Over the last month we all chipped in at Casa Wray and built a deck.

The sub structure  . . .

The half way point . . .

With half the boards in place we talked the father in law into coming up for a day.  With his help (because I was trying to finish it before going out of town) we installed the remaining boards.

The boy and put the final coat of stain on the deck this past Saturday and now the dance floor is ready . . .

Realized last night that outside of the mandated Sunday morning hour – what ever we do  - when ever we do it – doesn’t seem to matter what we do – the same group of people (plus or minus 5) are going to show up.

That’s certainly a good thing in many respects.

But can you see how in other respects it’s not such a good thing?

As I have previously mentioned my favorite local coffee shop closed a couple of months ago.

The result of their closing means more money into the fishing fund and more nervous jitters!

We were up late last night working on slides for ZOE and up early this morning to finish and I decided to go try another local place.

Am I the only one or does anyone else believe the cup can make a difference?

Mocha Joe’s (as does Starbucks) used those nice crisp paper cups.

I think part of the whole coffee experience is the tactile stimulation of that cup in your hand.

This new place (Coffee Crazy) uses the shiny styrofoam cups (as does McDonalds).

Maybe it’s just my imagination (or I’m just crazy) but I’m not so crazy about coffee in a shiny styrofoam cup.

It feels way too processed.

It’s important to have other skills in this business of ministry.

Sometimes the other skills crossover and help you be more effective in the business of ministry.

Such a crossover skill, for example, would be mucking out the sewer drain.

Seriously, how many business meetings have you full timers been in and the thought of mucking out the sewer drain sounded more appealing than staying in the meeting?

I mention this simply to say the sewer at our house backed up again due to tree roots growing in the sewer line.

The first two times we called roto router and $200 later I had seen enough of the roto in action that new I could do it myself.

The next two times I rented the machine from Home Depot and had the roots out in under 5 minutes (another $100 later).

Now with $300 down the drain – and how often do you get to use an expression that actually applies to the situation? – I’m faced with some choices for when this happens again.

A – Dig up the sewer line and replace the spot in the pipe that allows the entrance of the roots.

B – Purchase the roto maching for $300 (the next time this happens of course)

C – Forget the sewer stuff and focus my attention on more important things like fishing.