So soon in the game i need to rely on the tired old "i was so tired and it was late and...plus i was tired..." excuse. But I'm not tired now so here's a little peek at life in the 'dale.
Widmo is safely ensconced in the new warehouse on Lakeshore Drive. It's a far superiour location with easy freeway access and within a 3 minute drive of our houses on Yale Ave. David, Tom, and Brian are very happy with that, as are we all.
I'm going to be officially moved to a new, higher position at FedEx this coming Thrusday. The Lord has really blessed my work for this company and I am most grateful for that.
I turned 24 last Wednesday. Me and Jack Bauer are good buddies. Friends and family from around the US let me know of their love and that was great. Also, I recieved several phone calls from fellow members of the Company wishing me happy birthday and it was good to be able to share some time with those guys.
The work in Indy continues to move forward. Nick, Rus and Jon recently hosted Abe Olson for a brief but productive stay. He was out there to look into some grad school possibilities and was, from what I understand, successful.
The lawnmower's in the shop, so's my bike, but no cars so that's good. now i am tired. 4:30 is still early the 16th time. praise god!
Showing posts with label household. Show all posts
Showing posts with label household. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Life loves back
I love life, I really do. Some parts of it and all of it. And it loves me back. When I tend to my life and to our life it returns the favor. What I mean is, when you declare Christ into the world He declares you back. What I mean is, when I declare "This household, these people, this community, this Lord, is the foundation of my life!" they all say to me "Be Josh as hard as you can and we love you for it!".
We've grown close down here in Allendale. Brian and Tom and Cathy and Liz, Gretchen and David and Joan and myself, Val and Ruth and Connie, Carra and Terry all went to watch a movie on a big screen at a Methodist church just outside of Benton, LA. We had muffalettas and pop (or soda, i forget which) and some excellent potato/fries/goodness. We all, from kids to adults, had a really good time.
Our life in household is so joyfully reaping the benefits of the life that has been and continues to be lived in the People of Praise. We are lead by leaders who have learned from leaders; we have been raised to pray by men and women who pray constantly; we know and love God because our forerunners in the People of Praise have been following his lead for decades. Only our dedication to Him and to our life do justice to the depth of our gratitude.
Hmm, that sounds pretty, well, heady. Oh well. I mean it.
We've grown close down here in Allendale. Brian and Tom and Cathy and Liz, Gretchen and David and Joan and myself, Val and Ruth and Connie, Carra and Terry all went to watch a movie on a big screen at a Methodist church just outside of Benton, LA. We had muffalettas and pop (or soda, i forget which) and some excellent potato/fries/goodness. We all, from kids to adults, had a really good time.
Our life in household is so joyfully reaping the benefits of the life that has been and continues to be lived in the People of Praise. We are lead by leaders who have learned from leaders; we have been raised to pray by men and women who pray constantly; we know and love God because our forerunners in the People of Praise have been following his lead for decades. Only our dedication to Him and to our life do justice to the depth of our gratitude.
Hmm, that sounds pretty, well, heady. Oh well. I mean it.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Coming back up for air
I dont think anyone will be surprised if I point out that my life has gotten more busy since the whole "Star of the Week maybe new position" thing happened. I've essentially taken over all of the daily acitivities of myself and the co-worker on suspension and, as I may have mentioned, it's impossible to add more to my day and expect to have it all done in 8 hours or less. So I've been working longer days. Oh well, you got to give a little to get a lot.
This weekend was wonderful however. We had a birthday party several weeks late for Gretchen on Saturday evening and really had some fun. We brought our fire pit to the river and grilled some burgers and brots and so forth. Much fun was had.
We also had a very nice brunch on Sunday morning at Columbia Cafe. There was some news to shared and some fellowship to be had and some very very tasty food to devour. We proceeded to chill for a bit and then play 5 games of volleyball and have a serious calendar meeting. We have a meeting at the beginning of every month to plan out as much of the up-coming three months as we can. It's tiring.
David and I invited to Brian to join us at S'port Port for some indoor soccer on Sunday night. We played an intense gaming, bringing home a "W" after a couple very fine halves of play.
I began the process of scheduling oral surgery to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth yesterday. Looks like it might not actually happen for about a month and a half due to work and home scheduling conflicts but the ball is officially rolling.
