Church "Unplugged"

Well, I haven't posted here in forever, but I thought you might appreciate this...

We arrived at church early this morning for our choir rehearsal before the Sunday School hour.  We sang while the CD accompanied us.  The worship team also practiced while the person who operates the PowerPoint system ran through the slides to make sure nothing was missing.  The video clip that was to be shown during the sermon was cued up.  Then we went to the adult Sunday School class upstairs.

About halfway through the class, the lights went out! The ceiling fans slowly spun to a stop.  It turned out that the power was off in several large sections of town - even tonight (10:30 PM) we don't know what caused it, and I think it was off most of the day (it may still be off).  Class finished and we went down to the sanctuary for the worship service.  The power was still out, so we wondered how the service would progress.  Sure enough, we managed to have a wonderful worship service withOUT electricity!

Guitars, piano and bongo drums served as the instruments; the vocalists sang without mics; and we even used the hymnbooks for several of the songs!  The worship leader even improvised a selection of hymns and praise songs.  We had communion.  And the choir managed to sing with piano accompaniment - perhaps even a smidge better than with the CD.  The room was lit only by the daylight shining through the windows.  The sermon was powerful, even though delivered in a room with no electricity.

I know we couldn't do this every Sunday, but I think it was a refreshing change and perhaps helped us focus more on our corporate worship than on the facets of the service such as the volume of the instruments or the typos in the Powerpoint slides.  I actually hope we might choose to do "Church 'Unplugged'" again sometime.

Hi! Remember me?? No, I haven't fallen off the side of the world, nor have I been sucked through a wormhole!   Life just seems to be busy and silly me, I have waaaay too many online blogs/journals to keep up with.  Work is keeping me most occupied these days, as we just made a transition to a new accounting file (I promise not to bore you with the details) and started the new fiscal year.  As of June 1, I have been on staff at my job for 10 years!  Amazing.  It's hard to know what the coming years will hold, but it's been an interesting ride so far and I've enjoyed opportunities I probably would have never had were I not working here.

We're headed down to Mount Shasta City the first weekend in July for a family reunion (my mom's side).  It's been about 4 years since I've seen my aunts or my cousins, so it will be great to see them again.  It'll be a fairly quick trip - drive down Friday and return on Monday - and my sister & her husband will ride down with us.  It will also give me another opportunity to visit the cemetery where my parents are buried.

Oh, and in other news, my sister and I are going to take a quick road trip up to Vancouver, BC for my birthday weekend! No, she's not a Stargate fan and no, we won't be stalking The Bridge or anything (although we may stay in the hotel across the street...just for fun!).   I just kinda wanted to "get outta town" and after discovering in March that Vancouver is a fairly easy 8-hour drive from here, it seemed like a good choice.  Sister wanted to go there too, so away we go!  Another Friday-Monday trip the second weekend in July.  I can hardly wait!!!

I'm tentatively signed up for the NWCBA Women's Camp at Camp Tadmor near here for the third weekend in July, but that plan may change.  I need to touch base with the group organizer at our church to find out if I've waited too long to give her my info (and my money!). 

Anyway, I guess that's enough of the upcoming events for me.  I hope all is well with you in Central Oregon!  It would be fun to get together with you two gals while Rachel is home (I'll bring con pics!!) - as you can tell, I don't mind driving...   But I also know you're busy getting your house ready to sell, etc, etc...  Just a thought.  For now, I guess I should get ready for work.  Bye!

Whoops! Just lost the last entry. Good thing it was short.  Let's try again, shall we?

Just changed my icon photo to a peek at my favorite photo-op from the recent Vancouver con.  And thanks, Rachel, for the reminder to finish my con reports!!   I just need to sit down and get it done. 

Ok, gotta run - have a great day!

Happy Wednesday!

Good morning!

It's been a while so I thought I'd just post a quick hello!  We've been enjoying some lovely spring weather here - sunshine and some warm (nearly 80F) afternoons.  (We really do need some more rain though.)  Nothing too exciting going on, mostly just working and then hanging out at home and then back to work.  Woohoo.  

Have been trying to psych myself up to do some serious "spring cleaning" in the house.  We have tons of stuff that needs going through and disposal to Goodwill or just trash.  Guest rooms were overtaken with junk a few months ago - I'm determined to reclaim them!  I'll have my Fridays off again for the next two or three weeks (have had to work them recently - I know, poor me **rolls eyes**) so maybe I can actually make some progress...if I don't spend all my time online instead!

For now, however, I'd better run and get ready for work.  Oh yeah, and they've changed the traffic routes in the tiny town where my office is located.  It's just crazy - the temporary route for all the through-town traffic is on our little residential street!  Instead of a trickle of traffic in a day, there is now a constant stream of car after truck after semi after RV after motorcycle after car after....well, you get the idea.  I suddenly work on a thoroughfare!  I know, complain, complain, complain!!   It's just weird.

Anyway, hope you have a wonderful day. 

2008 Vancouver Tickets on Sale Now!!

Hey, in case you are seriously thinking about attending the 2008 Vancouver convention, I heard that the remaining tickets went on sale today.  Here's the website link:  http://www.creationent.com/cal/sgvan.htm

Last year, the tickets sold out fairly quickly (meaning they said they were gone sometime in August - 7 months before the convention!!).  However, there is a chance that some tickets will be available even near the event -- some people buy tickets and then can't go so they try to sell them; and this year, Creation had some tickets that they sold on eBay just a couple of weeks before the convention (don't know where they got them, since they were "sold out"?).  For this year's con, they had only Gold and Preferred packages available - I guess in previous years they have also had General Admission or even day passes available.

I'm not trying to put you into "panic mode" or push you to make a decision you might not be in a position to make.  Just wanted to give you the heads-up in case you were really considering coming again.  Although there's a chance you could "trade up" later, it's likely that the sooner you make a purchase, the better (relatively speaking) seat you might be able to get.  (It's all a bit of a gamble no matter how you look at it, I suppose.)

Anyway, just wanted to let you know.  As one Stargate fan to another!

Sadly counting the days until the start of the last 10 SG-1 episodes...ever... cuz I didn't cheat and download them from the Internet...