Halloween - Another proposal on what Christians should do

I know we've all heard the arguments regarding Christians and Halloween.  Here's a blog post that I think has an excellent perspective on Halloween and it's one that maybe we should consider as missionaries in a lost world.

http://betweenthetimes.com/2010/09/28/why-all-good-christians-should-celebrate-halloween/

Wanna see the world's most scariest job?? I barely made it through the video!

Serioulsy, if you're afraid of heights, watch out!!  But this job is NUTS!!!

Cool!! Another pastor mentioned Island Christian yesterday on his blog!

Check it out!

Roger - I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you yet but I'm sure I will someday.  Thanks for the plug and even more, thanks for the prayers!!!  I'm so exited to see what God's going to do!

4 more days until the birth of Island Christian Church!!!

We had our staff day today at the hotel and it was our first time setting things up.  The PA system that Bob bought sounds GREAT and it wasn't TOO terrible to set up (and it was so easy to break down - Bob and I did it by ourselves in 30 minutes and that was with him figuring out how we wanted to pack it up!!).  Then tonight, we went out for a date and afterwards did an impromptu shopping trip where we got a bunch of stuff that still needed buying:  a new projector, a table for his laptop for worship, a Passport external hard drive so I can back up the church laptop with all the stuff on it (it's backing up now as I type), a custom made first aid kit for the nursery (the premade kits are so useless so I made up my own), guitar stands, music stands and ..... a large storage bin for the nursery (had to think of the one more thing we needed).  So I think we're just about ready for our first Sunday service!!  I'm SOOO excited to see what God will do with this new church.  :)  I'll definitely get pics on Sunday to share!

My goal this fall - ORGANIZE!!!

Well, my ultimate goal this fall is to get organized.  It's tough when you have a family that is like a giant anchor trying to keep you from doing it (not consciously, of course) but I'm going to do what I can.

So, every single day, I plan to do SOMETHING to get my home organized.

Yesterday I felt lousy but while I was watching HGTV for 5 hours, I went through the giant pile of magazines I had.  After that, I cleaned out two shelves of the linen closet in my master bedroom.  I threw out a number of things.

Last week, I cleaned my entire basement.  What a job that was!!  Today I cleaned up the mouse that found my trap yummy.  Bleck on that but it was nice that I could set the trap next to the wall and SEE it when I went downstairs.  I haven't been able to see the walls in about 12 years!

Today - what should I do today?  Hmm - I don't have a ton of time because of homeschooling and ending up doing a LOT of stuff on the church website but ....

Breaking news!  I just got a call from hubby and with the crazy schedule tonight, I don't have to cook a big dinner since my big girls won't be home and he had lunch at 3 so he's not hungry and he has a meeting in 2 hours anyway.  So I don't have to worry about squeezing in food shopping but will do it when I have more time.  :)

OK - Back to organizing - what should I do today??  Hmmm - OK, I'm going to sort socks.  :D  Yeah, I know, exciting life but I have a huge laundry basket overflowing that needs to be dealt with.  So tonight, after the kiddies go to bed, I will sort socks.  Yeah!!

I will admit though - tomorrow I most likely will not do much since I have an all day meeting for the church staff.  I'll be lucky to feed my family.  ;)  OK so I will modify my goal to this:  6 out of 7 days I will organize my home.

We had what was most likely our best trip ever this year.  We had gorgeous weather and instead of always traveling, we chose to go to our favorite spots and stay for a while.  So here's some highlights.  I'll post when I put the whole thing on my blog.  :)

We left on Sunday after church.  We had the boat fully loaded and just needed to take a few things last minute and we were off the dock by 2:30 which is amazing.  We headed to a harbor about 3 hours away and we actually were able to sail which NEVER happens on our first day!!

Hubby happy to sail

Robby enjoying that the boat is heeling - he's standing straight

View of the harbor we're going to the first night

The pretty lighthouse on the way to the harbor

From Port Jefferson, we were going to sail to Fisher's Island off the end of Long Island but the conditions were so good we decided to go straight to Block Island.  While we got there safely, it was not the best of ideas because there's a very rough area at the end of Long Island called the Race and we hit a wall of water there, soaking everyone and everything, and now we had a kind of rough ride to Block.  But we got there OK on Monday and we stayed there until Saturday.  The FIRST time we stayed in one place so long.  It was lovely and we took hikes, went to town, went to the beach and just hung out.  We met friends there and had a BBQ as well.

Hiking on Block Island - Nicole with Lauren behind her

The view when we got to the beach

Bob getting a little work in one morning (this is our cabin (bedroom))

Robby and Joanna playing the same morning in the "salon" (living room/dining room/kitchen)

The sun was too bright when we were going to have dinner so I hung up some of the wet towels to block it.

After Block Island, we went to Watch Hill, RI but it was kind of an icky day.  I didn't feel well so I got no pictures of this day.  We only stayed in Watch Hill one night and then we went to my favorite place:  Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT.  Have you ever seen the movie Mystic Pizza with Julia Roberts?  It's THAT Mystic.  Yes, we've eaten at Mystic Pizza and I can safely say it's way overrated.  :)

The Charles W. Morgan is the only wooden whaling ship left in the world.  It's been at Mystic Seaport for over 50 years and last year, she was hauled out of the water to do some major restoration.  It's AMAZING just how big that thing is!  It's 17 feet from the keel to the waterline (all the brown part at the bottom). You can still go on the ship even though it's out of the water!

