oh, it's true. i did a bad thing. yesterday, we bought me a lap top. oh ya, i'm typing this on my new laptop that cost way more then we ever should have spent and we did the unspeakable and put it on my credit card. we'll be paying interest for a long time and paying it off forever and blah blah blah blah.

truthfully, i don't feel guilty at all though. not in the least.

i'm lovin' my new baby. what should i name her?

I'm still here. I've been thinking about what to write. Been coming up dry.

This Sunday is my Family Sunday service and I'm feeling a lot more focused and ready for this one. I've made a blog for my 1st Sundays Ministry, but I've used a different log in because I'm very very very hesitant to have it linked to my blog here. for that reason I'm also very hesitant to post the link to it here. I like to try to keep my personal life separate from my internet life. but i will brag (even though no one can check up on it) that it's a very nice blog so far. :P

The dog is time consuming. She has scratched quite a bit of our wall in the living room trying to get at the stinky garbage in the kitchen. & there are some other small problems so we're starting obedience school this week. I hope it goes well.

Other then that, things continue on. How are all of you doing?

Ever since I’ve been a little kid when I’ve been at church I’ve always pictured myself at the front leading worship. Always. Even when I was 6 and had no idea what was going on. As I aged I tried to ignore this fantasy more and more. After all, what kind of a fantasy was it? As a child at church weren’t you supposed to daydream about flying off in a rocket ship or dream about a day at the beach; not picturing yourself preaching or leading prayer or wearing a stole.

It was a funny contrast because I also spent a good portion of my childhood church experience sitting in a pew with my mother trying to convince myself that I was an Atheist. How could all this be true? How could God exist? How could it all make sense? How? In the end the only plausible answer could be that God did not exist. There was not Holy Spirit. Christ was not resurrected. The church was a sham. It was a lot to think about as a youngster.

On the one hand the Holy was dramatically calling and on the other hand the secular had this pull on me. I played both sides of the field. Reverently faith filled one week and an unabashed nonbeliever the next.

This continued through my life. Even as a youth I had this self propelled urge to be confirmed. I initiated it. & yet, I still could not really imagine a world where God existed. My creative writing at the time certainly reflected that. All doom and gloom and shame on the world. The same happened in University. My Religious Studies classes did nothing but serve to show all the inconsistencies in the Bible and the errors in everything faith related. But, it was still there, this…thing somewhere in the back of my mind. I finished my BA and still wanted to know more. I did enrol in the MDiv program, but I wasn’t ready, I guess. I could not conceive that one could study theology with such care and passion and such BELIEF and such certainty.

The big question I realize now that I should have addressed when I was younger was this, “why did I have to CONVINCE myself that I was a Christian?” Why couldn’t I just believe?

Why do I still, on some days, feel the need to be convinced? Perhaps the answer another day. :P

I realized I hadn't updated my side bars in a very long while...so here's the new scoop:

89% towards our first goal of 1K!
14% towards our UK trip!
& $43 saved for Christmas!

I can't find the bank card to log into the LOC so I'm not too sure what the stats on that are.

We used some money in the house fund...for house stuff! It's sitting at $9 right now and we're building it back up. The car fund has $69 in it and Scouts fund is sitting at zero.

Kathy left a comment about how it would be easier or a better idea to have everything in one account and I agree that it would be easier and for some people it probably would work better, but I know me and I know that if I didn't separate everything I would spend it on things I shouldn't (ahem, as in dinners out and booze and nights hotels). Everything sits in one account, but I've got it all separated according to my different funds in my Excel Saving Sheet.

I've decided that After we hit the 1K in our EF I'm going to scale back the weekly savings in that account from $20 a week to $10 and put the $10 a week into my other funds somehow. It will be nice to have that $1K cushion, but it will also be nice to know that if the muffler on the car goes then we will have money to repair the car in the car fund instead of the EF (which should be for when we are absolutely destitute, y'know?)

I have been doing a lot of thinking and reflection for the past few weeks. I finally decided that it was time to approach my minister and ask for him to begin the process for me to discern a call to ministry. It's a long process, and while I still feel hesitant in some ways about the whole thing I also finally feel some level of peace surrounding feeling a call from God.

