Christmas Time Is Here...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends!  Christmas this year was very relaxed and laid-back for us.  On Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church.  We decided to do a small reenactment of the first Christmas and dress up as Mary and Joseph.  That was nice.  I even managed to sew myself a sort of a rough costume. 

I made cookies all morning and we had a nice time of fellowship after the service in the late evening. 

 

 

 

On Christmas Day, we woke up to a little bit of snow!  It was perfect weather; crisp and chilly and just enough snow to look pretty.  After having family devotions, Dan made a delicious breakfast of eggs, sausage, and French toast for us while Gwendolyn drank her morning bottle of milk.  After cleaning the breakfast dishes away, we read the Christmas account in Luke 2, and then Gwen opened her present.   

 

Actually, a family in the church gave her this present.  She loved chewing on the wrapping paper.

 

This bear makes all kinds of noises and sings songs.  She likes it a lot, but we mostly keep it on the silent mode. 

 

Then Dan and I took turns opening our presents to each other. 

 

Dan is the hardest person to get presents for.  I mostly got him work things; goggles, gloves, some ammo, soap.  Very simple things.  We happened to be walking thru an antique store the other day and he saw some book-ends that were a yellow taxi cab that he really liked.  So I went back to the store later and got them for him.  He was really surprised. 

 

 

 

Dan surprised me with two new Christmas houses for my house collection.  One is a church and the other is a firehouse.  He also got me the little pewter people too. 

 

I loved the gifts he picked out for me. 

 

Once we finished cleaning up the wrapping paper and putting away our new gifts, we took some Christmas Day photos outside. 

 

 

 

After we ate a little lunch, Dan was really wanting to go to the house in town and build me a stable for our nativity scene.  I've been wanting to make myself one since we first decorated for Christmas, but Dan knew that if I made it, it wouldn't look much like a stable probably.  😀😀😀

So we went together to the house.  I lit a fire in the furnace downstairs while Dan started in on the stable-building. 

 

 

 

 

 

Gwendolyn was so content the whole time, as long as she could be in the same room with us. 

 

The finished product.

 

I like how it turned out. 

 

Then, due to my insisting, we played monopoly.  Dan won, like he usually does.  Dan found a way to hold Gwen without her being able to grab the monopoly board and pull it off the table. 

 

Oh, and I think I forgot to make a post about this, but Gwendolyn is going to be a big sister in May! She was very excited when we told her.

 

 

It was a wonderful Christmas.  Right before bedtime, Gwendolyn spent some down time with me, just thinking about what a great day we'd had. 

 

 

This was the first Christmas we've spent with just us-our little family.  It was very nice.  We enjoyed creating memories together and deciding what our family traditions will be like. 

Hope all of you had an equally wonderful time with your families.

Happy New Year!

Qualities of a Growing Church

     As some of you know and others may not know, a year and a half ago, my husband Dan was unanimously voted in as the pastor of a small, struggling church in upstate New York.  Being a pastor's wife for that period of time has been exciting, inspiring, and thrilling.  At the same time, there are aspects of ministry that are disheartening, discouraging, and unsettling.  I know that if we focus on the hard and difficult things in life, life will be hard and difficult.  If we choose to focus on only the uplifting, exciting things in life, we aren't living a reality.  As with any life situation, you have to take the good and bad together.  The mountain top experiences are enjoyed and the valleys are endured. 

 

     I haven't posted very much about the church or life in the ministry thus far in my blogging because I wanted to have time to just experience it first.  There have been some things that I'm bursting to write though.  And perhaps they may help someone else along the way.  That is my hope and prayer at least.

 

     When we made the move to Granville, it was not a decision made lightly.  We knew times would be hard, and it would require diligence and determination to accomplish much.  In the first year of being there, we saw over 170 visitors attend!  That was a mountain top experience.  We also knew that most of those visitors were coming to see "the new pastor in town" and see what everyone was talking about.  Many of those visitors did not return even after being visited and sent cards. 

