Coffeeeeeee

I've been going non-stop since Friday morning. Well I've been at work, and then I've been working on the work web site, because we had to get a new one up on Wordpress.com, so I've been beyond busy working on that. Then Saturday morning I had a Girl Scout booth sale down in CT, which was a long drive down, but totally worth it, because I felt so good after seeing all my friends and spending the whole day with them. I didn't get home until late, because I visited my grandfather in the next town over and then I finally got home. Yesterday, Sunday was a bad bad day. I went to church, missing an hour of sleep :/ and then we had to pick Z up for his birthday, and it went very well, I even met a girl who's father has a sugar shack and she's about my age and really awesome.

I finished a book called The Anorexia Diaries, and it was really good. It's the diaries from a mom and her daughter getting over her daughter's teenager Anorexia & Bulimia. It was kind of scary on how much I could actually relate to Tara's (the teen) feelings. It was almost like reading what I've been feeling for a while on paper. It was absolutely scary, but it was a really good book.

Well I've been on longer than I should have and need to get to work to run my story time!! Like I said, I've been going nonstop since Friday, and losing an hour of sleep isn't helping me. I guess being so busy is a good thing, because I have a massive problem with not wanting to let people so down, so as long as I'm busy I hope my mind won't even wander to the thought of suicide.

Is Your Mustard Seed Planted? - Sermon

Is Your Mustard Seed Planted?

Today is Scouting Sunday, while you’re in scouting, you’re on a journey. You don’t know where this journey will bring you, or how this journey will affect you, or how long this journey might take you. The journey you take will not be the same journey that your best friend Sue will take. It will not affect you the same way it affected your buddy Bob. Each journey is different. While you’re on your scouting journey, you may cross paths with your faith journey. They may intersect many times, or maybe they’ll only intersect once.

Every scout has a scouting journey, but everyone has a faith journey. Like I said, a little different for each and every one of us. Now I can’t tell you where your journey is going to take you - - - I don’t even know where mine is taking me, but I found a perfect quote the other day. To give you, me, everyone a little bit of hope. “If you God brings you to it, He’ll help you through it.” This, I believe, is the truth. God knows how strong we are, and he believes in us. We just need to believe in him and ourselves.

Now my faith and scouting journey have intersected many times. Today, I would like to talk about my faith journey, and how it’s affected me and my scouting journey. My faith journey started the Sunday that my parents baptized me in the sanctuary of United Churches of Durham. Once I turned three, I started Sunday School. I would listen, intently, to Mrs. Newton give the children’s message; I would run to class with the other kids; and then I would learn about the Bible and God.

I remember one Sunday, I was probably four, I told my mother, very adamantly, that “I did NOT believe in God!” Thus I wasn’t going to go to church. My mother was less than happy to hear this. Looking back to that day, I don’t even remember why I said it. I probably wanted to stay at home with my father and help him with yard work or wanted a ride on the lawnmower. Clearly my four year old self didn’t know what she was saying, or how God would impact her life later on.

I don’t remember when I started liking church and wanting to go, but it happened. It must have been around the time I started Jr. Choir. What better incentive could there possible be, other than being in a choir?! Or maybe it was Heifer International. I also loved when we did Heifer. We would do Heifer during Lent and use Heifer’s Lenten Calendar, which would tell us to do something every day and put a specific amount of money into the ark if we had the item or did what it said. I would bring the ark home and always try to get the most money in it. My favorite day during the time of Lent would be the day that told me to call my mother. For every time she responded I would put something like 10 cents in, and for every time she didn’t respond I would put 5 cents in. I’m sure my mother’s thoughts on this day are the complete opposite from mine!

As a kid I looked at church just as a place where we went every Sunday, sang a little, prayed a little, learned a little, and talked a lot, well at least Mom did! I never understood how my father was allowed to skip church, because of yard work, but I wouldn’t skip church to help my father! We did a lot of missions with the church, you know, Heifer, The Crop Walk, Operation Christmas Child. I was always enthusiastic for missions, they were fun! In 2002, United Churches of Durham started a new missions trip. They went down to Eastern Kentucky to build low income housing. The most memorable memory about going down to Kentucky was when I had to ask my minister a question. I remember repeating his title in my head as I found him. I looked up to our minister, literally, and went “Mr. Reverend Riggles do you have a hammer?” Just saying Mr. Reverend was almost impossible for the seven year old self, only to be corrected by him “Caelyn, you can call me Elven.” With Elven saying that, it made me close to God, Jesus, and him. If I could call the minister of our church by his first name, then what does that mean I can accomplish with God and Jesus, if I just got to know them a little better? With being able to call Elven, Even, it made me feel a little bit closer to Jesus and God, physically. That whole revelation added to my love of church, religion, and the congregation.

