It's Time

Guess who's going to take a vacation.  Yep, me!  I'm finally going to use up some of my vacation time in the next two weeks.  I usually take a week sometime during the year and save up the rest for Christmastime.

Now for the next question I know that each and every one of you is going to ask.  What am I going to do on my vacation?  Well, my friends, that is where I will leave you in suspense.  You're going to have to wait and see.  I will let you in on this much, though.  I've made arrangements for my piano duties to be filled at church next Sunday because I won't be there. {gasp}

I am looking forward to my vacation time.  I sure could use the downtime to be refreshed and encouraged, even to gain a fresh perspective in my spiritual life.  I've been going through a season of trial and spiritual growth, and I think vacation is going to be a time for reflecting and renewing my resolve to fight the fight of faith.

Hang with me.  I'll be sharing more.

A Weekend Recap

I had a very full weekend, and I'm still tired from all of it. 

On Sunday our church celebrated its 20th year.  Now there is a lot that goes into preparing for a big anniversary celebration at church, but I will spare you the details of the very awful morning I had Friday as I was trying to prepare the bulletin, which included printing, folding, and stuffing 275 of them by hand.  My own two little hands.  Normally I only prepare 130, so you can see how I might have had my work cut out for me.  Especially when you have errors in the first bulletin printing and have to throw them all away, all 275 of them, and start over 45 minutes before quitting time.  Yep, I will just spare you of that very ugly story.

Sunday was a very exciting day, but a busy one for me as the pianist.  Our first senior pastor was invited to speak, as well as our former associate pastor, who moved away almost a year ago.  We had several folks come for services who used to attend, so it was a good time of reunion.  Needless to say, our church was FULL.  We managed well, though.  Nobody was spilling out into the aisles or anything.

We had our dinner catered, and it was so good.  The weather was great... mid-70's, breezy, sunshine... very nice for eating outside under a tent.

We also changed up our services.  Rather than having an evening service at 6:00, we moved it up to 2:00 so people could stay after church and play games and such. 

Rich and I didn't stay to play.  I didn't have any play left in me after piano duties, singing special music, and all the emotions of the day.  We went home and relaxed, and while relaxing, we decided to order pizza and wings, too.  Because that would create even greater feelings of relaxation.  We were all about the relaxation.  Apparently I was hungry, and Rich didn't mind pointing out that I had eaten more than him.  Whatever.  A girl has to renew her strength after a day like that.

At 7:00 the exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks.  It was pretty weird.  I was able to fight it off with some Diet Pepsi and then a little ice cream (low fat, of course).  I managed to get a second wind and stayed up until 11:00.  Yeah, I'm crazy that way.

So now it's Tuesday, and I'm still tired.  Does anyone know how to cure tired?

{Yawn}

My Latest Discoveries

Hey, have you missed me?  It's okay if you say no.  Just so as you know that I've missed you.

How appropriate that my blog is called Discovering Liz because I sure am making some more discoveries about myself.  Here are the latest:

Discovery #1:  I prefer Hazelnut creamer to French Vanilla.  I've been drinking Hazelnut for months, and yesterday I bought French Vanilla because that's what I used to drink.  Well...it seems like my taste buds have become accustomed to Hazelnut, and we will be switching back ASAP.  Until the switch is made, I have no idea how this will affect my morning office routine.  It may just throw me off entirely.  {sigh}

Discovery #2:  If you become a runner and then stop running for a week or longer, your body will revolt.  I cannot believe the aching in the back of my legs as I sit in this chair right now.  I've been feeling this for days, and this is unacceptable.  And is it possible that my thighs have increased by 2 inches in size?  Good grief, I think my jeans are cutting off the circulation in my legs!  I better get myself right over to the park and run my little heart out.  It seems this has become a matter of survival now.

Discovery #3:  I like tapioca pudding.  Why did it take near to 36 years of my life to find this out?  Could it be that parents do an injustice to their young children when they tease them and describe tapioca as fish eyes or fish eggs?  What child in their right mind is going to try anything described as fish eyes? 

That's why it is often of great benefit in adulthood to surround yourself with the kind of people who influence you to self-improvement and to see things differently from your preconceived notions, which is the method by which I came to the knowledge of the tapioca enjoyment.  A small circle of friends had a discussion over the tapioca one day.  Is it a root?  Is it a grain?  What is it exactly?  {It was a very spiritual conversation indeed.}  I took it upon myself to look it up on Wikipedia.  Seems it is derived from a root, and when tapioca grains are cooked they are described as pearls.  Pearls of tapioca.  Not eyes.  Nothing to do with fish.  Pearls!  Now, a girl can get into pearls, let me tell you.  So the next time I hit the Chinese buffet, I was trying the tapioca.  I liked it!  Guess what's in my fridge now...

Now go out and have a good day.  Eat some tapioca.  I highly recommend it.

A Storm is Brewing

The tornado sirens are blaring now.  Do you think I should live-blog the storm on its way?  I'm just watching the weather right now to see how close it is to my town.  It's still minutes away. 

I'm not so much afraid of the incoming storm.  I'm more annoyed that I'm supposed to go to the basement.  I'm also annoyed that this tornado warning is in effect until 11:00, and I'm REALLY TIRED tonight.  I just want to go to bed, not stay up for another 35 minutes to see if a tornado is heading for my house.

Rich just got up to see if he was hearing a fire engine or a tornado warning siren.  I told him it's a tornado warning, and he just went back to bed.  You can see we're having the good times here tonight in Indiana.

Woot!  {read that with sarcasm}

On Being a Church Secretary

Thank goodness for Ronnica, who is trying to give me some hints on blog topics.  She asked me to talk about the favorite part of my job.

I have mentioned it a time or two before, but in case you haven't heard, I'm a church secretary.  I work part-time, just 20 hours a week, and I wouldn't really want it any other way.  I like part-time. 

There's something I must tell you, though, right from the get-go.  I am a terrible secretary.  Awful!  I'm positive I was born to do something else because I don't do very well on the phone and filing is not exactly my forte.  In fact, labeling files usually makes me nauseous, and I have no idea why.  You can see that my church is in very capable hands, can't you?  {ahem}

I do enjoy organization to a varying degree, but it sort of depends on the circumstance.  When you work at a church, keeping things organized is an ongoing job.  Every time the church doors are open, there is sure to be stuff left behind that needs to be rearranged, put away, or thrown away.  And the Lost & Found bin?  Seems like things are mostly lost and hardly ever found.  For example, there is a pair of glasses someone left behind weeks ago.  We have left them out in full view on the greeter's desk in the foyer for everybody to see when they walk through.  You can't miss them.  It's been four weeks since, and they are yet to be claimed by anybody.  Don't you think a person would know they lost their glasses and come back for them?  Things like that puzzle me.

What I enjoy the most, though, is computer work.  Could you have guessed that about me?  I like creating documents, tables, and working on Excel sheets, as long as they are simplistic, mind you.  Editing the Sunday bulletin is definitely my niche.

Of course, if there's any purchasing to be done, I always go online first to see if I can locate the item.  I love shopping online!

Now my favorite thing that I love, better than anything else about my job, is that there is a Starbucks right around the corner from the church, and I can grab a tall, nonfat, raspberry mocha with whip any day of the week.  But I have a feeling that isn't exactly the answer Ronnica was looking for.  Hey, you must admit it's definitely a fringe benefit!