 

     Probably the most encouraging thing to see in the past year and a half is that when we arrived, the average age of attendees was about 69.  Now, the average age is probably 45-47.  We have seen children start attending, families start attending, and baptisms and people getting saved.  Those things are so exciting, uplifting, and encouraging.  But like any ministry, with those encouraging things also come trials, and heartbreaks. 

 

     See, for so many people, church is about attending and receiving a blessing.  It is about coming to God's house and getting fed.  It's about everyone in the family leaving with a feeling of fulfillment. 

 

     And therein lies a great problem.  The vast majority of churches have a large number of people who attend, give, listen to the sermon, and leave.  The number of people who come early, help set up, prepare lessons, preach, minister in song, give people rides, greet people at the doors, make a meal, give tithes, take care of babies, etc....is quite small. 

The smaller the church is, the smaller that number of people is. 

 

  In the past 1 1/2 years, we have had numerous people visit our church, seem excited, and then never return.  Upon visiting them in their home to better get to know them, they all say the same sort of things. 

 

"We really are looking for the church that provides a _______________ (youth group, seniors ministry, choir, women's bible study) and we saw that your church doesn't have that."

Some people say "We really want our four-year-old to have other four-year-olds to be friends with at church and we saw that your church doesn't have any four-year-olds"

or "It's so important for our teenagers to have other teens their age to be with at church."

And those are the qualifications of a good church to them. 

 

As the pastor's wife of a small, but growing church, this is disheartening and discouraging to hear. 

  If I were to only go to a church where there were women my age and in my stage of life, I wouldn't be the pastors wife here. 

  If I were to only go to church where there are children my children's age, I wouldn't be the pastors wife here. 

  If I only went to a church that had a beautiful choir I could participate in, I wouldn't be the pastors wife here. 

 

I could go on, but you understand.  Our society has made it possible to pick and choose churches like we pick and choose what to eat at a restaurant. 

 

But what are the qualities of a biblical church?

Size? Youth group activities? Color of the sidewalks?

 

Of course not.  Our priorities in finding a church should be these:

1. Preaching from the Bible

2. Fulfilling of the Great Commission

 

Of course with those stipulations should also be a strong standard of morality and ethics.  If a church has a huge group of teens, but they aren't teaching the Bible, there is something missing.  If a church preaches from the Bible, but they do no outreach or trying to reach the world for Christ, there is something missing. 

 

I have good friends who have told me they aren't able to find a good church that is able to give them what they're looking for.  As a pastors wife of a small church, I ask the question "WHAT are you 'looking for'?"  If it isn't simply put, a church that is preaching the Bible and fulfilling the Great Commission, than, my friend, you're priorities have gotten skewed. 

 

And I say that kindly.  I would love to lead a huge Christmas program, choir, ladies Bible study, vibrant teen ministry, and all sorts of events.  But first and foremost should be the preaching and the outreach to try to bring the lost to Christ.  Those other things are nice, but secondary. 

 

Next time you attend church, whether it is big or small, look to SERVE, not to be served.  I cannot find a verse in the Bible that says a church must have children my children's age in order to be a good church.  I also cannot find a verse in the bible that says we should be looking for a church where we feel blessed and fed only.  I HAVE seen passages that mention we ought to be serving in the church  (1 Peter 4:10, Ephesians 4:11-16, to mention a few). 

 

So there you have it.  From my heart to yours, wherever you attend, BE ALL THERE. 

SERVE. 

 

My Fast Food Experiences

   Back when I was quitting my job at McDonalds, I mentioned that I would be making a post about my experience working in the fast food industry as a crew member. I never made that post.
So here, two years late, are some of my thoughts on the fast food industry.

  Let me first say that when I was applying for jobs, fast food was not my first choice. I knew that it was likely I would get hired by a fast food restaurant, but I wanted to try my other options first.  Since I hadn't had any experience in retail before, most of the clothing stores and such never even called me back, even though my resume wasn't empty.

