Sat., Sep. 22

The seminar is a resounding success!! A few unexpected glitches in congregations around the city decreased our numbers pretty substantially, so that was sad. [Preacher try-out for Ina Rd.; funeral of a former preacher (Palo Verde); re-scheduled wedding (Sierra Vista)] However, those who did attend were ... I'll say 'key people' whose response at the end of the day was so positive that it's looking like Jeremy is going to have official invitations to give the same seminar in a number of local congregations during the next year!

We did learn some interesting things about the logistics of hosting a seminar locally, which is to be expected, since this is Mission Valley's first experience hosting a city-wide seminar. First, since people have to drive practically an hour alllllll the way across town to get here, it's not at all practical to schedule the seminar to start early in the morning, and/or to offer breakfast. This morning I was up at 5:15 to be ready to leave the house at 6:45. (Headache CITY - turned migraine by 11am ... and I even went to bed earlier than usual!) Breakfast started at 7:30, but most everyone wasn't there until even about 9am when the first lesson started. Also, we probably won't host another local seminar that starts Friday and goes 'til Sunday because it's not worth it, for most people, to spend two hours driving (one hr. each way) in order to spend only two hours at the event! So! Interesting! Makes sense....

The children and I forced our exhausted bodies to make it through lunch ... which was OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! The meal was built by the McDaniel families: Ron, Roger, Roger's son Shane, Roger's grandsons Bobby (17) and Dylan (15), and brother-in-law, Rhett, from Phoenix. The McDaniels are the cooks for their annual camp-out family reunions in NM; they have amazing equipment and skills, not to mention experience. The menu consisted of smoked turkey and smoked brisket ... mmmmmmm >> AMAZINGLY delicious, scrumptious, melt-in-your-mouth-moist, nothin'-in-the-world-like-it-yummy; Ranch beans, Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, and Peach Cobbler, all made camp-style in smokers, grills, and pots-and-pans heated by brickette (?sp)-type coals, and then rolls, coleslaw, lettuce salad, and fruit salad. They brought three 10'x20' white, pointy-roof canopies to set up for shade, and those are totally awesome too, including electric lights with pull-string switches!! (blink, blink) I'm telling you, it was some kind of production!! Wish you could have been here! Did I take pictures? Naw, can't think that well.... I'll ask Travis Campbell to share the ones he took so you can see.

After lunch the three of us came home for naps. Frustratingly, there was a lot for me to do before I could begin getting the sleep I so desperately needed!! Laundry was becoming an urgent situation; I'd been sent home with four pans of leftover smoked turkey/brisket to put in our garage fridge until potluck tomorrow, but the garage was still disorganized from us pulling in the awesome mattress for Cecil to sleep on the night before, so before I could even deal with the meat I had to strip the hide-a-bed and single-handedly drag the huge queen-size mattress back into the garage and then tuck everything back away so I could have the space I needed to get the meat into the garage fridge! Of course, Jabba had to be fed/watched/taken outside as well; and there were phone messages to take, not to mention coaching two slow-moving, exhausted children into their beds for naps. Then I was too hot & sweaty to truly rest, so I had to shower and cool down a while before I finally could pop the Excedrin Migraine pills as I was lying down on the bed. (If I take them even ten minutes before I lie down to sleep, the caffeine in them keeps me awake so I don't get the rest which is a vital part of my migraine recovery solution: sleep, 2 Migraine Excedrins, good amounts of water consumption, darkness, and silence can help me recover.) Uggh, I was REALLY having to grit my teeth and bear it getting through those last 20 minutes. [I did use the Migra-Stick on my headache a little during the morning, but the cause of the migraine was lack of sleep, which I could not get at that time, so the Migra-Stick couldn't help as much as I needed. I had no access to regular pain meds early-on in the headache either, which is why the migraine raged and became so difficult to treat. :( ]

We were back to the building by 6:00 to help wrap up the evening. They'd adjusted the schedule, since everyone had been up so early, and just pushed through the final lesson, cut the final singing session, and then let everyone go, and/or grab whatever lunch leftovers they would like to take for their supper! That was a great plan, so everyone could get home and start resting & preparing for Sunday sooner! Jeremy and Elaine, having been up since painfully-early, both of them, and with no naps, were anxious to get home, finalize the day's food consumption, and then get in bed early.

The children and I enjoyed the remainder of the evening. They played. Justus showered. I cleaned the kitchen while talking to Mom on the phone. :) It's becoming somewhat of a Saturday evening tradition for me to call M & D; it seems to be the one time all week that both homes' schedules allow some uninterrupted time!

Stay tuned for more church-schedule craziness tomorrow, but then it's smooth sailin' this week after that!! Exciting things are planned, lots of which will provide interesting photo ops.