It's that time again. Put on socks with your flip flops!
Cooler temperatures makes our Coast feel like Fall instead of the Tropics.
I love being outdoors without hot, humid weather.

I wore a light weight jacket yesterday.


Content,

St.Casserole

Good Sunday yesterday. Loved seeing my congregation again after a Sunday away.
Little Church looks prettier each time I look. The repaired pews are now shiny. We won't use the antique velvet pew cushions. Tiny pieces of velvet fluff stuck to the pews before and after storage for the summer, the mold spores and ancient dust gross me out. If the acoustics need pew cushions, we'll work on new ones.

The road to Little Church is newly paved. I love that drive through countryside seeing cattle and fields.

The church meeting Thursday was the warmest worship I've attended for our geographical cluster of churches in years. We prayed for people by name along with celebrations of good things happening in our congregations. The young preacher spoke deeply and well. I love her. Yep, I'm doing cartwheels thinking we attracted a smart, capable young woman to our geographical cluster.

The surprise of the day was how dang post-denominational we are. We ate lunch at a PCA church. Can you believe that? After all the anguish and pain of the past 30 years, we used a PCA church for lunch space.

Blessings to you. Be Bold.

St.Casserole

Home safe.

Happy to be with Mr.C.

Cats fine; Dog Nanny tired.

Second Obama yard sign stolen.


St.Casserole

Oh! If only you could be here! Great conversation, fabulous meals and time with my sisters!

I'm going to see Listing Straight, Mr. Listing and Little Listing in a few days.
Yippee!

The Fall colors are fabulous here. I'm surprised at how warm it is here. I'm wearing shorts wishing I brought my flip flops.

James Taylor announced he is giving five concerts around North Carolina for Obama. I'm hoping we get tickets for Taylor's concert here.

Thanks for your phone calls during my drive.

Contentedly,

St.Casserole

Hey.

I've got a house full of children. LS, LD and LD'sBFF are here! Mr.C. made gumbo and took them to the movies. I did laundry for the girls. I love having everyone home!

Tomorrow, LS drives them back to school.

I'm driving up to see LLS and LSiL on Tuesday. Call me and keep me company! I'll arrive for my week in the Blue Room Suite on Wednesday. I'll eat at the table of the World's Best Cook. I hope to snuggle with Assumpta and Dibley, the Katrina Kitties. They don't remember me but I remember them.

Life is busy and full here.

I'm going to see genuine Fall leaves on my trip. I'm going to talk and eat and love being with my sisters.

More later,

St. Casserole

Monday Things

*I'm loving pandora.com. I have a Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake station. Loving that Nick Drake.

*I need to update my 2008 Books Read. Can't recall all the titles or authors to do it now.

*I found new leather driving shoes at Amazon by going to the Women's shoes, then seeing what was offered for 70%. Two lovely leather pairs arrived last week.

*I'm itching to try to drill through a china plate with my Dremel. Dremel doesn't offer a drill for china so I'll substitute something else. Don't know what but if you hear hollering and china shattering, it's just me.

*LD will be home for a long weekend. She's taking exams this week. I'm praying she'll find her happy attitude to do her work well and see some progress in her adjustment to the Art School. It's not easy to be 16 anywhere. If she could see herself as I see her, she'd take on the entire world.

*Little Church restoration is going very well. We are looking beautiful and dignified. Just found out last week that the furnace coils and motor are blown out. Age and humidity ruined the system. We need more money. I'm trusting we will be able to have heat this winter.

*Fall is here! I wore closed toe shoes last week! No more sandals even if the heat today was in the mid-80's. Mornings are cooler.

*If you weren't my friends, I'd be soooo lonesome. Thanks for being with me.

Love,
St.C

I met my brokah's husband last week. I asked him to explain Republican politics to me. We drank coffee and he told me.

I'm not sure I picked the correct person to do this for me. A face-to-face meeting between peers who respect one another meant we were polite and agreeable. Ideas were shared. Questions asked.

I can read all I want about Republican theory, strategy, and history. I wanted to hear about what it meant to him to be part of a political party.

I learned more about civil discourse than I did partisan politics.

I'll keep trying.

This is the l-o-n-g-e-s-t political season ever. I'm exhausted.