  I was called in to interview at Macy's, where I was told I'd be given a job as a salesperson, selling jewelry, makeup, and perfume.  I was asked if I'd be okay with wearing Macy's jewelry, makeup and perfume every day to work, and I had to honestly say no, causing me not to get that job. I'm certain it would have paid better, and certainly would have been an easier pace of work, but to be someone I was not sounded too rough. Since I don't wear makeup, perfume, or much jewelry, the choice seemed clear.

  So I then applied at McDonalds. I was called in to three different stores, given interviews, and promised jobs at all of them. Only one followed up with me though, after the interview, so that became "my" store.

  My first impression of my coworkers was that they didn't want me there.  Most were unfriendly at first.  I also remember that my first day of work, the floor manager called one of the crew trainers over and said "________, you'll be training Virginia today", and the crew trainer made a face and asked "Do I have to?"

  I felt like I was a bother and a nuisance to everyone on crew. After watching hours of videos in the workroom about procedures and each different station, I felt more lost than ever. It wasn't until one of my managers (a guy with a totally sarcastic but hilarious attitude) said "You won't learn til you actually do it", and showed me exactly how to fry the fish, and nuggets, and fill the trays, and press the timers, and everything else in the kitchen that I really GOT it. This was only about three days into working.

  This manager in particular was the one who always saw my potential. At least I guess he did.  After working on the fryer for about 2 weeks, he said "You need to learn the grill too". So he taught me the grill.
  
  When I was fast on the grill, he said "You need to learn to do both at once." So he taught me, and I did both for a few months. Then he said "You need to learn to make the sandwiches". So he taught me, and from then on, I was almost always making sandwiches every day. I knew that I had mastered the fryer, grill, and making sandwiches quickly and in the times necessary for fast food.  I seemed to have reached the end of my stations though, because I started asking if I could learn to take orders, or make smoothies and coffee, and was never given the chance.
 
  I knew and understood that this wasn't because the management thought I'd stink at it...but because I was fast at making sandwiches.  They wanted to keep me there.  I literally made sandwiches for an entire year, never learning anything new.  It wasn't until my yearly review that this changed.  On the yearly review I was told that I was excelling at everything, but couldn't be given a raise because I hadn't learned to take orders or do drive thru. I kindly said that I had been asking to learn for nearly a year.  That next week, I was trained on drive thru and front counter, but only briefly.

  It was at this point that I started noticing lots of discrepancies with the company.  For instance, in the books, and video training, we were taught to only make two sandwiches at one time, no more.  But on the floor, our primary concern was getting the food out to the customers in the shortest amount of time necessary.  In front of me was a video screen where each order would pop up.  I would then make these orders and send them down the line to the person who was bagging the items.  It wasn't uncommon to have two orders pop up at once (one in drive thru and one at the counter) and then another and another.  Busy times of the day could fill up the entire screen.  Of course, it was never okay to have a full screen of orders, so my goal was always to dismiss them as soon as possible. 

  The problem arose when an order would come up with something like this: "14 cheeseburgers, 4 big macs, 6 bacon mcdoubles" and then two other orders pop up after it.

  If I were to follow the video instruction which says to make 2 sandwiches at a time, that order would be on screen for about 7-10 minutes, which is entirely unacceptable.  However, if I made about 4 sandwiches at a time, I could cut that in half.  If I made 6 at a time, it would take even less time.  So that's what I did.  Until one day the owner of the store came in to inspect and time people on different stations.

  Since I was making sandwiches, I knew I would be timed on my speed.  Sure enough, a huge order popped up on screen, and I began furiously making sandwiches 4 at a time.  The owner noticed and snapped at me that I wasn't following procedure and to make only two at a time.  I did as she said and switched to making 2 at a time, and the order seemed to take FOREVER to finish.  I knew she was timing how long the order was on the screen, but there was absolutely no way to speed it up making only 2 sandwiches at a time. 

