THE BLUES

Yesterday I took the day off work. While Debra and Ashley were gone, I made a video of a song I put together about 25 years ago while living in Brookings. Back in the year 1985, I spent several Friday nights alone while Barbara worked swing shift one night a week, always on Fridays. She was a ward clerk in an emergency room.

Our children were young then and went to bed early. From the time they went to bed until Barbara got home from work, around midnight, I would often pull out my guitar, grab a piece of paper, find a pen and write songs. Never serious songs. Usually sarcastic songs.

One was called "The Stranger", about a Christian who walked into a church prayer meeting with an "unspoken prayer request".

Then I wrote "Let's Dance", using about a half dozen different Bible passages about dancing.

Having just left a Baptist church that year and having just landed in a Nazarene church, I was inspired to write one called "I used to be a Baptist, but now I'm a Nazarene".

I killed even more time on one of those Friday nights, pondering my observations of my charismatic brethren. That prompted me to write "The Charismatic, Jesus Fanatic Blues", which I recorded in my garage yesterday when no one was looking.

The video can be viewed by clicking here.

THE FAMILY WALL

Debra liked the idea of the "offspring wall" when we created it a couple of months ago, but she never particularly cared for the location. Plus, she wanted a plaque or a sign with the word "family" intermixed with the photos of our children and grandchildren.


Also, we have this big, blank, empty wall in our dining area and we've never really decided what we wanted to do with it. It served as a backdrop for my YouTube recording studio for a brief time, but remained boring once I completed my Christmas video projects. So, Debra got online the other day, found a sign with the word "family", ordered it, received it, and this morning we hung it in our dining room with all eighteen of our offspring surrounding it.

TIME FOR VOLUME FOUR

Moffit Updates arrive in my Inbox about every week or two. They are always a quick and easy read - informative, insightful, funny and full of photos. As a big fan of the Moffits, I always print each update, punch three holes in each page, and place the pages in a binder. A big binder! A binder that is three inches thick!

Each binder has a family photo on the cover, a photo which is fairly current at the time each new volume is added to the collection. This collection actually began long before Moffit Updates began. Page one of Volume 1 is over ten years old. It is their 1998 Christmas Newsletter. In fact, each of the first three pages of Volume 1 is separated by a full year. Page two is their 1999 Christmas Newsletter and the third page is their 2000 Christmas Newsletter.

Today I added their recent update, which Belinda called "Flex". As I began placing it behind all the other pages in Volume 3, I decided that Volume 3 was now full enough. So, I went to the store, bought a new binder and began Volume 4. And this new volume shows a new face on the cover which has not been seen on previous volumes.

The first three volumes of "The Moffits" take up a bunch of room on the bookshelf.

Each volume has a bunch of pages in it.

Volume 1 starts with their 1998 Christmas Newsletter and ends with an update from October 11, 2005, entitled "Daisy and Ally".

Volume 1, page 1



Volume 2 starts with an update from October 26, 2005, called "Mountains and beaches" and ends with a June 26, 2007, update, "Just like heaven".

Volume 3 starts with "A beautiful blend" from July 10, 2007, and ends with an update from less than three weeks ago, called "Lives".

With Volume 3 now full, Volume 4 absolutely had to be created today.

Volume 4 contains only one update so far, called "Flex" and dated today.

FLOOR ISSUES

Three years ago we replaced our old carpets with new carpets. The new carpet was a light gold color and quite beautiful. Unfortunately, however, it looked like an old carpet in a very short period of time. It showed stains, and those stains would not come out with our very expensive carpet shampooer.

So, we recently considered replacing the floor with hard wood or with laminate once we got our income tax refund. But after getting on a Craigslist home-improvement chat room, I discovered that almost everyone who had laminate floors did not like them. Also, I learned that to install hard wood floors would require removing all the particle-board subflooring and replacing it with plywood. Too expensive and too much work.

Then we considered replacing our now-dingy-looking gold carpets with some kind of carpet that would better camouflage and hide stains. But, after looking at our tax refund amount, we discovered that that, too, would be too expensive and, consequently, would not be happening any time soon.

Realizing that we would be stuck with our existing carpet for a while, Debra opened the Yellow Pages to Carpet Cleaning Services and the first guy who answered the phone came out to check out our floors. He guaranteed Debra that he could make them look new again. Sensing her skepticism, he asked her to show him the dirtiest, worst stained section of carpet that she could find. He then cleaned that section.

I was at work while all this was happening. When I got home that evening, I immediately noticed the like-new-looking section of carpet and asked Debra, “Did you do that?!” I was impressed because I was never able to get the carpet that clean with our very expensive carpet shampooer.

