lessons for a town house maryland christmas and legend of the gimp tree

so, moving to Maryland has been a learning experience, especially when it comes to decorating. today was Christmas decorating day at the drye house (um, townhouse). we brought out the decorations and spent a couple of hours getting everything arranged. below is my top ten list of things to make sure of when you are decorating a townhouse for Christmas. it is just my learned lessons, nothing more...
10. Christmas Movie: you HAVE to have a good movie on. we chose our traditional National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and took frequent breaks. it snowed today as well, and that helped the Christmas spirit.
9. TIME: we chose a Saturday early afternoon. this seemed to work well with our weekend as we carefully kept our calendar clear for the festive event. i went out in the AM for coffee and a tree, and came back to clean out large Tupperware storage bins full of holiday cheer. we carefully planned a good 4-5 hours for what takes 2- hours tops. we took frequent breaks (ok, maybe it was just me).
8. TREE SELECTION: ok, most people would put this around the top 3 because of the seriousness of the tree, but this year, we were experimenting. it wasn't AS important. see, we ALWAYS get a live tree (ok, we have had 4 Christmases together (double rabbit trail thought 4 Christmases was a great movie and I laughed a lot) so ALWAYS may be a bit strong). for the past 3 years, i have picked out a ridiculously large tree (our house in NC had vaulted ceilings). this year, now that we live in a townhouse on the bay, i was scared to get a large tree because we have 8ft ceilings. so, as you can see, the tree is a good 4-5 ft tall and looks gimpy. lesson learned...7ft tree in the future.
7. VOLUME: a townhouse can handle more than we thought. we went conservative this year because the townhouse is a bit um, how you say, small and tall. we COULD have just looked at what other people do, but i am lazy and figured keeping the volume to a minimum was a good idea this year. plus, we took more breaks.
6. TIMING: this is the first time we have waited until AFTER Nov 28 to decorate, and to tell ya the truth, it seems as though we cheated ourselves out of a couple weeks of holiday enjoyment. i think we need to decorate either right before turkey day or immediately afterward. this is an odd year, though...we spent the week of thanksgiving in NC and away from our new home so decorating was a bit challenging. but it looks cool...
5. FOOD: today for lunch during the decorating i had some leftover chili and a turkey sandwich...a good yule log and some fresh chili with grilled cheese would have really done the trick...and some peanut butter balls...Jesus would have been more proud...don't skimp on the meal is my suggestion
4. PLACEMENT OF THE TREE: ok, now we get into the nitty gritty...we placed the tree RIGHT beside our box of glowing pictures. time will tell whether this is a good move or not. it does make the zombie on the couch look i go for much easier to accomplish. however, we may move the location back to behind the couch in the future...i am unsure...this has top three potential.
3. MAXIMUM STORAGE ACCESSIBILITY: this is a newbie priority for me. make all the decor storage very accessible in the town home. this means prioritizing the placement of boxes in the "cave" on the bottom floor. if you create "crawl ways" (kind of like walkways that you crawl through) and accessibility it makes the process of decorating much simpler. this was a grade A #1 move for us (me) this year.
2. PRIORITIZE LIGHTING: with the gimp tree this year, we made a priority on the best lights. see, with a 13 ft tree, you need lots of lights. with a gimp tree, you only need two strands of your best lights. so, make them count...
and finally,
1. NAPTIME: make it a point to be extra lazy after decorating by turning up the space heater and curling up for a good afternoon nap. after that, watch college football, 80s movies ($20 if you can identify the movie we're watching in the photo above...), reality TV, and Celebrity Rehab with Dr Drew...oh, and get take out chinese. it is the evening the shepherds foretold.

so that's it...for all you townhouse dwellers, i hope this was helpful
-n

behold my demise

so, a coworker who we'll just call KIM...gave me a bag of small round peppers.
BEHOLD


most of them were green at first, then they all turned a bright red. so last night i decided to cut them up, and Shauna used 3 of them in a stir fry.

long story short...i should have used gloves. these are some of the hottest peppers i have eaten...EVER. did i say ever? i think they are habaneros...but the flavor isn't familiar. JUST the presence of these little demons in the stir fry was too much for Shauna. i LOVE hot food, esp peppers, and it took me a while to get through the meal...which i did and loved it.

