West Cocoa Chat

This past weekend was one of those “step it up” weekends. That phrase (step it up) was one of my favorite or at least most used sports clichés when I coached. I can remember telling my basketball players that they needed to “step it up” on defense. I guess “step it up” implies you’re giving some effort but the task requires more than you’re giving.

Friday saw my lovely wife making dishes for a wedding shower on Saturday as well as frying up a “ka-zillion” pounds of meat for our Camp Spaghetti Dinner fund raiser we held yesterday. We did squeeze in enough time to have dinner with our good friends Chuck and Lee (aka “Elly May”) and their son Matthew. Steven and Matthew left early to go enjoy their common (love of guitars) sickness that they share with Greg. Later that night Steven brought his friend Kyle over so they could go surfing the next day. My one caveat to Steven was he needed to cut the yard when he got home.

Saturday morning saw the kids beating us up and out the door to catch the waves. Barb finished her dishes for the wedding shower and headed out while yours truly headed down to Wal-Mart for the coveted red mulch. I loaded up 14 bags in the back of my “Expo” (as Steven calls my Expedition) and headed home. My first task was to edge my yard by the road. Sounds simple enough except I hadn’t performed this task in over a year. I guess here is where I had to “step it up.” It wasn’t just a matter of running my edger down my yard line. Now I had to use the coveted flat shovel to cut away the “hang over grass” and wheel barrel it around to my back yard.

Then, like Greg cleaning carpet, I said to myself, “Self, the line looks good and the grass line is now even but the road is full of sand. Ah, time to get out the obligatory blower to blow the sand back into the yard.” I’m sure my neighbors appreciated my object lesson concerning the “Dust Bowl” of the 1920’s as my sand filled the air.

Now it was time to cut out my non-existent flower bed (another task that had gone a long time without being performed) or as the title of this post, yes, time to “step it up” once again. This wasn’t too bad a job since my young son had weeded our flower bed recently. Once my flowerbed line was defined it was time to add the coveted, red mulch. 14 bags covered half my flowerbed so it was time to head back to Wal-Mart. By this time my young son had returned (waves were big but choppy) and mowed our yard so he volunteered to go off with his old man to help him load up another 14 bags of the coveted red mulch.

We returned to finish the job and with Steven helping me it made this round go faster. My wife returned home to the delight of seeing how her husband had “stepped it up” for the beauty of our yard in an attempt to match her marvelous inner beauty. How about it ladies, would that last sentence score points with you?

That night besides feasting on some Advil for my back, we feasted on some take home (no Sonny’s Randy) bbq from Kay’s. Barb made 2 more dishes for our Fellowship Meal / Graduates Celebration.

Sunday was packed with activity. I ran the Power Point Show for Mike who is about to finish up at Harding Grad while working for NASA. Yes, it takes a “rocket scientist” to work full time and get a degree from Harding Grad. We call Mike our “Angel Guy” since that is his area of expertise. His class was on “Discovering the Righteousness of God through a Study of Angels.”

Steven sang on our “teen praise team” which we use to open our services. Unfortunately I missed this due to having fun trying to shut down a stubborn lap top. This was our 2nd Sunday to share our preacher with Discovery Christian. The timing seemed to work out better and Don didn’t seem to rush through his sermon as he did last week. Chad, our Youth Minister, put together a video honoring our Grads that tore me up. One, because Steven will graduate next year and two, I’ve known most of these kids since they were babies and I had a full head of hair on top of my head.

We returned that night for our fund raiser for Camp. Barb’s spaghetti was outstanding as usual and the church stepped it up by donating over $1000 to help us pay for Camp. This on a weekend that including a wedding shower, a wedding, and graduation. I am so proud of our church once again.

Hope your weekend was as enjoyable but maybe not quite as hectic. Have a happy Monday. I know I will, just 2 more days with kids!