Driving by Feel

Have you ever been somewhere several times, don't exactly know the directions, but once you're en route you 'feel' your way there?

Usually when I try that, it doesn't work out so good. My 'feeler' is usually slow. That means I have to turn around several times, get irritated, and usually having to make a phone call to get real directions.

However, on Saturday, it worked perfectly. I was meeting my parents, my sister and my uncle at a family cemetery. It had been several years since I had been there. I was not exactly sure of all the turns and knew none of the road names. I headed in the right direction and went by 'feel'. Several landmarks had changed, but I didn't miss a turn. Cool!

Life is like that. We don't know all of the turns that we should make. We don't know all of the answers. We have to go by 'feel' sometimes. When I'm following Christ, that 'feel' isn't my good guess, but rather Christ's leading.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be led that go on a guess. How about you?

Not Funny Any More!

I wrote earlier about our goats getting our paper. That day it was cute and kinda funny.

Not now. Those jokers are now going to our newspaper box, pulling out the paper, and eating it. The other day, we were watching for the paper, saw it delivered, grabbed a coat, and those goats got to the newspaper box before I could. Dang!

I don't mind them eating the paper, it's actually an easy way to recycle. Just let me read it first!

Race Weekend Highlights

This is the 4th year that my family has gone to Virginia Beach for the Shamrock races, so it has started to become somewhat of a tradition. In 2007, I ran in the 1/2 marathon. In 2008 and 2009 two other families joined us and the guys ran in the 8k.

This year, the three families returned. Danny, Todd and Corrie (her first!) ran in the 8k (5 miles). Amy and I ran in the half-marathon (13.1 miles). It was Amy's first! Here were some observations:

• Going to Olive Garden on Friday is definitely a tradition that I don't want to give up. I love going to OG, but going with a group of friends is awesome! It's also guilt-free - knowing that you can eat a lot and burn it off running in the race!
• Love staying on the ocean front where you can hear the ocean in your room and see the sunrise over the water.
• Reminded that I'm glad we don't live in an apartment. Loud neighbors at 3am would get old.
• It was fun watching Todd, Corrie and Danny run on Saturday. I hadn't watched many races since I'm usually in them - it was fun trying to find them in the crowd. It was also fun watching those that won the race - they basically sprinted the whole race.
• Saw the craziest thing - after the 8k, runners were stretching out so they wouldn't get stiff. One of the runners - a guy really in shape - was stretching while smoking a cigarette! No one was with him, so that meant that he carried his cigarettes with him for 5 miles. Crazy!
• Our race began Sunday morning at 7am. We left the hotel at 6:30 t0 walk to the start line. It was weird to be walking while it was still dark with thousands of others.
• Along the race course was several were water & Gatorade stops. There was even one place where people were handing out beer to runners.
• It was fun to hear folks yell out your name and cheer you on. (my name was on race # that I wore).
• After finishing the race, it is quite satisfying for the next few minutes to soak in the knowledge that 1). the run is over 2). I finished it 3). it's time to relax.

After showering and checking out of the hotel, Amy and I went back over the the festivities at the finish line. We got some Irish Stew, sat on the beach, and watched the marathoners finish. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we realized that those that were finishing running now had run twice as far as we did. Wow. What we had done was real tough - I can't imagine a marathon.

Who knows . . . maybe some day.

How'd You Do?

This weekend a group of us from church are headed to Virginia Beach to run in a couple of different races. Three will be running in the 8K race tomorrow morning. Amy and I will be running in the 1/2 marathon on Sunday morning.

The question "How'd You Do?" will be asked, and it will be referring to my race time, or how I felt, or if I finished.

The question actually goes back to many months ago when we started training for this distance. How we do in the race has to do with how well we trained. You can't make up for the lack of training.

For us - we expect to do well. We've trained well. We don't expect to be faster than we were when we trained. We expect to finish. And finish well. That's what we've trained for.

That's true in life, too. (Had to put that in there).

Now looking forward to eating at Olive Garden and spending time on the beach!

The Paper

Went out to get the paper earlier this morning and this is all that I found.

Crazy.

It's not unusual to be missing a section or even the whole paper, but to have only a chewed-off piece left was really weird.

I looked around and spied these two looking at me - hmmm . . .

Change of Routine

I know its been a while - I'm trying to get back in the routine of posting.

We're trying something new now at the church office. For years, we have worked in the office from Tuesday through Friday - with me having Mondays and Saturdays to be more flexible.

Starting today - we're in the office on Mondays - Thursdays. We'll try it and see how it works. Like a lot of things, it's an experiment. If it doesn't work, we'll change it.

One thing I already like - staff meeting on Monday. We get to celebrate the big things that happened over the weekend. Two of big things that we celebrated:

1) at the teen event on Friday - almost double the # of teens - WOW!

2) new folks at church again yesterday! One person drove over an

hour (one way) to be with us for the first time!

Great stuff is happening at Bagley Swamp! God is good!