However, everything i touch now has pepper oil on it and burns...so don't shake my hand for a while...unless you want your skin to burn. i cant wear my contact lenses right now...my eyes felt like they were going to explode this morning when i tried to put in my contacts.

so, thank you Kim...i want more of these peppers...and some gloves. and hopefully, in a few days i can put my contacts in and be normal...until then, dont shake my hand...trust me.

we accept the love we think we deserve...

i look at several blogs every week. one of them is the postsecret blog developed by frank warren. the blog is definitely something to look at with discretion, and i, personally, find it intriguing. basically (short explanation is needed), the blog is nothing but people's volunteered anonymous secrets. it is a wonderful study of our culture.

that being said, i ran across a quote on there this week:
"we accept the love we think we deserve."

i tend to highly agree with this statement. not only do we struggle to forgive and love others, but when it comes to ourselves, it is very difficult. i also think this is a large factor in someone accepting the forgiveness and love of christ. how can we accept this forgiveness and love and it be a natural part of our development?

i would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this. i find it very interesting.
taking risks,
-n

chill out and be normal...

So, I lead teams of creative people at ALC, and honestly, it kind of surprises me. You see, I am, by nature, a very obsessive compulsive type of person. When you combine obsessive compulsiveness with creative personalities, explosions happen. However, I have this affinity for the creative, myself. So, in some ways, the two personalities meet in my strange strange world.

A great example of this is what happens every week at ALC when we merge art, creativity, music, and media production together. For instance, this week, we not only had a good music set, we had eight full videos, an interpretive dance (coordinated with a video), top 20 music in the background before and after, camera production of everything, words on a screen with moving video, and oh yeah, a message (great job btw this week, Dan). With all of this happening, the teams I lead make or break the production. We constantly remind ourselves of how God trusts and enables us to communicate no matter what job individuals on the team perform. But we also consistently pray that God will dominate the conversation every week in our Celebrations.

This week (today, Nov 9) was themed around the emotion/ issue of stress. GREAT. You know what happens when you put 20-30 team members on the production line when we talk about stress?
1. The lead of the music team battles illness (however, Rich did sound like Bob Seger so it was kinda cool)
2. People FORGET that they are on schedule and we are short several team members
3. I stress out
4. We have a major message element (dance), and it is now more stressful in the production because of missing team members and the lovely welcome of winter colds. AND the leader of the dance team gets married two days before so she (for WONDERFUL GREAT REASONS CONGRATS JENN!!!) couldn't be there. (AND YOU DID A GREAT JOB AS THE LEAD THIS WEEK< href="http://abundantlifechurch.us/main/podcasts.html">You can be directed here. It is usually uploaded and ready by Tuesday at the latest.

Take the risk,
n

ThinkTank @ ALC

Every one of our Celebrations at ALC is the product of many team players, thinkers, dreamers, and doers. It is so much fun for our Creative Arts teams to pull off artistic worship elements each week. But these elements don't just "happen", they are brainstormed and developed months before an actual Celebration.

Each element, from a musical selection during the break to an artistic expression during a message, has a specific purpose in the Celebration. Many of our elements are produced by a specific team in Creative Arts called ThinkTank.

ThnkTank is a team we began developing a few months ago. The only reason ThinkTank exists is to brainstorm and dream. The team meets once a month to discuss ideas, dreams, and develop fresh methods of communication for our Celebration. However, the meeting is only valuable if the team members bring ideas to the meeting. To help facilitate this, the ThinkTank blog (www.alcthinktank.blogspot.com) is utilized. Series titles and themes are posted regularly, and the blog is the vehicle ThinkTank uses to generate individual contribution, so when the team gathers, everyone can contribute.

If you are interested in a low commitment and fun way to contribute creatively to our community at ALC, you may want to consider the ThinkTank team. It is a great entry into the larger Creative Arts team that produces the art and influence in our Celebrations.

To get more info, all you need to do is go to the blog (mentioned above) and start sharing your ideas. Once you subscribe to the blog, you will receive info on meetings and everything you will need to contribute.

tell me what i want to hear...

and now for a political bullet point rant for both candidates:

• quit attacking your opponent and tell me WHY to vote for you. it doesn't seem you can do that without including the attack. refute, defend, but stop the pointless character attacks...neither of you will ever live up to our expectations. i am disappointed.
• be normal. quit saying safe statements. be authentic. if you have convictions or frustrations on policy that needs changing, let me know. why must you be so boring when you talk to us, the voters? i am disappointed.
• talk to me. i am undecided. quit talking to your CORE and exciting them. you are using the screams and cheers as false momentum. YOU ALREADY HAVE THOSE VOTES. QUIT TALKING TO THEM AND TALK TO ME. i am disappointed.
• watch CNN. there is this great blog called fact check and it is one of the best blogs i have found. (votegopher.com is also very good) i have found CNN to be non-partisan and more reliable than ANY other newscast (cable or network). once i started reading, i was again disappointed.
• give me facts about our economic issue. go back to our moves in the late nineties, for example, and how the administration in that time demanded companies like Fannie and Freddie were mandated to create a playground for bad credit practices. tell me how we plan on restoring and rejuvenating our false economy of the past six years. i am SO disappointed.
• give us more ammunition for SNL. someone mess up! says something coarse or ridiculous! will someone please be the entertainment besides sarah palin? she is the only GEM for comedy in this gaggle (credit: drew wade word). i am...you know
• how come you continue to ignore people under 30? last election, 47% of us voted. i GUARANTEE you more will vote this time. speak to us. speak to those coming after us. help us out. we are getting screwed when it comes to the long term health of our government, and neither of you care to address that. we may not be the millionaries and fund raisers yet, but oh my good lord what loyalty we would provide when really drive the economy in ten years. thanks MTV for beginning this conversation in the 80's. maybe facebook will tackle this in the next four years in a more effective way. disappointed.
• back up your talk from the rick warren forum. both of you expressed Christian values and faith, but the way you BOTH run your campaigns say differently. it just resembles what i hvae feared...you are only saying what people want to hear. not only that, your actions are only portraying what your campaign wants people to see. you are not actors. cut it out. estoy decepcionado

the common thread here: disappointment. i have no idea where the leadership is for this election because we cant see it. it seems like too many smoke and mirrors. we will not know until later, and this type of trial and error seems to be breaking our bones. in these weak web we put our trust?

Job 8:13-15 (New International Version)

13 Such is the destiny of all who forget God;
so perishes the hope of the godless.

14 What he trusts in is fragile ^[a] ;
what he relies on is a spider's web.

15 He leans on his web, but it gives way;
he clings to it, but it does not hold.

OH...help.

take the risk,
n

DOW, why you be so mean?

Firstly, the book Jesus For President, has had a profound effect on me the past few weeks. I heartily endorse and recommend you read it. Many, many kudos to shane claiborne and chris haw. My thoughts below are taken from some musings since reading the book, a conversation with my dad, and mostly just my journey through some of this economic mess.

The past few weeks have really stressed out the American public. And, rightfully so. I was talking to my dad on the phone earlier this week about the stock market and the losses and bailout ad nauseam. My dad and I are very similar: we look similar, we have some of the same spending habits, when either of us are stressed out it is obvious (we don’t hide our feelings very well). And in this conversation, I was the only one stressed out. We talked about the economy could cripple the job market, how he and I could lose our jobs if the spiral downward kept going. We talked about how his retirement and investments are losing money every day, and how my retirement in its infancy should be ok in the long run. And throughout this entire conversation, he would say things like: “yep, it’s gonna be tough,” “well, whatcha gonna do...” And I finally said to him: “Dad, I am watching CNN and the DOW Jones like a maniac and getting depressed...and I don;t have as much in this to lose as you do or the majority of investors. Why do you seem to not care about this?” And my dad said these brilliant words of wisdom: “Well, what happens happens. You need to stop watching this stuff. Don’t get depressed, it isn’t good for you.”
I have meditated and thought about those simple, non threatening words from my dad. These are certainly different words than I receive from CNN and drudgereport.com. Why is my dad, who I am very much a carbon copy of, not stressed out? And it hit me, my dad is not living his life around these economic successes or failures. He isn’t depending on a presidential candidate to fix everything. He knows that none of that will probably happen...because what happens will happen. Now, my dad is not some super spiritual giant who makes blasé statements like “God is in control.” But you know what, whether he says it often in cliche or not, I know my dad has a hope in Christ. And in the midst of all this stress, my own walk with Jesus seems to be challenged. I am responding differently than him on many of these issues.

We are 30/31 days away from electing a new president. I am into the debates and the whole thing. I read blogs, watch jibjab.com, youtube videos...I love it. I have watched our culture base our existence and hope of survival on these two candidates. Let me tell you: no political party has that power. Too many people in our culture live with these candidates as hope...one article I read even called a candidate the Hope of the World. Friends, when we live like this, we are in real danger.

Living with Jesus as Lord in our lives has nothing to do with that type of thinking. This week, I have been challenged a great deal by this little phrase: Jesus is my Lord. For this to be reality for most of my week, Jesus would be the focus of my thoughts and actions instead of CNN, blogs, calendars, facebook, and the DOW Jones. All these things are not bad, they are actually quite helpful at times. But I tend to catch myself, in my journey, looking at other influences to drive my time, energy, mood, and general outlook on life. See, with Jesus as Lord, all these things (facebook, CNN, blogs, etc.) are put under a different filter and lens, and my outlook becomes more like a “what happens happens.” I am not apathetic, I am balanced and hopeful because I live with Jesus as Lord.

take the risk,
n