the weekend that was: ah, thanksgiving weekend. great family time. we had a couple families over for thanksgiving day. one of them was my cousin and his wife and baby, who live in LA. they spent the night thursday, and we had a great time with them through friday late morning. the rest of the weekend was filled with massive to do lists, which included decorating the house for christmas. this included a challenging moment when we discovered that the nice fake tree friends had purchased for us last year (we’d always had real trees prior to last year) was too tall for the ceilings in our new house. but it was only about 8 inches too tall. so i used a variety of metal-working tools to hack off 8 inches. and, voila, we now have a decorated tree that nicely mushes up into the ceiling! also had to do a little wire splicing when i discovered i’d cut through one of the light wires. got the lights on the outside of the house also, made our christmas shopping lists (and did a tiny bit of shopping), planned max’s birthday, and a whole bunch of other stuff. friday night we had a family night at the movies: max and jeannie saw bolt, while liesl and i saw twilight (i’ll try to post about this movie later this week). saturday night, liesl was out, and jeannie, max and i watched fred clause while eating cookie dough. sunday morn was church (a really wonderful communion service), followed by bits of the sad chargers game interspersed with decorating. and sunday night we hosted our home church at our house. we had a really meaningful time of writing down things we need to release and things we’d like to embrace on paper. then we wrote one of each that we really want to move forward on onto small colored pieces of paper, then fed them through a shredder. after some discussion about these in triplets, we came back and the person leading had turned those shredded pieces into confetti. we all took a small bunch of the confetti and put it into little round clear boxes (used by people who collect and sort beads). we’re each keeping these to remember to pray for each other. really cool.

where i am at the moment: i have a couple days home before leaving for our canadian convention, and i’m taking them to do some writing and shopping. jeannie and i have a lunch date today, followed by some christmas shopping; but otherwise, i’ll be writing (the “middle school ministry” book is due may 5, and i still have about 7 chapters to go!).

on my to-do list this week: after getting some writing done, and working on my seminars for the canadian youth workers conference, i’ll be in toronto from wednesday on. should be a wonderful event.

procrastinating about: i’m not really procrastinating about writing, but it feels like it, because i have so much to complete. i also have a magazine column due today. i suppose i’m procrastinating about getting caught up on email and facebook messages, since i’m not finding the time for them.

book i’m in the midst of: finished anne rice’s amazing called out of darkness, and started reading steven covey’s (the younger one) the speed of trust, which is shaping up to be a fantastic read.

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: still soaking in all my 80s christian alt i wrote about last week. started listening to christmas music over the weekend, and have been laughing over the gift i received of colbert’s christmas cd.

next trip: wednesday, to toronto, for the canadian youth workers conference. come home next monday.

how i’m feeling about this week: a little stressed at the moment, and don’t feel like leaving town again; but i’m excited about the convention.

bonus: today is my son max’s 11th birthday. crazy. i’ve been telling him for years that the teenage years don’t start at 13 anymore, but are usually considered to be 11 – 20-something. so he’s convinced he becomes a teenager today, which is awesome, because he’s really still a kid who loves being a kid. i had to tell him, “well, this is the year when you start becoming a teenager.” pop over to max’s blog and wish him a happy birthday!