Graffiti

The church was tagged with graffiti last night. Again. This is the 2nd time this summer. The extra bad part was that we had a youth group from MN staying at the church on their way to Lutherhaven and their church van also got tagged. I know it's not my fault, but as a host, I feel really bad. What a crappy thing to happen on a youth trip. And I'm old, because I actually found myself uttering the phrase, "little punks." So this week I get to file a police report. Oh the joy and rapture...

Weekend

It's been a very busy weekend. Thursday we had a staff meeting/retreat at my house in the afternoon. It wasn't supposed to be at my place, but things happened and SP asked if we could move it my apartment, so I spent Thursday morning frantically cleaning. On the plus side, I got caught up on cleaning that I've been putting off for awhile. Thursday evening I headed off to the parents' house for a couple of days. My aunt was here from New Jersey, so I had a nice visit with her and some lovely niece spoiling time. Saturday started with the ordination the new pastor at my home congregation. She asked me to be the assisting minister, which was really nice, but also a little odd considering I'd never met her until Thursday. So the ordination was lovely, and fun to be at one so soon after my own (which was also lovely, but definitely a blur). Soon after the service was over I got in the car and headed back home for a council retreat at SP's house. I got there late, but had a nice time. We played this game called Kubbs (I'm not sure of the spelling). The council president had her 2 kids there, and they talked us into playing. I'm still not sure of all of the rules, but it involves throwing sticks at blocks of wood. It's actually a lot more fun than it sounds. So, as soon as the BBQ was over I ran to the mall, bought a card and headed off to a 50th wedding anniversary for a couple in the congregation. They had a luau theme. So, one more social event, one more plate of food, and one very tired pastor. Yep, after 3 official events in one day I was ready for bed. Instead I came home and finished my truly mediocre sermon, then spent the entire night having dreams with the phrase "the kingdom of heaven is like..." running through them. Today was the typical 2 services and then me trying to recover from yesterday. Ah, the joys of being an introvert!

Tattoo

So the weekend wasn't all musicals, we also went and got tattoos. We'd gotten 2 together many years ago, a third one later (me in TX, RAZS in MT) and decided we needed one more together. So off we went to be tattooed by a man named Cyrus. Cyrus didn't say much, except to comment that he doesn't think I'm demure. See? Even total strangers don't think I'm demure. Sigh. Anyhoodle, here's a picture of the newest addition. Please ignore how fat my foot looks, and the yellow marker left over from marking where the tattoo would go, and the chipped toenail polish, and the tan lines from my Keens, and how HAIRY my toes are.... Sheesh. Oh, and RAZS got a strawberry on her foot. Beatles reference. I don't have a picture, though.

Musical Extravaganza

After getting home from camp on Friday I did laundry and cleaned my apartment some because my very bestest friend was coming to spend the weekend. We decided awhile ago that we should have a musicals weekend. The marathon needed to be at my place, because we would have driven her poor husband insane if we'd done it at their house. The musicals were fun and silly and cheesy, but even better, I got to spend lots of time with one of my favorite people. We share a brain, so it's very easy to talk about anything and everything because we often know what the other one is thinking. We laugh a lot when we're together and we're very silly. I need that every once in awhile. Of course, I can't believe she made me watch Grease 2, but I still love her anyway. :-) Today I am grateful for good friends and silly moments, good weeks at camp and happy swimming time with fun five year olds, beautiful lake views and lots of good girlfriend time this past week.

More Camp Stuff

Well, despite having to wake up to that "awful" view every day, this past week at camp went really well. I was a bit leery about going because they fit me in kind of last minute, I didn't have any kids there that week (well, one from our church, but she was off-site for the week), and I wasn't assigned a time to do worship. So I wasn't sure exactly how the week would go, if I would be bored, or what. There were 7 other pastors there, so I knew I'd have plenty of people to hang out with, but I wasn't sure about the rest of the week. It turned out that it was a nice time. I did a lot of walking, which was great, and very helpful in getting my pants to hopefully fit again in the near future. I helped another pastor with worship on Wednesday morning. We did a puppet show, which was a lot of fun (at least for me, and hopefully for the kiddos as well). I helped with the hunger drama, and I did one of the pastor hot seats. The easiest question to answer was "what is your favorite color?" Some of the harder ones were "why did Jesus have to die on the cross" and "why didn't God send Jesus sooner instead of doing mean things in the Old Testament like the plagues?" I had a fabulous fellow pastor with me for the hot seat session, though, and I think we did an OK job of answering the questions. So the week went well, but at church this morning it felt like I'd been gone for a month instead of a year. Why is that? Anyway, maybe I'll go to camp again next year. Maybe some kids from my church will even go with me.

Camp

So this was the view I spent the last week gazing at. the view from the deck of my cabin. I know, don't you just feel sorry for me?

Camp Songs

I'm at camp this week, and I'll post more later, but I just wanted to comment on worship this morning: We sang Give Me Oil in my Lamp, and then someone suggested this verse: Give me cheese for my nachos, God is Macho Macho Macho. I think I might have left my jaw back at the amphitheater where we had worship. That is NOT going to make my top 10 list of best images for God... Oh, and it rhymes, but at least oil and lamps go together. :-) I'm off to text study, and this internet connection is a bit dodgy (but hey, some is better than none!), so more reflections on camp another time.