Terribly Poetic

This meme seemed like so much fun when I read it over at Living in the Gray.
This is how it works:

1. Click this link. The first title on this page is the name of your band.

2. Now click this link. The last four words of the very last quote is the name of your album. If it doesn’t work at all, click the “New Random Quotations” button for more.

3. And finally, click this link. The third picture on this page will be your album cover. Add your band name and album title, and you’re done! (Please remember to give credit for the original picture.) *Note: I am note sure whether it is the third picture to the left, right or down. So I just randomly picked one direction and went with it. I for one say go 3 down.

And behold! My very first rock album. The band is Athena and our first album is Memory of a Committee. Not sure what genre of music this falls under. But I think it is some form of indie alternative band that came out of a church somewhere. Hence the album title. If you don’t get that joke, you probably won’t get most of the songs on the album either!

Recently I have found myself doing a lot of graphic designing for others, whether it is other ministries, missionaries or just someone looking for a cheap designer. I have been doing T-shirts, brochures, wedding invitations, posters, displays, post cards, prayer cards, and even a design for a frisbee. The most odd thing about this is that I do very few projects for my current job at Youth For Christ. Oh don’t get me wrong, I have done the odd graphic here and there, and have done some video editing, but none of them seem to be full on projects. The biggest reason I design for others is because I love to design and needed to find a creative outlet. I also tend to find people to design for that really appreciate my work. Its not that people at YFC don’t like my work, its just that I am not given the opportunity to do alot of projects here. While this could be because someone else in our office is very creative and gifted in design as well and traditionally has done alot of the projects. However, it is not his fault that I don’t do more projects…. this is just the DNA of our office and I don’t want to fight this trend any longer. Currently I would love to be designing more, but my current lack of a decent computer at home is making that quite impossible. Also, as this is one of my skills and gifts, I would like to use this talent in my job more. Therefore, if you are interested in having me design something for you, just give me a shout and I can make arrangements. I often do designs for other ministries and my reimbursement is done as a gift to help raise my support. Although I have been know to work for gift cards to superstore, futureshop and the like. So let this be my formal announcement that I am a Graphic Designer who is available.

This week I find myself at the office alone. The entire staff (besides me), has gone to attend a Regional YFC Conference. I decided to stay so that I didn’t have to cancel Dimension Four (my weekly youth club) again. So after not having D4 for over a month last night we returned. I had no idea how many students would come back, especially when the number of regular students has been quite low. It was a good night. We had only 8 kids show up, but still had lots of fun in the gym. One of our volunteers did a “staff hotseat.” This is a chance for kids to ask questions of our staff. It went well. We even had one new girl come. This leads me to thinking about my current position here at YFC. I have been working here for 4 years now and I don’t have any of those amazing stories you hear from youth pastors and missionaries. I hear stories like that from people I work with, but I don’t seem to be the one ever telling them at staff meetings. I used to call myself an optimistic, however, I don’t think I can any more. Is this just what happens to youth workers when the luster of those first years of ministry wears off? Then recently we have been going through a process of discovering what strengths each person has and how often they are using those strengths. Well, I have found that I am using my strengths the least of anyone I work with. I am beginning to think about how I could use these strengths more regularly, however, that is proving to be difficult. Throughout this process I am trying to remain positive, however, when I am trying to communicate my frustration, I find that I am not always the most tactful or fun person to be around. So I apologize in advance. May God guide me as I seek to serve Him.

Don’t get too excited by the title. It doesn’t mean that I am back and have a new computer. I’ve just resolved some issues and am able to post to this blog from my computer at work. Thanks to iDisk and .Mac for that. Anyways, I’ll try to stay away from geeky conversation in this post. We had a great Christmas holidays hanging out with lots of family. Libby and Taylor couldn’t get enough of each other. The picture is just one of many showing off just how happy and joyful they where to be around one another. (And so is Auntie Annie!) I would love to post more photos, even create a new album, but that will all have to wait for the new computer. This Christmas season we tried to keep the focus off all the presents, and I think some of our new ideas where good ones. However, I do gotta say that Libby and Taylor are the ones we focused the gift giving to. We have so many toys our house could have the whole basement turn into Libby’s room just to store all her stuff. I was thinking I should keep some of her toys and rewrap them for next year. Especially the small present we (her cheap parents) bought her, don’t think she looked at it once the grandparents and aunt’s got here.
We had a great holidays and got to spill the beans to the family about our new timeshare property. It was fun to explain about trading timeshares and show them the huge RCI catalog of places to goto all over the world. Who knows maybe next year we will be somewhere warm. Just so you know we will take bribes for those who want to use our timeshare. Maybe all you have to do is click on that paypal link on the right. (Fingers crossed)
Well, this time I hope that I can be truthful when I say that I hope to get back to regular blogging. But its not like I made a New Year’s Resolution about it or anything. Although that’s probably a good thing. How many people actually keep those anyways?