Confessions of a Meat Hoarder

Heres the angel, picture on the left is his 1st grade first day of school on the right is 7th grade.
So I've owed my fans this story for sometime now. The story is nearly 2 weeks old and feel I have let my blog readers down. Someday my child will read my blog and probably run away immediately for all the stories I've told on him. So I must first say, Perry I love you as much as a mother can love a child, and probably even more than that. You antics bring great joy to my life and many others. So please don't hate me!

So you say you've never heard of meat hoarding? Me either, so I made it up I'm pretty sure. So my child never is willing to go to bed when he's told. It usually starts at 9:30 pm, the bedtime ritual. The question starts, "mommy if I go to bed right now can I watch TV?" If it's truly 9:30, and not closer to 10 I'll usually say yes. The he'll get up cause he's thirsty. Sometimes he'll want popcorn at bedtime, it literally is nonstop nonsense until like 11pm, no joke. So the night in question I was in the basement doing laundry, I had just told him to go to bed, and hear the pitter of patter of no so little feet going from his room, to the kitchen. I lacked the energy to investigate and assumed it was for water consumption. So I came upstairs and I was in my bedroom. At this point it was lights out and closer to 11, and one should be well on his way to dreamland......not so much....I hear a drawer open and close, not ever a good sign either he's setting up clothes for tomorrow (highly unlikely since that's never happened) or he's hiding or doing something he shouldn't. I had, had enough this particular night so I stormed in his room threw on the light and yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" He was unable to respond as he was in shock, and he was chewing. "Sweet Lord Jesus, WHAT ARE YOU EATING??" To which he responds quietly, as if it's NORMAL, "salami".........of course.......to which I respond, because I know my kid, "wheres the rest..." he calmly points to his desk drawer which is right next to his bed. I yell get it out. He doesn't hesitate, as this is seemingly normal to him. He reaches into his drawer where he keeps pencils drawing, and other desk items, and pulls out a half inch stack of thinly sliced SALAMI....ya heard...SALAMI. The worlds greasiest meat. Did he have it sealed nicely in a baggie, or wrapped gently in a papertowel of sorts??? NO! Just placed nicely IN HIS DESK DRAWER, as if that's where you keep salami. I inspected the meat from where I stood and could tell this just happened and it was clearly still chilled. I yelled please go put it back before I kill you. I'm not sure I'm going to survive the teenage years.

HAPPY 25TH VCC!

Say what you want about a mega church. I personally love it, and it's all I've known for 22 years. Well not necessarily all I've known as I went to 2 churches almost every sunday for many years until the early 90's. When I first started going to the Vineyard in 1988, I was in college, and this dynamic guy (Steve Sjogren) came to our BSU (Baptist Student Union) meeting on a Tuesday. We did bible study on Tuesdays during lunch. Tanny our president already was attending his church and invited him to come and share with us his vision.

He came, I went with my cousin. And the rest is 22 years of history. For a few years I attended the methodist church I grew up in and the Vineyard. Eventually I attended just the vineyard. My first our reach was called a Big Fun Bus Run, where there was shelves for groceries built into an old school bus. We bagged up some groceries and delivered them door to door in Lincoln Heights. We offered to pray for folks and they accepted. It's shockingly easy and it worked.

So I called up my cousin Susan and say hey lets go check it out. When I started attending the Vineyard (called Vineyard Christian Fellowship) There was close to 100 folks at Diamond Oaks, it quickly grew to 300 there I believe and just kept growing steadily, we are now at over 6,000. It was overwhelming to see all that God has done with everyone all in one place.