Frequent flier miles week

This week is going to be very interesting.

Scott left Iraq yesterday to come home for a visit. He will get here by Friday (I hope). Never know when exactly he will land in Atlanta. It will be nice to see him.

Brian leaves today for Morocco. He and our pastor are going to establish ties with the Berber people in the mountains. We plan to go back there in the spring (I will be on that trip) and bring the news of a Savior to them. Should be exciting!

I leave for Texas on Thursday. I CANNOT WAIT!!!! I bought tickets for this trip in the spring and I've looked forward to it ever since.....FRIENDS, THIRD DAY.....FUN FUN FUN!!!! Four shows in four days. I have lost my mind!!!

This week is going to rock. Just wish Scott wasn't coming home while we are gone but we will all be home next week together.

Keep checking in...I'll be updating my week/weekend. The house is on hold for now. We did get a few things done this weekend. The new counter top is in so that will be put in next week. I will start painting the kitchen and sunroom. Maybe we will be totally finished by November! Then I can start on the bathrooms! Yeah it never ends.

Have a great day!

My fridge

I finally took pictures of our "new" fridge. How cool is this thing? It works great. I can hardly wait to get my kitchen finished and put the fridge in there.

Summer Reading Club (in the Fall)

This is the last installment of my Summer Reading Club posts. Below is the list of books I read this summer. I read more than I thought I would. Good thing we aren't doing a Fall Reading Club because I have NO time to read right now.

Unspoken- Francine Rivers


Unafraid- Francine Rivers

The air I breathe- Louis Giglio

Lessons from the Road- Nigel James

UnChristian- David Kinnaman

You are Mine- Max Lucado

You are Special- Max Lucado

The Pawn- Steven James

3:16- Max Lucado

Your God is too safe- Mark Buchanan

The Jesus I never knew- Phillip Yancey

Quit digging your grave with a knife and fork-Mike Huckabee

Facedown- Matt Redman

Weight of Glory- CS Lewis

What's so amazing about grace- Phillip Yancey



So now I humbly (well not really) submit my entry to win something. I really need a new t-shirt, cd, poster....yeah I really do. And having it signed by the incredible, amazing, rock-my-face-off guitar player named Mark Lee would make my day :)
 
Thanks for the fun Mark!

Remodeling "heaven"

Not really heaven...more like chaotic prison. I'm so tired of walking around boxes and trying to find things I need! But this too shall pass and we will have a nice kitchen.

We put up the new ceiling in the kitchen and painted it this week. I took all the hardward off of the cabinets (which took ALL day) and I've primed all of them. The molding is up around the room again. Now we need to caulk around the molding and start painting the walls. I have to paint the cabinets, walls (kitchen and sunroom) and doors/trim. Then after that is done we can put the new cabinets on the wall (we bought cabinets for one wall and kept the old cabinets on the other 2 walls).

Not much more will happen for about 2 weeks though. I have to work the next 2 days. Brian leaves for Morocco on Monday. I leave for Texas next Thursday. Scott is coming home from Iraq next week for leave (yep we are going to miss him for the first week!). Then we are going to spend time with Scott when we get home....sooooo....I'll have to live among this chaos for about another month (Lord give me patience!)

This is the new floor in my Sunroom

Here is my new ceiling and one of the new lights we installed

I was kinda sad when we tore out the hardwood floor

The beginning of the new kitchen floor

Finished product

This is how I feel most of the time right now. :)

Come see...Third Day pics

Too lazy to post all the pics manually so here is the link.

http://flickr.com/photos/25796488@N08/sets/72157607461548773/

Hope you like them.

When Third Day comes to town....

Wendy is in attendance! (btw...if you read the Third Day Boards this is the very same entry so just proceed to the pictures below)


Just haven't seen Third Day enough this year (yes I'm SPOILED!). I looked forward to this show for months. I was not disappointed. Good friends, good show, good times!

RED- I've seen these guys 3 times before (with Day of Fire and at Creation Fest). I enjoy them alot. The twins Anthony (guitar) and Randy (bass) are really nice guys. I was glad I could get there in time to see them. I hate that the crowd is very sparse during their set but we had a good time.

JARS OF CLAY- I will preface this by saying I'm not a JOC fan. Just never got into them. I have to say that I enjoyed Flood (one of the 2 songs I like) but that's about it. I couldn't understand Dan much after that. Ali was singing right along so since I didn't know the words I was lost. I didn't have a bad time just ready to have 3D come on stage of course.

ROBERT RANDOLPH- I will have to say that he and his family band are very talented. I did enjoy watching them exchange instruments and play them. Other than that...not sure why they are on this line up. The crowd looked bored. I told Ali at one point that they seemed to playing to and for themselves instead of the crowd. I was waiting to hear them sing....still waiting. They said a few "having a good time", "stomp your feet", "clap your hands"....not much else. Robert has a beautiful smile though and I did enjoy when he came out to play during the encore.

SWITCHFOOT- I have been a fan of theirs since their first cd. Since they don't do the East Coast often, seeing them live had not happened until this year. Last night was the 3rd time I've seen them live....I like them more each time I see them play. I little birdie told me that at a recent show Jon tried to stand in someone's seat and that person wouldn't let them.:eek: So I made a sign that read "Jon you can stand here". He read it and smiled then during "Meant to Live" he took me up on my offer. He came and stood right on the rail in front of me. Doug (yes Karen's Doug) helped him stand up there. FUN FUN! The lighting was very interesting (not sure how my pics will be). One of the funniest thing that happened was just between me and my camera. I put my camera to my face (I don't like to use the LCD view finder often) and thought Jerome had hit himself in the face with his tamborine. I started laughing and he looked at me like I was crazy. It was funny to me at least. And "Dare you to Move" is one of my favorite songs ever so to see them play it live is just great.

THIRD DAY- I try to be objective but gosh I'm very biased. My issue with the show was not the band at all. It was the camera crew. I have a camera guy standing on a cargo box with his butt in front of me blocking my view of Mark. Then to my right I have 2 really tall camera men blocking my view of Mac. I spent $140 to sit in the front row ...I don't care if I spent $.02 I should not have to see the back in of a camera man. They finally left after the 3 song minimum but I was not very happy and kinda missed the 1st three songs. Now that's my rant. Onto the show. I was dead in front of Mark and I totally enjoyed seeing him rock out on stage. He was working his butt off. He is an amazing artist. I couldn't see David very well but I did see that he was singing BGV's. That made me smile!!! I was almost too far stage right to see Tai. I did try to pay attention when he would sing (I love to hear his voice). Now this was the fastest hour of my life. I looked at the clock (we could see the time remaining) and there was only 6 minutes left....I was quite sad. I enjoyed hearing the new songs and a few of the old. I really hate to complain about worship songs and I know that the majority of the crowd doesn't get to see Third Day as often as I do but....I wish they would change some of the worship songs. "King of Glory" is the best one they have ever done ....bring it back!!! "God of Wonders" grates on my nerves but the crowd always seems to like it so I perservere through it;) . I do like to hear "Thief" live because Mac just sounds so passionate in the song but it sure kills the rock show vibe. With that said I will still buy tickets and still sit and listen to whatever they play. I really enjoyed having Michael from RED come and sing with Mac on "Slow Down"....they complimented each other nicely. Can I say I miss "Come on back to me"!!!! So now the show is over and onto the....

ENCORE- Third Day didn't leave the stage they just added people! Robert Randolph came out to play on "Otherside"....very nice!!! Then JOC came out and they sang "I'll fly away". I actually like the version that they do of this song. It was fun to watch and of course we all sing along. Lastly SF came out and "When love comes to town" made my night. I TOTALLY enjoyed this one. What fun they all seemed to be having. Mac, Dan and Jon all singing together....worth the price of my ticket. And can I just say that I think Mac has the greatest voice on the planet and I would listen to him sing anything...when he sang this last song I had to just stop in awe and realize just how amazing his voice is...WOW....just WOW.