Seeking Understanding,
St.Casserole

Six Unremarkable Things About Me

Our sweet RevGal, MB offers a meme
here. I want to play "Six Unremarkable Things About Me", too. I've had a remarkable week but noting to say here on my blog.

1. When I buy new shoes, I don't wear them immediately. I let the new shoes "season" in my closet for a few days, then I put them on.

2. I write fan notes thanking authors of books I enjoy. I don't hear back from most, but that doesn't matter to me.

3. I use a silverplate Victorian sugar bowl to hold the pens and pencils on my desk. I bought it at an estate sale long ago. The bowl doesn't have a lid. Perfect for pencils, pens, scissors and a lone paintbrush.

4. I travel the same route to go to Little Church. I love this drive! People suggest alternate routes without success.

5. I love the smell of fresh turned earth.

6. I've taught myself how to do most household chores without "thinking" about the chores. I zen out and think about words, ideas and people instead.

Thanks, MB! I tag anyone who wishes to play.

Yours,

St.Casserole

Lifeway Stores pulled this issue of Gospel Today from magazine racks because it features clergy women on the cover.

Lifeway is a bookstore of the Southern Baptist group. "Lifeway" sounds less denominational and more cool.

I've never read or heard of Gospel Today before the cover issue flap.

Two things: Clergy women must be doing something right if a picture of happy Christian women scares people, and, 2: I'm not buying from or stepping foot into a Lifeway Store.

Blessings to each of you today,

St.Casserole

LD wanted another lamp for her Art School dorm room. I'll take her this today.
Two action figures and one Ken type copper wired to a lamp base. Everything but the light bulb is from thrifting.

St.Casserole
Writing Sermons and Making Stuff

Dear St.Casserole,
Thank you for your phone call last night. It was good to hear your voice and get news of your little family. I'm homesick for you all and hope for a visit soon.

I'm glad you called last night. I spent this morning down at the Auxiliary Club playing Bridge. I don't care to go back. Beulah Lynch's usual Bridge partner, Bertie
Mae Smith Hedgins, has a new great-grand. Bertie went over to Waxhaw to be with her daughter. That daughter, you may remember, is the one who faints.

I agreed to be the fourth at the table and showed up about 9:30 a.m. to start playing. The girls play until lunch. One of them buys lunch for everyone else. It was Beulah's turn so I was glad to go. She owes me several lunches, but I'm not counting.

Everybody at the table began talking politics. I'd rather hear who is doing what with whom but I was a guest. Lillian Jenkins Caldwell announced that Sen. Obama is a Muslim and she would never vote for someone who isn't a Christian. I about dropped my teeth. They all jumped in talking this nonsense. I had a difficult hand at the time and was working on how to bid so I just kept quiet.

Beulah turned to me and said, "Bostick, you wouldn't vote for a Muslim, would you?"

I told her I might vote for a Muslim if one was running for President this term. The girls gasped. I said, "Senator Obama isn't a Muslim, he's a member of the United Church of Christ."

I about got shouted down. I blame those silly emails old people send around to each other with wrong facts and goofy ideas.

I asked the table if they remembered Anne Yates' daughter, Linda. Of course, they all remembered Linda because she was the guest organist every summer when she came to stay with her grandmother in town. I asked if they remembered that when Linda started first grade, they found out she had a learning problem with her letters. It wasn't terrible but it slowed the little girl down while she was learning to read. About that same time, Anne and John moved to their new house over by Clark Road. Anne decided to move Linda to the St.Clavicle Catholic School because she knew the reading teacher there and was near their new house.

Everyone at the table looked confused. I went on to tell them that Linda stayed at that school until 7th Grade. She's grown up now and married to that Baptist preacher.
I asked them, "Linda want to Catholic School. Should she be called a Catholic now that she's a grown woman?" Everybody said, "No!"

I told them that when Sen. Obama lived in Indonesia as a little boy, he went to a Muslim school. That's all they had there, I suppose. Now, he's a grown man who attended a United Church of Christ Church in Chicago for twenty years with regular attendance. His little girls were baptized there. Does it make any sense to call him a Muslim now? The table was silent.

