Men's Retreat

Fun in Lake Geneva I went to Lake Geneva with a couple of the guys I work with for a Men's retreat.  We had a blast (including some fun with this rope swing) and we got to praise God together, which was awesome. We went with Willow Creek Church (which is a HUGE church in Barrington, IL).  I really enjoyed hearing Mike Breaux, one of the pastors from Willow Creek, speak.
For some reason the swing was lower for me...	Tony, with a goofy look on his face
Tony had several excuses for not being able to pull Tom back...	Was it wrong that I was hoping he fell in?

We're counting you...

I'm wondering if anyone actually reads our blog, so I decided to add a counter. We'll be keeping an eye out for you. Howeverm it is invisible in case only like 5 people look at our blog, they don't know how unpopular we are.

Goodbye grackles, hello goldfinches

Actually posted by Andy, not Janell:

Well, I solved the "Curse of the Grackle" recently. We have a bird feeder in front of our house which was being savaged by the common grackle. They were scaring off all of the other, nicer looking, birds. So, I did a little research and found that the grackle despises safflower seed. So, I replaced our wild bird seed with safflower seed and haven't seen a grackle since then. Suckers.

I also purchased a goldfinch feeder. Apparently, goldfinches are the only birds that feed upside down, so this feeder is designed only for them. This is somewhat humorous when other finches attempt to eat from the feeder. The have to resign themselves to picking up the scraps leftover on the ground. I might end up getting them their own feeder though. I feel for their plight.

One interesting phenomenon I have observed with the goldfinch feeder is that they seem to be very territorial. There has been 1 female, and 2 males at the feeder quite often. As you can see from this photo though, only one male eats at a time. There is space for 6 birds on the feeder, but as soon as the other male tries to feed, the one currently feeding scares him away. It's very interesting to watch.

A final observation about birds. I appreciate the fact that male birds are much better looking than their female counterparts. I made the comment to Janell that this is much like humans. She didn't seem to appreciate it though...As I like to say, it's a good thing we have a comfortable couch.

Lobster Anyone?

Here's a lesson for all you kids out there.  Even though it's cool outside, and it's not sunny in the morning, that DOES NOT mean that you can go to a baseball game without sunscreen.  Some might think of this as an easy way to get a couple days off work, but I will assure you that it IS NOT WORTH IT.  Some might assume I was trying to do my best Clawful impersonation, but he WAS NOT my favorite He-Man character.  In case you haven't heard of it, when your sunburn oozes puss, it's called "weeping".  It's quite enjoyable...Ok,not really.  It's actually very disgusting.  Probably not as disgusting as the HUGE blister on what used to be my right ear lobe.  I'm hopeful for partial recovery of the lobe.  Just to clarify, the substance on my wounds is not puss, but rather the medicine my doctor prescribed.

Andy's Gift List

To All Interested Parties:

Here is a link to Andy's new and improved gift list.

http://www.andy-mccann.com/gifts.htm

Enjoy perusing it at your leisure. You can feel free to purchase any item whenever you would like, as I like to think of my birthday being a year round event.

Substitutions may be made for most items, although I would recommend having them pre-approved by the appropriate authorities (i.e. Andy).

Thanks you for your time.

Andy

The Kitchen is Done!
This is our memorial to Janell's fond memories of the yellow Barnhart kitchen.  I like it in our house too though.  Hope you all can come see it in person sometime soon.  :)

It's Curtains for the McCann's

That's right,everyone will be happy to know that the curtains are finished for our living room. We are one step closer to actually having a home. I will be posting some other updates to the house in the near future. Janell did a wonderful job with her first sewing project. I'm sure the neighbors appreciate not having to see brown paper taped up in our windows too. :)
	Before curtains...
	After curtains!

Purple hope

The other morning as I left for work, I was surprised to be greeted by these beautiful purple flowers. I felt an immediate attachment to them, wanting to protect them from the late spring frosts that were still to come, thinking they must have bloomed by some fluke caused by the ridiculous fluctuation of the weather in the Midwest. I stooped to look at them every day as I left for work, marvelling that they were still alive and thriving while everything around them, (grass, trees, neighboring plants) was still lying dormant.
On Saturday, it was finally nice enough to do a little yard work, so while Andy busied himself cleaning the gutters, I worked on aerating the flower beds. Though my goal was to loosen the hard-packed soil to allow water to penetrate, I'm suspicious that my only success was in giving myself a sore arm. In hindsight, the Garden Claw might have been worth the extra money. Andy made me use toothpicks stuck into a sponge; we're still not speaking. Not really. But we did try to save money on the tool, and I now know why it was so cheap. However, I did find time to take a few pictures (about 26, but I had to delete most of them already so Andy wouldn't know how much I was goofing off while he was almost falling off the ladder).

Well, we finally figured out how to get me on the Blog too. Janell tried to keep it to herself, but I hacked into her account and added myself. HA HA HA

Here is proof that Janell's not the prissy princess that everyone thinks she is. She is willing to get a little dirt under those beautiful fingernails (except she wore gloves, so I guess not really).

This is outside of our new church building. We were clearing out some of the brush that is on our property. We want a clear view of the pond from the windows of our sanctuary.

If this is anything like journaling, I won't post again for about three and a half months...but perhaps blogging is much different than journaling. We'll see.