I went to church faithful. Sure there was a Sunday or two when I was camping or playing a sport, but for most of the time I would be sitting in the usual pew in the balcony with my family. It was only recently that I felt bad when I missed church, or couldn’t make it to Senior or Chancel Choir. When I was thirteen, my mother got us into the Bible Study at church. Bible Study was every Thursday morning. We would always talk about whatever we learned, and I would usually sit and just listen, and the next thing you know Elven would be weighing in and saying something about how the beginning of whatever we were talking about dates back to 637 A.D. Anything with Elven will turn into a history lesson! I remember one morning at Bible Study we started talking about Christmas versus Xmas, and how the X takes Christ out of Christmas. Evidently the X in Xmas is the abbreviation for Christos, which is the Greek word for Christ. So we aren’t taking Christ out of Christmas when we write Xmas. Now Elven explained a lot more than I just did, but I was amazed at how much history one small little word, a letter really, could contain.

When I was fourteen, I started confirmation. Within confirmation class, I learned a little bit of everything in Christianity and “my” church, I learned the 66 books of the Bible to the difference of Congregationalist to Methodist to how many organ pipes there are in the sanctuary. If you were wondering, that are 29 organ pipes in the sanctuary of United Churches of Durham, so if you’re ever down in Durham. Stop by and make sure they’re all present and accounted for.

Taking confirmation got me thinking how differently my relationship with God would be, if I started actually putting my heart into praying, and how much more I could understand Biblically if I started reading the Bible every day. Thus I started both. When I pray I think about the whole day and hold a conversation with God. The same conversation you would have with your parents when you got home from school and explain every bit and piece of how the day went. I told God about the good parts and the bad parts. Sure I asked Him for nice weather, or for me to pass the next test in whatever subject it was in. Then I waited for a response. My eyes would still be closed, my hands still folded, my head still bowed. The only sound in my room would be my breathing. Sure I haven’t gotten a response yet, but waiting for a response makes the conversation from a one-way conversation to a two-way conversation.

After confirmation, not only did I believe in God more, but I understood more about church, why we do the things we do. Why we call it a meeting house instead of a sanctuary, and of course the most important thing. How many organ pipes there are. Some days I think of how long my faith journey has been and where it’ taken me, but then I think of where it’s going to take me and the years to come, the years to add onto my relationship with God, and my beliefs.

In scouting they have an award called God and Me. There are four levels of this award, and this award has a different curriculum for each denomination. I’ve gotten two out of the four awards for the Congregationalist religion. This was probably the first time that my two journeys intersected. I was a Junior in Girl Scouts when I got my first God and Me award. I remember standing at the front of the church, with my award in hand, in line with all of the other scouts as Mom took pictures and the congregation applauded all of us.

After the God and Me program, my faith journey and scouting journey intersected many times. When we went down to Kentucky one year I was in the middle of my Miss Fix It badge. When I first looked at all of the requirements for the badge I didn’t know how I was going to get it all done. I knew it was possible, but didn’t know when I would have the time, but that one week in Kentucky allowed me to get the badge, and more!


Another benefit from Kentucky, was I’ve gotten stronger. Whenever I go to an item that is heavy, I’m usually told “Caelyn, that’s pretty heavy, we’ll let a guy take it.” I usually give the person a look and then say “Well, it has it be lighter than a roof truss, right?” and walk away with the item in hand. You can only imagine how many people I confuse with stating that an item is lighter than a roof truss.

I’ve spent countless hours and days with Troop 27 in Durham helping out with leaf clean-up and community dinners at both United Churches of Durham and the Church of Epiphany. Of course I love leaf clean-up, because that means we would have a huge pile of leaves. Much better than any pile of leaves we could make at home. I just couldn’t let a pile like that pass right by me, could I?

