May 7 – “Carving out a fence line”

Chris made her Bay City run today.  Her Dad had an appointment this time.  She should be back tonight, though.  Meanwhile, I took Mom to her hairdresser appointment on my way to teach at Seaside Christian Academy.  The kids seemed to be really into the stories today.  It kind of surprised me, since school is out in just a few weeks.  I expected them to be off the wall.  Speaking of the wall, they were working on the church roof today.  It is going to look really different with white shingles.  And it does blend in well with the new building.  Now we need to get the outside painting finished.  We also need to finish the trim work on the bathrooms so they don't look shabby.  Both toilets are in (woo hoo!  Thanks Mike and Keith), but we still need to replace the ceiling tiles in one room and decide what to do about the old decorative trim.    This Sunday is Mother's Day, and we are having a baptism.  Of a mother.  One of our sweet ladies asked to be baptized, and her family is coming to witness it.  I'm always up for a baptism.  They can't help but show that God is on the move.   After school I picked up Mom and we met Nathan and April and Cailyn over at Kel's house.  They were babysitting the boys.  We stopped off and bought some Sonic special burgers and chili dogs and cherry limeade slushes.  Quite the unexpected treat to be able to see all three grandkids at once.   While the boys were "taking a nap" (sure.), I went back over to the house to do some work on the neighbor's backyard.  It took a few hours, and it was really hot, but I finally managed to carve out a few feet of clear space along our fence line.  It's going to take me a long time to get through the whole back yard.  Hey.  Maybe we'll be living in the house by that time.   Speaking of the house, the contractor called to get some information from me.  I said I would email it when I got home.  He said if the doors really did come in today like they were supposed to, the carpenter guys would come in Monday and get them in, as well as the other cabinets.  Then Wednesday the painter is scheduled to begin.  He actually sounded a bit excited again.  I opened my email when we got back to Omega Bay.  There was one from the cabinet guys who are now the countertop guys.  He said he tried to call yesterday (that would no doubt be when my phone died in my pocket.  Chris couldn't get me either).  The countertops will be installed Monday.  The installer will call when he's on his way.  That meant I had to let the contractor know right away so he could decide what to do about those other cabinets.  They need to be in before the countertop can go on them.  I guess they can work on that while the kitchen countertops are installed.  That's some good news to tell Chris when she gets home.   Isaiah 52:7 says, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'"   Father, thanks for some good news about the house.  And the church.  And life.  Amen.

May 6 – “Potty Purchasing”

Today we purchased some potties.  I didn't know there were so many specifications involved in potty-purchasing.  Oh, but Chris did.  She had been on line and once again done extensive research.  There was flush power (or something like that) and seat height (we got chair height for Mom's bathroom and standard for ours) and distance from the back wall to the center of the hole in the floor and shape of the pot itself (we got one of each, a round one for ours because it gives more space and an oval one for Mom's because it provides more sitting area?!).  And they are both white.  We also got the rest of the light fixtures.  I thought we were almost through there, too, but we needed two for the laundry room and one for the sewing room and one for the bathroom and one for the hall and two for the big walk-in closet and one for the back porch and one for the side porch and one for the front porch.  While there we picked up some brackets to hold a clothes-hanging pole for the laundry room.  We looked at doggie doors for the side storm door, but all of the ones they had required a door at least an inch thick.  A guy we met said to go to Pets Mart.  He had just seen some there.  Another day.   This afternoon we dropped off the toilets at the Galveston house and then split up.  Chris and Mom went to their Wednesday Club meeting.  I went to the community festival sponsored by the Vineyard Church national conference that was in town.  They used the grounds of an old elementary school and set up tents for free barbeque, free haircuts, free family portraits, free health screenings, free groceries, free children's fun area (a bunch of those huge blow-up slides and bounce houses, face painting, and carnival kinds of kiddie games), and even a live band performing.  They also had a prayer tent available if you wanted someone to pray for you.  Believe it or not, that was one of the most happening places of all.  They had asked for a stack of my business cards to give away if someone from the West End came for prayer.  When I got there around 3:00, they were all gone already.  And school wasn't even out yet.  I saw one guy from Seaside.  I also got to talk to the brother of a guy I went to college with.    When I left the festival, I went to the house with the plan to begin weedeating our neighbor's back yard away from our fence line.  That's the one that has been condemned, but no one can decide whose responsibility it is to tear down.  Just as I was starting, our contractor drove up to pick up some tiles from our garage and take them to another job.  He was excited about the roof being finished (so was I).  He said he would email me about a down payment for installing the fireplace, so they could order the materials.  The floor guy is supposed to come soon and take final measurements for the backsplash. The last of the doors should be in tomorrow, and the crew will install them and the rest of the cabinets.  Then came the bad news.  The paint guys can't start until next Wednesday.  He said, "I guess that moves your one month time frame back another week."  Chris wasn't at all happy to hear that one.  She's ready to camp out on the floor.  So close, but so far.   Romans 8:24-25 says, "… hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."   Father, that's not exactly the right context for our situation, but we are trying to remain patient.  We trust you.  Amen.