MEET AND GREET- That went really well too. About 50+ people there. The guys came in and were sent to their corners;). We walked around to each member. It was kinda crowded and might have made more sense to have the guys walk to us but I know they are tired and this worked fine. Mike (the guy in charge of WIRED) was very very nice. I look forward to seeing him again. We walked around and got autographs, pictures and such then lined up to take the group picture. I like this idea although I really didn't want a picture with the band with me standing in front of them like some statute. So I stood between David and Tai and what a cute picture (see below).

So....I went to the show with Roland, Karla and Ali. Rhonda met us later. It was great to see them as always and it was really nice to sit with Rhonda for a show (haven't done that in a LONG time). Looking forward to the next show in....DALLAS!!!!!

(adding the pictures here at work is taking forever!!! I'll get back to you...here you go for now...LOTS more to come!)

THIRD DAY SHOW TONIGHT!!!

Yes I've seen Third Day 32 times (tonight will make it 33). Yes they play the same songs (well tonight will be new stuff from Revelation). Yes I spent ALOT of money to be on the front row. But you know what....I get excited EVERY SINGLE TIME I get to see them. I get to see friends that I haven't seen in weeks/months/years. I get to see the greatest band on the planet. And I get to worship the LORD OF LORD and KING OF KINGS. Life just doesn't get much better.

I'll tell you how great the show is tomorrow.

September 14, 1996

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME!

Praying for my friends

Most of us are watching the news and praying hard. Hurrican Ike is massive. It is frightening to thing what might happen. I have friends in the path and I've been praying hard for them. I hope you will do the same.

These pictures are breath-taking. There are from www.nasa.gov taken from space. This just reiterates to me the awesomeness of our God.

Kitchen update

Kitchen tile was laid yesterday. The grout will be up in today. We should be able to walk in there again by Saturday.

The plan for the kitchen is now this:
Tiled floors
Paint old cabinets and replace all the hardware
New countertop
New cabinets around fridge (there were no cabinets there before)...these cabinets wil have glass fronts
Paint walls/trim/doors
Buy rolling butcher block cart
"New fridge" (1950's fridge)
"New table" (see in post below)
"New" sink (we bought a white porcelain sink for $25 at the Habitat for Humanity warehouse)

Progress

Here are some pictures of the progress...

Front window to a bay window





Old windows to new windows (we did this in all the bedrooms and bathroom)



Kitchen windows to a sliding glass door (I don't have a picture of the windows before....just the big hole in my house once they took out the windows and cut the wall)




Kitchen floor....what's left of the floor

A plan is coming together

I've thought long and hard about spending almost $3000 to remodel my kitchen and I've decided that I'm not going to spend that much money. We had planned to replace all of our cabinets and then add more. I live in a house that was built in the 1950's. The kitchen is small and the cabinets are still in great shape. They just need a fresh coat of paint and some new hardware. That is what we are going to do-paint and refurbish. We are going to have a retro/vintage/1950's type theme. We bought a really cool table and fridge. Our light fixture is chrome and today we bought a white porcelain sink. I think it is going to look very neat. I don't cook alot therefore I just couldn't see spending so much money in a room that I will not be spending alot of time in and utilizing. This way it will be functional and neat.

The sunroom floor looks great. Tomorrow they will finish it and by Tuesday we will be able to start painting the room. Yeah!

Looking like this is a light at the end of this tunnel somewhere!

Here is a picture of my table.

Stressed out

Unlike most people I know I do not stress out much. I tend to take life as it comes at me and I think I deal with it quite well. This past month has not been the case. I don't want to keep complaining in my blog but I figure this is where I tell the world what's going on in my life so it is what it is.....I do realize life could be ALOT worse. I told myself that over and over today. The remodeling of the house has taken on a life of it's own. I am VERY VERY grateful to my mom for replacing our windows (her gift to us). I am looking forward to a new kitchen and painting my house so it will look really nice. I don't enjoy the chaos around me and the dent in my finances that I wasn't planning on spending right now. I am a saver by nature and spending large amounts of money freaks me out. Yeah I'm freaking right about now. And then little things creep in such as the truck window that had to be replaced, my dog needs her rabies shot, my car needs the oil changed and today I went to take a shower and we have no hot water. I'm praying that it is nothing major but that will be determined tomorrow. So....I'm just a little out of sorts right now.