Both Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts include our “Duty to God” in their promises. Even though they both do, Girl Scouts puts an asterisk next to the word “God”. In Girl Scouts, you may change the word “God” to whatever you feel most comfortable saying. While in Boy Scouts there is no asterisk next to the word “God” at all! In Connecticut, there is a person who will sit on some Eagle Board of Review and will ask: “Do you believe in God?” If the scout says no, this person will not accept his Eagle, because for at least 10 years of this scout’s life he’s been making a promise that he will be reverent and will do his duty to God. In Boy Scouts, God means the one that we read about in the Bible, the one who gave us Jesus. There is no asterisk in the Boy Scout promise or law.

When I promise to do my duty to God, I often think of John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural address. He said: “It’s not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I think of what I can do for God, instead of what God can do for me. It almost seems that we can so easily ask God to do something for us, but it’s much harder to do something for God. I ask myself why this is, all the time, but I still haven’t come up with an answer. I’ve come to a point in my faith journey, where I want to do something for God. I want to help Him out in a small way somehow, don’t you?

While I was writing this sermon, I asked Mom to look through it a couple time and give me some suggestions and hints on how to make it longer. One of her suggestions were “Would Jesus have been a scout?” Now this got me thinking, because in scouting a lot of our beliefs are based off of Jesus, God, and Christianity. I’m going to say yes, Jesus would have been a scout. Today we strive to be the best person we can be in and out of scouting. We strive to be nice, responsible, reverent, polite, clean, physical fit, and much, much, more. All of these are bits and pieces of how Jesus would have acted. Jesus and Christianity set us a standard of how we should act. A standard that we all strive to meet, so yes, Jesus would have been a scout.

Another great scouting quality Jesus taught us was leadership. I’ve grown as a leader in scouting, when I first started scouting at 5, leadership meant nothing to me, all it was, was another vocab word. But as I grew up in scouting, I also learned what leadership was, and leadership helped me grow. Leadership in scouting started out as being in charge of snack and organizing that, but it has grown into helping out with Sunday School, sitting on a committee at church, and being able to help out with a church service. All of these things have just entered into my life within the past two years. Since coming to this church, I had never preached. Never thought I would preach. I never helped out with Sunday School or sat on a committee, but I do now. My leadership has grown up with me, and if I keep this growing rate up at this speed, you’ll be looking at your next president. My leadership has grown, just like my faith.

I was trying to think of a good way to explain how my faith journey has grown and expanded, and I was stuck until my mom was talking to me about some new idea that she came up with at three in the morning. Her title of this new idea was “The Mongoose and The Mustard Plant.” That was it! I thought. I finally knew how to explain and sum up my faith journey!

My faith journey started out as a mustard seed, for me. As I grew up, I attended church and activities with church. Every time I attended church, an activity, or a missions trip, my seed got some water and some sun. Every time it got some water and some sun, it would grow a little bit. Eventually, when my faith journey stops, my mustard seed will have become a giant mustard tree with deep roots into the ground, showing how much faith I’ve gained within my life. So here’s my last question to you.

Does faith start out with a tabulae rasa, a blank slate, or has God already planted you mustard seed?

Happy Singles Awareness Day, Oh Wait - - -

Happy Singles Awareness Day every- Wait what, they didn't change the holiday name yet? Oh, oops. Sorry. Let's try this again.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you have a wonderful day, weather you single, married, dating, excepting, engaged, forever alone, or whatever your relationship status is! I do have to state, my Valentine is a cute little two year old boy, whom I watch every Tuesday night. He is just adorable! Luckily his father, being the wonderful husband he is, is going to surprise his wife with a night out tonight, so I actually get to spend my Valentine's Day with my Valentine. Here are my four quick steps on how to have a fun-fill Singles Awareness/Forever Alone Awareness/Valentine's Day!

1. Work all day, get dropped off early in the morning for my story time and don't leave until 3pm/4pm
2. spend 20 - 30 minutes at home after work.
3. Babysit until late at night
4. Go to bed.

That is how you spend a Singles Awareness/Forever Alone Awareness/Valentine's Day correctly.

Now onto the history part of this day. Valentine's Day is the feast of Saint Valentine. Now the Catholic religion does not have this feast on their liturgical calendar, because we do not know which Saint Valentine we are feasting for. There are several if you were wondering. Now we don't know which one gets the feast, and we don't really know why today. It is speculated that a Saint Valentine was buried today, so we're feasting on his burial day, but then we go back to the, which Saint Valentine. Maybe we're celebrating all of the Saint Valentines, right? Well no one really knows this answer.

