Long Update on Life

This update is intended for those people who have a lot of time on their hands and who want to know what going on (or not) in the lives of me (and Elizabeth!). Some of you will already know some or most of this information, but for those of you who don't and those of you who want to take time, I hope you enjoy the preceding life update! :)

I think I'll start with our move from KY. It was a happy sadness. Sad that we had to leave all of the friends we made, but happy (or maybe "excited" is the better word) to dare to dream and be brave, to tackle a different life, a different routine, and basically all around different environment (not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually, too).

Now, the reason we moved was because Elizabeth got a part-time Youth Pastor / Pastor's Assistant job and a part-time teaching job at a Christian academy. That was about end of July, beginning August. The cats did just great with the move and as of this writing, I believe they are very content with the place in Asheboro. Anyways, it took me until about the end of September to find a job that would hire me. Well, at first it was kind of a trial run, and I worked only a little bit every now and then so the manager could see if I would be a good match for a more permanent placement. Well, I'm happy to say I'm still there at Computer Troubleshooters, and I love it! I mean, at least the work, anyways; the pay rate is kinda of half of what some articles I read tell me I should be making. But hey, God works things out and He'll take good care of us. We may complain about money to some folks, but I honestly believe God has bless us in the financial management area, and He will help us through all our trials.

Let's focus on our church life for a paragraph to two. I think that most of the youth have pretty much warmed up to us. We did loose two, but we gained, like 4 or so back, at least for a time. The two we lost was probably due to a cell phone addiction one of the youth had (has). This is a sad condition where the youth leader will ask the youth to put away their cell phones, but the individual youth chooses repeatedly to not listen. This causes tiffs between the leader and the youth member, which in turn causes said youth to not want to attend meetings because they can't have their cell phone out during youth time. They took one of their friends with them when they left. But this allowed for two different people who used to come, but stopped, to start coming again. And there have been times when they've brought some of their acquaintances with them. So... loose a few, gain a several. The youth group meets every Sunday and Wednesday evening. Some of the youth I can tell really enjoy youth group because they'll get kind of saddened on the rare occasion that Elizabeth cancels the routine meeting. We've had a few get-together times outside of our normal meeting times, to watch a movie, or celebrate a birthday, or just plain hang out. Convention-wise, of the ones that are going, we're all really excited about going to the Youth Convention at the end of December. I hunkered down and studied and practiced for a CDL-C.P so that I could drive the youth to Charlotte in the church van when the time came. It's pretty fun to say "I got my CDL," even if it is the lowest class. :D

In other church news, I've joined the handbell choir. Most of the other folks say I'm doing real well considering the only musical instrument I can play is the radio, and I feel I can't sing all that well. And I don't exactly have any training in anything musical, except what I learned in the 5th and 6th grade. Strange, isn't it? And I love music soooo much. Anyways, handbells isn't that hard as long the director keeps marking my music with colors. That way I can just pretend like I'm playing Guitar Hero.

As for other busy factors in our life, we've occupy ourselves with the standard random cleaning up of garages, hanging out with family on special and not necessarily special occasions. Also, back a day or two before Thanksgiving, Elizabeth and I went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra at the Greensboro Coliseum. It rocked! I've wanted to see them for a good long while now, and I finally got the chance and am glad that I did. Did I mention it rocked? We've also been to see a few evening musical productions that the students from Neighbor's Grove Christian Academy (where Elizabeth works part-time) put on. One was a Patriotic presentation, and the other was a Celtic-themed Merry Christmas dinner-show. They all did very well in both.

In other news of randomness, my computer of 6 years keeps having more and more problems. I've fixed its brokenness several, several times, but the time has come to give it up. The motherboard randomly fails, both hard drives have a few corrupt sectors, both DVD drives are finicky (reading and writing only certain discs types), I've replaced the power supply two times, and the video card at least three times. Oh, and the on-board ethernet is blown. Fortunately, God has allowed us enough money so I can get a new system pretty soon. For you geeks that want to know, I'm getting an ASUS Eee PC 901. The black 20GB version.

Well, I hope that informs everyone well enough! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!