News for today's 2018: 02/15/12

green for very little green

7:50 PM Anonymous 0

Hey there! First things first, I want to thank everyone for their great comments, especially about the lampshades. I think they just might deserve different bases so I'm going to keep my eyes open. I'll keep you posted. With a 1st birthday party this weekend, our house is full of glue guns and pink. Everywhere pink. So, many things have fallen off my radar, but I did manage to finish one project on my list. A kick off project of sorts. But first a little background. I know what you're thinking, 'Oh great, another one of her stories.' I'll keep it brief, promise. We have the classic neglected master bedroom - full of left overs, after thoughts and general laziness. Finally the other day I decided I'd had enough. I'm sick and tired of it and I'm not gonna take it anymore! (imagine me doing my best Norma Ray) Its time to start the patching, painting, moving, reorganizing, and of course, shopping. But as this room is (supposed to be) my sanctuary, the thought of the upheaval makes me want to avoid it altogether. So I'm going with the 'What About Bob?' theory. Its all about the baby steps. Baby step 1 - empty the room. As we've established, it drives me bonkers to live in an 'empty' space, so nothing is more encouraging than seeing blank walls first thing every day. Mission accomplished. It is driving me nuts and I am <strike>annoyed</strike> encouraged. Baby step 2 - bring in some inspiration. I been dying for some kelly green...somewhere. Enter this mirror I picked up off the side of the road when I nabbed my now <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/p/before-after.html" target="_blank">yellow table</a>. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCIK_iD7dMMJL9bEVL5UgrcJVxmpSmIAwNT3pkQ6PvHnHdkOQ9dCfCV1MUr-zMTfseuURIHqiC6ordi7Xvrq154oup2Mf0YYrcyjJa9yBVNXWtXcldfK4EFa5CEyONqJhX04DBsMu2Dtc/s1600/P1283477.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDCIK_iD7dMMJL9bEVL5UgrcJVxmpSmIAwNT3pkQ6PvHnHdkOQ9dCfCV1MUr-zMTfseuURIHqiC6ordi7Xvrq154oup2Mf0YYrcyjJa9yBVNXWtXcldfK4EFa5CEyONqJhX04DBsMu2Dtc/s640/P1283477.JPG" width="426" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> </td></tr></tbody></table>It used to sit on top of the table, ala vanity, which is why there is that big honkin' bolt sticking out of the bottom. Luckily that screwed right out. A bit of sanding and paper to protect the mirror and it was ready for a can of love. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-15S62LPUKDLWzrP8iywUBu2cW3RKgRiSZArKbsIMzcMH-l0uxiMjtMpSOctTFH9E_AibPIG9ooNkjFW9hw-dhyphenhyphensshH891D6zvhtx4XXCn3-RSNQLqAa0GHFrPJ9GScFKhXz8jMzlfeZ/s1600/P2093715.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-15S62LPUKDLWzrP8iywUBu2cW3RKgRiSZArKbsIMzcMH-l0uxiMjtMpSOctTFH9E_AibPIG9ooNkjFW9hw-dhyphenhyphensshH891D6zvhtx4XXCn3-RSNQLqAa0GHFrPJ9GScFKhXz8jMzlfeZ/s640/P2093715.JPG" width="426" /></a></div> After several light and even coats (a shout out to <a href="http://www.younghouselove.com/2012/01/a-giant-rooster-who-does-that/" target="_blank">Sherry</a>) I have a nice pop of inspiration. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsq-E2nBmXCmhjnYuIn1OdDfmtpeVASjHklJfq9q9nZn1GJs4hkKCzBpwdNBOBS2o1xYho9Gu4ODTiJHKyt0saC_FDUkgEZ4ofg7TrGgwSuJ9aI8NjDhgl3AsLU8hyphenhyphendut38mLuWe3_M4xc/s1600/P2093706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsq-E2nBmXCmhjnYuIn1OdDfmtpeVASjHklJfq9q9nZn1GJs4hkKCzBpwdNBOBS2o1xYho9Gu4ODTiJHKyt0saC_FDUkgEZ4ofg7TrGgwSuJ9aI8NjDhgl3AsLU8hyphenhyphendut38mLuWe3_M4xc/s640/P2093706.JPG" width="640" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgX1raB_GAp7dO2O-AcSCFDaxFElvtdcBINRp4SWVx63hhV9l7nBqop_J7eSowKZZYAIavH27xFInTrkUpCd0Feftxp59ALP0FEX83GZFUPXcws52JpGyo_r1CEqe35aqMkxy8M_jrMOtc/s1600/P2294925.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgX1raB_GAp7dO2O-AcSCFDaxFElvtdcBINRp4SWVx63hhV9l7nBqop_J7eSowKZZYAIavH27xFInTrkUpCd0Feftxp59ALP0FEX83GZFUPXcws52JpGyo_r1CEqe35aqMkxy8M_jrMOtc/s640/P2294925.JPG" width="426" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJh0hh7zdvxKI3IXeJl2siJEt-T-r1k_eN_PlLjbfhdtCvfVwIN6Zs2baCYXBmT2Uo_k3VONYWjJPFFWh8vbQpGGBTJ_4UNLrLUms46eFkhbcMQt3sxQaZrs7YFsO1Gwh-uuGKkCUmGuxQ/s1600/P2154080.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJh0hh7zdvxKI3IXeJl2siJEt-T-r1k_eN_PlLjbfhdtCvfVwIN6Zs2baCYXBmT2Uo_k3VONYWjJPFFWh8vbQpGGBTJ_4UNLrLUms46eFkhbcMQt3sxQaZrs7YFsO1Gwh-uuGKkCUmGuxQ/s640/P2154080.JPG" width="426" /></a></div> Notice the blank walls. And curtains already pulled down. And no, I'm not channeling Laura Ashley's green and lavender. That wall color is the next thing to go! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrS53xEQRLVFboUgXRJLWio_YKNPGRYfZ5-9Zpo308bZNYvZT7N9CE3TzGI2qrl_gkg4RMcL_06wXNY1y7X11v-rZ256r73wB3eANkS9N7-0Qu7AuUNlHtxOLpf2-1HJfd9-M1N8sxKXt/s1600/P2154086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrS53xEQRLVFboUgXRJLWio_YKNPGRYfZ5-9Zpo308bZNYvZT7N9CE3TzGI2qrl_gkg4RMcL_06wXNY1y7X11v-rZ256r73wB3eANkS9N7-0Qu7AuUNlHtxOLpf2-1HJfd9-M1N8sxKXt/s640/P2154086.JPG" width="426" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div>Next up baby step 3 - paint the walls. Then create curtains, get new bedding, recycle some lamps, get stuff for the walls, figure out a bedskirt, find a rug...oy. I'll stop there. I need a cocktail. For now this bit of change will have to do. Its all about the baby steps. Have you started any major projects lately? Have any project anxiety? Something you've wanted to get started but can't bring yourself to pull the trigger on?