I do have to state that the Eastern Orthodox Church, celebrates the feast of Saint Valentine of Presbyter on July 6th and Hieromartyr Saint Valentine on July 30th. With that said, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the two names, Valentine (male) and Valentina (female), on February 14th (today!). An interesting fact in the Eastern Orthodox Church there is NO Saint Valentine, but yet they celebrate two Saint Valentines, and celebrate the names. Maybe they're just going along with the whole unknowns of today.

Now, the most fun fact about today is Saint Valentines Massacre!!! Yes, that needed three exclamation points. I'm going to need your imagination for a little bit, okay?


Okay, it's February 14, 1929. You're in the Chicago, on this lovely day with your sweetheart. You do not know that they're will be a massacre right in front of you, between two well known gangs (why you were in an alley way behind a garage, don't ask me). Anyways, the next thing you know you see several men of the Irish North Side gang up against the building, you also see two police men in some nice Crestview uniforms (don't they look hot?) The next thing you know these two handsome, "police officers" open fire, each with Thompson Sub-Machine Gun.


It was known that Frank Gusenburg, had 14 shots in him. While in the hospital they asked who shot you, and Frank responded "Nobody shot me." You would think that if you knew that you were dying that you would say who shot you right? Frank died three hours later.

Now back to your imagination, you're now on the street. You fled the scene with your sweetheart and are enjoying a nice walk on the street. You see two men acting as street men walk out to the main road with their hands on top of their heads with the two policemen behind them. You assume that everything is under control, and continue your day with your sweetheart.

Both Capone and Moran were not there, Capone was vacationing in Florida (man wouldn't I wish to be in Florida today, I'm so tired of this cold) and Moran was actually going to the warehouse, when he spotted the cop car and fled to a coffee shop. So as Moran's buddies were being killed, he was enjoying a nice Solo Espresso Con Panna (okay so maybe he wasn't dinning a Starbucks, but we're imagining here, got it?)

Okay, you can stop imagining. Story is all over.

The aftermath of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the beginning of the end of Mr. Moran's power and control of the city. In 1931, Mr. Capone was convicted of income tax evasion (even the Al Capone had to file taxes, I guess explaining where he got the money for hits would be kind of hard to explain to the IRS, so I don't blame Mr. Capone for not filing them. I'm sure tax evasion is a much better sentence than everything that he's accomplished). Mr. Jack McGurn, the guy that the police suspected planned the whole shebang, beat the massacre charges (nice judicial system we have), but would be murdered February 15th (ha you thought it was going to be 14th) in 1936, no one knows who's gang got the hit on him.

So all in all Valentine's Day is a world of unknown. You don't know who we're feasting to, the Catholics don't even have the feast on their liturgical calendar and the Eastern Orthodox Church feasts, but they don't have any saints to feast for. You don't know what your special someone is going to do to you (hey I wonder how many romantics out there are proposing today, maybe they're proposing under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France with a nice cup of espresso with their sweet heart, and have tirramissu and have the ring right on top, or maybe it's with biscotti - - - oh I want that guy.) tonight. You don't know how many Valentine's Day roses you'll get (I got one Saturday night), or how many cards you'll get. You won't know what the cutest sweetheart message you'll receive. You won't know if you'll end the day with a Valentine if you're single. Today is all unknown, and maybe that's what makes today as amazing and wonderful that we all believe. Maybe Valentine's day is like Santa Claus for grown-ups. Maybe Cupid is Santa, we don't know.

I hope you will have a wonderful Valentine's Day, and if you have a special someone. Tell them how much you mean to them, because you really don't know how long you have with them.


This is a hopeless romantic signing off.

-And remember, I love you! ♥

Taking A Cup of Tea with Mom and Me to a New Level

 Sometimes, you can be so dedicated to an idea that it starts to define you.  DD and I have always enjoyed our tea time together, thus the blog title; but this weekend, we took it to a new level.  It wasn't just a cup of tea with mom and me: it was mom and mom and mom and mom and mom and mom and several me's.  We celebrated DD's 16th B'day at a tea house with 5 fellow girls and 6 moms.  Some people may think this could be boring, but with our group boring is not in our vocabulary.  Fun is wherever we are.  And on this afternoon fun was at Tea Roses Tea Room. Where we devoured yummy food (those cucumber sandwiches where the perfect blend of sweet and pepper), laughed until we cried, reminisced about days gone by, and planned to never let these friendships dissipate.