May 5 – “Hidden Mold”

The flat roof was being put on today.  Our contractor called this morning and told us they would be there, so we went by after Luby's.  They had already finished tearing off the old roof and repairing the holes left by the old chimney and the old hot water heater.  All the felt was down as well.  We met the "required" fire fighter who had to stand around and watch to make sure they didn't burn the place down.  He said as soon as they finished lunch they would begin applying the new roof.    I called to check on the countertops.  Surprise, surprise.  They are running behind.  They might be ready to install by the end of the week.  Somebody will call.  The last two doors are due in Wednesday or Thursday.  The finish carpenters are on standby to install them and the buffet cabinets.  The painter is ready to begin sometime this week.  The floor guy was waiting on the kitchen cabinets so he could get an exact measurement.  He's supposed to call back.  Sounds like a lot of people are just waiting.  I guess we're not alone.   I heard today that the roof for the church should begin tomorrow.  A combination of volunteers from Seaside and a paid team are supposed to knock it out in two or three days.  We got clearance from Texas Windstorm so that we don't have to remove the old one – just stick the new one on top.    I cleaned some of the old books we salvaged.  One was the Gideon New Testament my Dad got when he was in the service in World War II.  One was an old Bible that was given to Chris' grandparents.  It still had a lot of stuff stuck inside.  I hope I got enough of the hidden mold wiped off so it will dry out and she can hang on to it.  The thing that struck me about cleaning those books was that there was never a consistent pattern of where the mold would show up.  It could be on any page on any part of the page.  Some pages had a lot.  Some had none at all.  Some came off right away.  Some created quite a stain.  Reminded me of sin.  Always seems to show up.  Never can really predict the effect it will have.   Romans 8:9-11 says, "You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."   Father, thank you for your Spirit.  Please control me.  Amen.

May 4 – “On Sowing”