Most importantly (and this is where I ask for your prayers)Brian is sick. We believe he was bite by a tick and has Lyme disease. He has all the symptoms but the doctor couldn't see him today. The doctor did give him antibotics to start today and Monday he will go in to be sure. He has chills, fatigue and joint pain. I hate seeing him in pain and with all the other stuff right now it is wearing on us both. Just pray he gets well soon. Thanks.

Now it is time to go to work (the most chaotic part of my life!) and drive through the nasty weather that Hanna is bringing us.

Before you all think that I am a whiny human I do realize God is still in control and He has me tucked away in His loving arms....that's why I don't fall slam apart when times are stressful.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Update

For the one or two people that care (if it is even that many) here is the remodeling progress.

Windows are in.
Sliding glass door is in.
Bay window is in.
Trim is pretty much done. Just a few touch up places that we will do when we paint.
Floor in sunroom has been removed.
Today the tile floor in the sunroom will be put down.

To do:
Remove kitchen floor. Replace floor.
Remove kitchen cabinets. Put in new cabinets.
Paint sunroom and kitchen.
Put everything back where it belongs.
Paint bedrooms.
Paint living room.
Replace bathroom floors.
Put in new sink in bathroom.
Buy shades/curtains for windows.
Save money to refinish hard wood floors next year.

This may be done by 2010!

Oh and I have been putting all the patio furniture and dog kennels up in the garage so the hurricanes will not throw them all over the yard. Gotta love hurricane season!

Third Day Live

Check out Third Day's blog HERE

Well I haven't seen the Music Builds tour YET (16 more days and I'll tell you how very cool the show was!) and the Third Day LIVE tour isn't coming near me in the Fall (what's up with that???) so I'll venture into my past and talk about the last Third Day LIVE tour I went to....

Greensboro 2004
I went to this show with Sarah (I sure miss her). She had meet and greet passes which were VERY hard to come by back then. She told me that we were going to meet the band about a month before the show. I was more than excited about this because neither of us had personally met the band yet. We arrived several hours ahead of schedule because the seats were GA and of course we planned on being right up front. Staked out our spots and got where we wanted to be. The meet and greet was before the show so we headed out to get in line for that (we had some really great friends with us to save our spots). We were taken backstage and told how the M&G would work. We were taken back about 20 minutes later than scheduled so Jenn (at the time she was not the tour manager) told us that we could get anything signed we wanted but there would not be enough time for pictures. I told Sarah that I just might get kicked out b/c I planned on taking a picture! Well the band shows up and stands behind a table to meet, greet and sign. Warren Barfield and Toby Mac were there too but we missed Warren (he had to leave to get ready to swing).

The line went quickly but it was nice. I remember Sarah telling Mark Lee who she was on the message boards and he responded with "I've seen you on there alot". Then she told him that I was SirMax and Mark said "I've seen your name too" (yeah I thought that was mighty cool). Sarah had gift bags for the guys and Tai started playing with the stuff in the bags. I told David Carr that Ali Jacbos said hello (that started a long history of telling David that Ali said hey!) Brad was soooo very nice (can I say I really miss him!). We had a nice meet and greet (although I remember asking Mac if I could shake his hand which now seems so very dumb).

Now back to the show. Great show as usual. Fun show too. During "Come Together" Mac asks if anyone would like to sing with the band. Well figuring that 4000 hands would go up I raised my hand. Mac picked a guy from the middle and then pointed to me. Yep I jumped over the railing (with the help of Brittany's knee) and got right up on stage. I'm so glad Mac had the guy sing the first part because my brain drained of any knowledge of the words when the song started. Then I sang my part...what a fun night. I got to figuring later and realize that I was the first Gomer to sing on stage (this show was the 4th in the tour and the other 3 shows Mac didn't have people on stage). Mac carried this tradition through the Fall tour also.

So...my LIVE memory is a great one now to some pictures.





Yes I am aware that I'm sticking my tongue out at Mac...don't ask me...I don't know...