   After scrutinizing my work and breathing over my shoulder for nearly 30 minutes, she finally said "You're doing well.  But your screen needs to be cleared faster", and walked away. 
I felt so much like saying "Have you ever completed an order like that, making 2 sandwiches at a time, in shorter time?"
Of course I didn't.  But it just solidified in my mind that McDonalds, like probably all of the other fast food companies, sets truly ridiculous times for their employees and then throws in a rule like "only make 2 sandwiches at once" and still demands that the order be made, and delivered in less than 23 seconds. 

  I totally understand the significance of the rule.  It makes sense that if you're making 4 sandwiches at once, they are all laying out, open on the counter, thus getting cold and unfresh.  But I was literally making sandwiches in seconds, never minutes.  The bun was still warm from the toaster by the time the sandwich was being placed into the warming spot. 

   But why the ridiculous rules?  Because the customer demands it.  After about a year and a half of working in this environment, I decided it definitely wasn't for me.  I could have worked my way up the chain, to crew trainer, then manager if I had wanted.  But as a manager and crew trainer, you are supposed to enforce the rules like "no more than 2 sandwiches at a time".  I knew I couldn't rightfully do that, since it made no sense put to the test in real life. 

  I'll always remember my time spent at McDonalds with some fondness, but mostly as a learning experience.  As customers, if our expectations are ridiculous (expecting to order and receive a meal in 23 seconds), we'll get what we pay for: junk food, and bad service (in most cases). 

  This post isn't meant to simply criticize McDonalds.  I still enjoy eating their McDoubles, though they're terrible for you.  I still go to McDonalds, mostly on road trips.  But like all fast food places, they have their flaws.  I noticed these first hand, working there.  I am thankful for the experience I had there, and it instilled in me a deep appreciation for food service workers- especially the ones who do a good job, and take pride in their work. 
  Next time you go to a restaurant, fast food or fine dining, take note of the workers who are doing their absolute best and respect them even if the food is slightly late.  It could just be because of a silly rule about only making 2 sandwiches at once.  😃

  

The First Snow of '18-'19

On Monday, we got a dusting of snow, about 2 inches.  It was a wet snow though, so it was mostly slush and quickly turned to ice after two nights of 11 and 15 degree weather. 

 

Today we took a few snow pictures.  Ok, a lot of snow pictures. 

 

It's Gwennie's first snow! She also celebrating her half birthday yesterday, so that was exciting!

 

 She mostly just wanted to eat the snow...

 

 

 

 

 

We're supposed to get about 8 inches today...and Dan's plow stopped working last night when he hooked it up.  So he is currently at the shop trying to get it fixed before he has to go do some plowing and the snow gets too deep. 

 

 

Declutter October

     A friend of mine made a post on social media about a challenge she was doing to declutter her home. She encouraged her friends to join in for the month of October.  This challenge was the entire month long and every day of the month, you had to get rid of that many items. 
So October 2nd, get rid of 2 items...October 15th, get rid of 15 items and so on. 

     Lately, I've been bothered by the stuff lying around the house which I don't use.  If we're all honest with ourselves, there's stuff we all keep that we never or rarely use.  So I took my friend up on this challenge.  Days 1-8 were a breeze.  I started in the kitchen, going through cabinets and found so many mugs, dishes, and utensils I never use.  After exhausting the kitchen, I moved to my closet. 

     As much as I really want to be able to fit into some of the clothing I was able to wear when I was 22 and at my most fit stage of life, I'm seeing that goal as being more and more unrealistic.  That doesn't mean I've given up on losing weight or being healthy.  It just means that I don't think I'll see THOSE numbers on the scale again.  All that to say, my closet had a lot of clothing for me to get rid of in it.  I made it to day 15 getting rid of clothing, shoes and nail polish. 

     Moving to the baby's room, I was able to go through her things and get rid of some of the items I don't use.  At about day 23, I started struggling.  I got rid of a huge box full of books, piano music and cd's.  Clothing hangers were another easy item to get rid of, since I have bazillions of them.  I had already decided before starting this challenge that I wouldn't touch any of Dan's items (although you can be sure I wanted to clean out the garage with all of his tools...), only the things he didn't care about.

