Day: February 3, 2005

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the basset 500

basset eyei feel like i have been blogging alot over the past month about my dog, montana. it’s just that she is so new to us (we’ve only had her for six weeks) and i personally find this one foot tall, cat-poop eating dog fascinating. therefore, i want to describe the “basset 500” to you. whenever montana gets excited her body responds with a need to run. since she is primarily an “inside” dog this means that the desire to run usually hits her while she’s in the house. as many of you know the terrell home is built with the living room, kitchen, study, and den all forming a circle. this circle is montana’s track of choice. when we came into the house this afternoon that was enough of a reason for montana to get excited and thus the circle of the “basset 500” began to be raced.

you really wouldn’t think that a basset hound could run very fast but you would be wrong to think that. she may have short legs but she has a long body and this gives her short legs a very long reach with each stride. imagine a very short cheetah. he short legs and long body end up producing a great velocity. montana is a red and white blazing missile when she starts running. of course, being a basset hound she’s a “red and white blazing missile” that is cruising a height of your shins.

now many of you may not know this about me but i have weak shins. i know it sounds stupid but my shins are really sensitive. we all have our weaknesses. superman has his kyrponite, spiderman has his teenage insecurities, and i, robert terrell, have my weak shins. it’s something i have had to live with for all of my days.

you see that’s the problem with having a basset hound in the house. once she starts running the “basset 500” and really gets going with all her blazing speed someone is gonna get hurt. today it was my shins. montana ran head first into both of my shins and knocked me straight onto my rear. of course, montana’s head is much harder than my weak shins and therefore she didn’t feel the slightest thing. instead she saw me falling down as the perfect opportunity to jump on me and lick me to death. gotta love the basset.

SIDE NOTE – this afternoon i introduced my children to the original bbc version of “mr. bean.” noah didn’t like it but adam loved it.

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the beauty of a team

i’ve been majorly sick the past week. starting sunday afternoon i developed the mother of all flu’s. it was awful. i didn’t go anywhere near the church until earlier this morning. truthfully i didn’t care what happened at the church – not because i don’t care about my family that is there but rather because i didn’t care about much other than when my next dose of medicine was coming up and how long i could sleep that time. i felt miserable. this post however is not about me. it’s about the staff that i work with.

i work with two wonderful people, jessica and alan. together we make up the youth ministry staff that leads a team of volunteers in getting the youth ministry going and grooving. technically i’m their boss, but truthfully we are a team. they didn’t miss a beat without me there even though we have a pretty major girls event this weekend (the feminar). everything, including our wednesday night service (the view) ran wonderfully. kids were assured of GOD’s love, parent’s were assured that they matter within the youth ministry and everyone was pushed and encouraged in following our wonderfully dangerous LORD and SAVIOR. and i had nothing to do with it.

i love my staff.

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ah, life is good

after four days of being stuck in the house because of the mother of all flu’s i’m presently sitting in the cc’s coffee house on seigen lane drinking a grande decaf mocha and eating some banana bread. i took pam’s car to church this morning taking the boys to school and stopping in the office to make sure that life had gone on without me (as anyone who knows the youth ministry knows everything went great without me there. jessica and alan make everything happen and all i do is stand around and take the credit for it all). afterwards i went to drop off pam’s car at our mechanic. sunday pam’s car started having trouble going into reverse. now personally i’m not entirely sure why we have to have the reverse gear. i think life should always go forward with our past merely pushing and supporting us. you should never live your life in reverse looks backwards. i tried this answer with pam but she insisted that she needed to be able to go in reverse. once again she has rejected my logic.

anyway, i took her car to berry automotive once again trying my “life should always go forward” joke and once again getting a blank look from the person i told it to. unfortunately, since no one was at the church office when i went this morning i couldn’t secure a ride back from berry’s automotive. therefore, i decided to walk across the street and have a cup of coffee while i phoned a few people for a ride. i called bill, my pastor, and secured a ride up to the church with him. then i went to order my coffee. this is where life became good.

there where three barristers working at the siegen lane cc’s this morning. i knew all three of them and better than that all three of them knew me. it’s not unusual for me to know one or even a couple of people working at cc’s but knowing everyone working at the store at a single moment has never happened to me before. even better than just knowing them, and being known by them was that they all three initiated a conversation with me. not just some “hey lets have small talk while i fix your drink” conversation but rather an extended conversation jumping from ” where’s that coffee cup that you used to always bring?” to “how are things at church?” and “how’s pam?” we ended our conversation with a discussion of the best cheeseburger in town (riverside patty hands down). i didn’t even have to tell them what i wanted to drink, they knew it already. while other people were in the cc’s i was the one who was the “regular”. for some of you this is no big deal. you’re probably a ‘regular” at several different spots but that’s not true for me. cc’s is the only spot that i am a “regular” at and it feels good to be a “regular”.

now, i’m going to go back and finish my banana nut bread.