The first step is the Inquiry Stage where Presbytery will set up a Discernment Committee that I'll meet with over a period of 1 year to ascertain if ministry is indeed my calling and what kind of ministry I would do best at.

Over the next little while I want to write more about my call and about the church and about jesus and my place within all of this.

Right now I'm excited, scared, nervous, serene, and curious.

With the arrival of Scout and Husband's holiday pay being disbursed on every pay cheque we need to re-evaluate our saving scheme. It feels like I spend quite a few many posts doing this. :P But that's okay, because life is always changing! Nothing in our financial plans should ever be set in stone.

The new plan for our savings program:

Currently saving $210 a month. Husbands holiday pay is about $80 a cheque (so $160 a month) and adding in money for Scouts fund.

380 a month into savings and planned spending to be distributed in this
way:

$80 - EF
$20 - Scout Fund (this is for trips to the vet, medications, unexpected things like that - her food and treats will come out of our general
spending)
$20 - House Fund
$20 - Car Fund
$240 - Holiday Fund

I know it seems like a lot to put towards the Holiday Fund but we really really really want to go to the UK next year for husbands friends wedding. Husband looked up plane tickets for the 3 of us to Manchester and it was 4K, so it is an expensive trip and we are hoping that his parents will help out with the costs seeing as how they won't be coming here that summer for a holiday.

Once the EF reaches 1K (our first goal) I was thinking of reducing our monthly contribution amount from $80 to $60 and redistributing that $20 a month into our planned spending. Yay or nay?

I've been plugging away at my cross stitch. I had a bit of a slowdown because I spent most of last week preparing for the Family Sunday at church. But, I think I've been making some nice progress. At the rate I'm going I estimate I'll be done by.....next June....about 1 year after I've started. :P

I hope I get faster.

Oh yes we're crazy. We've been talking about getting a pet and adopting a dog for months now. Husband really loves dogs and wanted one, Andrew did too....and as much as I might complain about dogs I really like them too.

We adopted this gorgeous dog from the Winnipeg Humane Society this evening. She's 4 years old and is so calm and good with Andrew. I'm so excited to make her part of our little family.

We bought Andrew (4 years old) Amazing You: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts and It's Not The Stork a few weeks back because he'd started asking questions about where babies come from and how he got into my tummy and how he got out of my tummy.

He's been very interested in them and as a result it's been all we've read for weeks now.

He gets that he came from a sperm. He doesn't understand how the egg comes into play. He talks a lot about sperm and where sperm came from the point that he clearly announced to our waiter at supper the other day the following, "I came from Daddy's Testicles".

Awesomest moment ever.

Ever.

I bought a red pepper flat a few weeks back.

I planted them in our biggest planter and I've put them out in full sun and have been giving them frequent watering as instructed by the little card that came with them. They seem to be s-l-o-w-l-y growing. They haven't died yet. I guess that's a good sign.

They seem to have buds on them right at the top. I can't wait to see what happens with them.

Maybe I do have a green thumb?

PS. I added a tag cloud for my post labels. Isn't it adorable? Thanks Lorien for your help...way back when.

~dinah

Don't worry. I did survive...I've just been recuperating. Phew! It's hard work planning and carrying out a service like that. As soon as we got home on Sunday I needed a nap. Thank goodness Andrew played quietly with his toys and then watched a movie.

Husband took lots of pictures so I'm going to share some of them with you all in Blogland. I'm hesitant to post pictures with any of the kids in them due to privacy reasons for the chitlins, so I'm only going to post set-up photos and one and Andrew. If the pictures of everyone do go up on the churches website I'll post them here...

First Up!
My letters--They say "Sending Christian Greetings" which was the theme of the week. While they did take forever and a day to make I think it was totally worth it.
Initially I was going to hang the letters vertically and made the letters reversible. Once I tried to figure out how I would actually hang the letters vertically I realized it was next to impossible so I decided to hang them horizontally on a clothesline with clothes pins (thanks Google for the help on that one!). Because of this last minute Saturday afternoon change the letters on the backside are all backwards...it says sgniteerg naitsirhc gnidnes. People didn't get it. Quite a few asked what it was supposed to say. Yay for seniors. :P
You can see that we very creatively hung the string off the chandeliers in the hall. :P Husband thought of that & he's a genius! Husband also hung the string and put up all the letters on Sunday morning for me. He's a sweet Husband.