Debra then told me about the visit from the carpet guy. With one or two cleanings per year (at a very reasonable price, by the way), it looks like we will be able to keep and to actually enjoy our gold colored carpeting for a long, long time.

As a side note, totally unrelated to the subject at hand, this is the 100th item I have posted since starting this blog when Ashley graduated from high school in June of last year.

This was the contrast I saw between the cleaned and the uncleaned areas when I got home from work.

Same contrast, different angle.

Yep, the cleaned section definitely looks like new.

With such a stark contrast, we hired the carpet guy to do the rest of the carpeting.

The living room, before and after removing most of the furniture.

The dining room, before and after removing the table and chairs.

The family room, before and after removing the furniture.

The moving crew getting ready for the carpet guy.

The moving crew, slightly exhausted, taking a break with all the furniture that was moved into the covered patio.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO NEO

One grandchild I have not yet met.
But soon I will be on a jet
To meet the newest of this trio:
Daisy, Ally and, now, Neo.

But that’s still several weeks away.
So, meanwhile, I would like to say
“Happy birthday” just for you!
Okay, Neo, now I’m through.

"Gotcha Day" (December 18, 2007)

Chow time on "Gotcha Day" (December 18,2007)

The trio (December 2007)

Neo's first Christmas with his new family (December 25, 2007)

Neo with big sister, Ally (January 2008)

Sleepy boy (January 2008)

Looking over Dad's shoulder (January 2008)

Family-of-five photo (January 2008)

Neo with bigger sister, Daisy (January 2008)

Slobbering skills intact (January 2007)

Smiling, bare-chested boy (March 2008)

Helping Dad at the computer (March 2008)

All hail King Neo (March 2008)

Neo's first personalized Easter egg (Easter 2008)

The trio (March 2008)

Neo learning early in life how to commit the sin of idolatry (May 2008)

Mother's Day 2008

Beach boy (June 2008)

Happy Birthday

Neo!

See you in 45 days!

A SAVIOR'S LOBE

I had never heard that expression before last night. A Savior’s lobe? What does that mean?

To give proper context to the meaning of this expression, let’s back up one day to the Valentine’s Day event that Debra and I attended with our church group. About forty of us gathered together to share a meal, to sing, to play a game, and to hear a message from the Word.

The songs were a mix of old love songs and songs of faith. The love songs included “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”, “For Me and My Gal”, “Down By the Old Mill Stream”, and “In the Good Old Summertime”.

Then we wrapped up our vocal exercises with a few songs of faith: “Love Lifted Me”, “Joy Unspeakable”, “I Keep Falling in Love with Him”, and “Oh How I Love Jesus”.

The songs were printed on pink paper, an appropriate color for the event, and Vi led the group with her usual, upbeat level of enthusiasm from her perch at the piano.

On the last song, “Oh, How I Love Jesus”, the pink printed paper contained a poorly proofread problem: a typographical error. It was a bit obvious and a bit distracting for some of us. One of the choruses should have read:

It tells me of a Savior’s love
Who died to set me free
It tells me of His precious blood
The sinner’s perfect plea.

That’s how it should have been typed. But it wasn’t. Whoever typed the lyrics accidentally struck the “b” on the keyboard instead of striking the “v” when typing the word “love”. So, it came out “lobe”. And the whole group, in unison, sang, “It tells me of a Savior’s lobe”. Well, they actually sang “love”, even though they were looking at the word “lobe”.

Without trying to appear obvious, I looked around to see that others were also looking around. And chuckling. Making eye contact with Debra, she started to laugh. She tried to control her laughter for the sake of the greater good and she did pretty well. She kept the volume of the laughter down, but the face was difficult to control.

And, of course, I didn’t help much by egging her on. I kept pinching my ear lobe while singing “lobe, lobe, lobe, lobe, lobe, lobe, lobe” throughout the rest of the song. Debra totally lost it for a couple of minutes before I decided to behave myself.

The food line

The feast



Me and my gal





Vi at the piano with her pink sheet

Singing from the pink sheet

Having just discovered the word "lobe", Debra grins

Realizing that her response to the word "lobe" is being documented with photos, Debra loses it.

Debra, who is bilingual with English and Spanish skills, also can speak in sign language. This is sign language for "Would you please be so kind as to quit making me laugh and quit taking pictures of me?".

Eventually, Debra refuses to make eye contact with her husband.

Leigh lectures on "Love".

Not only did we sing of a Savior's "lobe", but we also had to figure out "Who" or "How" we loved Jesus. (Click photo to enlarge it)

To see additional photos, click the words "Valentine's Day event" in the text above.