10 years ago, the Amistad was launched.  It is a replica of the famous slave ship Amistad and is back at the Seaport for repairs that were suffered in a storm this year.  The Amistad had been in Cuba in March!!

A group of grown-ups went out to dinner together and the children all went to Friendly's.  When the adults got back to the Seaport, the children were putting on a play that is done a few times each day by the staff of the Seaport.  They knew most of the lines and of course ad-libbed a few too.  My daughter Nicole played "Scurvey Pete" who had a moustache so they decided to make duct tape moustaches.  Here are ALL our "actors" hamming it up.

After Mystic Seaport, we went to our last favorite place:  Hamburg Cove.  Hamburg Cove is off the Connecticut River and is about 8 miles up the river from the Long Island Sound (actually, technically at that point, it's called Fisher's Island Sound).  It's far enough up the river that it's fresh water so swimming is the thing to do.  There's a small marina and yacht club up in the cove a bit where there's a little shop for ice cream.  It's a most glorious place and we stayed here three days before we headed home.

Some pics from our dinghy ride for ice cream:

Sunset in Hamburg Cove - GORGEOUS!!

Our home away from home

So there you have it.  After Hamburg Cove, we came straight home in high winds, a broken engine and lots of clouds.  We were going to stay out until Tuesday but we heard about the icky weather so we came home Sunday instead.  It was a wonderful trip and we have some great memories and made some new friends as well.

Evolution? Even YOU don't think so dear scientist

I saw this on Tim Challies' blog and it's just too good to not share:

Pizza Salad

Wow!  Two posts in one day!!  LOL  But I wanted to post what we're having for dinner tonight.  I LOVE this salad!  We first tried it about a month ago and it quickly made it into the rotation because my family ADORES it.  It's great for a night like tonight when we're going to be going out shortly after hubby comes home.

Pizza Salad

Tomato-Basil Dressing:
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced
3 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves

1 ready to use Italian pizza bread shell crust (about one pound)

Salad:
3 medium-size tomatoes (about 1 lb.) cored and coarsely chopped
1/2 lb. fresh mozzarella cheese, diced
1/2 cup loosely packed basil leaves
6 cups green leaf lettuce pieces, torn
2 oz. pepperoni

1.  Heat oven to 450 degrees.
2.  Dressing:  Mix tomato, oil and garlic in a small skillet or saucepan.  Cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes, breaking apart tomato with spoon.  Transfer to blender.
3.  Add vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar and basil.  Pulse to blend.  Set dressing aside.
4.  Place prepared pizza shell on rack in 450 degree oven.  Bake for 6-8 minutes or until shell is crisp and lightly browned.
5.  Salad:  Meanwhile, combine tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, lettuce and pepperoni in large bowl.  Remove pizza shell from oven; slice into bite-sized pieces.  Add pizza pieces to bowl; toss with dressing.

What a pain in the neck!!

Literally.   :)  So last Thursday, I went horseback riding like I normally do.  The horse was distracted but never spooked or anything and it was certainly not a particularly hard ride.  After I was done, I did a few barn chores then came home, showered and was doing some cleaning up when my neck started to hurt.  Being sore after not riding for a few weeks is pretty normal so I didn't think anything of it but by the time I went to bed, the pain was pretty bad.  The next day I went into church to do my work and all day it hurt to turn my head, look up or anything like that and I began to suspect I had a herniated disc.  I didn't sleep well Thursday night and Friday night was the same so Saturday I went off to the doctors.  She suspected a herniated disc as well and gave me a prescription for an X-ray (to rule out anything else), Flexoril, Vicodin and Naproxin Sodium (prescription strength Aleve).  I had the X-ray Monday and all was clear so now she wants me to see a spine specialist and to have an MRI done.  So I did some more research.

What I found is that only 10% of herniated disc patients need surgery and the majority heal on their own in 6 weeks or so.  Most by 12 weeks are fine.  So why was I going to a specialist and having an expensive MRI when we were pretty sure what it was, I was beginning to feel better (only took the meds one day but did some other things that I'll mention in a bit) and I have some medical resources in good friends of mine? I told my husband I think the course I want to take is to take it easy, continue to ice my neck a few times a day, take the anti-inflamatory, no heavy lifting and sleeping with a body pillow and see if that will do the trick.  We have a high deductible insurance plan so we'd have to pay out the cost of all the doctors/tests.  I'd rather save that money for something REALLY important.  I then put in a Facebook message to a friend of mine who is a physical therapist (and professor and author) and asked her what she thought.  She agreed that I could absolutely do what I wanted to do but she did want to see me to be sure that there was no "gap" in the vertebrae and she can do that manually.  She said she'd like to see the disc settle down a bit so there's less inflamation and then she'd see me (should be about a week and a half when I see her).  So that's the plan I'm going to take.  The other thing she told me is to "get my head off my neck" three times a day.  That means lay down so that I can take the pressure of a heavy head off the affected disc.  OK - So I'll lay down 3 times a day with ice on my neck.  I can do that.  :)

So that's where I stand now.  It's not terrible but still not fun.  When it first happened, the shooting pain was intolerable but now it's kind of a dull burning sensation although today I can add a headache into the mix.  NOT fun.  I've been planted on my couch in between doing things I need to do and I can say I'm getting a lot of reading done!  LOL

I hope all is well with everyone else.  I can't believe it's September already - especially since it's in the high 90s here in NY.  But soon enough, the cool weather will hit and we'll be enjoying cider, warm pies, sweaters and fires in the fireplace.  I can't wait!