Next Up!
My banner - Husband sat and took some pictures of it on Sunday too. I can't believe I made something so big! It was supposed to be for the kids to march around with on Family Sundays but really it's too big for them. They can't see where they're going when they carry it. lol

You can see how I had the stage set up. To the right of the banner was the power point screen. It went better this time because we used the stage. The kids seemed to get the idea of where they were supposed to be better then the last two months. The set up is more traditional then the church has been used to since moving to the hall space. I know they have grown to prefer the semi circle or full circle seating plan, but it almost made it too difficult for the children to keep focused.


This is the little altar I made up with the books we were reading/discussing, the cross, and the radishes that the kids planted last month (oh and btw, can anyone tell me why the leaves are turning this orangish colour?). I meant to mention it during the service...but of course I forgot. Boo on me. I don't know how ministers/preachers remember to say everything they want and plan on saying.

& Andrew being Andrew beforehand.

The ideas for next time....

• play stump the vicar (we always call our minister vicar) - play for five minutes and if someone stumps the vicar with a question about church/religion/the united church they get a prize
• be more focused - have less small activities and one big one instead
• GET LOUD! Make a joyful noise!
  
• work completely of taped music - the man who plays our piano on Sundays doesn't seem to get the idea of lively children's music...
• Have 'stations' set up around the church for children to go to if they're bored - quiet things like a puzzle, play doh, felt board.
• Rely less on books and other peoples ideas and do more of my own 'stuff' aka my secular and non scary way of saying preching. lol.

Make this. Fix that. Bring this. Paint that. Outline this. Tape that. Print this. Type that. Find that music. Find the right lyrics. Bring that music. Make sure it is all in the right order. Make sure the old people can read it. Check the animation. Make it look pretty. Cut this. Translate that. Spell check EVERYTHING. Type some more of that. Type some more of this. Tie it all together. Write that prayer. Don't forget ANYTHING.

Stay up real late.

Don't get enough sleep.

That's pretty much my day so far. Tomorrow is the big day.

& sometimes it's just so hard.

sometimes the words don't want to come out, the ideas stay firmly planted inside myself. i think that i have something viable to say, but when push comes to shove i make powerpoints and scan story books and work from the works of others. & sometimes i feel so uncreative i hurt.

i've sat here for 1 month trying to decide what to say on this upcoming sunday and still there is nothing.

i want to say be passionate. teach your children passion. show your neighbors children your passion. show the world your passion. help others find their passion. help people discover.

take your knowledge and go out into the world. be servants of christ. be good. do good things. spend your money wisely. be kind. be tolerant. love your family. love strangers. love the world. be open to the world.

i want to say that it doesn't matter who your neighbor calls God or who people in other countries call God. i want to say that it doesn't matter. christ taught us to love everyone.

i don't have the answers. i don't even know where to start. i want to say that i just want to show images and words and thoughts and text and let them draw conclusions. i don't want to tell anyone what to think.

i want to say that i feel like a fake because i picked this theme of Sending Christian Greetings when really i have spent most of the month wondering why we aren't just sending Greetings to the world? why did i choose to restrict our greetings to such a select few? i want to say that i've spent most of this month wondering why i find the theme i picked so sad.

I've got basil! It's finally starting to grow. I've been pinching of new leaves occasionally on the advice of several gardeners. I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but the leaves sure do smell good when I pinch them.

Can you tell we're really enjoying our new camera? :P

I'm working hard at prepping for my Family Service on this Upcoming Sunday. I've not had much time for real blog posts. I'm super excited about the service. The them is "Sending Christian Greetings" and I've got lots of fun and exciting stuff lined up.

We are really enjoying our new camera. It takes very nice pictures. Here's a few from our Canada Day at the Carnival...