Quelf

More opportunities to help around the school this morning also ensured that my day didn't start too late. My boss's kid, Josh, and his good friend helped out alot cleaning up from last night's basketball game. It took us the same amount of time as it would take me by myself because of all of the ambushes and other shenanigans. They also took me out to lunch.

What a gorgeous day. I didn't get to spend much time outside, but a long jog was enough for now. Can't wait for warm weather to stick around a little longer.

Well, it's getting late and I have pre-bloging for tomorrow yet to do. So the rest of the day will go a little more like a picture blitz (again).

KimB had some folks over for chicken lips and games. Yes, these are the same chicken lips from Iowa last month, but homemade.

Thank you chefs Sarah and Kim.


Cutie pie Taylor joined us for part of the night. Pretty much made the entire rounds with the crowd. What a sport.


If you want to see her happy, sit her on daddy's head and watch her pull out every last hair.

The name of the game tonight - Quelf. Bjorn's brand new board game. It's hard to explain the rules or point of the game. Basically, you have to do alot of stupid stuff and winning is based almost entirely on the randomness of the roles and the cards drawn. It emphasizes the point that if you can't enjoy a game with friends while winning OR losing, go home.


The following pictures video require no explanation because if they did, you would just be more confused.















Favorite quote of the night has to be when a girl was asked to name all nine planets in our solar system and was given the first letter of each planet to start with. "I can't remember which one starts with an 'E'!!"

Love

Check out this adorable picture on Cheryl D's blog. If you know Cheryl, you can just picture her before and after crying her guts out over the dozens of kids they were lovin' on while their team was in Uganda last year.

Now that you're done crying, hop over to the WCIC blog and vote for picture # 9. The voting is on the right side of the blog. I looked through them all and it wasn't that hard to choose.

Silly Females

Another day another dollar set of opportunities. Friday was the precursor for a long week for my boss. The school is installing a new boiler and it will run him ragged for most of next week...and I wont' be around for any of it. Feelin' kinda bad about that so I spent most of my day at school making up for it.

During some down time, my boss messed with some students (a favorite hobby) by daring them to get some cake at an event they weren't invited to. No one actually cared, but the kids thought they would get in trouble. Eventually they got the guts to do it. In the front of the picture is the boy's varsity coach, Jay.

Jay's boys had a game a couple of hours later and stomped all over the court. Not a very exciting game considering the 58-18 score, but fun nonetheless. Got to sit with Ry-boy and fam. Poor Jannel wanted to be in the picture SOO badly, but just couldn't get a good pose. I'll have to try again some other time :-)

Capped off the night with some time at Noah's. And when the girls (Emily and Lindsay) FINALLY showed up, had an interesting game of Spades. You don't know how mean girls are until you play cards with them. Seriously! I can get a little satisfaction out of the night though. Favorite quote came from Emily, "I think these cards are transparent". With Noah in second place for, "I'm not as stupid as I look". Unfortunately, that one's been used before (you know who you are).

Never Go Hungry

Both bosses tell me that you'll never go hungry at school. It's pretty much true, even if that food comes from a random kind in the hallway. Usually, it's office celebrations, like Janine's birthday today! Janine makes an awesome sausage roll thing for men's breakfast at church twice a year. Looks like I get it three times this year! Score. That was the morning snack. For lunch, I finally remembered Cheryl D's....breaded...chicken...thing. Sorry, I forgot what it's called. But it was awesome.



More techie photos. Which bundle would you rather search through? The one that could destroy a 10 year old mouse, of the one that could bring down the school's payroll?





Yes, we cut off Hobbs' head because he wasn't being nice. It was a great turn out for the Men's monthly Bible study kickoff. Rumfun hosted and cooked (amazing) and we watched a video by James MacDonald about attitudes. The guys stuck around for a long time discussing, and I am so thankful to Ryan for volunteering to host and cook next month! Can't wait. Nan just returned from visiting his family in China and also brought back a load of sweet goodies for all to share.

AHH, Don't Fall Behind!

Must get blog up before falling behind again! Will be really sub-par today, sorry.

Here's my new desk from 9:30am-12:30pm

Mr. Schlick, the High School principal and one of my ex-teachers was rumaging through some old stuff and found a mug with MY PCS logo on it. SCORE! Meet my new favorite coffee cup.


The IT work I do is all over the place. No one thing. But just for fun, here's what I relearned how to make today.



This may not seem as major, but I think it is. Forgot to bring Cheryl's AWESOME (I tried a little last night) leftover COOKING for lunch yesterday. By 2pm I was starving. By then, I'm cleaning in the Kindergarten wing and a girl who's birthday is this weekend is passing out cookies to the teachers. With one remaining, guess who she picked? Warm and fuzzy, that's what I was the rest of the afternoon.

Marilyn got a hold of my camera at AWANA. She took pictures of ALL my cuties, but I only have permission for a posed shot from her Mom. Nice self portrait Mare. You're gonna fit right in on your Mom's blog.

It was a Smith house last night as Rick's wife leads the room, his daughter was at my table, and he got called in to sub as well.

This stuff is HARD!

Workin' For The Man

God provides, and he provides well.

Yesterday the school had a meeting about me with my two bosses, Ken and James. Ken's gotten me on at the school for maintenance help on a temporary as-needed basis for the last month, and James has been trying to get me in IT support. Today it was decided to make me a regular part-time employee until they can put me on the new budget next school year (July). I will continue to draw a supplement from unemployment while part-time with the understanding that I can still find a job elsewhere. This actually works out better for both of us. Only 6 hours a day right now, going home happy AND not just sitting in front of a computer all day. I am very grateful and blessed to have these guys putting so much confidence and trust in me. For the first three hours of the day, I belong to this guy, James. Today he bestowed upon me the title of IT Administrator. Definitely looks good on the resume. You would think that is his job title, but he made up something cooler for himself.

The IT Administrator's job is to document what his boss does, like playing with a remote controlled helicopter last week.


The last three hours are devoted to Ken who needs help with some regular work that he can't always get to, but must be done at exactly the same time every day. I also free up time during the afternoon with little projects people need.I'm also his for emergencies, which occur often. He thought he had me on puke patrol today, but the teacher cleaned it up before I got there. The reoccurring activity includes tear down of the lunchroom and some trash duties. If time permits, I also get to clean with Lavone in the Kindergarten wing at the end of the day. She loves the help. You won't see a picture of my boss because he hates being in them. This serves his family well even though they don't read my blog anymore.


Don't tell anyone, but sometimes, when no one's looking, I like to line up the lunch tables and pretend they are bowing down to me, like in Joseph's dreams...

You Know Jimmy Is?? AHH $#(*&@

There I was, minding my own business when Neighbor Jed decided to make a milk run. It's a boring trip to Tremont, and goes faster with someone to talk to and to help fill milk jars. So I easily hopped in for the road trip. We had great conversation. Got barked at by the farmer's dogs. You know, the usual.

When we got back I was engrossed in a detailed story about my day when a drunk dude named Tim (late 30s-40s) walked up asking to borrow a phone. The true story is still floating out there somewhere, but we could piece together that about a block away, his family and friends were having a get together and kicked him out. The cops showed up but he somehow got out of that. When no one answered the number he gave us, Jed offered to take him home. It would appear that he knows the owner of every bar we drove by (you realize how many bars we have on nights like this) and is so interconnected with construction and landscaping through his STUMP removal business, that he basically runs this city. Wow, sharing a car with US about ready to puke all over our fresh milk. LuckyyyyyyY!

So when someone is this drunk, you generally don't waste your time trying to have deep conversation, even if it would be nice to balance out the sexual innuendos and other colorful language sputtered out during the ride. But, when we got to his sister's place, Stube did give him his number on the back of a random business card from his car, and entertained a couple of topics. When a certain comment prompted Jed to mention that he is not racist, Tim was kind enough to display a tattoo which supposedly notes Tim's support for the KKK.

Flashback - Two weeks ago, Mr. Stuber was headed out for the night to a Hebrew class. If you know Jed, and many of you do, he is passionate about Biblical study, and has a wealth of understanding and resources that he draws upon. Learning Hebrew seems like a perfectly logical step in enhancing his enjoyment and productivity in Bible study and teaching. Only weird thing was that he decided to get his Hebrew training at the Jewish Federation of Peoria. He got some info and a business card from the guys down there while he was at it.

Returning to tonight's story - As Tim finally....finally got out of the car, Jed expressed his slight concern that a KKK supporter, after sobering up, will now have his name and phone number on the back of a business card from....the Jewish Federation of Peoria. Smooth.

The moral of this story? Clean out your car Jed.

Another Sunday, Another Good Time

Thanks to several circumstances, I was able to enjoy visiting our church's "model" Sunday school class, Dust To Glory. It's called DTG because the original study and purpose of the class was an extended Bible overview from Genesis to Revelation. Took a while, and afterward they decided to continue with other studies. The name stuck.

I say "model" class because they have the reputation of carrying out the mission of our church's adult fellowship vision very successfully. Why so successful? Here's a few clues.


This is Steve. Okay, the back of Steve's head. I admit, a terrible shot. Steve's a busy guy (and MUCH better with a camera than I). An important fellow at Caterpillar. An Elder at church (currently?, not sure). Missions committee chairman. What's he doing here? Meeting and greeting folks, especially the ones he doesn't know. Is he the only one? Heck no. I'm just getting camera shy these days. I'll bet you 10 bucks these welcoming folks remember and follow up with people too. Marrieds quite often take time and pity on us single folk who just want attention and entertainment, God bless 'em.

Other cool stuff:

-One of the announcements was a very inviting activity for women who know what great ladies will be there to welcome them.

-I heard announcements about reaching out to members not there because of various circumstances.

-Asking couples to host incoming internationals.

The biggest reason for the visit was that a friend, Kristi, was showing a brief overview of the trip she recently took. Kristi was given the opportunity to spend some months in Slovenia last year with a missionary family supported by our church, Don and Jodi Green. The greens are in charge of pretty much the only campus ministry going on in Ljubljana, the capital city. They also have a very large family with six adorable children. Kristi had the opportunity to serve in the normal ministry efforts of Don and Jodi with students, but also to minister to the family in many of their personal needs.

My group was in charge of food for class today. Looks a little sparse doesn't it? The main course was still in the kitchen at this point as chef Josh worked diligently to get his from scratch biscuits and gravy out the door. They were amazing...when they were finally finished. Thanks Jeff-C for the spirited dessert!



It's time for another round of EE. I got out of playing a major role this semester, but still get to help out here and there including prep for Sunday's informational lunch, and several weeks of trainer subbing. The lunch is always encouraging because it's a sum-up of a great ministry, and a fun video by D. James Kennedy, the founder of EE International. Peter and Dave representin' the CI this semester!

Super House To House.

Whoops. Getting called into work. Make it fast.

Steve and Elise once again hosted House to House this week, embedded in a superbowl party. Jedster provided the projector and both Stubers and Harry's decked out the food.

Speaking of Stubers, why are mommy and daddy always fighting!?!.

Trey brought the entertainment.
And during halftime, we spent some time going over today's sermon on Revelation. Harry used his choo choo train book heavily as a reference tool.