Lemonade! Oh Boy!!

Mom and Dad are in Wisconsin!! Dad and Jonathan are watching the basketball game, so Mom and I decided to go for a walk on the bike path tonight that runs past the backyard. It seems we have some strong marketing-minded young entrepreneurs in our neighborhood...









Man, I am SO disappointed...

Speaking of Creativity...

So, Lindsay has just posted on creativity.... them bugged me to post to the blog (since I rarely get around to it).

We had a very creative Easter at Church - a 24-foot bridge across the front of the sanctuary:

Brass and Choir

Praise Team and Praise Choir:

It was a wonderful service, and I feel blessed to have such talented people volunteering to lead worship at Asbury.

Less than a month later, on May 2, I presented a 20th Anniversary Concert in the afternoon. It's hard to believe I've been in music ministry for 20 years - I started May 1, 1990 in a little church in Rotonda West, FL. It's been a wonderful (if sometimes difficult) journey, and I'm blessed to be able to do what I love for a living. Below is a clip of the first piece of the concert, my Toccata on "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" (otherwise known as Lobe den Herrn')

I'll have more video to post when I've had time to do the editing (and yes, I'll try to post more often, but honestly, Lindsay writes much better than I do!

Creativity Flows!

So it is with much happiness that I tell you that I have been able to release some of the pent-up creativity that I so rarely have used. I had really been wanting to do some murals since we got here. (You know, all the plain, white snow can be inspiring - for COLOR!) See January post entitled "The Upside of Winter" about colorful houses battling the war against white. Which I'm going to veer to for just a moment to show you promised pictures of said houses:

The fluorescent pink house:The turquoise blue house:
The pumpkin-colored house with maroon shutters and trim:
And our latest addition, the mint-green house with the violet first floor:

Ahem. Moving on to the topic at hand, mural painting...

I asked a couple of friends if maybe I could do their kid's rooms for each of their birthdays. No-go. Though I can't blame any of them - at that point, most of them didn't know that I had ever done ANY art, let alone murals. So, I went to the Director of Children's Ministry at church (aka: Ed). I said, "Ed, do you think that maybe sometime I could do a mural in one of the kid's rooms around here?" Silly question. Ed practically jumped across the desk at me as he exclaimed his resounding, "Yes!" That was immediately followed by, "Here, let me show you where..." He then proceeded to show me one of the tallest rooms in the building that happened to have the smallest chairs. The result was a very low-profile room with a whole lot of wall. Think desert plains. Not exactly the most cheerful room for a preschooler. Then he proceeded to show me the other six "normal" sized rooms, followed by the stairwell, the hallway, several more classrooms, and the children's library. I realized I'd just found my ministry at the church - and that we can't leave for at least ten years.

Somewhat daunted, I began work on the design for a mural for the first room, this behemoth job. Not long after, Ed informed me that the room was going to become the room for Media Ministries, and that my room would be one of the more manageable-sized ones. Fast-forward a couple of months later, and I now have a finished mural - and a whole lot of paint in my hair and under my nails. My paint clothes are quickly becoming a work of art themselves. I'm pleased with the result, and I've gathered a few more "jobs" since completion.

Observe my creation, and rejoice with me, for the color is here. I think it's pretty spiffy: