The beat goes on

Time does seem to fly as you get older. I think we spend too much time trying to analyze our aches and pains and not concentrating on all of the beautiful things around us. Even with these economic challenges there is much to be thankful for and I thank God every day for all that he does and for his blessings. It has been almost two weeks since last I posted to my blog, so here goes.

January 20, 2009 we celebrated Jana's birthday by going to a Taize service, I sing and Jana helps set up the service (part of our Altar Guild responsibilities- the setting up that is). Jana's birthday is always important as I get to be young for a month until my birthday when I turn old again. I did take Jana to dinner the Saturday following her birthday for a very nice meal at Vernon's Steak House. it is located behind the Calico Cafe on North 4th street. It is a wonderful place to eat. It is in the "speak easy " theme. You enter the restaurant through a liquor store and a man name Joe who is dressed in thirties style clothes takes you a door at the back and gives you the history of the speak easy and then asks if you know the pass word. If you do not he tells you that it is "Joe sent me". You then knock on the door and a window on the door opens and a man asks you for the pass word. You tell him the pass word and he lets you in. Dinner takes over an hour, and though expensive for Albuquerque, well worth the money. The food and service was wonderful.

New Church Building

After meeting in s school cafeteria for 9 1/2 years with setup ;and tear down every week we finally have our new church Building and it is beautiful. the shot below is of the altar with Nambe altar candle holders we gave to the church to honor Jana's mother, Nellie. The flowers are in one of the two vases we gave to the church to honor Jana's Aunt Sula Anne.

The view of the altar from the nave shows the Sandias in the back ground. A beautiful site any time of the year.

The processional cross is the cross Jana and I gave to the church. It is finished in silver and very stunning.

It is only fitting that I wear the Tartan for both our first service last week and our consecration of the church building this passed Saturday.

The exterior of the Church has several shades of brown to tan stucco with lots of natural lighting. This next photo shows the bell town not quite finished but finished enough that we could ring the chimes for our consecration service.

A Winter shot two weeks ago before the building was completely finished or I should say finished enough that we can move into. They still have punch list items and landscaping to complete the project. Through it all we are very pleased and very blessed to have such a beautiful place to worship.

We have been having work done around the house since this past summer. New patio, new storage shed, new gates and fences at the front of the house and just starting on a new fence at the Golf course side of the house.

The shed is 7' x 10' with enough height to walk in and a 5' wide door with locking handle and dead bolt. Welded steel frame with 2" tubular steel and shelves on two walls

This is one panel of the vehicle gate. It is twelve ' wide and hinged on one side only. The circle in the center is cut out of 12" steel pipe.

The side fence on the west side of the yard is made up of three 6' wide panels. the center panel is a gate. The back fence at the golf course will be similar to this with a total of 24 panels. Only one panel toward the southeast corner of the yard will be a gate. They have torn out the chain link fence and finished placing all of the posts today.

Aside from the house we will have our first service in the new Church this coming Sunday. I was by there today and the pews have been installed and the contractors are working frantically to get things finished enough so the city will grant temporary occupancy. Plumbing passed while I was there, the electrical to come later today or first thing in the morning.

I flew to Virginia on business Monday afternoon. Had some very good meetings Tuesday but Tuesday evening my right arm got to hurting so bad I finally changed my schedule and flew home on Wednesday. the arm is better today but I could barely lift my hand above by waste Tuesday evening and early Wednesday. Probably should go see the doctor but when I have had similar occurrences in the past they just blamed it on a pinched nerve, gave me some muscle relaxant and never looked for a cause. Could be and probably is related to old age but I haven't gotten older in years (tee hee).

Hope all are doing well.

Don

Happy New Year 2009

Happy New Year



I hope all of you had a fun but safe New Years eve. Ours was very quiet. We had a quiet evening at home. Decided to celebrate the new year with Dave and Alice Dawson, they live in the UK so it meant we could go to bed at a reasonable hour, rough getting old!!



The utility finally got the power on at our new church building. We still will not be able to move in until probably the second weekend in January. We had hoped to move this coming Saturday, Jan 3, but still need the certificate of occupancy from the city.








I have been working on an update to Alamosa High School Class of 1960 data base. Do any of you, Dave, Marge, Tom and Frank, have Microsoft Access on your computers? I am working in 2007 version but I can save the file down to 2003 or 2000 if you have an older version.