Time, Talent & Treasure

Today we celebrated the 57th anniversary of Concordia and heard the third Stewardship sermon. Today's theme was about "time." The pastor asked for a show of hands and most everybody raised theirs indicating they wanted more "time" rather than "treasure" or "talent."

I used my time yesterday and today in service to the church. Yesterday morning two other ladies and I spent time in the church kitchen prepping for today's dinner. This morning we started roasting pork loin just as the 8 o'clock service began. Next, after the service we prepared the potatoes and had them in the oven by 10 a.m. The green beans were prepped earlier; all we had to do was get them in the oven. I almost overlooked two pans in the refrigerator but we got them warmed and hot in time.

The menu also included applesauce, cranberry sauce, rolls and lots of luscious desserts.

Slicing the pork was done efficiently by three men using electric knives 

Desserts were donated by our generous members

I lost count of the number of people who helped clean after the meal. They were all giving their "time." They put away tables and chairs, washed dishes and cutlery and lots of pans. When everything had been put away and the kitchen was clean we headed home at 1:45. The dinner was a project of our women's group and we'll spend a few moments evaluating what we need to improve if we are asked to serve the 58th anniversary dinner.

We thought the Colt game at 4:00 was perfect timing. We could watch it in its entirety--not like when they play an early game and we would miss the first half. But the game has been disappointing. The Arizona Cardinals have played brilliantly and the Colts seem to be outclassed.

Remembering 50 years ago

Those of us of a certain age all remember where we were on November 22, 1963. Ray and I moved to Oklahoma when we were married in 1962 and a year later were in the process of building our first home. We both were working but I took off at least one day in late November to be at the house so the gas company could turn on the gas (or maybe it was something similar like installing the telephone). I don't have a perfect memory of why I was at the house, but sometime in the late morning I began listening to the radio which was playing in the background. That's when I realized that President Kennedy had been shot. A few hours later Ray arrived at the house. All the employees were sent home early that day. We were all in various forms of shock. We followed all the news reports and watched TV continuously as events unfolded in the days after the assassination.

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Our alarm went off this morning about 5 a.m. since we wanted to leave for Vincennes shortly after 6 o'clock. Several weeks ago Nancy had asked if we could take Dustin for a preview visit at Vincennes University and we had agreed. Dustin spent overnight with us so we would not have to pick him up and then backtrack so early in the morning. We wanted to arrive on campus by 8:30 and it's about a two hour drive from our house.

We listened to some introductory remarks and then went on a student-led tour of the campus including a dormitory room. Later one of the professors gave us an extensive tour of the arts program. As it turned out, Dustin was the only high school student on this particular preview day who was interested in this course of study so the three of us had a personal escort and saw most of the labs in the arts study program.

The professor is a native of India and gave us an excellent tour

In this lab students can work on computer aided art projects

Ray walks through the "painting class" lab

By 4:15 we were in Greenwood dropping off Dustin and heading home. Dustin learned a lot as did we and now he needs to make some decisions about his future.

Preempted by the weather

I haven't posted lately anything about the Sunday morning sermon but that's not because I've been playing hooky from church. I've just been lazy. Now you know.

We're in the midst of the annual stewardship sermons and yesterday the pastor' sermon was based on the parable of the talents. We all have unique and special abilities. The question raised is will we bury them or take a risk and use them in the church? Our talents were a gift from God. Using our talents is a gift back to God. The sermon concluded with the story of a young Italian lad who wanted to be a singer but soon learned that wasn't his talent. He then attempted to play the violin but neighbors asked his parents to stop his playing. The young boy was adept at whittling  and eventually turned this ability into his vocation. He eventually crafted 1500 violins with his name inscribed on the instrument: Antonio Stradivarius.

We were home by 11 a.m. and tuned in the Bears football game since the Colts had played on Thursday evening. We knew that severe weather was a probability but were surprised when the fans at Soldier Field were asked to vacate the stands and seek shelter. It wasn't long after that that the local weatherman interrupted the broadcast indicating the location of the storms passing through Indiana. For the next several hours we had continual updates. The three major channels did the same but I didn't check the local FOX outlet to see if they were also preempting their programs to report on the weather.

