Tuesday Update

my friend Marko does a monday morning update, but my weekly rhythm post church staff seems to keep my mind on "off" on mondays (since that used to be my day off )and thus i'm beginning the "tuesday update"
we'll see if i can keep it going beyond this week!

last week the lewin clan was hanging out with my parents down in nashvillle, post NYWC.
i packed up the sanctuary space and worship gear on monday and spent tuesday recovering from the virus i got over the weekend. (really didn't feel like eating real food til turkey day)

the guys drove down on wednesday and we enjoyed great food with the parents on thursday.

we decided that there were appliance demons living at my mom's house because her dishwasher went out and when the guy showed up with the missing part at 4pm on wednesday, it was the WRONG part!
so we went with the turkey paper plates instead of the china!

next her trash compactor died and on thanksgiving day as we were putting everything on the table, my favorite dish got locked in the oven! literally.
the oven got stuck on LOCK like when it is ready to self-clean and the hot fruit compote was held hostage until friday morning!
hudson said we were lucky it wasn't the turkey!
he helped put it all in perspective...you can have thanksgiving without hot fruit, but it's much harder without the turkey!

we spent most of the weekend relaxing on the farm and working the worst puzzle in history.
it was a puzzle i'd brought for the occassion (we usually work puzzles when we are on vacation in michigan so i thought it would be fun to carry on the traditon in nashville)
so i had no one to blame but myself.
i haven't downloaded the photo of the puzzle but it is the "saying grace" painting by norman rockwell. we happen to have this print in our dining room and silly me thought it was appropriate theme for thanksgiving weekend! but this puzzle was evil! it had a border inside and all the pieces were the same color! and some were even the same exact shape.
i learned that my dad "gran bilbur" is a puzzle fiend. he gets competitive and uses his engineering skills
to match up all the pieces in the same shapes. on the other hand, i look at the colors and the photo to match pieces....and hudson and mac refused to join us until we begged and pleaded for help!
they prefered facebook and IM to puzzle working!
at one point we had all 6 of us of us on line! and my parents are now learning to talk to their grandchildren over skype video!

the most fun though was watching my dad and his latest project.. PRINCE.
not the artist formally known as...but a very small pony that is his most recent animal additon to the farm.
my mom was going to get bilbur a dog to keep him company, but now he has prince who is the size of a st. bernard!
gran bilbur bought a pony harness off ebay and re-purposed an old pony cart we had for a much larger pony and ta- da! the funniest thing i saw all weekend!

we drove home on sunday, along with the thousands of other folks who'd been over the river and through the woods...rob and mac and fred in the van and hudson and me in the rav, both vehicles filled with worship gear, leftovers, and christmas gifts. thanks to the traffic we arrived just in time to set up for thinplace.

monday saw me on the road again taking hudson to indianapolis to meet the culver bus back to school.
we usually catch the bus at the baggage claim at the Indy airport. when we got to the usual spot their were very large signs saying that the ariport had moved! how does one actally move an airport?
well those industrial folks in indy did just that and we had to back track and find the new one! if i'd only followed the freeway signs and not my usual directions i could have saved a half an hour!

made it home safely again wondering how much energy it will take to unpack all the boxes sitting in my living room and all the bags in the hallway...sure wish the elves lived here, or at least mary poppins!

looking  ahead: 

• putting away fall decor and beginning christmas decorations...i believe in going slowly in this...it's advent and we can add on a little at a time as the story unfolds and weeks go by...and btw..the
• christmas season really begins on DEC 25 and goes through epiphany JAN 6TH. so we all have lots of time (despite what the media/ad agencies report!)
• xavier basketball wed. night vs. auburn GO X!
• planning how to paint hudson's room before he gets back for christmas break
• missing out on phylis tickle and all of my friends in emerging church land down in memphis this weekend.