It’s going to be a beautiful day —- unless the wind blows the sun away! Last night it blew pretty hard and the rain came down pretty hard for a little bit. But now, it’s 69 degrees and the sun is shining again. So, who knows what the day will end up to be. But, 69 degrees in February is not always a healthy situation. News reports this morning show major damage across mid America from tornadoes and storms last night and this morning already. So far, there are no reports of deaths. Thank you Lord. 

We had good attendance at the church services yesterday and the service went well. Brenda, our organist at St. Lucas did a version of “Room at the Cross” yesterday for an Prelude and it was beautifully done. 

Yesterday was the 57th anniversary of our wedding. We got so very many well wishes and congratulations; it was really heart-warming. Fifty-seven is a good number, but as I told my sister-in-law, sixty sounds so much better, so we’re gong to keep on — keeping on, and try to make sixty a minimum. 

Ms. Kate and I have a busy week this week that we hoped we would never have. Tomorrow she has her initial meeting with her oncologist to talk about her breast cancer. Then Friday, we meet with the surgical team to discuss a plan and options. We think we have caught this thing early enough that the surgery will be minimum (if there is such a thing) and maybe radiation following that. But, that is only preliminary guessing and talking to our family doctor, Dr. Jackson. But, he has hooked us up with great doctors. They are the team that took care of his wife’s breast cancer. And Kate was talking with the women at church yesterday and two of them had had the same surgeon and loved him. So, I think it will work out fine. I ask that you keep us in your prayers. Kate and I certainly have a desired outcome but —- we are prepared for whatever God’s will for us is. 

I guess that is enough for news for the day. I pray your new week goes well. Only one more day of February and then off we go to march into March!  Peace. 

 A blessed Saturday to you! The coffee is good, the sun is hiding behind the clouds and it is a chilly 42 degrees at the moment. A little bit of sunshine could help with that. 

But it is a good morning because we got our taxes finished yesterday and have gotten notification that they have been accepted at both the federal and state level. This morning I have to physically mail my Illinois return because I’m a non-resident but recited my “cash-rent” check from my property over there. I absolutely loathe doing taxes. Even though we use Turbo Tax to do them, there is always something to frustrate me about it. But, I “beat their goal time” for doing them. They have a goal time of five and a half hours to finish them and I beat that by ninety minutes, albeit not without a few inappropriate phrases. But they are done for another year. And, we got them done two weeks earlier than last year. 

So today we will take a relaxing day for the most part. I have to go to the church and so some stuff but that  won’t take too long and it is peaceful and quiet with no frustration. Then maybe I’ll come home and watch a little tv or take a nap. 

Tomorrow is our 57th wedding anniversary! How wonderful is that? We have grown old together and I am so very grateful to God for that. We’ve had so many adventures and wonderful life experiences together. I can’t imagine having made this trip with anyone else. I pray that God will allow us to continue this journey for a few more years. 

That’s it for today. It is a weekend and tomorrow is the Sabbath. “Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.” Peace. 

 Good morning on this Thursday, the second day of Lent. I hope you had a chance to get your house of worship last night. Does your particular church celebrate the Lenten season? Some don’t, and I was surprised by that. I thought all Christian churches celebrated Lent. I know that not all Christian churches celebrate the “Imposition of Ashes” as part of their services. It was mainly considered a “Catholic thing” when I was a kid. The Catholic kids that rode the school bus would have the cross of ash on their forehead when they got on the bus on the way one from school. I’m not sure when the practice began to catch on with the Protestants. But, it is called Ash Wednesday for a reason isn’t it??

We had a good attendance at our service last evening. I was worried because it was raining fairly hard for an hour before the service and when the service started. But, the church was mostly full. We did altar communion along with the ashes. My two confirmands did a fine job with their part of the service. They served as liturgists and they also helped serve communion. Last night we used the Statement of Faith that they wrote. I think they we’re proud of their work; and they should be. It was well written. 

I think today we are going to take it rather easy here at home. I do have a couple of things that I need to work on for work and I need to go get a key made. We got to the church last night and I didn’t have a key to get in. Our car doesn’t use a key to start it, only a key fob. As long as either one of has a key fob, the car will run. I have the keys to the church on my key fob ring but forgot to bring it and since the car started and ran, I didn’t think an anything about it until we got to the church. Luckily, the president of the council has a key and lives next door; —- and was home. So, she came over and let us in. So, I’m going to take my key and have one made and put it in the side pocket of the car door so I always have a spare. This isn’t the first time I have done this. It’s a fifty mile round trip to go back home and get my key. 

