weekend review

I had a killer week full of defeat and frustration and anger and depression. So i was looking forward to Friday and First Fridays Cafe.  I was super excited to host Alex Mejias who is an excellent songwriter and is the worship leader of the church involved in the High Street hymns project. He is an awesome friendly kinda guy and we were really blessed to have him.  For me, there is nothing like just soaking in good music after a particularly rough day.  I could sit back and just completely empty myself of everything else but the sounds.

We also had two great artists, Ruth Saegesser, who attends my church and has such a wide range of talent from painting to beadwork to needlepoint. This was the first artist we’ve had at the Cafe whose work I hadn’t seen ahead of time, but I ran out of time to go see her.  I really had no idea what to expect, but I was so blown away.  I find it so exciting to see the talents that people have – people I know and see every week and talk to now and then, but have absolutely no real idea of just how talented they really are.  I love it! I live for this – this is what the Cafe is all about, drawing out people’s “hidden” talents and encourage them to share.  Ruth had never done anything like it before and I do hope that this will not be the end for her.  In fact, I take it as a personal goal of mine to make sure it isn’t.

The other artist was Jodi Barder, of Capture This Moment Photography.  She has an incredible eye for capturing candid shots of people.  She displayed some of her work and had a few prints that were just darling of her kids.  As a last minute addition (she was asked to participate just days before the show) she really was a God-send and I do hope to have her back again.

I have to admit I was stressing the clean-up after the Cafe.  Each month I kind of have this moment where I think, what if no one shows up?  And what if no one sticks around to help and I have to set up these chairs alone??? It’s completely silly to think because there are some really awesome people at my church. But these thoughts still cross my mind and I tend to feel overwhelmed at times.  There is quite a bit of work that goes into pulling this off the right way each month and I know I could be doing so much more.  But then I’m reminded not only is this thing not “my baby” or a source of personal pride for me, (that’s just a by-product) but also that people are generally helpful and will rise to the occasion.  I tend to think fairly negatively about people. I like to think I’m just being a realist and because of my experiences in life with a wide range of people, I feel I’m justified when I have rather low expectations.  What’s nice though is people rise above that often enough to still carry around a certain amount of hope in my heart.  I have good thoughts about the future of this thing, and every time I talk to people about my ideas, I feel nothing but encouragement and support.  It’s nice to have that in at least one area of my life.

moving on… so SATURDAY

I woke up at about 630 am after having hit the pillow around 1230am.  This is not my usual schedule for a Saturday morning.  Well, the waking up part. But I was expecting about 10 people to show up at my door for breakfast at 830. My parents had agreed to host a Men’s Breakfast for my church and then promptly forgot about it when making somewhat last-minute travel arrangements to visit my brother and go to Cabo Mexico.  While I absolutely applaud this – my parents are not to good at sponteneity or actually having fun and relaxing – I was also a little stressed about the logistics of me having to actually make breakfast.  Of course someone else made everything and it was a matter of me just getting up and making coffee and turning on an oven.  But my favorite room of the house is not the kitchen if you know what I mean!

Anyway, it went off without a hitch, I think, and from what I heard everyone enjoyed it.  Bryon is the Coordinator for the ministry and he does a great job of both overseeing logistics and stressing me out. Lol. (Just kidding B!! Love ya!!) 

What I love most about it is that this ministry started roughly the same time as the Cafe events and Bryon and I have been able to really listen to and support each other with a lot of the same struggles and logistical issues.  It’s been cool to watch both ministries grow and develop, and it will continue to be cool to see how it stretches our church body to meet needs and act as a light, which incidentally is kinda important.

Saturday afternoon I rested all day. I shut down the computer and I didn’t do any work. It was awesome.  I played the piano for a couple hours which I haven’t been able to do in awhile.  I listened to some new music and I went for a walk in the woods.  Sat night I drove down to Chesapeake to have dinner and watch The Dark Knight with a friend I haven’t seen in awhile.  It was so nice to just veg out.  We didn’t have any deep conversations or contemplate the state of the union or try to solve any problems. 

And TODAY…

I slept in and it felt so good to wake up to the sun shining and leaves falling gently and realizing that I didn’t have any where to be until 7pm.  So now I’m reflecting on the weekend (obviously) and settling in to watch the Steelers game and then heading to choir practice for our Christmas season music.  I’ve been thinking about Christmas since mid-June because of my work, but I am finally really getting excited about it now.  Only 45 days to go!!!