Saturday again...and it's still hot outside. You would think it's August already as hot as it is. Oh well, I'm glad my air conditioner works and I have a cool place to hang out!

Everyone is gone but me. I seem to spend a lot of time by myself these days. Seriously though, I don't mind. I sometimes like the quiet of my house. I can remember days that I didn't think I would ever see a quiet house. Well, they have arrived! :D

Yesterday was interesting. The farm next to our property is for sale. DeWayne helps take care of the house and some other neighbors farm the ground. The family decided to sell the ground this past May and they actually solicited some Amish families in this area to see if they would be interested in buying the farm. Well, yesterday one of the families went to see the house and actually came by our house to talk about it. Buggy and everything! The family looking to buy the farm are a young couple with a little 16 month old daughter. (very cute little girl) If they move next door maybe I will learn more of their customs and why they believe the way they do. The man driving the buggy lives closer to Galatia and he had his little 4 year old little boy with him. The little boy was also very cute. I'm looking forward to more encounters with them and maybe not being so awkward the next time. Dane and Evan say I am completely crazy because all I want to do is take their pictures. :D But I will try very hard to restrain myself!

I am going to cook at Jr. High church camp this year. I haven't cooked at camp in several year. I actually haven't been to camp in a few year. I am excited about it. Jr. High kids aren't my favorite age group but I'm going to see what God has for me there this year! I will be there during my birthday (46). That should be really fun. I have spent many birthdays at camp and so has Dane. July just seems to be the month for camps! The Jr. Camp week is the one I really wanted to be at. Those are mostly children that just left West Side and are going in to 3rd grade. They are still for the most part very sweet!

I think I am going to work on sorting pictures again today. It's a cool, quiet job that needs to be done. I better get my picture boxes, my albums and my ink pen out and get to work!

I'm home! Yay! I never know how much I like being at my house until I'm gone 2 or 3 days. I've been to St. Louis to an Apple OS X Server Training. Sounds intimidating, huh? Well, it was as intimidating as it sounds. Yesterday, I sat through a training on how to set up the server. Oh my, let's just say that the guy called on me when he saw a confused look on my face. I wasn't even embarrassed. I knew I didn't have a clue. LOL. I followed along and acted like I knew what he was talking about. I went with my friend and co-worker Sherri. She gets it. I think I was there for moral support mostly. HA!!! Today, the session was about Collaboration. Setting up the wiki and blog server and the podcast producer. I truly enjoyed these sessions. These are things that I would like to see our school district using. Of course, teaching everyone how to do this is the real trick. Baby steps, baby steps; I have to remember that I can accomplish everything in a day.

I saw on the Facebook news feeds that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died today. Two 70's icons gone. Everyone in Jr. High had Farrah Fawcett hair or wished they did. And then the crazy glove thing that Michael Jackson did in the 80's. Oh well. It's sad for their families mostly because they have put all their hope in earthly things and not in Jesus, the reason for my hope.

I'll try to add more tomorrow...

It's so hot today. It's in the high 90's. I think this is the hottest day so far this summer and yesterday was the first official day of summer.

Tomorrow I'm going to St. Louis for a conference again. I'm going to learn about servers and other geeky stuff. I can't wait. :D

DeWayne had to go in to work. Evan is with Jackie in St. Louis at the orthodontist and Dane is with Jean. I seem to be spending a lot of time by myself these days. I'm reading a lot of books though. :D

Jeff talked about The Bride and the Bridegroom yesterday at church. I loved it! The Bride is the church and the Bridegroom is Jesus. Too many people consider themselves ready for Heaven because they know the Bride but really they will be unknown to Jesus in the end. I want to be known. I want to hear "well done good and faithful servant" and I don't want to hear "I never knew you."

I'm still working on that salt thing. I want to be a fertilizer and a disinfectant to the world. I want everyone who sees me to see Jesus!

It's one of those rare Friday evenings. DeWayne is at work and Dane isn't home yet and Evan is in Florida. I'm all alone. I can read, I can watch whatever I want on TV and I can be on the computer. How cool!
Evan and Jackie left yesterday to visit Angela in Orlando. They flew out of St. Louis. Jackie drove up there and I drove home. I don't think it matters when you go to St. Louis or how you get there; there is ALWAYS traffic. We went north and hit the bypasses so it was easier. I will go that way again. :D
DeWayne is going kayaking tomorrow in Missouri with friends. He is so excited. He got a new paddle. A really nice one. He's gathered all his gear. He's ready to hit the water. I'm glad he has friends he can hang out with. :)
I worked on a web site for my computer lab today. I was only playing to begin with to see if some things would work and when they did I decided to add a bunch of stuff. So I spent about 2 hours typing text and adding pictures and links. I'll work more on it tomorrow.
The hummingbirds are back. They are so fun to watch. They really fast. I try to take their pictures and they don't stick around very long! Pictures don't capture their magic anyway!

Back to Salt

I got my notes out from Sunday and I think I'm going to add to what I posted yesterday.

Ed started out by reading the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) which are the verses right before verse 13 where Jesus talks about us being the salt of the earth and what good are we if we lose our saltiness. (Just a sidebar - everything that I am going to type will be from my notes and it is what Ed spoke. I will let you know if it is an original thought of my own. :D) The heart of being the salt of the earth is having the attitude of the beatitudes. (love it!!!) I can effect my community by being salt. Remember I said that it's not the same concept that we have of salt. This reference is to the salt harvested out of the Dead Sea. It's potash and it helps good things grow and keeps bad things from smelling. I must not live a compromising life. That's how I lose my saltiness. I must be able to relate to the culture of this world but there must be a contrast between the church the world. When there are too many other particles in the potash it makes it ineffective. Just like when there's too much of the world it makes me ineffective.