We need to get started on our taxes. I loathe doing taxes. I think I have everything I need to get them done but it makes my stomach queasy to do them because I’m always afraid that I’ll make a mistake and they won’t get accepted or worse yet, they decide to audit me. I’ve never had a problem and we use Turbo Tax which really thorough and pretty much fool proof. But until, I see that “accepted” message, I worry. It usually take five hours for us to do them. 

That’s my story for today. Have a good week. Peace. 

 Good morning and a blessed Ash Wednesday to you. Assuming my readers are Christian of course, I hope you are planning to attend an Ash Wednesday service sometime today. Kari, the lady that cleans our house every couple of weeks asked to leave early today so she could make it to Mass. Of course I said “yes”. We are doing a combined parish service this evening at 7:00 pm. It is supposed to rain and storm today but I hope it is all gone before we have to be there. We’ll be doing Holy Communion and the Imposition of Ashes. It is a service that I really enjoy. I have my two Confirmation students that will be conducting a majority of the service and helping with communion. 

We found a new pie place yesterday on the west side of Evansville. It is called “Be Happy Pie Company”. Some friends from church told us about it and bragged on their pies. So we searched for it and found it yesterday. I bought a 10” Cherry Crumb pie and we tried it last night. It did not disappoint. They have homemade crusts and it wasn’t filled with cherry pie filling. Really tasty. 

I’ve been busy trying to narrow down a place for us for our vacation. We going to the Texas Hill Country for a few days and I have been searching the VRBO website for a place that will hold five of us. Karen is going with us and Heather and John will will join us there. Last night I found a place and reserved it. From there we are going to San Antonio for a couple of night. Karen has never been there and we want hr to experience a city that we have been to so many times for the Air Force. From there, I have no idea where we will go. I’m taking two full weeks of vacation. We might drive I-10 from San Antonio and go to either New Orleans or Biloxi or both.  New Orleans is only 90 minutes from Biloxi. Two weeks is a long vacation for us. 

Time for me to get busy. Have a great day. May God bring peace to your soul. 

 Good morning! Another week another funeral. This time I was only an attendee and not conducting it. We lost a member of my home church. He was eleven years my senior so I didn’t know him well, but I do know he seldom missed a Sunday; always sat in the same spot. (I wonder why people do that? I do it too.) I have tried unsuccessfully to get people to move forward, especially when the attendance is light, but folks will still hug their back row seats. It’s become humorous by this time. 

After the funeral I went by Walmart Neighborhood Market and picked up a few things that were on the list. I do almost all of the grocery shopping and most often go to this Walmart. By now I know where things are at least supposed to be. I get aggravated when they do a swap around with stuff. If I have something on my list that I can’t find, I always just ask one of the employees that are picking up stuff for on-line shoppers. It works pretty well. I don’t do too bad with the self check-out although I really don’t like to do that. I only had 18 items yesterday so it didn’t take too long. They did have one cashier that would check you out but it had a line of people that really needed help because of wheelchairs etc. 

Today, Ms. Kate has a hair appointment to get her hair cut at 11:30. I drive her everywhere she goes so if I’m going to drive her and sit and wait the half an hour —- she has to buy me breakfast!! There is a price to be paid for the chauffeur. LOL

My job today is to get some writing done. I worked really late last night putting together worship service for the month of March. I need to go ahead and work on my Palm Sunday, Easter Sunrise, and Easter Sunday services too. Then I can concentrate on writing the sermons. With my vacation coming up, as you know it always puts me in a rush mode if I don’t plan ahead. So, better to work a few extra hours and not stress about the work I have to do. After Easter, things will calm way down as far as work is concerned. But we have other issues floating round that are going to be requiring some of our time. More about that some other time. 

This morning the “811” Call before you dig fellow was here. I’m having a section of my fence replaced and a new gate put in so I can drive my John Deere to and from the back yard. I knew it was supposed to be done soon so I reckon the contractor is getting ready to do the job. I’ll be glad to have that done because I’ve needed to do it for several years. 

Time to clean up and put my chauffeur uniform on. Have a great day. May God bring peace to your heart. 