And now I can cross one more item off my list: "write a new blog post"
This weekend was wonderful however. We had a birthday party several weeks late for Gretchen on Saturday evening and really had some fun. We brought our fire pit to the river and grilled some burgers and brots and so forth. Much fun was had.
We also had a very nice brunch on Sunday morning at Columbia Cafe. There was some news to shared and some fellowship to be had and some very very tasty food to devour. We proceeded to chill for a bit and then play 5 games of volleyball and have a serious calendar meeting. We have a meeting at the beginning of every month to plan out as much of the up-coming three months as we can. It's tiring.
David and I invited to Brian to join us at S'port Port for some indoor soccer on Sunday night. We played an intense gaming, bringing home a "W" after a couple very fine halves of play.
I began the process of scheduling oral surgery to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth yesterday. Looks like it might not actually happen for about a month and a half due to work and home scheduling conflicts but the ball is officially rolling.
And now I can cross one more item off my list: "write a new blog post"
Monday, February 26, 2007
Slow to rev
I had a pretty slow, pedantic day today. Pistons did not fire in unison, chemicals did not produce the expected solution, the package did not make it to the right doorstep the first time. Not to say that there was failure; "no failure in Christ" is a phrase we like to cling to down here. However, it was not like last Monday.
No doubt I've become accustomed to a fairly high level of productivity over the past weeks. As I planned for today over the weekend I knew it was going to be slow. I was prepared for lots of empty space in my day and I was prepared to fill it. Several wonderful books have recently come into my sphere of influence and I planned to do a lot of reading today.
Love and Friendship by Jules Toner, Choice Theory by William Glasser, The Adventures of Tintin by Herge, Gear by Doug TenNapel, the Bible by...well, lots of people. These all recieved a great deal of attention from me today as I swapped them out, one after the other, with a great deal of help from coffee.
I was eventually involved in some more active pursuits. I took Mickey to Widmo for work, went out with Nathan, Tom and Brian to invite men to a meeting tomorrow and then made my way to dinner. We had some encouraging encounters with some men in our neighborhood and I'm optimistic about our meeting.
Joan did excellently well on her final, 96%!! This brought us all great joy. We rejoiced. Together. And with her. We also had a good meeting with the Allendale folks, hashing out some details on our message as the People of Praise to our neighbors. Everyone was tuned in and we ended the meeting by praying for Ruth's leg and saw some results! We hope for much more on that front.
No doubt I've become accustomed to a fairly high level of productivity over the past weeks. As I planned for today over the weekend I knew it was going to be slow. I was prepared for lots of empty space in my day and I was prepared to fill it. Several wonderful books have recently come into my sphere of influence and I planned to do a lot of reading today.
Love and Friendship by Jules Toner, Choice Theory by William Glasser, The Adventures of Tintin by Herge, Gear by Doug TenNapel, the Bible by...well, lots of people. These all recieved a great deal of attention from me today as I swapped them out, one after the other, with a great deal of help from coffee.
I was eventually involved in some more active pursuits. I took Mickey to Widmo for work, went out with Nathan, Tom and Brian to invite men to a meeting tomorrow and then made my way to dinner. We had some encouraging encounters with some men in our neighborhood and I'm optimistic about our meeting.
Joan did excellently well on her final, 96%!! This brought us all great joy. We rejoiced. Together. And with her. We also had a good meeting with the Allendale folks, hashing out some details on our message as the People of Praise to our neighbors. Everyone was tuned in and we ended the meeting by praying for Ruth's leg and saw some results! We hope for much more on that front.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The sigh of relief
Aw yeaw! The day of rest. This morning Nathan said that God knew what he was doing when he started that tradition. I actually had a hard time adjusting to relaxation today. It took me a while to figure it out but by 1400 i realized that I was just too keyed up. I wanted to have an agenda to attack and there wasnt one. I did fine though, did a little reading, ran some errands and that helped out.
We had a barbeque with a family in our neighborhood today. Sausage, ribs, chicken, lovely. Liz made some scrumptious potato salad and we had beers and pops and Nathan's mom's mac & cheese too.
