A tale of two Saturdays...

Last Saturday, beautiful, warm, sunny. Spent the whole day outside. Had the patio doors flung open. Ahhhhhhhh.

This Saturday, the pictures say it all. Will Spring/Summer ever arrive???

A new job!

On Wednesday I started a new job for the state as a Librarian on a tax project. It's a permanent job and ironically it's in a complex of offices where I started my career in government in 1990. How's that for a bit of deja vu? Even weirder is there are six or seven people working for this agency that I've worked with before, all of us working on this project. Wow! Like old home week.

I think the work is going to be very interesting and challenging and so far I'm enjoying my new team mates. We are a tiny staff now, but will be growing like crazy over the summer as the project gears up and we'll have quite a crowd in place by fall. Kinda fun getting in on the ground floor.

I do miss the folks at GET, great group there too, but the job was temporary and when the opportunity for this one presented itself I really felt I needed to pursue it and I'm glad I did!!

82 glorious degrees

At long last, the first REALLY nice day of the year!! A wonderfully sunny and warm 82 degrees (tied the record for this day actually) and we spent nearly all of it outdoors soaking up the much appreciated sun and WARMTH. When we were indoors we had two of our three patio doors wide open to the fresh warm air. Fabulous!!! Would be great if this could continue all spring and summer long, but alas, winter is back in the forecast for the next 10 days. Temps in the 40s and rain, rain and more rain. But what a GREAT day today was!!

Opening weekend at the Farmer's Market

We got down there in between the rainstorms, but we didn't stay too long because it was windy and cold. Ralph wanted to get either some jerky or some chicken pepperoni from Stewart's, but between the long line and the windy conditions he decided it wasn't worth freezing for, so we'll get it next time we go...hopefully we'll finally get some REAL spring weather. Here's the line at Stewart's!!



Because our weather has been so crummy, lots of the crops are still weeks away from being ready to sell, but this market always has a lot of other interesting things such as bakeries, jam makers, salsa makers and loads of other things on the block:

Handmade pottery



Handmade chocolate, hand tempered even!!



Flowers, more flowers, and even more:







Even oysters (and fish of course)



And the lavender lady:

Kathy's surgery

Lots of prayers on lots of lips today for my cousin's Kathy's surgery to replace a heart valve and those prayers were answered by a very successful surgery. She'll be in intensive care at least overnight, perhaps another day. We are all quite thankful things went well. Praise God!

Fundraiser for cousin Kathy

My cousin Kathy needs a heart valve replacement and the surgery is scheduled for April 1. She's been a little short of cash and leave time and so her brother organized a benefit dinner and auction for her this past Saturday.

My goodness, he did such a fabulous job. He prepared a great manicotti and salad dinner on top of organizing a raffle and auction!! When you ask him he says he had a lot of help getting it together, but he was the driving force to get it done.

Tim cooking:



Ed and Cyndy serving:



They had a big table full of raffle items and sold about $400 worth of raffle tickets alone, plus the proceeds of the auction and the dinner to help defray the medical expenses above what her insurance will pay and to cover the two plus months she'll be off work recovering.

Tim auctioning one of dozens of item, this being his highly sought after pickled asparagus!!



The kids came out to support Kathy, on their 11th wedding anniversary no less!!



And the guest of honor, Kathy!!

Tenebrae 2008

We missed the Tenebrae 2008 service at church this year, but heard all about it on Sunday. Everyone said it was the best ever...great music and preaching are a given at Mt View, always awesome. This service also had some extras, the sound of sins being nailed to a wooden cross echoing through the sanctuary, symbolizing all the things we need to and CAN leave at the cross.

The thing that blew everyone away was a painting done by our new youth pastor Mat...done during the service itself as people watched and listened and heard the word of God they saw this painting evolve and emerge as the service progressed. The pictures say it all:















What a gift to our congregation. He is RISEN!