One of them piped up and said what about his name? He has an odd name! I got to giggling then. Good Lord! Like we don't have the strangest names in the South! We have names so strange, we think the names are normal!

I should have held my tongue. I said, "That lady from Alaska you all think is so cute, she named her children 'Trac', 'Trig', and, after an airplane!" "Let's don't discuss unusual names this year."

By the time we finished the last Bridge hand, I was hungry but could hardly enjoy my chicken because it was cooked until it tasted like a dry piece of paper.

I've got several errands to run so I'll stop and put this out for the mail.

Love,
Aunt Bostick

Just the thing to add to your worries~! Brit's home is on the market! Again!

The real estate is here.

Hope this helps today,


St.Casserole

Hat Tip: The Luxist

Little Church restoration continues!

We have new stair railings, painted doors, columns and porch flooring, and new lighting!

Inside, the original wood floors are refinished and gleaming!

We found someone to restore the antique pews!

Thanks for your prayers! Extra pocket change appreciated.

Gratefully,

St. Casserole, Pastor

I don't eat reptile.

How wild is it to live where the local grocer offers Alligator for $5.99 a lb.?


Yours,

St.Casserole

Don't forget! September is National Alligator Month!

11 a.m. Saturday Morning

I have:

made coffee, finished a load of laundry, cleaned the kitchen
gone to 5 garage/estate sales
painted a butler's table purchased at garage sale
fluttered around my sermon manuscript looking for holes
pruned monk's head hibiscus
been bitten by a hornet for my trouble
talked with Mr. C.

What is on my mind:

Why do people believe what they believe about their political party?
I know the usual answers but I don't get why people support the other party.
How can I understand why reasonable people believe as they do in their chosen political party?

What I've decided to do:

Contact the husband of my Brokah*. They are both serious, committed other political party supporters. Ask him if he will discuss why he supports his party and how his party speaks to his life situation. Tell him that I want to talk with him because I respect him, have no desire to argue or make snarky comments. "Just tell me", I want to say to him, "Why?"

The hornet bite stings, it's too hot to prune the hibiscus, the butler's table is ready for a third coat of paint and I'm stuck on my sermon.


I intend to nap this afternoon.

Yours,

St. Casserole

*Hat Tip to LLS for "Brokah" and ICANHAZACHEEZEBURGER for the pic.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Arrgghhh,

St.Casserole

Cooler weather! It's here!

Going outside before daylight, to drink coffee and pray, the air is cold! Wonderful!

I'll drive to a Presbytery committee meeting this morning with Pastor Giant. We'll take my car because his car has problems. I'll enjoy watching the folding of his tall frame into my wee car.

He's a beginning friendship although we are an odd match. He's feeling the pull of the Spirit to change how he sees the world. Fascinating to hear him tell where his heart is going in his new call down here. People and situations he ignored before are opening up to him.

The Spirit works this way if we pay attention.

Our hearts can change and grow into new understanding, full of compassion and discernment.

I'm grateful to find a pal in this Presbytery. In heaven, I'll be with all of you and won't even remember the isolation I've felt here. Until then, the Spirit opens doors for me.

St.Casserole

Ike is 300 miles or so from here,on his way to Houston.

The winds are blowing enough to make Sister, the best dog Nanny in the Entire World, jumpy.
Fish, the Backyard Meteorologist Cat, escaped out the back door a few minutes ago. After testing the air with his freckled nose, he returned indoors.

I am worrying about Texas.

Ike is a big, bad storm.


Lord, have mercy.


St.Casserole

Mr.C. passed me the head cold he got at his office. I feel tired and rotten. No fever, just general complaints. I'll recover. Life will go on.


I'm taking today off from chores, work, duties, to-do lists. If you need me, I'll be at home being a lump.

I will keep the Vicar of Hogsmeade in my prayers along with all of our Texas pals.
The Vicar is defending herself with Ph.D. people. Our Texas pals are waiting for that durn Hurricane Ike.

Love,

St.Casserole, Lump d'Jour

Hurricane Ike appears to be heading North Northwest as it leaves Southern Cuba.
Tracking projections send Ike west of us.

But, as we say around here, "it's too early to tell".


St.Casserole


NOTE: Mr.C., the coffee this morning is so awful it makes my legs hurt.