LARSROOD.COM

Yardwork

Pretty good day. Spent a good chunk of it working outside in the yard. Decided that I don't like hedges and took out several of them today. Felt good to be doing something. It's been a weird transition to not own a home now and I haven't been motivated to put too much work into this one. But, as we are probably going to be here for a while it feels good to do.

6 year old booty

Ok so today Soren was involved in a research project that was good for me. A couple college students from SMU came over and interviewed him about a bunch of different things. For his trouble (and really what is trouble for a 6 year old) he was given three gift cards. A $15 gift card to Itunes (which I bought the new Eddie Vedder Album which is a soundtrack for the movie Into the Wild) a $20 gift card to Starbucks (what kid needs that) and a $20 gift card to Best Buy (for which he was thinking video games). Grand total is $55 for about 30 minutes of answering questions with two cool girls. If I can only find more things like this to get my kids involved in.

Kitchen Update

I just drove by my house and saw a large truck parked in my driveway. I can only assume that cabinets are being hung. I'm purposefully not going home as I want to be surprised when it's all done not see the process. I'm tired of the process. I just want results.

So close

Ok so I've been complaining about not having a kitchen for a long time now. Good news we will probably have cabinets being put in tomorrow. Good chance on Monday we'll have appliances and maybe by next Thursday we'll have countertops. Can't wait to actually get to have people over and use our kitchen for fun.

On another note I live in Texas.......am I a Texan?............still trying to figure that out.

Can you eat with me?

just finished dinner. We have now gone 2.75 months without a kitchen. So close though.

What did you do today Lars? Sat in meetings.

One of the things that I enjoy being a part of at my church are meetings where we talk about strategic discernment of God's will of what we should be doing. The last two days I've been on our Session retreat working with a group of 50 people to begin looking at what our church will be focusing on for the next 3-5 years.

A funny thing happened today. As we were doing a 2 hour long sticky note exercise where we all shared our hopes and dreams I realized that there wasn't even 1 note on the board dedicated to Youth Ministry. Ron Scates my senior pastor said that speaks to the youth ministry currently firing on all 8 cylinders meaning things are going well. What is good to see for me though is that 5 years ago when they last did this process the youth ministry was a targeted area of focus. Good to see that the target worked and things are going well.

I think it goes a little deeper though. When we broke down everyones thoughts into their base form we realized that none of the categories we were focused on were age based. Everything we were looking at as major areas of focus were broad range that covered all ages. Feels like God led us to that.

Comfy Chairs are not always a good thing

I walked in a little late to a session this afternoon but scored a sweet comfy chair. Then Donald Miller taught for an hour out of Acts 17. I was into it but also so very tired.

A bittersweet day

The last couple of days I was up in Seattle at a conference. As part of my trip there I had the opportunity to spend a few hours on two different occasions with my Grandfather. This morning he passed away. I'm happy to have been able to be with him yesterday but sad that it was my last opportunity. He passed with two of his children with him and it was very peaceful.

I haven't seen him very often the last few years and I know I should have taken more time to get up to Washington to do that. I'm really glad I was able to be with him this week though.

Today I officially no longer have any grandparents. I knew it was coming and was prepared but it is still a strange realization that stage of my life is over.

Grandpa I miss you already.......

Back from Seattle

I'm back. Seattle was great. The conference at Mars Hill was Mars Hill was good but just good. The worship bands were great but the speakers were a bit long winded and I found myself bored. Harold Best was one of the speakers and I'm hoping that his book is better than his talking.

The rest of the trip was good. I was able to see my grandfather twice which was hard but good. He's dealing with pancreatic cancer and at 94 the prognosis is not good.

I spent some time with good friends too dreaming about missions and books. Phil and I have a couple of things in the pipe.

I'm back in Dallas but have a busy next couple of days. I'm attending the Lead Now conference the next two days. It's really a 20-something conference so I'm hoping to find some good stuff for my dissertation.

In Seattle

I'm in Seattle for a couple of days going to a worship conference and seeing my grandfather who is ill. Last night I went to First Pres Bellevue for their evening service with my friend Chris.

I like it here.