Coming January 31st…

If you’re anywhere in the D/FW area, come join us at First Baptist Grand Prairie on the night of Sunday, January 31st. We are starting a new monthly contemporary service, and we’d love to see you!

Agradecido.

Can you believe it’s that time of year already? I’m off for the rest of the week after today, so this’ll be it until Monday. Jenn and I are spending Turkey Day at Aunt Martha’s house, then we’re going with my mom down to the Hill Country, and Jenn’s going to meet Mom’s side of the family for the first time ever. Very exciting!

As we take the time to celebrate this wonderful holiday full of family, friends, and the best food in the universe, don’t forget to count your blessings and be thankful for what you have in your life. In these turbulent times, it’s more important than ever to remember that while there’s a lot we don’t have, there’s plenty more that we DO have.

I am thankful for the Heavenly Father above, and his son who was sent to die for our sins, both of whom I would be completely lost without.

I am thankful for my beautiful and amazing fiance, who I’ll be marrying in just a little over six months and spending the rest of my life with.

I am thankful for my awesome parents, who have been there for me more times than I can count.

I am thankful for my excellent friends, who bring so much laughter into my life.

I am thankful for my job, which allows me to earn the money I need to pay my bills.

I am thankful for my college education, which I will be completing in the Spring so I can earn MORE than the money I need to pay my bills. 🙂

I am thankful for you, friend. Thank you for reading my quaint little ol’ blog whenever you get a chance. I’m not exactly bringing in massive amounts of traffic here, but I know I have a dedicated few who enjoy reading my blog as much as y’all can. And that’s all I need.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, my dear friends. I hope you are able to enjoy it as much as I will. And when it’s over with, let’s all celebrate that magical time of year where we dust off the Christmas albums and listen to them until our ears bleed. Ha!

So what are you up to this week? Travel plans? Eating plans? Sleeping plans?

I’m Provocative in Writeing!

Why hello fellow forum people! I just wanted to establish myself here as this looks like a dialect right interesting forum! I myself am provocative in things like writeing and computer revamping so if anyoune needs serve farm out me identify! I also Suffer from Sciatica so if you aslo have this condition cause to me know so we can share out some stretches!

How’s that for bizarre? I got that in my Spam folder as a comment here.

So this weekend freakin’ rocked. Saturday was the Grand Life Expo at church, which was a blastie blast. Food, classic cars, farm animals, dogs, bounce houses, music, all free. Very cool stuff. Then Sunday night, we had a party for the Youth called The Awakening, which featured laser tag, basketball, pizza, the Trae Castles Band, and an illusionist named Jared Hall. Jay Lowder also spoke to them that night, and it was intense. We had 50 kids come to Christ that night, it was amazing. We also gave away to the kids an iPod Touch, Airsoft guns, Coach purses, a Vizio TV, and a car. Yep, that’s right, a car. It was just a little ’91 Ford Probe. But hey, it was some kid’s first car, so that was awesome. Plus, it had been totally restored, so it was in practically new condition when the kid got it. Great stuff. 🙂

All in all, it was definitely one of those weekends I didn’t wanna have to go back to work after experiencing. Don’t you hate that? You have this life-changing, mind-blowing, multi-hyphenated-experience… then you have to go back to being Clark Kent. It sucks, y’know? I don’t know how we all get through it without going crazy.

Nevertheless, on and on we go. At least we have some chilly weather to enjoy. I’ve been wearing my jacket most of the past couple of days at work. It’s kind of a weird feeling, I’m not used to being cold like this on a regular basis. Usually I’m the one who’s all like, “Aww man, you weenie! Take off the jacket and be a man!” But now I’m getting cold a whole lot easier for some reason. I wonder if it’s my metamobomolism or the new diet or something.

That’s all for now. Have a good one, friend.

iPSotD:

Holy holy holy holy holy holy holy. . . . .

I know, it’s a little early.

So, this was a nice weekend. Went to choir practice on Saturday morning with Jenn. I don’t think I’m going to sing in the Christmas pageant, but it was still fun to hang out and hear everyone sing. It’s sounding fantastic, I cannot wait for the holidays. 🙂

On that note, I was talking to Jenn about this on Saturday afternoon, and I think it’s true. I think people REALLY need to get Christmas’d up this year. The way the country is going lately, we are in such a deep state of depression, and we need some holiday spirit up in this joint. Now, I’m not talking about presents. This is definitely going to be a lean Christmas this year, that’s a fact. I’m talking about everything else. Christmas trees, Christmas music, Christmas smells, Christmas sounds, Christmas specials on TV… You know, the blitz that always really starts the weekend after Thanksgiving. Not the Black Friday aspect, but the seasonal aspect. Just the feeling of the holiday season. You know, that warm and cozy feeling! It’s something I’ve just been craving lately, personally, and I think a lot of people feel the same way and don’t realize it.

