weekend

slow weekend. took time to rest some. lindsay is finding herself very low on energy as she continues new meds: an allergy med, a steroid, and breathing treatments. tried to finish the netflix movies - got 2 out of 3 -- finally!

the semester is winding down; i just have to wrap up a few biggies. i should be feeling great this weekend. i'm still trying to figure out my final year of classes. i'd like to take a second class this summer and then i'd still need to pick up a class in january (or a third in the fall) in order to be completely done this time next year. i really don't want to walk and then take one more class in june. i want to have a huge party after graduation and feel finished.

crazy nite

so we spent half of last night in the er.

lindsay got into a coughing fit (she picked up a case of bronchitis over the past weekend - she gets these symptoms pretty easy it seems) and i told her to get up and spit something out or get some cough syrup or something because it wasn't going to just stop. when she spit into the sink, it was bright red with blood. since neither of us have ever coughed up blood, this was pretty scary.

we both decided that she needed to see a dr. asap because who knows what could be wrong. i told her to call her mom and tell her and ask her about it while i was getting some jeans on. we then called our friends in the neighborhood (lindsay used to work with her and they have a son just a bit older than jake and a daughter younger than jake) and asked if we could bring jake over just to sleep while we were at the er. they were blessedly gracious and helped jake get settled and back to sleep while we ran on to the er, about 20-25 minutes away.

we just got a utc in our town of ~20,000 people, but it's apparently not open 24 hours a day. i guess that's understandable. i'm glad we went to central baptist (where i had my gall bladder out) anyways - the er all looked incredibly new and nice. there weren't many people and L was seen pretty quickly. the dr. ran some tests to rule out a blood clot and got some fluids and a steroid in thru an iv and a couple of breathing treatments and a chest xray. all was clear, but he had L stop the antibiotic that she had started tuesday and start some different stuff.

the dr. boiled it down to her allergies (and that she does not have a case of bronchitis) which are getting worse and worse it seems. they say kentucky and our region specifically is just terrible for allergies. i'm starting to believe them.

me vs. the lawn, round 2a

so it's been time to mow again for about a week, but with rain and travel, it hasn't been easy to find a dry time. sidenote: i was finally able to pass the bsbl (see links to the right) commissionership on to another owner and i'll probably be replacing my tuesday and thursday night sim running duties with lawn mowing duties. well, probably every other week.

it turned out that the grass still wasn't dry, but when it starts to get longer, it won't really dry out completely anyways. it was a beautiful evening with a nice breeze and a setting sun. why i ever tried to mow in the blazing heat of a saturday afternoon, i'll never know. sunset is the time to mow.

i like to start with the little triangle on the front left (looking at the front of the house) and then progress to mowing a path around the perimeter - you know, like coloring the edges of a shape with a crayon before you fill it in. i divided the entire left into its own big triangle and proceeded with the back. it's not too far behind the deck to the non-sod portion. i came up to the front from the right edge of the lawn and started working on the front portion. the sun sets behind the house and this front portion was especially wet. hmmm.

i finished up the big triangle remaining on the right and then the one on the left. breaking it up gives a sense of accomplishment along the way i suppose. jake was playing with a neighbor kid outside for the last hour or so and lindsay was watching both me and he (intentional bad grammar because i liked how it sounded). i did a few laps of the non-sod portion, but the lawnmower just kept getting clogged.

amazingly, i was able to get all the sod portion and 10-15 minutes of the non-sod portion done in just over 2 hours on one evening. i hope to finish the non-sod portion on thursday night if it's dry enough. oh yeah, here's the kicker - the self-propelled mechanism was out the entire time so it was all old-school push. i did something to it when i worked it so hard last time. i think i had it too low when mowing the non-sod portion.

weekend at the cabin

we had a good time at the cabin this weekend and we actually took the opportunity to participate in some actual pigeon forge things.

on friday, we rolled into town around 5 and dropped off lindsay at her parents house so she could go to a bachelorette party that she helped organize for one of her best friends. jake and i trucked it on up to good ol' exit 407 and met mom, charlie, brooke, and charlie's parents at the golden trough for dinner. the food was pretty good and jake watched dora in order to stay entertained (this will be a running theme...). we stopped off at five oaks on the way back to the cabin and the ladies did a little shopping (this could also be a running theme probably...). after that, we made our way up to the cabin and hung out while watching a movie on the big screen in the living room (as opposed to the big screen in the den / game room).

on saturday, we got up early and met lindsay for breakfast - her parents brought her up on their way out to run some errands. afterwards, we hit five oaks again, but all 3 of our family got some stuff - mainly new clothes for spring / summer. we had such a big breakfast that we just snacked at the cabin before napping because we made reservations to go to a show in the evening. we went to the fiddler's feast and had a real good time with a decent meal and funny show with comedy and tennessee music from over the years.

on our way back to the cabin, we again took a back road to avoid the insane traffic on the main drag that came along with the auto show that was in town. by going this way, jake ended up seeing this place with carnival-style rides for the second time and asked again to go ride. we decided to turn around and it made for a great evening. jake had a blast on the train, airplanes, swings, ferris wheel, and many other rides. i enjoyed riding go-carts twice and now i want to find a place around here :-)

when we got back to the cabin, we crashed after a long day and not much sleep for L the previous night. sunday morning, we packed up and cleaned up and hit the road. we ate at a breakfast buffet with mom and charlie (the others had to leave on saturday), stopped back off to get another pair of jeans for me since the others fit so well (i wear jeans 2-3 times per week to work; some wear them week), and suffered through traffic on the way back to the interstate. we finally got back to L's parents' house around 12:45 which gave L about 45 minutes to spare until the wedding shower for her aforementioned friend, caroline (wedding in 4 weeks). i caught up on e.mail and tried to rest a bit even while jake played hard all over the house. we left around 5 and actually made it back around 7:30 - traffic wasn't bad at all and the 'back way' home is much quicker than going thru lexington - and no ferries are required!.