It was nice and warm, sunny, and a bit of a northerly wind. I played catch with Eric, a kid who's friends with us. He's pretty good as it turns out, though he did throw one that i followed, blinded by the sun, into a big bush. I got a little bloody but the bush is fine, dont worry.
The guys and Ruth left for the branch meeting while the women had women's group with Lacondra. At the meeting Ron gave a talk about personal prayer that got a very positive reaction from the branch. I liked it too.
The Missionary Company, of which I'm a member, had a conference call at 7:30. Nick recently put up a wiki for us to use and we had a kind of walk-through session on how to work with the website. I bumbled through our side of it, made a few mistakes, but we've got a lot of smart people around here and I think they learned everything they needed to know anyway.
Wrapped up the evening with some Winnie the Pooh followed by Hot Chip, my new favorite band, as well as some Ratatat. Michael Busk has told me I must check out Broken Social Scene so that's on the list as is the Rhapsody "Lollapalooza 2006" playlist which features several bands that I already like.
We had a barbeque with a family in our neighborhood today. Sausage, ribs, chicken, lovely. Liz made some scrumptious potato salad and we had beers and pops and Nathan's mom's mac & cheese too.
It was nice and warm, sunny, and a bit of a northerly wind. I played catch with Eric, a kid who's friends with us. He's pretty good as it turns out, though he did throw one that i followed, blinded by the sun, into a big bush. I got a little bloody but the bush is fine, dont worry.
The guys and Ruth left for the branch meeting while the women had women's group with Lacondra. At the meeting Ron gave a talk about personal prayer that got a very positive reaction from the branch. I liked it too.
The Missionary Company, of which I'm a member, had a conference call at 7:30. Nick recently put up a wiki for us to use and we had a kind of walk-through session on how to work with the website. I bumbled through our side of it, made a few mistakes, but we've got a lot of smart people around here and I think they learned everything they needed to know anyway.
Wrapped up the evening with some Winnie the Pooh followed by Hot Chip, my new favorite band, as well as some Ratatat. Michael Busk has told me I must check out Broken Social Scene so that's on the list as is the Rhapsody "Lollapalooza 2006" playlist which features several bands that I already like.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The work-week ending
Ah, the sweet smell of Saturday night! I know few better; maybe bacon and eggs and toast on a cold, snowy morning with a hint of the fire burning in the fireplace would beat it but it's hard to say. For sheer reliability Saturday night's smell is nice.
I'm assuming our Saturday morning breakfast with the Seitzes went well. I was unable to make an appearance because of my work schedule so that's too bad. It was a pretty exciting workday actually. A storm rolled through our area that beats out every other storm of the past two years in terms of ferocity and damage. There were high winds, gallons of rain, and at least one tornado. I watched from the second story of our office while rain was whipped over the ridgelines of near by buildings. Thick and heavy as waves over the gunwales of a ship it snapped and curled over corrugated tin sheds and around trucks in our parking lot. Tim's wife called him to say that she woke up late and looked out the window to see house in their neighborhood without roofs, privacy fences replaces by red-clay trenches. The tornado left some traces of its passage.
Gretchen and Cathy held the second Camera Club during this part of the storm. It wasn't nearly as bad in our part of the city. They stayed inside '46, out of the rain, for the first part and then took advantage of the corruscating sky as the jagged tail of the storm crinkled its way across this part of the globe. Cathy was glad to dive into something she loves. It's been a rough week at the office. Her camera arrived via FedEx (though not very smoothly; I need to look into that) and that was a great blessing for her as well.
Joan's been studying very hard. She's got a final on Monday and has to bear down on her material to make this class relinquish the "A" is been guarding until now. She sort of holes up in the back of '46, does her version of Emo Phillips' cramming, and emerge on the other side of Monday with an excellent grade.
Gretchen's been steadily plugging away at her work in the office. I believe the latest version of the Partners in Service newsletter is nearly finished. She takes no small joy in the Camera Club that she and Cathy founded.
Brian spent today working on a coffee table that he's putting together with material from Widmo. He's had the opportunity to use several of his favorite tools: the planer, the router, the hammer, the brain. He was the subject of several Camera Club photos.