So here is to a little more tea for all the moms and daughters out there.  May you always find time for tea with each other.

PS Happy Birthday, yet again.

Love,
Mom

S.A.D/Valentine's Day Hodgepodge

1. What is more important-doing what you love or loving what you do? Loving what you do. It makes life that much better :)

2. Do you like bleu cheese? Only the dressing ;) Or maybe on a salad here and there, but I'm not a huge fam of it. My younger brother on the other hand - - -

3. What is the most difficult emotion for you to handle? Hard question - - - Um, I have no clue, I probably have a little bit everyone ;) Sadness is probably the hardest. It shows the most weakness.

4. Fresh flowers or a box of chocolate? If I didn't have a cat, I would go with flowers. Even though I don't enjoy flowers that much, but I'm working on it! I would like chocolate, but they're chocolate, sugar, and fat. As stated on NCIS: LA "A second on the lips, a lifetime on the hips"

5. What's a song you love that has the word 'love' in its title? It doesn't have to be a 'love song'. Okay, I'll give you two. One is a love song, and the other is a song that was played at the first concert I went to. I hope you can figure out which one is which ;)

6. Are you the person you wanted to be when you grew up? I'll come back to this question in 20 or 30 years ;)

7. Any special Valentines Day plans? It's not Valentines Day, it's Singles Awareness Day (SAD). So no ;)

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Don't you think that video makes you want to go out and buy a VW? I absolutely love it!! This was one of the best commercials at the super bowl. It reminds me of when my grandparents got an automatic garage door opener. They told Bro #1 and I that it would only go up if we said "Abracadabra" with this really awesome hand motion. My grandfather said that everything that Bro #1 and I went out we kept him and grandma on their toes, because they would have to watch us, with the clicker in their hand to make sure the garage door went up when one of us were saying the magic word ;)

How To Write a Sermon From a Lay Person's Point of View

I have by conned into doing the sermon at my church once again, by my father. So as I'm starting to write my sermon about a Faith Journey, I came up with this list of 12 steps on how to complete your sermon from a lay person's point of view. I hope this helps whatever lay person is reading this on their sermon ;)

How to Write a Sermon from a Lay Person's Point of View

1. Acquire a cup of coffee with mix-ins to your liking

2. Turn your music up (music may or may not be reverent)

3. Open Microsoft Word

4. Close Facebook (DO NOT skip this step)

5. Write the title

6. Jam out to your favorite song

7. Let the juices flow

8. Re-fill cup of coffee

9. Go to the bathroom

10. Finish sermon

11. Re-read sermon

12. Re-open Facebook

Your sermon is now complete and you can continue harvesting your plants on FarmVille ;)

Cae

Birthday Hodgepodge

UPDATED NOTE: I'm scrolling through the movies on at 1:00am on February 2nd, and what are they showing? Groundhog Day, only to then realize that I've seen bits and pieces of this movie. I am so staying up until 3am just to watch the whole thing!

1. Would you rather be seen as a person who did their duty or forged their own path? I would want to be seen as a person who did their duty. I don't think I could accomplish forging my own path!

2. This week's Wednesday Hodgepodge happens to fall on Groundhog's Day. In keeping with that theme, if you could have a do-over of any one day out of the last seven, which day would it be and why. If you haven't seen the movie Groundhog Day this question will make absolutely no sense but that's okay....you can answer anyway.

You thought my question was going to be weather related didn't you? No, well maybe. There's a movie called Groundhog Day? I'm going to have to watch this! I don't think I have a day I want to do-over. My weeks been really good :D

3. Hot cocoa...yay or nay on the marshmallows? Depends on my mood, but usually a yay :D

4. Do you wear makeup every day? What are the top two must haves in your daily makeup routine? Yes, cover-up and a light mascara :D Can't go anywhere without them on me!

5. Is it more important to you in a relationship to be loved or understood? Both. You need to be loved, and understood. I think you need to be understood to be fully loved.

6. Parsley sage rosemary or thyme... your favorite? Thyme, always loved the name of it ;) Good reason, huh?

7. What do you do when you feel angry? Cry, write, or listen to music.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!! YES!!!!!!!! I read the cutest book know to man, given to my by my boss last year for my birthday and everyone should own this book!

Cae