11/21/2009

Saturday Entry

Well, got things ready for our Thanksgiving doings today. Changed the valve cover gasket in our minivan. Been needing to do it for a while, but just took a while to build up the courage. It went okay; not that difficult of a repair. Changed the oil also. Fixed the backyard gate, tried to fix the front porch railing. Those things went okay too. Bagged all the leaves in the front yard too since all my neighbors have now raked up all theirs. We have no trees in our front yard, so I'm technically raking up all their leaves. It's a trade-off, though, because I love their beautiful trees. Washed the van. Prepared for teaching Sunday School tomorrow. All normal stuff, except I usually try to spend 9 hours on my dissertation on a Saturday, so I'll need to make that up tonight and tomorrow if possible.

Just got the album "The Last DJ" by Tom Petty from the library and it has this wonderful song called "You and Me" on it. Just a really good song. Also, just checked out ELO's greatest hits. I never was an ELO fan - I remember my brothers - one of them anyway - had an ELO album that was transparent vinyl. Anyway, I wanted to hear the song "Mr. Blue Sky" and the greatest hits had it. I also was surprised by all the other songs on there that I remember from the seventies and eighties but that I didn't know were ELO songs. They weren't the best band in the world, but some of their stuff sounds like the Kinks and you can't do much better than sounding like the Kinks.

Don't know if I've mentioned this, but we've decided to participate in a church plant here in St. Louis. Our church is planting a new church in the Carondolet neighborhood. It will be called "Resurrection Presbyterian" and we've already secured a place to meet - an old Lutheran church down there. It is a beautiful building with stained glass. Its congregation will meet at 9:00 for worship and we'll meet at 11:00. Seems like a good fit for us. It was hard to decide whether or not to go because, well, inertia. But it felt like the right thing to do. The pastor who is planting the church is our assistant pastor at Providence and he was a classmate and neighbor of mine in seminary.

I've been working hard on my dissertation, going back through all the chapters and making them better, making sure they meet the formatting requirements, etc. It seemed so within grasp a few weeks ago and now it seems like I have a lot to do. I think both things are true, but it is hard to believe both characterizations at the same time.

Saw the movie "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith the other day. A really good movie, but don't watch it if you're prone to depression. It has the ultimate depressive fantasy as its centerpiece and I won't say anymore so as not to spoil the plot for all my non-depressed readers. Hah hah. Smith's a good actor.

Well, gotta run. Saturday night and all that. Have a good Sunday, dear readers.