lights out

tonight at the view the power cut off. we’ve had a fair number of storms around here in baton rouge and they have caused a decent number of power outages. particularly this afternoon. the power cut out three times while i was developing the powerpoint for the worship at the view. at the view everything was going fine until about 7:20 when the power cut off. this meant i pretty much lost everyone’s attention. the power came back on but i was pretty sure that i had lost control. we finished the service and the cut off again. typically the youth and adults hang out after the service for a good while. usually there are people around the student center over an hour after the view is over. it’s wonderful. i really enjoy everyone enjoying being around each other. of course, when the power cut out everyone left. apparently everyone enjoys being around one another until the lights cut out. apparently i have developed a ministry full of people scared of the dark. it’s sad but true.

fright scene

today i was “one eyed” by an old man. I was walking into the locker room at foxy’s gym & racquet club to take a shower after playing racquetball when I was greeted with a scary image. the doors that enter into the men’s locker room are double doors that swing inward. i pushed these doors open and was forcefully walking into the locker room when i was greeted by an old man standing about 4 feet in front of me. actually he didn’t know he was greeting me. you see this very wrinkled man was standing with his back to the door with absolutely no clothes on what so ever. this would have been bad enough as it were but one fact made it worse. you see the very wrinkled, very naked, very old man wasn’t really standing in front of me. no, he was bending over from the waste to pick something up from the floor. this means that i was greeted by the rear of an incredibly old, extremely wrinkled, frighteningly naked man.

i don’t really dislike old people or even very wrinkled people. some of my friends are old and wrinkled. it’s just that i don’t usually see these friends naked. the nudity changes everything. then you add the bending over and things just get worse. the whole event has scarred me for life and will probably give me nightmares for the next week.

head cold

i have a head cold right now. i’ve been taking care of noah all day (here “taking care of” translates to feeding him and letting him watch way too much television) and that’s not fun when all i really want to do is be dosed up with alka seltzer cold medicine or maybe nyquil and sleeping in bed. i hate colds!

all i’ve done today is try to sleep and fail and then try to stay awake and fail. it really stinks. i could have used this day to read allot and catch up on the studying i need to do for our disciplenow in march (19-21) http:parkviewyouth.org/holy.html. it would have been a great day of focusing on researching so that i could write the disciplenow material. the main problem is that every time i start to read all the ink on the page melts and forms weird shapes that look absolutely nothing like letters or words. i feel like i’m trying to read chinese. this would actually be okay, because i could simply enjoy the images but every time i start to focus on them they change and then before i know it i’ve passed out again. then i wake up freezing and wondering why i’m so cold, only to realize that i’m covered by two blankets and sweating profusely. i hate being sick.

the puking family

friday through today have been days of vomit at the terrell household. friday keebler (the terrell family cat who thinks he is a dog) began to barf all over the place. cat vomit is not one of the more pleasant things in the world. in fact, the only thing worse than cat vomit is actually having the watch the cat throw up. when keebler throws up it involves his whole body. it’s like the puke begins at his tails and has to be forced horizontally towards his mouth. it’s very painful to watch and the overall sound of the cat gagging just makes the experience that much more painful. thankfully, i never saw him throw up.

what i did end up seeing was cat vomit all over the house. then keebler got to see me down on my hands and knees cleaning up the barf. the stupid cat has now cost us the price of s steam cleaner and a decent amount of elbow grease (it’s pam’s elbow grease that has been used but i still feel the pain of it).

after a weekend of cat puke i walked into the house this evening to see noah (my 7 year old) tossing his biscuits into a large pot. he had just finished a bag of cheetos which gave the vomit have a lovely tint of color. the poor fellow has thrown up one more time since earlier today. i don’t like it when my kids are sick (i’m not real thrilled when the cat gets sick but i really don’t like it when my kids are sick). of course, noah is thrilled because he knows that the puke will keep him from having to go to school tomorrow. i dread the day when he is old enough to stay home by himself and has learned how to fake being sick.

excuse me

friday, i was at a class retreat for a local private school. as a part of the retreat there was a worship service and a within that there was a sermon. while the sermon was going on i went to sit in the group of kids. i figured that my mere presence (as intimidating as it is) would calm everyone down. the message had just started when suddenly i head “brrrrriipppp” about two people away from me. it was a loud, long, and vicious rip of personality that appeared to have come from the lower orifice of a person not three feet away from me. of course, his position was easily determined because of the fact that everyone in a nice little circle around him turned around and looked straight at him. everyone smirked and laughed but he kept on looking straight ahead. after all, what could he do?

i didn’t say anything to him because i figured there was no need to tell him not to fart during the message. after about 5 minutes of the message once again the sound came from the same guy. everyone started laughing again. it was an embarrassed sort of laughter. everyone was hurting for this kid. i still didn’t say anything to him because i simply wasn’t sure what to say. surely, he wasn’t doing this on purpose, so why tell him to keep it quiet. i simply assumed that he was trying to release a silent but deadly and it slipped out louder than he had expected. while pondering this another fart was released.

we were all really embarrassed for the kid but he just kept looking forward. i figured now i had to say something to him, but what would i say? how do you tell someone to keep the farting quiet? how do you tell someone not to have stomach problems?