Thomas and David worked their tails off through the storm down at Widmo. I recieved and gave a call to David regarding the weather; whether he and Tom ought to stay at work was up for grabs. They did, had a productive day, got home on time. David came home for lunch just after I did and told Nathan and I a story about the headaches that can accompany retail business. He had a horror story of an insane but monied customer making an incomplete and therefore intenall inconsistent order. That, I can assure you, and so could David, is extremely frustrating.
Nathan's been working hard at the coordinating-lots-of-activities business. We had barbeque planned for Saturday; then it was on Thursday; then it was next Saturday; then it was back to this Saturday; and now it's Sunday. He's a marvel of flexibility and level-headed leadership. I've been fortunate to have some good conversations with him during my lunch breaks this week.
We had a nice, easy pizza dinner. Homemade pizza of course. And beer. It was nice. A bit of tense conversation about the broken public education system during dinner was ended smoothly and we all relaxed to a movie and some dessert. It was a nice way to end the day.
I'm assuming our Saturday morning breakfast with the Seitzes went well. I was unable to make an appearance because of my work schedule so that's too bad. It was a pretty exciting workday actually. A storm rolled through our area that beats out every other storm of the past two years in terms of ferocity and damage. There were high winds, gallons of rain, and at least one tornado. I watched from the second story of our office while rain was whipped over the ridgelines of near by buildings. Thick and heavy as waves over the gunwales of a ship it snapped and curled over corrugated tin sheds and around trucks in our parking lot. Tim's wife called him to say that she woke up late and looked out the window to see house in their neighborhood without roofs, privacy fences replaces by red-clay trenches. The tornado left some traces of its passage.
Gretchen and Cathy held the second Camera Club during this part of the storm. It wasn't nearly as bad in our part of the city. They stayed inside '46, out of the rain, for the first part and then took advantage of the corruscating sky as the jagged tail of the storm crinkled its way across this part of the globe. Cathy was glad to dive into something she loves. It's been a rough week at the office. Her camera arrived via FedEx (though not very smoothly; I need to look into that) and that was a great blessing for her as well.
Joan's been studying very hard. She's got a final on Monday and has to bear down on her material to make this class relinquish the "A" is been guarding until now. She sort of holes up in the back of '46, does her version of Emo Phillips' cramming, and emerge on the other side of Monday with an excellent grade.
Gretchen's been steadily plugging away at her work in the office. I believe the latest version of the Partners in Service newsletter is nearly finished. She takes no small joy in the Camera Club that she and Cathy founded.
Brian spent today working on a coffee table that he's putting together with material from Widmo. He's had the opportunity to use several of his favorite tools: the planer, the router, the hammer, the brain. He was the subject of several Camera Club photos.
Thomas and David worked their tails off through the storm down at Widmo. I recieved and gave a call to David regarding the weather; whether he and Tom ought to stay at work was up for grabs. They did, had a productive day, got home on time. David came home for lunch just after I did and told Nathan and I a story about the headaches that can accompany retail business. He had a horror story of an insane but monied customer making an incomplete and therefore intenall inconsistent order. That, I can assure you, and so could David, is extremely frustrating.
Nathan's been working hard at the coordinating-lots-of-activities business. We had barbeque planned for Saturday; then it was on Thursday; then it was next Saturday; then it was back to this Saturday; and now it's Sunday. He's a marvel of flexibility and level-headed leadership. I've been fortunate to have some good conversations with him during my lunch breaks this week.
We had a nice, easy pizza dinner. Homemade pizza of course. And beer. It was nice. A bit of tense conversation about the broken public education system during dinner was ended smoothly and we all relaxed to a movie and some dessert. It was a nice way to end the day.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
It was a fun day
Going to church is great. We get up, read a little something over a cup of coffee, chat sleepily about nothing in particular and drive to church in two different cars. Today, Monseigneur Provenza asked us to come up and stand behind him at the end of mass during the announcements. As he's done in the past, he invited the congregation to give us money at the end of mass after an explanation of our work in Allendale. They were generous to us again.
Brian, David, Tom and I arrived home just in time to get on the Company conference call at noon. It was great to hear news from almost every one. Even Jeremy, in the midst of his busy time in MN, was able to join us long enough to give a light-hearted account of his work with one:ten communications. What a great work that is! Praise God for our wonderful businesses. And for the Company; we have a member in Italy, two on the West Coast, four members who are running companies, and the potential for changing the world being realized on every front.