 Don’t you love a sunny Saturday?? It’s late in the day by now but we had a busy morning. But the sky has been cloud free all day and the thermometer has climbed nicely from 30 degrees this morning to maybe 50 degrees now. 

We haven’t had any big things today but had some running around to do and errands to accomplish. We went to Walgreens to pick up a prescription for Ms. Kate. Seems like we are always going to Walgreens for a prescription pickup. I guess that is because we get most of our meds through Express Scripts via mail and we get 90 days worth at a time. Walgreens gives her 30 days at a time. (I wonder if that can be changed??) But, it isn’t but a couple of miles so it isn’t a big deal. 

Next we had to go to the USPS and drop off a package. This particular package mailing is only about a year and a half in the making. A year and a half ago we had a military reunion and I ended up with the unit “flag”. I was supposed to write a history of it and we were going to try to donate it to the USAF Security Police Museum. It wasn’t a high priority but it was now on my “list” of things to do. I eventually got the history written and approved by the members of the unit. One of the other members was going to make contact with the museum and determine their interest in have the item. She did — they were — and the flag sat on my shelf.  I finally reached out to the right people at the museum about it, I sent them picture of the flag and the description and we waited for a reply. And we waited for a reply. And we waited for a reply;  Finally — after more contacts to the museum we were told that they are going to accept it. So, today, it went in the mail and off of my list. I can’t tell you how glad I am to have that thing gone. I did not want to be the guy that failed to take action, and someone finds the flag still sitting on my bookcase after I’m dead and they would be wondering what the heck it was and throw it in the trash. 

After the USPS I had to take Ms Kate to Ulta for some cosmetic stuff. She claims she told me she wanted to go a month ago, I don’t know —- I was busy worrying about a flag! LOLOLOL. Anyway, we went and she got what she needed.

Next we went to Nelllie’s Restaurant up in Newburgh for brunch. We met Kate’s sister  Karen there and had a great lunch and visit. By the time we finished we were crowding up against nap time so we came on home and got back on schedule. 

I know you are reading this and thinking that you wish you could lead the exciting life we do, but —- ya’ gotta get old first. Have a great weekend. Don’t forget to visit your house of worship. Peace. 

 Happy Friday, — happy end of the work week. I hope your week has gone well and that you are happy with your work. Being happy with what we do is so very important. If we are happy, we work better, we get along with people better, we work as a team more efficiently, and our mental health is so much improved. As a military commander, I spent a lot of my time out of the office and out in the field with my people. I don’t know what other services do when they “aren’t at war” but in the Air Force, everyone has a job and 99% of those jobs are civilian relatable. My AFSC or “career speciality was Law Enforcement and Security. I started off at the absolute bottom of the enlisted tier as a guard, walking around aircraft and guarding entry gates keeping our USAF resources secure. I did that for four years and had the opportunity to work with some really great people in a specialized unit for my last year as an enlisted man. After I got out, I went to work here in Evansville at Whirlpool Corp and again, I enjoyed the work but realized quickly that I was making the same pay as the guy next to me who had been there for 25 years, so I went to college and got my Bachelor’s degree and returned to the Air Force, this time as an Officer, —- and also returned to my Career field, this time leading folks that were doing the job I had done as an Airman. I loved my job, I loved being in the Air Force, and I loved being a leader, and rose to the top of my profession, retiring as a Colonel. 

I attribute that success to the fact that I was always (well almost) happy with my job, my assignments, they people that I was lead by, and the people that I was fortunate enough to lead. It was a good 32 year career and life for me and my family. I was fully blessed by God. 

My second career and life is also a full blessing from God. In 2002, I began my studies to become a lay/licensed minister for the United Church of Christ. I know I could certainly have gone on to Seminary and gotten my Master of Divinity degree and gotten ordained but after dragging Ms. Kate around the world for all of those years, I was not going to ask her to put up with me going off to Seminary for another  three years. And being a Lay pastor has been everything I could have hoped for. I have been blessed to be able to preach the Gospel for almost 20 years. I have been surrounded and welcomed by three wonderful congregations and we have created blessed Faith Families over these past twenty years. 

Be happy in your work! No matter what that job might be, find the million ways to look at it as a blessing. God did not put you on this earth to be aa grump and make life miserable for yourself and others. You know, on this cold and somewhat dreary morning it would be easy to make it a frumpy day, but —- I looked out my window and my neighbor’s daffodils are blooming. I’m happy. 

Peace.