I heard today that the Bear game was delayed for two hours. Our programming went back to the game late in the 4th quarter. I think you get the idea that we had constant weather updates for a very long time.

Fortunately, there were no deaths from the storms and tornadoes that crossed Indiana; however, several people died in Illinois. Several schools had damage and we can be thankful that these storms passed through on a Sunday when no one was at school.

We had strong winds at our house and quite a bit of rain. Including Saturday night the total rainfall was around two inches. We didn't lose power but it was a good afternoon to be at home and not have to venture out.

This evening we watched the last episode of season one of "The Paradise" on PBS' Masterpiece. When does season two begin? The ending was a typical cliffhanger!

Writing and Watching

The Indianapolis Colts are on Thursday night football playing the Tennessee Titans and I'm going to try watching the game and writing this post. The Colts have run into a rough patch and I may not be interested in watching if this trend continues.

In my last post I posted a photo of our sassafras trees and mentioned that it was enhanced. My cousin Shirley wondered how I did it. Here's a look at the original photo straight from the camera.

Looks a bit drab and dreary, right?

And this is the enhanced photo.

I probably used two blend modes making the photo brighter

Now you can see the difference. I've been playing with Photoshop Elements for several years and have learned a few ways to make a photo look better. On this particular photo I used what Photoshop calls "blending modes" to make the color pop and lose some of the gray colors.

Photos can be changed and manipulated in many ways using Photoshop Elements. Some really creative people make very artistic and beautiful photos. I don't have their artistic ability but I enjoy learning something new--if only I had more time!

Last Sunday we met the Walkers for an afternoon pops concert of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. The concert was called "The Beat Goes On! Music of the Baby Boomers," music from the '60s and included 6 outstanding soloists. I recognized many of the selections played but Pat said she recognized all of them. A Burt Bacharach medley was one of my favorites of the afternoon. I think I knew all the selections. Another medley was TV theme songs from the '60s where I recognized some of the melodies but couldn't name the program. A favorite selection for Ray was Lara's Theme from Dr. Zhivago and, of course, the concert wouldn't have been complete without a Beatles medley.

One of the charter members of Concordia died last weekend and his funeral service was yesterday. He was 90 years old last July and had been married 67 years! We had a great group of women helping in the kitchen and providing donated dishes for a luncheon we served after the service. On my way home I stopped to donate blood. The blood draw is held six times a year (every two months) at the Friends Church community room in Mooresville. I'm proud to say I was able to donate all six times they had a drive. Yesterday all donors received a coupon for a free chicken sandwich at Chick Fil-A. After our workout today, I redeemed my coupon and Ray had to buy his sandwich. Later, Ray was busy outside using the trac vac to pick up leaves that have been accumulating. He may have to go out again in a week or so when the Bradford pear trees lose the rest of their leaves. So far the sweet gum trees are holding on to their leaves. The yard does look much better now that the leaves have been vacuumed.

The Colts are losing but it's only the second quarter. I'm signing off now and hope they can figure out how to change the course of this game.

2013 Goals

Last weekend I competed in my third Half Marathon of 2013. Thinking back, it was about a year ago when I set goals for 2013: They were to compete at the national senior games with the goal of reaching the podium (which I did); run in three half marathons and travel to Brazil for the world games in October. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make the long trip to Brazil but I met most of my goals. Now I'm looking forward to 2014 and it's much harder to set goals since there are no national games. I'm hoping to get an inspiration sometime soon. Without a goal it's hard to keep up the pace. (A lady by the name of Sarah that I met at the Rec Center has already finished 10 half marathons this year with one more planned. She's a walker and puts in lots of miles every week. I was really impressed when I learned what she has accomplished. As a runner, I don't think I could do that many events--but it's something to think about.)

Thinking about what I just wrote, I need to set some goals about housekeeping. I really need to clean closets and do other chores inside the house. Someone it's harder to set these goals and keep focused on the task. I am easily distracted.

Some trees still have green leaves and others have already lost theirs. Our sweet gum trees are beginning to change color but the sassafras trees have already shed their leaves. However, three weeks ago they put on a beautiful display.

Sassafras trees from our back window

To be honest, I enhanced the photo a bit but didn't change the colors. We also have many maple trees that every fall turn a beautiful golden shade every year.