The four of us then moved pretty quickly to 1446 for a household meeting. We talked about finances, buying a minivan, plans for using our money in other ways, and the MishCo conference call that evening. We brainstormed for a while, did some work on our calendar and readied ourselves for Lent with some plans for what we can do together. Putting life in common takes a lot of planning and flexibility. Fortunately we have almost 40 years of experience doing life in common in the People of Praise and can put that experience to good use. One of the things we talked about was negative humor and how helpful it is to avoid. Our interactions with one another are such unique opportunities to build each other up that we would do well to avoid any harm caused by negativity. We need to die to ourselves and change our minds on a regular basis. And the beauty of it all is that our individual needs, and even some of our individual wants, are taken care of and our household is always on the lookout for ways that we can serve one another and love one another better. Glory!
After the conference call (for the second time in one day an excellent, if occasionally hard to hear, experience) we celebrated Tom's birthday. To help the celebration along we had a fire in our fire pit, made smores, and honored Tom. He's a great guy and has contributed so much to our life and work since moving in here. He's got the Lord's heart for our neighbors and is keenly aware of opportunities for bringing Christ into our lives. A story: when Tom was in Dinkytown one his friends got a letter from a group of powerful people. They invited this guy to join their group because they could make him powerful and influential. This was uncomfortable with the invitation and Tom's immediate reaction was "Throw it away; we don't need that kind of thing in our house." What a great response!
As we wound down for the evening we all trouped inside and finished up the dishes left over from the wonderful dinner of chicken burrito stuff that Brian put together. Some of us stayed around the fire; Joan and I went inside and watched the last third of a Poirot mystery with Liz (very cool; we had no idea who the murderer was) and then started to make our way into the backs of our houses. Brian and Tom are now doing updates to their blogs so my guess is that whatever I left out they'll have covered.
Brian, David, Tom and I arrived home just in time to get on the Company conference call at noon. It was great to hear news from almost every one. Even Jeremy, in the midst of his busy time in MN, was able to join us long enough to give a light-hearted account of his work with one:ten communications. What a great work that is! Praise God for our wonderful businesses. And for the Company; we have a member in Italy, two on the West Coast, four members who are running companies, and the potential for changing the world being realized on every front.
The four of us then moved pretty quickly to 1446 for a household meeting. We talked about finances, buying a minivan, plans for using our money in other ways, and the MishCo conference call that evening. We brainstormed for a while, did some work on our calendar and readied ourselves for Lent with some plans for what we can do together. Putting life in common takes a lot of planning and flexibility. Fortunately we have almost 40 years of experience doing life in common in the People of Praise and can put that experience to good use. One of the things we talked about was negative humor and how helpful it is to avoid. Our interactions with one another are such unique opportunities to build each other up that we would do well to avoid any harm caused by negativity. We need to die to ourselves and change our minds on a regular basis. And the beauty of it all is that our individual needs, and even some of our individual wants, are taken care of and our household is always on the lookout for ways that we can serve one another and love one another better. Glory!
After the conference call (for the second time in one day an excellent, if occasionally hard to hear, experience) we celebrated Tom's birthday. To help the celebration along we had a fire in our fire pit, made smores, and honored Tom. He's a great guy and has contributed so much to our life and work since moving in here. He's got the Lord's heart for our neighbors and is keenly aware of opportunities for bringing Christ into our lives. A story: when Tom was in Dinkytown one his friends got a letter from a group of powerful people. They invited this guy to join their group because they could make him powerful and influential. This was uncomfortable with the invitation and Tom's immediate reaction was "Throw it away; we don't need that kind of thing in our house." What a great response!
As we wound down for the evening we all trouped inside and finished up the dishes left over from the wonderful dinner of chicken burrito stuff that Brian put together. Some of us stayed around the fire; Joan and I went inside and watched the last third of a Poirot mystery with Liz (very cool; we had no idea who the murderer was) and then started to make our way into the backs of our houses. Brian and Tom are now doing updates to their blogs so my guess is that whatever I left out they'll have covered.
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