yummm

so it's wednesday and we have our small group tonight. it's our turn to cook (we rotate between 4 teams) and we're making ... drumroll ... breakfast!

i can't wait. i'm looking forward to a ton of eggs cooked multiple ways, some toast, biscuits with jelly, some golden pancakes, and some sausage that "accidently" gets covered with the syrup. mmmm

we're heading to the cabin in a couple of days and i've worked plenty of extra time already this week to be able to leave at noon on friday. should be a good trip and give me just that little bit of rest that i need to surge through the end of this semester.

great weekend

it was partially a blur, but the two sermons yesterday went absolutely great. after the morning sermon, lindsay, who has developed a knack for giving me great constructive sermon criticism, said it was "my best sermon ever." that's high praise, i tell ya! then, after the evening sermon, she said she might've liked that sermon even better! the Lord blessed me with a couple of passages that i was really passionate about and i think that has a lot to do with the preaching. the to-do's of last week were hectic, but it was good. tonight, i have to write a paper on my theology of preaching and i think it will be influenced by my experiences from yesterday.

after the paper, the week will be blessedly light and then we're off to the cabin in the smokies for a weekend with my mom, stepdad and his parents, and my stepsister (though she'll have to leave saturday). we're excited for the getaway. i hope it will propel me through the last few weeks of the semester. i looked at the syllabus for that hebrew class this summer (exegesis of exodus) and it's not actually terribly daunting.

feeling better

well, a few days makes things better. i've gotten a ton of little things off my plate. now, i just have to put the finishing touches on a paper and continue fleshing out the sermons. i think i've settled on the passages and most of the main points, but i'll give more details later.

lindsay's family is coming into town this afternoon and, along with lindsay, they're going over to north of harrodsburg to pick out the big swingset for jake. the place delivers and sets it up, but i'm not exactly sure on the time frame right now. after that, they're going to pick up jake and see his school and then we're going to meet for a kinda early dinner at the pub, a new british themed restaurant near the mall. it's yummy.

are you glad it's friday?!

crazy day

just one of those days. overwhelmed by the week schoolwork, workwork, oh and writing two sermons, my speech yesterday in preaching class apparently wasn't great and it wasn't the kind of "constructive" criticism i needed at the time. it's not helpful to think you'll never be even a mediocre preacher when you're thinking about how in the world you're going to write two sermons in less than a week. since i was stressed about everything else, i let it get to me too much. however, with the prayers of friends and family, i started feeling better last night when i was able to sit down and knock out some of the other miscellaneous school work that needed to be cleared from the plate.

alright, time to finish clearing the plate and put aside what can wait til sunday evening. i've got some ideas for the sermons, but it's time to really flesh them out.

weekend

other notes - we actually got a baby sitter and went on a real date saturday night. no special occasion, just finally decided to do so. our plan was to go see 'wild hogs' at the movie tavern. it's a place like the arlington cinema n' drafthouse where you can have a real bar and grille type dinner in a movie theater - usually, every other row of seats has been removed. however, we got there and wild hogs was sold out. nothing else was playing for an hour and they were mostly bloody and gross. we had noticed they had fried dill pickle chips (like toots!) so we sat at the bar and had an order of those before driving to find somewhere else to sit down and eat dinner. we drove downtown first, if nothing else because we hardly ever go downtown and it was neat to see it all at night. we realized we'll need to find some restaurants down town to try some time because we had no idea what would be good. so we circled back and just went to logan's near the mall for some steaks. still a great time.

i finished up some reading that i had hoped to do and i'm in a good place for school work this week. however, i got a call last thursday asking me to preach the am and pm service at frankfort first church of the nazarene this coming sunday! i wasn't going to pass up the opportunity, but it's going to be a busy week trying to write two sermons!

Christ our Lord is risen today...

ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-laay-luuu-yah...

all together now! we had a good, normal, easter sunday (though, sadly, without family) and just went out to lunch at sonny's since we weren't able to partake in a whitson easter ham. twas good, both for lunch and as leftovers for dinner. mmmm.

nats win! nats win!

ok so the first two games were demoralizing losses of 9-2 and 9-3. game 3 started out with the nats down 5-0 and then 6-1, but then they started chipping away with a ryan church 3-run homer to close the gap to 6-4. in the bottom of the 9th with the same score and jorge (::snicker::) julio on the mound, the nats chip chip chipped away and ended up winning 7-6 on a dmitri young game-winning rbi. a great game that helps to relieve the blech from the first two games.

dice-k starts his first regular season game for the boston red sox today and i've got the TiVo set to check him out. tonight's nats game is at 7:05, but i've got the office (new and awesome this week) and grey's anatomy (wait, is it new? oh no, it's not, nevermind) tivo-ing in the bedroom. the sopranos returns this sunday to finish up the series with a few more episodes (officially, this is season 6b). i'll have to call and turn hbo back on soon ;-)

opening day

GO NATS!!

bracket update for finale

ok, lindsay's competition had florida and ohio st. in the finals so they are now tied in points (52 of possible 62). lindsay has no chance for points and her opponent picked ohio st. the tiebreaker is total points and lindsay picked 136 and her opponent picked 149. running some numbers, i came up with this:

obviously, florida has to win. (but it sounds like most people think they will)
142 or less total points and L wins.
143 or more total points and her opponent wins.
no tie on total points is possible.
closest game that L still wins: 72-70, florida.
i think if ohio st. scores 71 or more, her opponent wins no matter what.

remember, $200 shopping spree to the mall is on the line!