do the tree. You and I both know that no one is going to see our tree except us and Julie and Jim, —- but it means something to Ms. Kate so I reckon we’ll do it. And that is pretty much what Christmas is about isn’t it —- doing things for others? So part of my Christmas present to her is to go to the trouble to pull out all of this deeeply buried stuff and let her decorate however she wants. If there is one thing I know; it is that I certainly wouldn’t want to be having Christmas without her. We’ve been there done that because of military assignments and they were the most miserable Christmas’s ever. We have friends who lost spouses this year who were either our age or not much older than us. That’s not a thing I want to even think about, but is a reality. So —- I hope you are getting in the Christmaas swing of things and putting on your “ho-ho-ho!” After all we are celebrating the greatest event in the history of the earth —- God sent a part of himself to earth in the form of a baby; to grow up and teach us and let us experience the power and wonder of God, and then to sacrifice himself for the salvation of mankind. Talk about “giving” —- that was the greatest present ever in the history of the universe. Some of you may not accept or believe what we Christins profess to be truth. I would only hope that, and yes pray that, you will open your mind to the possibility of Jesus Christ and read the teachings of Jesus with an open mind. You have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. Peace my friends.