green for very little green

A Plan

6:13 PM Tukiyooo 0

I’m sure you’ve all seen this quote. It’s an oldie…but SO true! I wanted to fill you in on how I plan to meet my goals this month! <img alt="Pinned Image" height="357" src="http://media-cdn.pinterest.com/upload/280771357988357425_BRZ1DOhG_c.jpg" style="display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" width="250"> <a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/280771357988357425/">(source)</a> To recap here is a list of my goals for February. <ol> <li>workout 4 days/week <li>attend every WW meeting (no excuses) <li>track daily <li>limit TV time to 1 hr/day <li>weigh 174 by 2.29.12 {lose 4lbs}</li></ol> And here’s how I plan to meet those goals: I plan to workout on my lunch hour 2 days per week and then the other 2 days get in a workout after Adelyn is in bed in the evening. To workout on my lunch will require that I pack my workout bag and my lunch the night before. Attending my weekly Weight Watcher meeting is pretty self explanatory…but it’s easy to let meetings & other things fill in that time slot. Attending those weekly meetings is so important! Tracking is an area I struggle with…but I want to get better! My plan to keep my tracker out on the counter when I’m at home and on my desk when I’m at work. This will ensure it will always be on my mind when I go to eat something. Limiting TV time will be hard, I will admit. I like to sit on the couch and vegg. And yes I do believe we all need some time to do that. But…I can let it fill up too much of my time. I plan to make a list for the week of things I want to accomplish around the house and this will help me limit my TV time, but seeing those things that I need/want to get done. And finally to meet that weight loss goal for the month will be easy…if I can just stay on track with my first 4 goals! What strategies to put into place to ensure that you will meet your goals?