     I made it to day 31...barely.  Now that the challenge is finished though, I look around and find things every day that I still need to get rid of.

     During the 31 days, I was collecting and piling all of these discarded items in our biggest closet.  On Monday, I called the Salvation Army and asked them if they accept anything, or just certain items.  The man on the phone told me that they would take anything and were accepting all donations.  So we loaded the truck full of boxes and bags and headed down to Queensbury.  I was so excited to get rid of this stuff, but when we walked into the Salvation Army, the same man I talked to on the phone said that they had a temporary hold on taking donations and that they couldn't take anything from us.  I was annoyed because we had a truck full of things I was desperate to get rid of.  We were able to find a bin that took clothes in a parking lot, but everything else we had to haul home. 

     In my moment of desperation, I took photos of lots of stuff in boxes, and posted ads on Facebook marketplace and craigslist for free stuff. 

     I got super excited when about 10 people started messaging me that they wanted to come and look at it right away.  I wasn't going to put it out at the curb, since it was snowing and sleeting.  Out of the 23 total people who said they would come to get stuff, 2 ended up showing up and taking only some stuff, instead of taking it all like I said on the ad.  I kept saying to Dan "I never KNEW it was so hard to get rid of free stuff!"

     I guess the funniest messages I got were from three different people who were telling me they couldn't drive and needed me to bring the stuff to their houses.  One woman gave me her address and asked me to please ship it to her, and thank you.  Her address was in Maine! 

     Since I was so desperate to get rid of this stuff, I even agreed to meet up with one woman at a gas station to give her two boxes.  But she didn't confirm a time, so we never met up.  I learned a valuable lesson from this.  When you see something you want on an ad, don't leave the "seller" hanging.  It is SO FRUSTRATING.  Also, if the stuff is FREE, don't ask someone to deliver it or ship it. 

     Although I enjoyed de-cluttering my house in the month of October, the bother of giving the stuff away was hardly worth it.  I couldn't help thinking of the people around the world who would have loved to have the things I was trying to give away, but couldn't because nobody here wanted it or was willing to drive a few miles to get it.  So sad. 

     We have so much, yet often are so unthankful.  I'm speaking to myself as much as to the people who weren't willing to come to get some free things.  
     I shouldn't just think about being grateful in the month of November, but I often forget how much I have because I haven't experienced what it is like to be without. 


(As a side note, if you've never tried de-cluttering your home like this...I challenge you to try it.)

Random Happenings in the State of NY

It's a beautiful day today. The first beautiful day we've had in a long time in fact.  I don't know about the weather in your area, but we have had rain every day for the past week or so.  Sunday there was a reprieve for a few hours. 
I honestly don't have any truly exciting news to tell, or any awesome pictures.  But we are still alive and well and I thought I would make a post.  Probably mostly writing, not so many pictures this time. 

About a month ago, Dan told me he wanted to go on a drive to see all the beautiful fall leaves.  Of course I was up for that, but the leaves were most beautiful when Dan and I were working nonstop on the house.  I didn't get any pictures, but we rented a bobcat and dump trailer and dug out 7 loads of dirt from what was supposed to be the driveway.  Then we got a load of gravel and Dan spread that and graded it.  Because we were renting the equipment, there was really no time to stop.  Anyway, we finished that, and then Dan installed the new garage door.  The outside of the house is now complete. 

By the time that week of non-stop work was finished, most of the leaves were brown and fallen.  But we still went on our drive.  Dan planned out to take me to Woodstock, Vermont.  The drive was nice.  It snowed in the mountains, and when we arrived, it was raining heavily.  Dan took us to a Rockefeller house there in Woodstock and we did the tour of it. 

It was a nice change from all the weeks of working on the house.

