What a Weekend!

It's been a wild past couple of days.

Friday was my day off and I was expecting to have lunch with a friend from Trinity. But the weather forecast didn't look good and he decided not to make the drive over from Toledo. There was supposed to be snow and ice... but it wound up missing us to the north. But we did get wind!

At noon on Friday the power went out. The wind knocked over a tree or something and both the church and my house were without power. So I went out for lunch and then bummed around town for another couple of hours. When I got home at 3:00 that afternoon, the power was still off. But within fifteen minutes of me being home, I heard a couple clicks and the water pump in my well turned on. I had water pressure, but no power in the rest of my house. After checking the breakers, I headed over to the church where we had partial power. The workroom had power and lights but the main portion of the office had no lights. We didn't have power for the phones or the server either so we had no internet.

Because I still didn't have power, I went over to a friend's house (they still had power) and took a movie I rented, Superman Returns, with me. We watched half the movie, took a break to eat dinner, and then returned to finish the movie. We got within a half hour of the end of the movie when their power went out! I stayed there for an hour and a half before heading home to see if I was still without power.

Before I could get home, Rob (my supervisor) called and asked where I was. I explained and he said he could answer the question about power at my house. He was at the church and knew that I didn't have power. So instead of spending the night at my house, I went over to Rob's (where they had power) and spent the night.

The next morning, we went to Cuyahoga Falls to elect a bishop. It was an all day meeting... a long, long meeting... Part of the issue was the time needed between the ballots to count the votes. They filled the time with presentations from a guy with Augsburg Fortress and showcasing some of the synod's congregations' websites. It could get kind of boring... but that's ok. The good part was that we did in fact elect a bishop. The next bishop of the Northeast Ohio Synod is Rev. Elizabeth Eaton. I believe that she was the best candidate out of the seven candidates the field was narrowed down to after the second ballot.

After the meeting, I ate dinner at Rob's house again and played with the kids a bit... then finally left his house around 10:45. Even as I returned home last night, there was a crew working on one of the power poles just across from my house. The night before, I had to go to Rob's the long way because they were working in the same area and had closed the road. It was nuts. But the good news is that I returned home and had power. Last night was the first time in 36 hours I was home for more than a half hour. =)

Today I had church of course and then went with our mid school students and a few high school students to sing Christmas carols at a couple of care facilities. I didn't get home until 3:45 and I was exhausted. I didn't go to bed on Friday night until 12:30 and then last night I went to bed around midnight again. Both days I got up at 6:30... so I was ready for a nap this afternoon and am probably going to bed soon.

It has definitely been a wild ride the last couple of days, but I have had a lot of fun. It was a bunch of fun hanging out with Rob, Kim, and the three kids the past two nights and even though the meeting was long yesterday, I did get to see several friends and faculty members from Trinity. I also have plenty of stories from Friday, which I might post at another time because this post seems to have extended into the length of a ten page paper. =)

Christ's Peace,
Kate