Sowing.  I have always had a picture of sowing in my non-farmer brain.  It's that one that they used to show years ago in children's Sunday School.  The guy in the little short dress is walking through a field with a basket throwing seeds everywhere.  That was always sowing to me.  Until today.  I had one of those Ah-ha moments.   We went to the house to work in the yard.  We were also hoping that maybe our contractor would show up with a painter in tow.  Chris even brought the swatches (why do they call them "swatches"?  Why not "blobs of paint"?  Or maybe even "paint color samples"?) from Sherwin Williams so she could show him her choices.  But no such luck today.  The only work that happened was what we did.   So, on to what we did.  After doing a house walk-through with those paint thingies, and a back yard walk through to check out new growth on the trees (there is more growth on the pecan tree!), we turned our energies to the front yard.  Well, actually we went to WalMart first to buy some dirt.  That's another thing that I've wondered about.  Isn't there enough dirt in the world?  Why do we have to buy more?  Well, we took the obviously special dirt back to the house with the plan to start dumping it and spreading it and leveling out the yard.  We had some speed bumps along the way, though.  Roots from the tree we had ground up.  They were still everywhere in the yard.  And every time we pulled one up, it would hit another.  And some of them were really big … and heavy.  We dug and pulled for hours.  Chris even let me play with the ax after awhile.  It really helped, but I know I'll be sore tomorrow.  When we finally declared truce with the root population, Chris started preparing the flower bed, and I worked on mixing dirt and leveling the yard itself.    So what was the big lesson about sowing.  It's hard work.  I never stopped to think that chunking seeds was not the only thing involved in sowing.  The ground has to be broken up (I did that today.  I even broke a shovel).  Sometimes fresh dirt, or dirt treated with special vitamins and minerals (What do they do, anyway?  Crumble up Flinstones vitamins in the dirt?)  has to be spread and mixed with the existing dirt.  And sometimes mulch is involved.  It was in our case.  All the remnants of that ground up tree are still there.  And the plants won't grow with just mulch.  It has to be the right combination.  And the bottom line is, somebody has to do all that work before the guy in the skirt gets handed his basket.   So maybe the spiritual connection is like that, too.  Maybe it takes more work to "plant a seed" than I thought.  Maybe planting a spiritual seed in somebody's life is going out of your way to say hi, or to ask how someone is doing – and stop to listen.  Maybe it's changing a light bulb or a tire.  Maybe it's spending time with someone over enough time to really develop a relationship with them.  Maybe then, when you do say something about Jesus, they will actually listen.  Sowing is hard work.  But it sure is worth it when the growing starts.    Isaiah 55:10-11 says, "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."   Father, that sowing is hard work.  Please let us see the results of it.  Amen.

May 3 – “Missing Toilets”

Sunday morning.  I arrived at church early to make sure the floor was swept and the pews were set up – stuff Chris and I usually do when we get here.  But I just had a hunch I should go earlier.  I left the house at 6:30.  Guess what greeted me when I arrived?  Right there on the front porch was a bag of trash, two old toilets and two vanity tops.  Now that's what someone would want to see when they arrive for worship.  I took the trash bag to the can.  I couldn't lift the toilets or vanity tops by myself, so I went on in to wait for someone else to get there to help me.  And when I walked in I was hit with surprise number two. The two new toilets we bought were both still in their boxes.  I rushed to bathroom number one.  I don't know what I expected to see.  No toilet.  I walked over to the nursery bathroom.  No toilet there either.  I wasn't sure what to do.  I never set up a toilet before, and I couldn't lift it anyway.  I called our youth pastor, who is really good with construction-type problems, but he didn't answer.  I started cleaning up the nursery, then the kitchen, then the office, bouncing from room to room and not really finishing anything I started.  I knew we would be fine if we didn't have any toilets facilities.  After all, we met after the storm with no water or electricity.  I was rapidly going through the sermon and paring it down so we could get out in a much shorter time frame.  Finally I decided to drive over and see if Ned was home.  He was a great help at workday, and I knew he would know how to do what we needed done.    Ned was home, and he came back with me.  It took awhile, and a trip or two to the hardware store, but we got one installed by around 9:30.  The other one we found out was broken when we started to lift it out of the box.  No way to fix that.  We'd have to take it back to Home Depot later.  It was a whole lot easier to share one bathroom than to not have any at all.   An exciting thing happened when people started arriving.  One of the great ladies in our body who has Bay City connections talked to me before worship.  She wants to be baptized.  We'll set up a time after she talks to her family.   It was great to see Chris again.  They got back with no problem other than a little weather in Dickinson.    Psalms 20:7 says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."   Father, thank you for another baptism.  It shows you are at work.  Amen.