My prayer must start being - "Draw me Lord, change my heart. I want to be salt - I want to effect change around me. I don't want to be thrown underfoot and be trampled on because my saltiness is gone. (Matt. 5:13)"

I must go before the Lord and ask and seek out what has caused my life to become unsalty.

5% of the Christians in this country/world living out loud as real salt the culture of our country could be changed. We live in Saline (Salt) County, how cool is that!

5% of Saline County would be about 1300 people. If 5% of Saline County were to be of one mind for God's purposes, we would be able to do anything spiritually! We could change the whole culture of our county!

So, many people made a commitment Sunday to begin to truly pray and seek the Lord that 1300 people would be brought in and that 5% of the county would truly be salt in their WHOLE life.

I want to see lives changed. I truly want to live as salt. I do not want to become absorbed by this world and good for nothing.

Rainy Monday

Well, we were supposed to go rock climbing today with a bunch of home schooled kids but the rain canceled that trip. Oh well, there's always next time.
DeWayne, Dane, Jean and I ended up in Paducah to try to find a kayak paddle for DeWayne. He needs a new fancy one so he can "roll" his kayak better. We didn't find one. He's going to have to order one from the internet. We went to Gander Mountain and the Mall and we ate at McAllister's Deli. We switched cars before we left and I misplaced my phone. Needless to say, I was a little worried because I thought I had lost my phone. No lost phone though, it was in the backseat of my car here at home. Yay! I was afraid I was going to have to pay full price for a new phone. YUCK!!! But I don't and all is good.
It's a lazy afternoon because of the rain and I'm a little off schedule because of going to Paducah early this morning. "I feel funny!" :D
Church yesterday was awesome. Ed spoke instead of Jeff. He was talking about us being the salt of the earth. I learned some really cool things about salt and what kind of salt the Bible passage is really talking about. I've always been taught that it's talking about table salt and how we are to add flavor to the world and preserve our Christian walk. NO, it's talking about the salt that the people of that day harvested from the Dead Sea. It was potash and it was what people used to fertilize their fields and cover up the stench of the manure pile. It has to have the right amount of ingredients to be effective. Just like me as a Christian. I have to be salt to the world and not be worthless and not of any use even to the manure pile. (I'm writing this without my notes and I probably could do a better job if I looked. :D)
Last night instead of going to LCC, DeWayne and I went to McKinley Church to their book group meeting. Their group just finished "The Rain". We read it for our March Book. The author of the book works at EEI in Joppa where DeWayne used to work. One of DeWayne's friends, Mike, still works there and his wife is in the book group. They set it up for so we from LCC would be able to sit in on their discussion and to meet the author too. It was really interesting to hear about his stories and how they came about and how he went about getting published. I really enjoyed it and I was thankful that my friend Lynette invited us to be a part of their group. I'm sad that I won't be able to attend book group this month. I will be in St. Louis at a tech conference of sorts. I get to be more geekier that I already am. :D I'm most sad that it will be my turn to pick the book and I won't be there. Brigette will get to go next then it will be my turn. I already have my book picked out!!!

It's been a long time...

I'm back!!!

This has been the longest that I have gone without posting. I finished school on the 5th completely exhausted. I love all the women I work with but they sometimes wear me out. :D

My computer lab is clean and polished and ready for a new group of little people next year. Yay! We start back the 17th of August and it will be here before I know it.

I made a list of things I want to get accomplished before I start back to work. A "home" list and a "work" list. They each have several attainable items on them. My biggest goal is to paint the living room/kitchen and the bathroom here at home. Getting the wallpaper off will be my biggest challenge. It's been on for 13 years and I'm sure that it's more that a little STUCK. Ugh! Oh well, I just need to jump in. Maybe I can get my sister to help me on that one. She helped me hang it. :D

Today marks the end of my official first week off. I went to an Internet Safety Training class on Tuesday. The curriculum presented was very good. I think we might try to implement it. It will take some planning and commitment from everyone on all grade levels not just from me. The class was 6 hours long. The guy started at 9:30 am and didn't break until 12:30. OK, I'm a baby. I eat lunch at 11:15 and by 12:30 I was STARVED! and I had to go the bathroom. I also felt like I had sat through a 3 hour informercial. But that was what he was there to do, introduce us to the curriculum. I learned some very useful information. It's called iSafe. I think that it could be used in church settings also for youth groups or church camps. The whole basis is to educate kids about the choices they make and not punishment for the places they might accidently have tripped upon on the internet. Of course, we also talked about sexting and using the cell phone inappropriately. We have 1st graders at our school who have their own cell phones. It is never too early to tell children how to make "Better" choices when using their "tech" toys. Talking about the choices and the outcomes of these choices. I liked that guy who presented. He was obviously a Christian by the way he spoke and his attitude. He made reference to the Sunday School class that he taught. He had some very profound thoughts on pornography. Cool guy!

I'm pretty excited about my Bible reading plan. I will be halfway through at the end of this month. That means I will have read the entire New Testament and the book of Psalms plus Proverbs 6 times. I really like the way this plan is broken down. It doesn't feel like a burden to read. It usually makes me want to read more. I am so thankful that God gave us The Word to get us through the day. Every day it is new and refreshing. I can read the same passage two (or more) different times and each time it is applicable to what is happening that day. How cool is that?

Monday we are taking the home schooled group rock climbing. It has turned in to quite the outing. Dane is off on Mondays so he and Jean will be going with us. Evan and Jackie will come down when Evan gets finished with school. I can't wait to hang out with my family and a bunch of fun kids on Monday!!!

I'm still here. Just trying to make it to the end of the week and the end of the school year. Only a few more days. Perhaps then I can start posting more regularly!!!