Along that line, I’ve noticed in recent years since I’ve really dedicated my life to Christ, that warm and cozy feeling is even better. Something changes in you when you get saved (well, a lot of things change in you, but that’s not the point), and in the weeks leading up to December 25th (yes, I know that’s not necessarily his REAL birthday…), if you let it in, that awesome feeling you get knowing that you’re preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus is one of the most comforting and wonderful feelings you’ll ever experience in this life. I remember watching “The Nativity Story” with Jenn last year for the first time. I never got to see it when it came out in theaters, and she has it on DVD. Anyway, THAT is an awesome movie. If you ever get a chance, watch it. The way they act out the story is just fantastic, especially the birth of Jesus at the end of the movie. It’s some of the most moving stuff I’ve seen on film, and it’s definitely something we’ll be watching every Christmas now.

Anyway, long story short, I think we’re all going to benefit from having a sweet little Christmas this year. Focus on your family, your friends, and Jesus. This year is as good a time as ever to start doing so, if you haven’t yet. We’re all blessed in so many little (and big) ways, and given the nature of the world right now, we should be grateful for all that we have.

… Man, I guess that was weighing heavier on my heart than I thought it was. It’s not even Halloween yet! LOL

Anyway, back to Saturday. Fun day. Okay, got it. After we went to choir practice, Jenn had a dentist appointment, and then we went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond to create a wedding registry there. We ended up spending at least three hours there working on our registry. It’s definitely our biggest one yet, but it’s mostly made up of little things, like, towels, picture frames, and kitchen utensils. Lots of cool stuff. 🙂

Jenn sang Revelation Song in church on Sunday. It was absolutely amazing. Folks were kidding around with me about the performance after church, though. The way the orchestra is setup on stage, I sit directly behind where the preacher stands at the pulpit. So as a result, when Jenn was standing there singing, I was sitting right behind her. And I was mouthing the words to the song the entire time. LOL! I wasn’t the only one, there were many folks in the congregation doing the same thing. But since I’m her fiance, and we were BOTH on camera at the time, I was the one who was given heck about it. Haha!

Next weekend, we’re going to try again to have the big tent service out on the new property. There’s rain in the forecast for a couple days this week, so I can’t say I’m fully confident it’s gonna work out. I really hope it does, though, because this time we’ll also be celebrating our first Sunday with our new music minister. Seems to me like that’s some good timing, so hopefully it’ll work out and the field will be nice and dry(ish) for Sunday. Here’s hoping!

Faux Frahdy!

Yep, today’s a Faux Frahdy. We’re off for Good Friday tomorrow, and I look forward to just doing my own thing for the day. I’m sad that Jenn has to work, though. Silly Grand Prairie with their not-matching-Arlington holidays. But I do get to go up to her school for her class Easter Egg Hunt in the afternoon, so that’ll be fun. I’ll prob’ly take her lunch too, cuz that’s how I roll. 😉

I’ve had a lot of weird stuff happen to me this week. I was telling Jenn last night that I keep forgetting to tell her these things, because they’re so weird that they just throw me off completely. So I intentionally push them out of my head so I can focus on whatever I’m supposed to be doing at the time. At any rate, in light of this week’s wackyness, here’s this week’s quasi/semi/not-even-regular-in-any-way edition of “… What The Crap Just Happened?”

• Yesterday I was sitting in the University Center before class, and this random guy walks up and asks if he can use my laptop to check his Facebook. He said he was meeting a friend there, so I figured he was needing to check Facebook for a message to see what he/she looks like, or whatever. The guy was not a threat to me at all, so I was happy to oblige. He sat down and opened up his email, downloaded a picture of himself playing Guitar Hero, then opened up both Facebook and MySpace and changed his profile picture in both places to that picture. Then thanked me and got up and left. That was it.

• Completely unrelated to that, about ten minutes later, the fire alarm went off, and we had to evacuate the building.

