Year(s) in Review

I had my first-ever "ministry review" tonight. I was in my first call for almost 4 years, second call for 2, and we arrived here almost 3 years ago - and this is the first time I've had a formal review in all those years! The church council president and another council member arrived on our doorstep at 7pm and then the fun began...
My dear husband/colleague went first. I tended to the Munchkin upstairs. (The reviews happened at our house so that Munchkin could do her regular bed-time routine with us instead of either being up late or trying to fall asleep with a sitter.We figure since the two of us share one FTE, perhaps it's not too much to ask to have folks come to our house when both of our presences are required. Plus, I served angel food cake with peaches, raspberries and whipped cream. I try to make sure there's a plus-side whenever people accomodate us.)
I think the reviews went okay. We ended up mostly reviewing ourselves - there wasn't a lot of feedback from the two folks involved - it sounds like the whole council will get a turn to add their two cents at our meeting later this week. I'm not sure how I should feel about that. We'll see...
The best part about the review, as far as I'm concerned, is the opportunity to articulate a few goals for the year. Next year's review will start with those. I'm hoping to help more adults get involved in Bible study groups, do a sermon series, spend more time with members/friends of the congregation in their homes/places of work/favorite lunch or coffee spots, and be more intentional in building relationships with and among the college students who worship with us during the academic year. They're all pretty do-able, I think.
Of course goal-setting is important to me generally - how else would one become a "queen of lists"? That said, a lot of my daily to-do's don't always get done. Yep. No photo taken today. I was tempted to take a picture of the Munchkin standing up in her crib with a huge goofy grin on her face, but didn't want the flash to get her all riled up again.
So- here's a photo from the weekend. We spent Sunday afternoon at the local Sweet Pea Festival of the Arts. The Munchkin's first outdoor concert: Shawn Mullins. Not too bad.

The Munchkin and her Daddy at Sweet Pea

Tomorrow: back to work. And there WILL be a photo!

One more thing...

Now that the house is quiet and I'm the last creature awake, I'm catching up a little on some blog reading. One of my favorite things about "wasting" time this way is the wonder-of-the-internet: how you can spend huge amounts of time just clicking links and seeing where they take you. That's especially true on some of the blogs I read.
In case you need a laugh, go read this.

Productive Produce

Today was my first regular day off since late June. And it was a pretty good day. One of the best things about it was actually getting to sleep until I was ready to get up; no alarm was set, the Munchkin managed to go back to sleep a few times. Glorious. The past few weeks have been a bit hectic - VBS last week, the week before we were at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp as camp pastors, and the week before that was a Middle School Day Camp, called "Service Plunge." All three weeks were great, but all three weeks were BUSY, and meant that our regular schedule of who's in the office when (and who gets to stay home to Munchkin-sit) went directly out the window.
I'm hoping that our schedule works mostly as planned for at least a week or two. We'll see...
Another great thing about today was tending to some of the fruits and veggies we've purchased over the last few days: dehydrated the last of the strawberries this morning, and several pounds of Bing cherries are dehydrating now. We bought multiple bunches of carrots at our Farmers Market Saturday (for two years in a row we have inadequately thinned the carrots in our garden, so they're pretty dang tiny...). And today I made pickled carrots - something I haven't eaten in years, but which I remember eating a lot of as a kid. Then early this evening, we headed to a parishioners house to pick raspberries. We've still got freezer jam in the freezer from last year's crop, so we're just going to enjoy these fresh and maybe freeze a few for winter smoothies and bowls of Cheerios.


8 pints of pickled carrots. They got cooked a bit past "tender."
We're hoping we don't end up with pickled mush!

 After the Munchkin went to bed we sat out on our deck for the first time this summer (long story) and watched the sunset as we made a meal plan for the week. Then we watched a thunderstorm roll in to the south of us. Quite spectacular. (The storm, not the meal plan... though the meal plan should prove incredibly tasty, make the most of local fresh produce and what's already in our freezer, and lead to minimal food waste).
All in all, a good day. The to-do list was only partly completed, but then I am an over-ambitious list maker. And there's always tomorrow.

 -- Speaking of which, it's my goal to at least post a picture-a-day for the next week. I'm hoping it will help me pay attention to what's happening around me, and maybe I'll capture a few fabulous photos while I'm at it.

Seattle

Did a just-before-closing run to Costco on Saturday evening, and heard a snippet of A Prairie Home Companion on NPR en route. Here's a fun piece about my hometown.

Almost free money

I told my sister, who asked me about Swagbucks earlier today, not to sign up herself until I wrote this blog post - not that it's going to be a long one. :)
Like just about everyone else I know, we keep a pretty tight hold on our pennies around here. Any expenditure beyond the usual grocery-list cash is up for conversation. Spending a dollar on a redbox movie is not automatic.
Any opportunities to save on the purchases we're going to make anyway are always much appreciated. To that end, here are a couple of websites that are relatively new to me, latecomer that I am. The first is Gift Card Granny, which I learned about over at this post on Get Rich Slowly. I haven't purchased any discounted gift cards yet, but I have a feeling it will happen sooner or later. One of the places we shop a few times a year is Bed, Bath and Beyond, because they carry the CO2 charges for the most excellent Soda Stream Machine G's brother gave him for his birthday a few years ago. Since we're trying to wean ourselves off soda (but there's no way we'll give up fizz), CO2 canisters will always be on the list. Combine a discounted gift card with one of those ubiquitous BB&B coupons and fizzy water becomes even that much more economical than Diet Coke (yes, I know, drinking plain tap water would be even better, but come on...).
The second site, which I just signed up for today, is Swagbucks. I learned about it first over at The Non Consumer Advocate, and I agree with her assessment, it is a little gimmicky - but if doing what I do anyway  - searching the internet and reading a few different blogs - can land me the occasional Amazon gift card (or any of a number of other "prizes"), that'd be great! Even better (for me - and you, if you get friends to use your referral link) is that they give Swagbucks for making referrals. I'm putting the widget on my blog. We'll see!

It's beginning to feel a lot like summer

Happy June!
(So, it turns out NaBloPoMo still isn't my thing - but hey, 13 posts out of 31 days isn't SO bad. It's a whole lot more than I'd written for quite a while.)
Here in the land of Unseen Endings, we had a wonderful week in Washington, inspired by my nephew's baptism on May 22nd. I thought about writing something the whole time we were gone, and each day had its own memories and stories to share. Perhaps I'll get to those sometime THIS month.

Today, though, is for sharing the work that's already been done in our yard.
On Monday, a very rainy day here in Bozeman, G, the Munchkin and I headed to a family-owned nursery here in town, to take advantage of the end of their sale on bare root shrubs (25% off!). One of the fantastic things, besides the price, about said shrubs is, obviously, that their roots are bare. This means the hole one must dig is not-so-big. We got four new shrubs planted in about an hour and a half this morning, with plenty of time for wandering to talk to a neighbor, pull out some weeds, and come back in the house to nurse a hungry baby.
The plants we put in the ground are: a Rose Tree of China, an Annabelle hydrangea (I'll be messing with soil acidity a few years from now if I want blue flowers instead of white), a Wedgewood Lilac and a miniature Cranberry bush. A couple of them are just starting to bud out. Of course it will be a few years before they are mature enough to be impressive, but just knowing their promise makes me glad. And being outside under a mostly blue sky in ratty old cargo pants and a long sleeved t-shirt added to the giddiness. There are parts of this state that are severely under water, and there's more rain coming here, but for now it feels just a little like summer might finally be here to stay for a while.

Two Words

Rummage. Sale. $1425.77 for Family and Youth Ministry. Thanks be to God the Sale is over for another year.