FIRST SUNDAY OF THE NEW YEAR

I have decided what my new life will consist of -- running around.  Here.  There.  Everywhere.  There hasn't been one day since I've retired that I was able to just stay home and do what I wanted to do.  Or have a chance to nap.  I think my life now consists of how much can I cram into one day.

So today began with church, of course.  We have a guest pastor for the month of January.  His name is Sean and he is so nice, so pleasant, and everyone seems to like him.  The director of the denomination and his wife were visiting also.  His wife, Donna, and I have become such good friends and it was great to see her again.  She loaned me a book to read that she really enjoyed.  They will be back the end of the month so I hope to have it done by then to return to her.

We had communion today so I put that all together.  My sister used to be a deaconess at her church and I helped her a couple of times to put the communion together.  That experience has helped me tremendously.

I was just thinking today of how bad it used to be to go to church and how people were so unhappy and leaving the place.  Now it's a wonderful place with great leadership and we have new people coming in each week.  God can transform anything and anyone.

We no sooner got home from church than we had to leave to go meet my mother-in-law and her new boyfriend and exchange Christmas gifts.  We met at McDonald's and spent about an hour eating and talking.  She always gives us amazing gifts.  Joe got an entire outfit -- sweater, jeans, shoes and some sugar-free candy.  I got an new Debbie Macomber book, a cute snowman vest, a snowman mug with hot chocolate mix and some cheese, sausage and crackers.  They also were getting rid of some photo equipment and gave me a Toshiba video camera that I can use for recording the messages at church and a photo printer.  I am thrilled.

We got home just in time for me to get my 4:00 p.m. sky photo.

It's been a lovely day.  What about tomorrow?  I have something to do tomorrow also.  I am meeting the Alston family at church tomorrow at 3:30 to undecorate the church from Christmas and put up winter decorations for January.  So I don't think I'll have a 4 p.m. photo tomorrow.  Unless I run outside to the parking lot.

I am one busy lady.  I'm hoping sometime this week I will actually get to start cleaning the house!  It needs it so badly.

Kathy