New christmas tree and carpet at the church

Yesterday was my first day back at the office after a week away. I started out by driving through snow and ice to get there, and when I turned onto Yoder Road there were two places where I had to drive through standing water across the road from flooding. Interesting.

Anyway... I bought a new Christmas Tree for the church while on vacation. The lady who usually puts the tree up had suggested the last few years that we get a new (pre-lit) tree. She also asked that it be at least 9' tall. Jane and I have been looking at trees for several weeks now. Some places had nicer looking trees than others, and the prices were all over the place. I finally just decided to get a 9-foot pre-lit tree at Walmart for $149. It doesn't look as nice as many of them, and it's a little on the skinny side, but it was about half as much money as the next closest tree. It's not like we're a real fancy church anyway. So if people want to complain... whatever. At least I saved us some money (which is often the biggest complaint. Plus we've been a little down in our giving the past few weeks too).

Another surprise greeting I got was the new basement flooring. I wasn't real sure when it was supposed to be done - and I almost didn't take vacation because they were supposed to come sometime early this week, but I decided I need to let go of stuff like that and let other people worry about it sometimes. Anyway, I 'thought' they were supposed to put new vinyl flooring in the kitchen part on Monday, and then Tuesday they were going to come and put new carpet in the two main rooms in the basement. However they must have started on Tuesday, and apparently when they got here there was water on the floor near where the pipes come into the basement (because of all the rain), so they couldn't put the vinyl down until the floor was dry. So they started putting carpet down on the one side.

So... not long after getting to the office Wednesday the Building & Grounds chairman showed up and I spent an hour or two helping him move stuff around in the basement. Then the carpet layers arrived and they went to work finishing up the carpet. It looks really nice, if I do say so myself. Today they will put the vinyl down in the kitchen and serving area. They thought they should be done by noon or early afternoon.

All in all, it's a good thing I had a good start on the Sunday service already (and my sermon) because I wasn't expecting to have to do all that, plus going through a week's worth of mail (which the postmaster couldn't find for me Tuesday when I stopped to get it, but apparently someone must have found it yesterday and they just delivered it), plus just the usual business of trying to get myself back in the groove.

Today I start off with breakfast with my fellow area pastors. Hopefully they all survived Thanksgiving too.

Happy December to ya!