while contemplating this i saw the kid’s foot movie and heard the fart sound again. turns out he had been making the noise with his foot the whole time. suddenlt it all made sense. it had seemed kind of wierd the whole time that i never smelled anything.

just call me emeral

i finally found a style of cooking that fits me. for CHRISTmas pam received a creme brulee set. i’m not entirely sure what creme brulee is but i know that it has a caramelized crust on the top of it. this means that you take brown sugar and burn it until it melts and forms a rich brown crust on top of the dessert. in order to do this the set comes with a small “cooking torch” which is just a smaller version of a regular old propane blow torch. i don’t really know much about cooking indoors (cooking around a fire is my domain), but i know a fair amount about blow torches, so i told pam i would handle the caramelizing. it was my first attempt at doing this but it worked fine. it would appear that i am a natural at cooking with a blow torch. whoever thought of using a propane blow torch in cooking was a genius.

disciplenow plans

i’m pretty excited because today i received confirmation that the band i really wanted to join us for our disciplenow will be with us. the robbie seay band will be leading us in worship through music during the disciplenow (march 19-21). this is not meant to be as much of an advertisement for the disciplenow as it is a comment on how i like it when GOD works things out. rsb has been helping me out with some of their songs for about two years now. that’s why i wanted to get them involved. but, i was pretty sure that we would not be able to cover their costs for joining us for our disciplenow. turns out that it within their schedule and travel and that means we can get them. i can’t wait.

if you are curious about who they are then go to their website http://www.robbieseayband.com/. i really like them.

on a sad note, pam and i gave into today and bought noah an o.u. jersey (with his birthday money). we tried to talk him out of it but he has been converted and it didn’t feel right saying “no you can’t buy a non-l.s.u. jersey” when football isn’t really that important to us.

you people are pigs

i just finished taking down all the stuff we set up in the student center for the view last night and i was amazed at the mess that a group of 80 teens can cause. each of you should be ashamed of yourself. did your mother raise you in a barn?

just kidding.

i had a flash back to what my mother used to say to me and neither adam, my almost 10 year old, nor noah, my 7 year old, are around for me to pick at so i had to use ya’ll. see this is what you get to look forward to one day. you’ll probably get married, have to work real hard at having a great marriage (a little hint here – the marriages that stink are the ones in which both parties
don’t work at it all the time), then probably have kids and then you get the joy of blaming them for everything that breaks (and knowing that you are probably right). ah, the joys of parenthood.

yesterday noah decided to swap from being an l.s.u. fan to being an oklahoma fan. neither pam nor i can find out why he swapped. he says he was coloring a snowman in l.s.u. colors and half way through the snow man “it just happened” and he swapped to being an o.u. fan. he describes it like it was a mystical experience. it’s as though the big sooner mascot in the sky unveiled the heavens and spoke to noah – “noah, be a sooner fan!” anyhow, noah brought the snow man home to prove to us that “it just happened” and sure enough it is half l.s.u. colors and then immediately swaps to o.u. colors. apparently my youngest son had a mystical n.c.a.a. football experience. who knew?

i resolve to

this year i decided to make resolutions that i can actually keep. you see each year i make a list of goals that i want to accomplish during the year. they vary from the serious to the not so serious. i want to memorize a certain number of verses, i want to learn to play the penny whistle, etc. usually i finish about 80% of these goals. this year i have decided that i would pick different goals from normal and i would make sure and accomplish them. one of the goals is that i want to stop playing racquetball twice a week. the only problem with this resolution is that presently i don’t play racquetball at all. therefore, it is impossible for me to quite playing it twice a week since i don’t actually play at all right now. i figure by making this goal i have a pretty good chance of succeeding and if i fail, then i will at least get in better shape while not accomplishing my goal.

so, today i went to play racquetball for the first time this week, figuring that i could then play thursday also and be able to quite the next week. this would accomplish one of my resolutions for the year very quickly and be a good start for the year. the only problem is that after playing today i am presently very sore and i’m not sure that i will be able to play thursday (this means i wouldn’t be able to reach my goal of quitting next week and that is very upsetting). my legs are sore from running all over the court, my right arm is sore from swinging the racquet continually, and my left arm hurts for some unknown reason ( i believe it is from sympathetic pain just from being drug all over the court by the rest of my body). this stinks. who would have ever thought that i would have to kill myself just to get to the point that i could then quite my work-outs. yet i’m dedicated to accomplishing my goals. i will play twice this week so that i can then quite and be an example of how to reach your goals.

i hope you all can learn form my example and the pain it is costing me to accomplish my goals.

woha

i don’t base my life around football or for that matter any sport but it was still cool to see the l.s.u. tigers when the national championship and experience how baton rouge has responded. i was driving home after watching the game with about 30 people at church and everyone is honking and shouting stupid stuff. just for a whim i droe over to academy sporting goods. they opened up after the game to sell national champsionship t-shirts and hats. they had a line coming out of the bulding reaching all the way to the road. it’s really impressive to see people who are so fanatical about something that they will stay up till one to pay too much for a really cheap t-shirt. you have to love people with that type of non-rationale enthusiasm. 🙂