Archives for May 2008

I can’t for the life of me ever seem to get my e-mail in box to live at less than 50. What ever did I do when youth ministry didn’t have e-mail. Now I don’t delete or file an e-mail that still has something I need to do with it. So they sit there, screaming, “You better do something about me!”

If it gets over a 100 deep, I stay up as long as it takes to beat it down to the 60’s or 70’s. I hate the big pile in my in box. I know some people- my dad shall remain nameless- who like keeping like 5000 e-mails in their in box. I would stab myself in the eye with the edge of my laptop out of sheer frustration.

Maybe that’s why my weekend prep gets pushed back so far sometimes. I should just shut e-mail off. Whoever decided this was going to save me time, yeah… they were lying.

I don’t know if this is normal for most people, but it’s abnormal for me. My Sunday service prep is done.

I seem to live in the tyranny of the urgent and that often means that some of my weekend prep inevitably gets pushed to the later part of the week and into the weekend to get ready. I’m not proud of it, but it’s been a pattern for me for too long.

Well, this week I declared I was gonna finish my stuff for the weekend first. So, for the first time in a very long time, my outlines are printed, my powerpoint is done, my message is completed, the video clips are cued, and my Sunday is ready. Like I could preach tomorrow and be good to go.

Man that feels good.

Tonight at church one of our leaders said I might enjoy this.

I was thinking about getting a vespa or maybe riding my bike to work at least once a week to save on gas and stuff, but now maybe I’ll have to rethink it. Surely this thing is the happy medium I’ve been looking for.

Yesterday I spent the day with TJ at Disneyland. He was SOOO excited that he made advanced band and that meant that he got to go to Disneyland and play a score of music behind the clips of an actual Disney animation film for fun.

We arrived at what will be TJ’s new school next year- Hillsdale Middle School- and met up with the band and piled into 2 tour buses. A few hours later we arrived at the land of all things Disney.

TJ and I hung with two of his buddies and their parents almost all day. Upon arrival we hit up Space Mountain, some lunch, and Star Tours. They then went back stage to do their music score, but only some of the parents were allowed to go. I’m not sure how they made the picks, but I didn’t get to go. That kinda bummed me out. But oh well. Maybe in a future year.

Anyway, I spent my 2 hours alone drinking coffee and reading a book I kept hearing about- a novel called “The Shack“. Yeah, not exactly a book you should read on a park bench in the “happiest place on earth”. (Definitely don’t read it while camping with small children!) By the time I stopped in chapter 5, I had cried several times and cussed under my breath at least twice. I even sorta knew where the plot was going, but I found myself both wanting to and hating to turn the pages.

Anyway, about 2:45pm TJ and company exited the back stage area and we headed out to hit it some more rides. One parent had nabbed us some fast passes while the kids were back stage, so in the afternoon we hit The Pirates of the Caribbean, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Buzz Lightyear, and The Matterhorn all the while stopping here and there for a Disney pin trading/buying extravaganza with TJ’s graduation money before finally heading home on the bus.