A Plan

I’m sure you’ve all seen this quote. It’s an oldie…but SO true! I wanted to fill you in on how I plan to meet my goals this month! (source) To recap here is a list of my goals for February. workout 4 days/week attend every WW meeting (no excuses)…

My Take On Congregational Development: What I Said To The Diocese Of Idaho Convention

1:52 PM Tukiyooo 0

It is a sweeter thing for me to be here with you than most of you would imagine. I may appear to be an alien visitor from that surrealistic din of iniquity, Las Vegas. And so today I am -- but I was not always the prelate of depravity, the bishop of Sin City. In the late 70’s, I was a young lawyer who found his way to Boise. It was around the time when Carol King was moving to Idaho City and the Braun Brothers were first singing Yankee Fork and Mass. Woman. In those days, I was a lapsed Buddhist who didn’t believe in much of anything. I had just wrapped a mantle of cynical despair around my heart as a way to get through life. But several things happened to break my dark philosophy. One of the spiritual catalysts was a case I was defending. It was a contract murder in small city in Western Idaho. The state’s version of the facts included about half the town in a dark conspiracy. My version of the case suspected the other half of the town in an even darker conspiracy. I sometimes wondered if we were both right. The pervasiveness of cruelty and corruption exceeded anything my cynicism had suspected. Under the weight of that discovery, I needed something. I didn’t know what it was but I knew I didn’t have it. Today, I would say my life had entered into a grim chapter. What I needed was a story big enough to contain such a chapter and still be, on the whole, beautiful. I was to find that story in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I found it at St. Michael’s Cathedral, corner of State and 8th street, Boise. It wasn’t a quick or easy conversion. I didn’t believe what I was hearing and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But I gave it a chance. I received the sacrament with not so much belief as a willingness to doubt my disbelief, to entertain a possibility. Much that I heard rankled me. But each day, I said the Prayer Book devotions. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for by his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope . . . .” Like a scalpel, the words cut my mantle and I bled and I bled until I believed. Jim Dwyer was the Dean in those days. Herb Runner was the resident good hearted sage. Allen Dingell was the chancellor. Judge Bail taught adult Sunday School. Tudor Cushman instructed our children. Each summer we sang campfire songs with the Zimlikas, the Manns, and others at Paradise Point. . The Episcopal Church in Idaho saved my life. I was born here – through an at risk spiritual pregnancy, and an arduous labor. So it is good for me to be in Pocatello with you. Thank you for inviting me to come home this weekend. Thank you for inviting me 30 years ago to come home to Christ. It has been 21 years since I was ordained in this diocese. So perhaps I have come of age. Perhaps I can offer some small lessons about Congregational Development. The first is: when you think about Congregational Development, remember my story. I don’t know who I would have become if you had not been here for me. But you were here. You were here because people loved the Church and served her. They did not just love seeing the same faces every Sunday. They loved the openness of the church doors. They loved the porch light burning for lost souls. They loved the witness for justice and the heart for mercy. When I couldn’t see God, I saw them. Congregational Development is a fancy term for loving the church. We love her for the sake of the people who are here and the people who need to be, but don’t know it. The second thing I offer is more of a strategy for vitality. Nevada elected me as bishop because I had been priest to a little church in Georgia that had about declined to the point of failure; but during my time there, they doubled in size, tripled in budget, and quadrupled in mission. I didn’t make that happen, but I watched it up close and I can tell you the key. So let me tell you what I learned in Georgia. There is a sociological axiom about churches. You’ve all heard it. