PipeScreams

I gave a short concert on Wednesday evening for the kids in our Logos program and as part of our on-going Thursday Night Live fellowship series (I know: Wednesday/Thursday; just go with it). I had done three PipeScreams concerts in Ashland and they were very popular (they even led to spin-offs for July 4th). This being the first here, we kept it short and simple. One of my piano students, Nick M. played a piece from his lesson book. He did great! We had about 125 in attendance, including many in costume. Eli turned pages for me and worked the lights (killed the house lights at the beginning, and turned on the works lighting for the kiddie talk). It was his first time and he did awesome; I was very proud of him. Things look good for PipeScreams II next year!

Eli turns 12

We celebrated Eli's birthday last month. He's been big into NCIS recently, so his big gifts were related to that. Everyone had cake and ice cream in the evening.

Train Trip

In early September we learned of a trip on the GSMR sponsored by the Old Depot Association here in Black Mountain, celebrating 100 years of the depot. We were thinking about going, and then had a call from Paul W. at church wanting to take Eli on the very same trip. In the end Paul sponsored Eli and the rest of us also went. Eli (and all of us) spent some quality time with Paul, who is way to smart for his own good. The train ride was great. We packed a huge picnic lunch and ate on the ground at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. It was Calvin's first train ride, so he had a blast. The ride came with free admission to the museum in Bryson City. When the ride was over we were exhausted and wrung out, so we decided to skip the museum and covenanted to drive back down the next afternoon (Sunday) for the museum. Best decision we ever made!

This is the train at the Outdoor Center. They split it in half so traffic can continue to move around the area.

Food spots

Briggs: This trail mix sure does hit the spot.

Me: Oh, really?

Briggs: Um-hum. 'Cause I have this spot, and it's hittin' it."

Me: And where is this spot?

Briggs (points to the exact location): In my leg.

The week that was

It started last weekend. Eli came home Friday after a rough week of homework and tests. It was his birthday, but he had two tests scheduled to Monday morning. I sent a very frustrated-sounding note to his counselor. I am in a stew about maybe changing his medication regimen or maybe changing his class schedule (out of the gifted-talented track), so he can stay focused or move a pace he can manage so he can get classwork done in class, and not bring so much home with homework.

Monday we learned that a couple of kids related to church and the pre-school had H1N1; kids we were around last week and over the weekend. Briggs was mostly over his mess (after missing school WE, TH and FR) , but still had a pretty wicked cough.

The church office administrator was on my back to get us switched from cassette recording of our worship services to digital and CD format. That's all good, assuming the hardware folks had things in place, which they said they did. But on Tuesday when I started in on the project, found they had not: the software was going hinky, and then the newly-fashioned computer developed its own issues. I lost most of TU dealing with that before I finally threw in the towel. Part of that time-loss was going to our laptop (because it has the software and does a good job making the digital recordings), but it crashed, which had a whole other set of implications for this Sunday (projection in worship). Oh, and by the way, our systems administrator was out with H1N1 (one of those families mentioned above). So I didn't have a ready source of commiseration nor advice.

Also, with him out, we were trying to adjust our print development: no newsletter (fine), but the office administrator had to assemble the bulletin, whilst learning new software (nDesign) on a week with a not-as-usual bulletin (World Communion) and a guest preacher (later-than-usual information).

Also about that time I had another round of the traditional-versus-contemporary worship music conversation. Suffice it to say...it was icing on the cake that was my week.

All this time, Eli's counselor has been stepping up her work with him and luckily enough he is having a better week with less homework. But we've gone ahead and set an appointment with his doctor to review his case. That's next today.

Rehearsals went great this week. Our newest guitarist for the early service is ready to play for worship, stepping up from simply sitting in on rehearsals. The band has a nice sound. The choir has been work on a hard-as-hell anthem by Kinley Lange (Esto les digo). If the notes weren't hard enough, yeah, it's in Spanish. But they managed to get through it a cappella (did I mention that?) in rehearsal. Plus, we were taking candid photos for a new directory and the website this week. So all that went fine except for the tenor who nearly fainted in rehearsal.

By Thursday the administrator was in a real snit (understandable) to get the bulletin done. With so many foreign songs in the mix, plus the communion stuff, I found myself in her seat more than once making changes, in addition to assisting what little bit I could with the vagaries of InDesign (luckily I'd had some experience with similar programs, ie Pagemaker, before). But I was out of the office in the morning for a meeting, and had the usual slew of piano students in the afternoon. So the whole day was pretty rush-rush; way too intense for my liking. We finally got it put to bed, but I am sure there's something missing or wrong, somewhere.

Then at the end of the day Thursday, Eli got off the bus with a fever of 102.7. He's got something. Everyone in the office was clucking over him offering advice, but still wanted me to help with computers, bulletins, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and did I mention flags?

For World Communion we want to install flags of the nations where we have missionaries deployed. From the ceiling 16 feet up. It wasn't helped any by the nay-sayers suggesting we just slap them on the wall instead of doing it right the first time. We had to find the right hanging hooks, get scaffolding and personnel. This is intended to be a permanent installation, per our worship and mission committees, but the Session is balking and wants them up and down this weekend, then up again in January 2010 and down at the end of February. Believe me, the whole saga is much longer and excruciatingly convoluted.

So we got home Thursday evening, and I put Eli to bed with drugs. Then Libby got home with Calvin: she's sick.

So this morning I'm doing my best "tomorrow's another day" mantra. I got Briggs and Calvin to school and day care. Calvin was not happy that I was leaving him (just like his mama does). So why, you ask, am I wasting time at the computer? Hell if I know.