May 2 – “Work Crew”

Chris is still in Mansfield.  She told me last night that her plans for today included playing with Zakary, taking Zakary for a walk, and holding Caleb.   Yes, I'm jealous.    One of the reasons I didn't go was that today was workday at Seaside.  We had some vanities to install in the bathrooms, and we ended up also getting new toilets as well.  The walls in the bathrooms were warping, so we replaced at least some of them.  And Lanny and I took on the rest of the ceiling tile project.  That included all of the kitchen and shower area, two really strange shaped ones in my office, and the bathroom in the nursery.  We got everything done except for the part of the shower area that still needs to be inspected after we get a plumber to finish the washing machine job.  Ned was there to run the speaker cables out of sight.  He also installed a ceiling fan in the nursery along with miscellaneous other helps here and there.  He's amazing.  Eric and Mike each took a bathroom, and when Mike went to get the toilets, Todd took over for him.  Anne and Kelly set up the pews for worship tomorrow.  Cory, Kelly, Allie, Anne, Melissa, Karen, Teri, Matt, and Will all worked outside painting.  Quite a crew!  I had to leave at 3:30 to meet Kel.  There were still a few others around, and Mike was going to come back after an errand with Cindy.  When I left, the toilets were not in.  In fact, Eric was just then installing the faucets in his bathroom.  The pews still needed to be put in their final resting spots.  I swept the sanctuary floor, but it still needed to be mopped.  The office was a shambles, with ceiling tiles and paneling and sawdust everywhere.  The nursery wasn't too bad, except, of course, for no toilet.  I guess I'll get up early and try to finish cleaning in the morning before church.  That's the great thing about having showers now.  I hope it was at least presentable tonight for the AA group.   I went with Kel and some guys from his church to the movie Wolverine and then to Gringos for supper.  It's a pretty good movie, and that's from a die hard DC Comics fan.  The story line is good and the special effects are pretty good, too.  I met two guys who came to Gringos with us.  One used to own a comics store, so he was especially excited.    Now I'm going to call Chris and then get some sleep.  Six o'clock comes awfully early.   Psalms 5:3 says, "In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation."   Father, I know you hear me at night, too.  And in the afternoon.  And that's a good thing for me.  I need you.  Amen.

May 1 – “Outside”

I am tired today.  Not just tired, though.  It's "I worked outside in the yard" kind of tired.  And did I mention that it was really hot today?  Chris and Mom left this morning for Mansfield.  They are going to help Christi with the boys while Josh does a wedding in San Antonio.  I spent the day at the house in Galveston.  Well, outside the house in Galveston.  I got a weedeater at WalMart and attacked the front yard next door.  That's the house that has been condemned, but no further action has been taken.  Literally.  No inside action.  No yardwork or outside action of any kind, either.  The only thing positive about the front yard is that the weeds have flowers on them, so there is some color.  I chopped down most of them.  I left the two tallest sunflower stalks.  I also created what looks like a flowerbed of the flowery weeds.  At least the yard looks different.    After I finished that yard I decided I better do something in our yard, too.  I pulled out as many of the weeds as I could (by the roots) and weedeated (??? Weedate???) the rest.  Then I edged and swept and bagged up the stuff.  I walked into our back yard and it really needed to be mowed.  So it got a weedeater mow.  Then I noticed that Chris' Mother's Day lily (OK, it's an Easter lily, but it never blooms until Mother's Day) was about to bloom from amidst a huge pile of weeds.  So I cleaned out the flower bed around the lilies.  As it turned out, I did a lot of work, but I never got to leveling off the peak in the front yard created by all the mulch from the stump grinder.  And I never got into the neighbor's back yard.  That's where I wanted to go.  It is a nightmare.  Well, it's probably a heaven for small rodents.  High weeds and fallen trees everywhere.  I am determined to at least clear a path by our fence.  Some day.  Tomorrow I have workday at church, so it won't be then.  Some day.   I got a call from Home Depot while I was fixing the new weedeater.  She talked very quickly, "I have two things to tell you, Mr. Vaughan, the first is that the vanity tops are both in and the second is that I talked to the manager and he has already approved a discount for you of twenty percent off the vanity tops so when you come in to pick them up be sure and bring your Home Depot card and we will apply the discount to it."  When she took a breath I said thank you.  It took a few minutes for what she said to sink in.  Twenty percent.  And it was their idea.  Hey, that's a good deal.  After I got cleaned up, I went on out and picked them up.  That'll make Chris happy.   I saw a great verse today, James 3:17-18: "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere."   Father, I want your wisdom.  And I want some sleep.  Amen.