A little recap

You might have noticed that I have not been blogging much over the past few days. This is due both in part to business and to laziness (it is summer after all, and parish life all but comes to screeching halt).

Sunday evening a couple of our recent high school graduates decided to make dinner for the "rectory household," which - at the time - included me, the Pastor, his father, and our seminarian.

It was a delicious meal of tilapia, pork loin, bread, carrots, corn, sweet potatoes and cake:

Since it was a beautiful evening - it reminded me of Hawaiian evenings - we ate outside.

Yesterday I made the whirlwind drive to Quincy and back to visit my grandmother. On Friday she apparently fainted for maybe 30 seconds when they were getting her up out of her wheelchair to her walker (she's still building up strength from her broken ankle). Her eyes glazed over but she never lost consciousness or hearing.

The nurse maybe over-reacted (but given Grandma's heart history, who can blame her?) and sent her to the emergency room and she was admitted. Yesterday was largely free so I decided to go and see her, though I could only stay for about an hour.

Four days later the doctors have no answers or explanations as to why she fainted (everything seems normal), so they released her yesterday afternoon. I can only imagine Grandma's frustrations. She was very happy to see me and I to see her. Today, though, I'm quite worn out from the drive; my arthritis simply can't do that very often.

I had been pondering another trip to Quincy on Friday to have dinner with friends, but I may have to push that back until next Friday (I'm not sure I can do it twice in one week) when I don't have the early morning Mass on Saturday; then again, maybe the Pastor and I can switch Saturdays... We'll see.

On the way to Quincy and back I decided to go through the area of my coming pastorate to investigate ways to get from Virden to Quincy and to see if there might be a shortcut from Effingham. It doesn't seem there is, nor does there seem to be a terribly direct way to get between Virden and Quincy without heading up to Springfield. We need a few more bridges crossing Illinois River.

At any rate, on the way back from Quincy I stumbled upon the second parish church of which I will soon be Pastor, St. Patrick's in Girard. The doors were locked but the grounds are well kept.

Back in Effingham, yesterday marked the first of three days set aside for the demolition of our old grade school building since the new building is nearly ready. Kenda, of The Schuette Zoo, who lives just down the street posted some great pictures of the first day.

Throughout the summer we will be having practices and workouts for the soccer team on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as a few pick up games and today is the first day for the practices.

On my way back from checking on the field to be sure it was mowed I stopped by to chat with a few of the bystanders watching the demolition of the grade school. It's good and cheap entertainment for many of the grade school students.

While there, I couldn't help but wonder about this sign:

Notice, if you will, that although the sign only mentions the right lane it is placed in the middle of the street. I suppose, technically, it is correct, though it isn't very precise. I'm a stickler for such details and find such things humorous.

In just a short time I'm going to have lunch with one of our high school teachers and then begin training one of our servers to be a "super server" of sorts and a Master of Ceremonies.