Sunday starts with me rising around 7ish and finding a cup of wake-up, Mexican-grown, locally roasted, and ground. I seem to be rushed every morning now, despite being retired for more than a year. I have no time to reflect and write with focus, enabling me to finish the blog before I have to head to church. But again, I forgot that church is at 11 and not 10:30, and thus some of the rush was well more rushed than needed. Grammarly mixes and matches my text here and there, and I find myself using the back arrow to undo the changes more often than I should. I do reread most of the next and make changes.
I bring my large (and expensive) prints of the images of the finished work of the church refresh work. I tape them on the walls along with the schedule. I have extra copies and share them also, and later, after church, explain a few changes. The main realization is that the entrance way may be closed, and the only access to the sanctuary on Sundays may be through the side doors. A consequence of redoing the entranceway is that it will be unavailable for a few weeks. While it is obvious, I can see, like many things in life, that when the events arrive, we are still surprised by them.
The music was uplifting, and we were clapping and even dancing to Eric K’s solo of the spiritual Wade Into The Waters (here is a version on YouTube). We were clapping for a song from the praise band, too. Pastor Ken listed a long list of scriptures, read notes from John Wesley connecting them to the Concept of Grace, and then covered the importance of accepting salvation and helping others, not just for salvation, but also to assist people. In the end, Ken said, despite our differing beliefs on means of salvation, we are here to help one another.
After church, a Harvest Festival was held in the parking lot next door. I had the lobster bisque soup from a food truck for lunch and later regretted it. I am not sure what was wrong, but I spent the late afternoon uncomfortable and resting. I did find a small item for Deborah’s birthday there. I am traveling to Michigan on Friday for Deborah’s birthday.
Back home, I try some peanut butter and toast, and that seems to help. I discovered that my peanut butter, which seems normal, is past its Best Use date by two years. I should replace that! It was still good.
I head to M@’s place for our twice-a-month Dungeons & Dragons game. We are playing the new 2024 version of D&D, and I am playing a sorcerer for the first time. It is an interesting class as the spell choices, while limited, are area effects and harsh single-target attacks, more like wizards. The subclass features I selected are Lovecraft-story-like powers, pile-on spells lifted from other classes, and I find it nearly as hard to run this class as the very endlessly deep wizard or cleric classes.
I rolled very low, managing to miss crucial social engagement checks despite playing a socially directed character, Carter, and getting 1, 2, 3 on a 20-sided die. Yikes! This creates some ridiculous moments, and even our rogue player, Betty, misses a roll when her thief slips up while trying to grab something. We managed a few essential dice rolls, and Betty, whose character was turned into a tree, made an important roll, and we were able to reverse the situation without serious consequences. It has been a low-combat and high-interaction game on Saturday evening. I will miss the next session while I am in Michigan.
M@ cooked burgers, and I felt better. I returned home, read, and had trouble sleeping all night. It might have been the coffee at M@’s or resting earlier. Monday arrived sooner than I had hoped!
Thanks for reading.
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