Sunday Morning Comin' Down - Gone Now!

I always liked that song - who sang it - Kris Kristofferson I think among others. No particular reason I chose that for a title here, other than it is Sunday today and now, as I write this, Sunday evening, so I guess it is somewhat appropriate then.

For the first time in a couple of months now, the sun, moon and stars all aligned this morning and I was able to get up, showered, dressed and made it to church!

A lot of things tend to keep me away from church lately. For the past so many weeks, dealing with these blasted shingles has been one issue. First off, I couldn't go to church because of them and the potential that I could possible pass them along to someone else in the parish, most particularly, maybe of the elderly folks who tend to be more susceptible to them. Gee, guess that means I am part of the "elderly" population now doesn't it, since I got them, but who knows from whence they came to me!

Then there's the transportation problems that sometimes crop up too - or just simply that I am babysitting if Mandy happens to have to work sometime during the Sunday morning hours. And also, there's my sleep patterns, which tend not to be very good so some mornings I may have just finally fallen asleep shortly before it is time to get up to get ready for church, which is at 9:30!

I was really looking forward to the end of this month when our church would revert back to the "normal" schedule for services instead of the summer schedule which we follow from April to the end of October. Normal times for our services have always been a service at 8:30, Sunday School at 9:45 and a second service at 11 a.m.! Now, I have always been accustomed, all my life, to the "second" service at 11 a.m. and I just learned this weekend our church is going to stay on the schedule we've used for summer time year round. That means, church at 9:30 on Sunday, followed by Sunday School about 11 a.m. and an evening service on Thursdays at 7 p.m.

Well, the evening service is no easier for me to get to than is the 9:30 service due to my daughter's work schedule as well as my son-in-law's and our dinner hour!

So guess what? Looks like I am going to have to work on retraining an old dog to teach it some new tricks - like getting up earlier on Sunday mornings!

The service today was really nice though and I am very glad Mandy and I were able to go. We left Maya - the little 3-year-old wild woman - at home with her dad but took the baby, Kurtis, who just turned 6 months this past Friday along. The youth group had the service today and those kids did a really great job handling the duties too!

My neighbor's son, who just started his first semester at Penn State, was home and he and another young fellow and girl sang "Amazing Grace" acapello with some fancy interpretations tossed into the mix for good measure. Sure was beautifully done! The fact it is one of many of my favorite songs didn't hurt my opinion of their rendition either!

Leah - the girl who gave the sermon today - put some of her own thoughts into the script to give an analogy to the Gospel lesson today which pertained to it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it would be for a rich person to gain entry to heaven. Her take - she used the Penn State-Michigan game as an example, with the difficulty the Lions tend to have it seems handling the Michigan team, having two quarterbacks hurt in the second half of the game and the third stringer coming in to play in the last 4-5 minutes of the game. It was a neat way to make her point there and since the majority of our membership probably are Penn State fans and loyal supporters, etc., they could all appreciate that!

We were supposed to have a nice family dinner today with my daughter Carrie, her fiance, Robert and my older grandson, Alex, coming up but as so often happens with them, at the last minute, they called to say they wouldn't be here after all! This, after I had fixed a huge pot roast, with oodles of potatoes, carrots and cabbage all cooked nicely in the juices, a bowl of coleslaw and a big, big pan of apple crisp. The apple crisp just happens to be one of Carrie's favorite desserts too I might add.

Needless to say, I was somewhat jacked at the late cancellation there. I keep telling myself that one of these days when they say they are coming up, I am just going to fix dinner for those of us who live here - no extra portions - and set a time for us to eat and forget about their promise to be here. About the time I do that though, then they'll show up for sure I suppose. Oh well. The guys - son-in-law Bill and favorite son, Clate, will both have an ample supply of pot roast leftovers to take in their lunches this week! Probably will last them all doggone week too I suppose.

I found out today after church that we have two prayer chains at church - something I wasn't aware of before. Seems if someone contacts the pastor about putting someone on the prayer chain, it then goes into the church bulletin but if people want the message to go out on the telephone prayer chain, then you have to notify the ladies who are in charge of that process. Now, that seems a little off to me to have it organized in that fashion as I always thought if you notified the pastor or church secretary, it would automatically go out in both directions. The lady who explained this to me had come up to ask me if I wanted to be on the phone prayer chain as well as mentioned in the church bulletin which is how I came to find out about this little area of confusion. For my part, I have no problem if I am listed on the bulletin and put on the phone prayer chain too. And also, since I often can't get to church on a regular basis, I really would prefer that anyone who is placed on the prayer chain be put on both because then people like myself whose attendance often can be pretty spotty, would still be able to be informed of what's happening to other members of the parish. To me, that only makes sense. But, not necessarily for me to decide there either I guess. Just my opinion and we all know about opinions - everybody has one!

So now, the challenge for the evening hours here will be to see who will end up being the lucky person to get to wash the dishes tonight. Or maybe, there will be a small eruption as happened last night when Bill requested that Kate (the almost 15-year-old here) do the dishes and she went into quite a snit over that because "it isn't my week to do dishes!" Then she got miffed because her dad got a little sharp with her and couldn't fathom why he was being grumpy and I got ticked because she was getting a tad lippy with her dad. Good thing she wasn't here when my kids were growing up cause had they given me some lip service like that, they most likely would have recieved one royal verbal bashing along with possibly a little rap on the noggin too! (No I didn't beat my kids, but it wasn't beneath me to give them a little tap of a friendly reminder type on the old head to let them know that I was in charge, not them! Well, most of the time I tried to be in charge anyway!) Sometimes!!!!


ARRRGH! Garfield says it best huh?

So there you have it - another Sunday almost gone down.