Two weekends ago, I went to visit my sister, and of course to see my nephew :). Seth and I had tons of fun playing the "laughing" game. It started after we had lunch at Boston Pizza (I think that's my new favourite restaurant. Their pasta is so good!). We were walking out to my car, and I laughed at something, and then Seth laughed back. So I laughed again, and he laughed again. We laughed back and forth all the way to my car. It was hilarious because the louder I laughed the louder he laughed, and he would smile so big :). Then we went to Starbucks, and he decided to be a grouch! Haha... he did not like being in there at all, but as soon as we got back out to my car, he started laughing again. Maybe he thinks the only place we can play the laughing game is in my car.
This past weekend I cleaned. What else is new. If I don't have anything going on on Saturday, I pretty much spend the whole day cleaning. I actually don't mind cleaning when I have a nice long chunk of time to do it (like a free Saturday). I had to clean my basement because my Dad did all the cutting down there for my hardwood floors, and there was sawdust everywhere. Speaking of hardwood floors...
Oh yah!!! They look so pretty! Except for the lack of baseboards, as you can see quite clearly in the first picture. Hardwood feels really nice on bare feet too. If it wasn't so cold in my house all the time (yah, I know, I'm too cheap to turn the heat up), I'd walk around in bare feet constantly, just so I could feel the wood :).
This week has been crazy busy at work. Last week my Mom went into the hunt camp to cook, so I didn't have her to help me at my store. I managed, but it sure is nice when she's there! This week I'm getting ready for my big GRAND OPENING open house (Nov 18, 10am-12pm... you should come)! I'm having a ribbon cutting ceremony, and hopefully I'll be in the newspaper and on tv :). The only thing is that I don't have my ribbon ready yet. I'm making a ribbon with music notes on it, but I have to draw on all the notes because I couldn't find any to buy. I'm thinking all my spare time tomorrow is going to be spent working on that.
Today I spent most of the day decorating the front window in my store. The place where I rent is actually divided into two separate areas. I only rent the back half, but the front half that has a window facing the street is empty right now. I thought I'd ask my landlord if I could decorate the window, and he said yes :). I have a really great landlord, which I am VERY thankful for. I've heard (and experienced) some landlord horror stories. I'm not much of a decorator, so it took me pretty much all day until my students started coming this afternoon to do a little window display! But, it does look pretty good, even if I do say so myself :).
Those are some of the highlights from the past couple of weeks of my life. Nothing much too exciting, but definitely enough to keep me busy. This weekend I have a recital. It's the Honours Recital, which recognizes the music students that achieved the highest marks on their RCM examinations this past year. I have four students getting awards! Woo hoo! Saturday night I'm hoping to go to a brass band concert. I still need to find someone to go with me, or else go by myself (yup... those are the options), but I REALLY don't like going places by myself. Marci, you're not allowed to laugh at me for that! I do go places by myself, I just don't like it. I might go to this concert by myself if no one can go with me because I really want to go, and I'd really like a night out. I know several people who play in the band, so it's always nice to go watch when it's people you know playing.
Sunday will be church. We had a really good choir practice last week, so I hope it keeps up. We're doing a full-blown Christmas Cantata this year with our little 12 person choir. Actually, that's not so bad! I didn't even realize there were that many of us! Haha. I know to most people 12 doesn't sound like very much, but I think it's great! I was looking at some websites of some rather large churches (800 ppl) the other day. Sometimes when I see a church that has that many people, I can get a bit discouraged about how small my church is. But then I remember that it's not about the numbers. You cannot measure the success of a church based on attendance because that's not how God works. God didn't command us to "go into all the world and make sure you have a big church." No, He commanded us to "preach the gospel." I know some churches of 20 people who do MUCH more preaching than some churches with 200 or 500 or 1,000 people. In my experience it's often been the smaller church that has the greater ministry or has been the greater blessing. I remember going to churches of 3,000 people when I was in Bible college on choir tour, and people barely even said hello to us. I can also remember being in churches with 30 or 40 people, and being so blessed by Christians there. That's not to say that a big church is wrong and small churches are right. I'm just saying that you don't HAVE to be a large church to have an effective ministry and witness. God blesses the small too! There are some really warped ideas out there that if your church isn't getting bigger then you must be doing something wrong. And there's also the idea that if your church is getting bigger you are doing everything right. Yeah, well there are some pretty big churches that are pretty messed up! It's like that verse in I Samuel ...for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart." (I Sam 16:7). Just as it is the heart of a person that is important, it's the heart of a church that's important too. It's not the buildings, or the pews, or the hymnbooks, or the pastor, or the youth group, or the piano, or the whatever. What is the heart beat of that church? Is it a heart beat for seeing souls saved, for evangelizing the community, for encouraging believers, for discipling new converts, for prayer, for supporting missionaries, for teaching and preaching sound doctrine, for separating from worldliness and false teaching, and for a whole lot of other things that would probably fill pages and pages if I wrote them all out. Those are some of the important things, and I thank God for the churches who are doing those things.
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