 

Even Gwennie enjoyed the tour!  She was the youngest person to ever take a tour apparently. All of the people in our tour group enjoyed her.

 

After we finished the tour, we drove around town a little bit just looking at the beautiful homes. Interestingly, I saw a sign that said "Justin Morgan" and we stopped to read it.  It jogged my memory of a book I read as a child called "Justin Morgan had a horse."  Come to find out that Justin Morgan lived in Woodstock with his famous horse, Figure.   

 

We drove back to Rutland for lunch because the prices in Woodstock are through the roof.   

 

In other news, Dan got two deer so far, exactly one week apart.  Our freezer is half-full.  We process them ourselves and last year, we were keeping every last piece of meat on the deer, even if it had sinew and grossness in it.  This year, we are only harvesting the good meat.  That way our freezer is full of good stuff, not junk like last year.  Our hope is that Dan will be able to get one more before the season is up beginning of December. 

 

 

We found a $4 meat grinder at an antique store and tried using it on some of the meat and it worked really well!  I just made lasagna Sunday with the ground venison and it tasted just like beef.  I'm very happy about that, since we ran out of the beef we had bought from my sister about two months ago.  I was having to force myself to eat the ground venison we had left from 2016 (the year we paid to have the deer processed) because it tasted truly awful. 

 

 

 

This picture brings me great joy.  We had to go to Albany last week.  Besides the history in that city, the only good thing about Albany is the Mexican restaurant, Salsa Latina.  We went there and ordered our normal, 3 tacos.  Turns out it was Taco Tuesday, a new deal they just started, so we only paid $6 for both of us!  Wow...you can't beat that.  And the tacos were amazing. 

 

 

Like I said, this post is just a compilation of a bunch of stuff that we've been doing, so bear with me.  On Sunday evening after church, it was so chilly that I thought we should watch a Christmas movie.  We watched 'The Grinch Stole Christmas" and it was Gwen's first time watching a movie.  As you can see, she was enthralled. 

 

 

Other news include the loss of a family member.  One of our 20 chickens died last night.  It's still an unsolved mystery, but I couldn't find any signs of foul play. 

 

I am very much looking forward to visiting my family at the end of this month for Thanksgiving.  Keep your eyes peeled for another post soon! 

House Updates

My apologies for being absent from my blog for so long.  We have been keeping busy feverishly working on the outside of the house before the REALLY cold weather sets in.  I scraped paint from the bottom portion of the house, but didn't really feel comfortable being higher than a tall step ladder, so Dan did the higher parts.  Also, the house is so tall that in order to effectively scrape and then paint the upper part, we had to rent a lift for a week.  The chimney pictured here was falling apart, so Dan also rebuilt it and replaced several slate shingles.

 

 

 

This is the first coat of primer.

 

This side of the house was by far the worst.  It hadn't been painted correctly in over 20 years probably.  It's also the side of the house that was covered with vines.

 

We had some dreadfully wet weather the week we rented the lift, hence, the mud pit. 

 

Dan's view from the roof.  This is looking out over the new metal roof he put on last fall.

 

First coat of paint.

 

Dan accidently sprayed himself in the face with the paint sprayer.  So of course, I took a picture. 

 

After paint.

 

We also bought new, vinyl windows for the house since the windows were all original (from 1900) and needed updating.

 

 

 

They were delivered one day and Dan started installing them the next day!

My job was to haul the old windows out to the garage.

 

Also, a few weeks ago, Dan and I laid these huge slabs of stone and made a patio out of them. 

 

Some window install in process.

 

The house after painting was complete. 

 

 

This house has been the talk of the town.  I walked into the town municipal center today to pay a water bill and the lady there talked to me for about 15 minutes about how amazing the house looks now and kept profusely thanking me for helping to bring the old house back to life. 

 

People stop several times a day to say similar things to Dan. 

 

I appreciate that they appreciate an old house being restored.

 

I hope all of you have had a good month.  It's hard to believe that October is nearly over and that tomorrow's weather forecast calls for snow flurries here!