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. In our passion for Baptismal Ministry we sometimes try to tinker with that. We think we need 100% participation in everything. For awhile I forgot the 20%/80% rule. We have a congregation of 10 people in a small mining town in the Humboldt Mountains of Nevada. I had all sorts of plans and programs to pump life into the place. First they all had to take a basic discipleship class. Then we were going to discern all their gifts and talents. Well, it didn’t happen. They stayed stuck, and I got frustrated. Then I counted the number of people in the congregation who had rolled up their sleeves to do the work of the church. Can you guess? It was 2. They were doing just fine. That’s when I remembered what I had learned in my little Georgia parish. Once the 20% / 80% balance is struck, it is impossible to add people to the outer edges of the congregation. In the mystical physics of the church, we cannot extend the circumference too far beyond the central core. The foundation will not bear it. So the 20%/ 80% rule constrains us. But we can make it work for us. This is precisely how we halted the decline of the church in Georgia and set it on a course toward vitality and growth. Instead of doing all the work themselves, the inner core can gradually draw someone else into it. We have to be intentional and strategic to pull this off. People in the 80% will not volunteer. They have to be invited, yea coaxed and lured, into the center. There are two important things to remember as you invite people to the inner circle. First, you cannot draw in people who are on the outer edge – not the Christmas and Easter people. Find the folks nearest to the core and bring them in just a little closer. The second point is tricky and paradoxical. The people we want to recruit into the center will feel welcome there only if you can discover the actual need for their help. But you have to invite them to do the things that give them joy, not the jobs you are trying to get out of. We need people doing the ministries that feel authentic for them. If we drive them like square pegs into round holes, both the church and member get hurt. So first figure out what they enjoy doing or would enjoy doing; then figure out why your congregation needs it. When David Birney was here interviewing for the Bishop job, Becky Dwyer picked him up at the airport. He asked her, “What can I do for the Diocese of Idaho.” Becky replied, “I’m sure anything would be appreciated.” That’s a good attitude to have toward whatever someone offers. So we entice, we cajole, we beg to get another person or two to join the faithful 20%. What happens next is not rational in a cause and effect way. You may call it miracle or even magic. I call it the mystical physics of the church. If we can grow the core of the congregation, if in my church with 10 people – 2 of whom do all the work – if we could bring a 3rd person into the core -- the circumference will expand to preserve the 20% / 80% balance. New members will come. I don’t know how or where from. But they will come. If we can draw a 3rd person into the core of our 10 person congregation, it will become a 15 person congregation. If you have 20 people doing the work in a 100 person congregation, add 2 to the core, it will become a 110 person congregation. I can’t explain it; but God as my witness, I have seen it. And once it starts, it tends to snowball. Now to do this effectively, we have to get our heads straight about the 80% of the congregation who don’t do much in the church. They are not spiritual slackers. Most of them have authentic Christian ministries in daily life and work. If we guilt and pressure them into doing too much church work, we pull them away from their Godly calling and do them more harm than good. So draw the folks who are already near the core just a few steps closer. Let the people in the outer circles orbit as God calls them. Now two more vitally important footnotes: First, if a church wants to thrive, not just survive, it has to be engaged in its community. The town has to know you are there and that you are serving them. So adopt a highway, be tutors in a public school, host the meals on wheels program. Do something visible for your town and sign the church’s name to it. It is not enough that individual church members are good citizens. The congregation needs to be a good citizen in its own name. Second, when you think of people outside the church walls, don’t look at them as sheep to be fleeced. Don’t see a Sunday School teacher, a building and grounds chair, or a pledge unit. See a person who needs Jesus and be Jesus for that person. If you love the Church – and I know you do – then you will tend and nurture her. These a few pointers on how to do that well. Thank you again. I am blessed to be with you.

My Take On Congregational Development: What I Said To The Diocese Of Idaho Convention

It is a sweeter thing for me to be here with you than most of you would imagine.I may appear to be an alien visitor from that surrealistic din of iniquity, Las Vegas.And so today I am -- but I was not always the prelate of depravity, the bishop of S…

green for very little green

A Plan

My Take On Congregational Development: What I Said To The Diocese Of Idaho Convention

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