• Earlier in the day yesterday, I was working in one of my computer labs, and a teacher who was administering tests in there walked into the lab and called one of the vice-principals, because she just heard “strange noises” coming from a stall in the girl’s bathroom. She then figured out there were two girls in that stall.

• And for the grand finale… Monday morning I walk down the hall to the faculty restroom. I should preface this by saying that the men’s faculty restroom is designed for only one occupant (as opposed to the women’s, which has more than one stall). Anyway, when I open the door to the men’s room, I hear a guy clear his throat and cough. I immediately close the door without seeing anything, thank goodness. I was still kind of irritated, of course, since the guy didn’t lock the stupid door like he was supposed to. But still, no biggy. Didn’t see anything, and I could just walk down to the other end of the hall and use the other men’s room.

So I get down there to the other one, and I open the door… and there’s a rather old man sitting on the toilet. He looks straight at me and says, “Oh! Sorry!”

Now, of course, it was bad enough that I had to see him sitting on that toilet. But to make matters worse, HE SAW ME. So now if I see this rather old man in the hallway again… yeah, it’s gonna be a little awkward. And it certainly didn’t help my addled brain that I had basically just walked in on TWO different people using the bathroom back-to-back. Messed me up real good, I tell you what. Had to walk around the school a couple of times before my easily embarrassed face wasn’t red anymore.

*sigh* So anyway, yeah, weird week. This is supposed to be a Holy Week too, people, COME ON.

On that note, tonight’s the Maundy Thursday service at church. This is the service that commemorates the Last Supper. Never been to this one before, so I’m looking forward to it. And yes, I’m skipping school to go to church. How ’bout them apples? Anyway, tomorrow night’s the Good Friday service. It’s a Tenebrae service, which is basically a very sad and moving candlelit service. The candles are put out one by one throughout the service until the sanctuary is in complete darkness at the end, thus marking the death of Jesus on the cross. It’s pretty powerful stuff, and this will be the second Tenebrae service I’ll have ever done, so I’m pretty excited about being a part of it.

Then Sunday is the Easter service, which is just gonna be fun. That’s when I’m doing the Casting Crowns song on cello with Gordon backing me up on piano. I can’t wait for that one.

Anyway, whether or not you have tomorrow off, I bid thee a happy Faux Friday. I hope it’s a good and blessed one for you.

Photo Booth Shot of the Day:

This was actually kinda hard to line up.

“Somebody’s got a case of the Mondays!”

*FWAP!*

Today is the most antithetical response I could possibly have to the weekend I had.

Does that make sense? Is “antithetical” even a word?

Anyway, this weekend was absolutely amazing. Like I mentioned last week, we had Disciple Now with the youth of our church. The eighth grade boys I co-hosted were a handful, but they were absolutely hilarious and really caused me no trouble at all (contrary to some speculation)! The weekend was basically one big Nerf battle, broken up by the occasional very awesome Bibly Study. We also had a mission project to do. We were supposed to have two, but we didn’t get done with the first one until about forty minutes after we were supposed to be completely done with both projects. I have never seen so many leaves that needed to be raked in my entire life. . .

But yeah, my group was awesome. Eli was an amazing leader, and he has a very bright future ahead of him in whatever type of ministry he decides to get into. Mr. and Mrs. Graf, who hosted our group at their house, transported us where we needed to go, and fed us REALLY REALLY well, were SO cool to us. And the worship sessions we had with the rest of the groups up at the church were very moving, to say the least. Chad Hampton was the guest speaker, and he preached some incredible stuff to us. He also did the sermon for the Sunday morning service, and in doing so brought most of the congregation to tears. It was a REALLY great sermon on how it’s the parents’ responsibility, and not the church’s, to bring their kid to Christ. Very moving, very passionate. The weekend was geared for the kids, but I found myself in a position to reaffirm my commitment as well, and I know I’m not the only one who felt that way.

Good stuff. Genuine, honest, good stuff. Or as one of my boys would say, “That was so BEAST!” Yes, “beast” is apparently the new replacement for “awesome.” Jenn evidently had an amazing time, too. Her sixth grade girls are the apple of her eye, and she was so happy to be with them for the weekend. She had nothing but praise for how great they were.

I mentioned antithetical something or other back up at the top… Yeah, today’s not so good. I have a splitting headache, and I’m having to deal with the usual crap at work. Most of you know what I’m talking about there. But hey, it’s lunch time, so I’ve got that much going for me.

Photo Booth Shot of the Day:

... Penguins...