WHADJUCALLME?

Friday morning I was not called in to shovel.  And that was ok with me.   I awoke to the sound of shoveling outside my window, however.  Nick got up early and did my driveway for me.  He's a good man.

pretty, but wet and heavy

After they had the snow cleared at work we held a training session.  About 10 guys that work on concrete patios were called in to train on caulking seams and joints. (Exciting stuff, I know)

theres more to making it look good than you think

I kind of have a handle on caulking from my days as a remodeler so I went back to my area and fabricated some lockers for the shop.

Just like school

The boss ordered pizza for everyone for lunch and I ate WAY too much.  I seem to have a real weakness for pizza.  As the food coma set in it was obvious not much more work would get done so we made the decision to call an end to the week.

The sun falls on another Friday

Saturday we had been invited by our friend Mike to help serve dinner at the new Y campus.  Nick came along to help out.  It is a brand new building to house those in need.  We took a tour of the facilities and I was really impressed.  There are 140 apartments with stove, micro and fridge.  The tennents sign a 6 month lease at prices ranging  from 500 to near free rent, depending on the situation. They have a common area for eating a dinner (served at least once a week) and a library and computer area as well as a small work out room.

The church ladies,.. 'isn't that special'

the group on tour,   now we need a tour bus

Robyn wants a dishwasher like that

We had a great time.  As the chef, Larry was telling us where we could help out, everyone seemed to jump at the options.  Nick almost ran me over to get to the beverage station and Robyn was at the dishwashing station before Larry even told us where it was.  I moved around just so I could see the faces of the people we were feeding.  They were all so grateful.  Mike and I thought this would be a God send for our common friend Steve.  I've blogged about him before and I hope he looks into this.  It could ease some of his burdens.

Sunday evening Robyn and I went to our Financial Peace meeting.  They talked about how to put together a budget.  We need help in that area because unfortunately, when we see something we want, we get it.  I mean as long as there are checks in the check book we must still have money, right?

Ok, ok,  we aren't really that bad but we still need the help.  Robyn and I have scheduled our first budget meeting for Thursday.

Our friend Mark leads the class

Monday morning I was sent out to a little house in the country to template a bathroom sink.

the little house in the country... club estates

It is still under construction.  When I got there I found 6 other bathrooms before I found the one we are doing.  There is some incredible wood work going on in there, and I will post pics when we do our install.  Check out this vanity..

I'm going to make this into a piece of art

We are doing a panel across the face, the top and backsplash.  This one will be tricky because it is wedge shaped as well as curved.  But like I always say, I love a challange.

Tuesday I went down to the main offices.  They are putting in a shower because the owner is going to start running on his lunch break and wants to be able to clean up.  We are putting concrete panels on the walls.  We also put in a quartz floor.

tuff to template

Tuesday night I had to tend bar.  It wasn't real busy so I was able to watch a little of my favorite show, American Idol.  I wish I had Tivo.

Wednesday I began forming the vanity for the little country house.  How to build the front panel was a serious puzzle.

the base..

the cap..

When put together we will pour between them

Wednesday night was small group.  We studied about Joesph.  Old testament Joesph.  That guy had some serious troubles but somehow always kept his eye on God.  I asked the group if they ever had troubles but knew God was at work.  Not a lot of answers were forthcoming.  Usually when we have turmoil the last place we look is toward God, unless we are blaming Him.  But it brought back some memories for Robyn and I.  It's the story of how we got the name, The Griswolds.

When we were much younger and still dating, Robyn told me she had never been to Worlds of Fun theme park in Kansas City.  On opening week-end I thought it would be a great idea to take her down there.  On the way I ran over a broken beer bottle in the middle of the interstate.  It's not a lot of fun trying to change a tire on the traffic side as semis go by like bullit trains.  And this was a long time ago, before they had those fake donut tires as spares.  Except on my car, it was ahead of it's time.

Of course I had a brand of tire that was not readily available so we had to go to a not so nice part of Kansas City to get a tire to match the others.

It took most of the fun money we had with us but we didn't let it dampen our spirits.  We headed to our hotel and rested up for the big day we were going to have in the morning.

Bright and early we rushed to the park.  As we arrived we noticed that we were some of the first ones there, we were going to get a great parking space.  As we pulled up to the lot gate, the guard told us that they weren't open.  I asked what time they opened.  He said, and I quote, "We won't open this week-end, only thirteen people showed up."

WHAT?

I told him we were fourteen and fifteen, but he said sorry, try next week-end.

We were as stunned as you are.  I never heard of such a thing.  This isn't some small town, rinky dink operation.  This is a major theme park.

sigh...

So we left and headed back to our hotel.  On the way we saw a bill board for the Kansas City zoo and decided to go there instead.   It turned out to be a lucky day after all because the zoo was only charging half price admission.  They were doing some remodeling or something.  When we boarded the little train to take us to the other side of the zoo, we found out why it was so cheap.  All the big animals were not there.  They had wooden cut outs in their place.  The conductor was telling us that the animals were too stressed by the remodel but "This is where the elephants WOULD be..".  Ok, maybe we weren't so lucky.   

The next day we decided to catch a Royals baseball game.  There is the Royals stadium and the Chiefs stadium together with one huge parking lot.  We parked and went in.  I got to see Nolan Ryan pitch to George Brett.  Two hall of famers.  That was cool, but as we left the game we realized we didn't know where we parked. ( I haven't made that mistake since)  We walked in the general direction pushing the lock button all the way and following the honks.

Although I am not a huge fan of NCAA basketball, the collage basketball hall of fame is in K.C. so we figured we would finish off our trip and go check it out.  I think we were the only ones in there and several of the displays were malfunctioning.  That was one of the bright spots of this trip.  On the plus side, we didn't get shot at all week-end. (That happened on our honeymoon, but I'll tell you about that later)

Looking back almost a quarter of a century later,  I can now see that God was at work there.  If not for that trip, we wouldn't be the Griswolds, I wouldn't have this blog and I wouldn't be sharing His word with people all over the world.  He does indeed work in mysterious ways.

Thursday at work I began the layout of the shower panels and we got Hawaii loaded for the install tomorrow.  

These won't be to hard to form

Nick stayed home today because he wanted to go to the grocery store and get what he needed to make meatloaf for our dinner.

As I headed home I had to snap a quick pic of this amazing sunset..

beautiful

I got home and the house smelled great.  Although this picture is blurry, the dinner was really good.  Meatloaf is one of my favorites.  I ate way too much, I think I have a weakness for meatloaf too.

Salad and a huge, loaded baked potato too

As the food coma began to set in, I sat back and relaxed.  Idol was coming on and I had a front row seat.

somebody get me a tums

Nick's making his world famous chili on Saturday.  I can't wait.  I have a weakness for chili.

Oh yeah, and the budget meeting was moved to Friday so we could watch our show.  I'm thinking of getting a wooden cut out of myself for the meeting, so I can avoid the stress.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Peace

Dan