Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Home Renovations - Round II

Our refrigerator and stove are both currently residing in the living room, along with half of everything we own. That's because my uncle is back in town to continue working on the house. This time, he's laying tile in the kitchen and dining area, the entry hall and a strip of the living room leading to the back door.

We got a great deal on tile last week at a store in Plano. We paid only $0.37 per 12" tile. I was worried about the color and the quality, but it looks like they're going to work fine. Laying tile through the middle of an occupied house is a bit tricky. Walter got about half laid today, leaving open space for us to walk around. He'll lay the rest tomorrow, and the ones laid today should be okay to walk on by then.

Did I mention that our washer and dryer are also disconnected and sitting in the garage? Fortunately, we did an adequate amount of laundry this past weekend to cope. I'm trusting we'll have them back before it's time to wash again.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

First ICF Home Group for Fall '06

We had our first ICF home group meetings for the Fall '06 semester last night. The home groups originally started when demand for the Galaxy rooms became so high that we couldn't reserve them enough to hold weekly meetings. GOD used that "problem", however, to create a whole new ministry opportunity.

Roxanne and I were originally assigned to the group meeting at Bo and Peggy's house. Early this past week however, Ray got worried about the fact that we had only planned for meetings in three homes. Given the high turnout at the last meeting, there was a high risk of overwhelming the existing homes and having unmanageable sizes. Ray got in touch with Dave and Judy Corder, friends of ours from Hillcrest Church. Dave and Judy had helped us with the Christmas Progressive Dinner back in 2004. They have a gorgeous house that is extremely well suited for hosting social events. They also happen to love hosting such events, and they graciously agreed to help out on short notice. Since we knew them really well, Ray reassigned us to their house.

Judy did a great job with dinner. She served buffet-style tacos and taco salad. I definitely ate too much. Laurie Cotton and some others brought desserts. Roxanne and Timo handled music. Alween and I were in charge of the discussion, although Alween largely handled that. I was glad Ray and Laurie came, as it gave them a chance to meet and get to know Dave and Judy. They all hit it off really well.

A total of 19 people were in our group. The other groups probably had close to that number as well. The addition of the fourth home was a smart move.

We're scheduled to host a group in November and possibly October. Hopefully, by then we'll have everything back together following the renovation my uncle is doing.