Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 10/07/18> Time for some updates…
Streak ended at...
Well, it is Sunday and my poker winning streak ended at two games on Saturday not much of a streak; I know. All was not lost though in that poker game, I did make the final table and did get a piece of the prize pot so I will gladly take finishing seventh. When I play poker my sights are set on getting in the money and if I happen to better than just getting a small piece of the action and end up with a larger chunk that is just ice cream on the cake.
Church is questioning...
I did find out on Saturday that the church is questioning why I haven’t been in church lately. Seems that one minister’s wife was asking the questions and she wanted to know if Mrs. Papper thought it would be a good idea for her husband to “reach out” to me. She told the woman that she didn’t think that would be such a good idea. Mrs. Papper told her that if her husband needed to reach out to anyone that he might start with the youth minister.
So today marks...
So, today marks week seven, Joel O’Steen and his preaching is actually a lot better to listen too, and I don’t even have to get out of my pajamas to do it. Plus, I know that Joel isn’t going to get carried away with his preaching and keep me tied up there for more than the 30 minutes he has scheduled with the television station, our church up the road is way longer than 30 minutes and sometimes they’ll stretch it out for over an hour. Especially if we go to the 11:00 service, since that is the last service of the Sunday morning they have been known to get carried away and not be done until 12:30 sometimes.
You can tell...
During football season you can tell who the football fans are, both ministers and congregation members, quick sermons from the preachers and a lot of men checking their phones to see just what time it is and wondering if the will make it home in time for the kickoff of the noon game on television.
Official notification...
While we are talking about family, well while I am talking about family, Blondie did get official notification from the Girl Scout council that she has been awarded her silver award. The silver award in Girls Scouts is the second highest award that a girl can get in Girl Scouts, gold being the highest award. So congratulations are in order for Blondie and the other members of her troop, as it was a joint project in which all the girls participated.
Started back eight...
She is in a pretty unique troop too, all the girls in that troop have been together from the start back 8 years ago when they were five. They started with a dozen members and are down to eight now. One of their members is actually the granddaughter of their troop leader. That might not sound all that out of the ordinary but let me explain why it is.
When the troop started all the girls went to the same grade school and the troop leader was a seasoned leader of Girls Scouts, I think this year marks like over her fortieth year in scouts, so she wanted to be the troop leader for her granddaughter. Well her granddaughter and her family ended up having to move to Atlanta, Georgia three years ago; her father is pretty high up in the United Parcel Service management and got transferred to Atlanta.
Was so committed...
The grandma was so committed to her troop that she has carried on leading the girls and they have even managed to keep her granddaughter in the troop despite her living 800 miles away. The girl attends every meeting using Skype and when they have a special event to do she flies in for it.
That troop leader is really to be commended; she could have easily told the girls to take a hike and given up leading them. The granddaughter even is able to sell the girl scouts for her troop since she has her grandmother UPS them to her.
The troop made the trip to Savannah, Georgia last year to see the place where the whole Girls Scout experience got started so they stopped overnight in Atlanta and stayed with the girl and her family. Then the girl went on with the troop to Savannah so they really have done quite well out of making the best of a tough situation.
Shortie also has...
Shortie also has some girls scout news as well; she and her troop earned their bronze awards just last month by making dog and cat pillows for a local animal shelter. Also, just yesterday, Shortie defended her title at the local field events for the Girls Scouts in our area; she won her second consecutive first place ribbon for the hula hoop contest.
Last year her time was well over twenty five minutes when the judge finally had to stop her, since there wasn’t any competitors left to even try and it made no sense to continue on. This year though, they changed up the contest and so Shortie only was able to do the hula hoop for nine minutes, but that was more than anyone else.
I did not know that she could hula hoop on one leg, nor did I know she could hula hoop while jumping up and down. It turned out that she had never done it before but was pretty good at it. The same couldn’t be said for her competitors, most dropped out at the one leg portion if they hadn’t already been eliminated.
That pretty much wraps up the girls and their activities for now and I also think that is a good place to call it wrap on this edition of the Daily Dose. Thanks for being with me and for your continued support. Just to be clear this is week seven of the church boycott and I am also boycotting the NFL but I don’t have a count on that, just know that I am in year two.
Until next time,
@sultnpapper
Note: Thanks for reading the Daily Dose.
Photo Credits : All photos are the property of @sultnpapper.
Well. News from the church. I'm going to guess that puts the over/under at 2 weeks to resolution. I'm thinking if the minister's wife asked she's going to put the bug in her husbands ear. Now it might get down to depending on how entrenched the Youth Minister is in his position. Could be some interesting daily dose material.
I think your daughters are just pretty guzbucking spectacular. That story of Blondie's troop is a lot more than an interested Grandmother story. That takes some dedication and commitment from every member.
Congratulations on her silver award. WooooHooooo.
And it looks to me like Shorty and her troop are on the 'not to be outdone' playlist. A very good thing.
Congratulations to Shorty and her troop on the Bronze Award. I'm saying in public that my weight is in position that I'll be a buyer in the Spring for cookies. Yuma Council might want to order an extra case :)
I still watch the Cardinals every Sunday. Maybe it's penance for my not going to church. Hadn't considered that possibility.
Last time I was married I had a BIL that made just too much money. He had a pager sort of thing that showed the baseball scores. We'd sit side by side in Church and he'd poke me and share updates. Yep, that was well prior to cell phones.
Have a good Sunday my friend. You've earned it.
We shall see, the Mrs. Papper thinks she was asking more for preacher's wife sake than worried about the church saving my soul. I tend to agree, since the conversation about me was just following about how our youngest boy was getting a little burned out on volunteering up at the church. The Mrs. P said it didn't seem like there was real concern but more of a feel of well if your boy doesn't want to volunteer that much anymore, maybe your husband would volunteer some.
If the church was truly worried about saving souls there would already be an APB out on Blondie, since she is a newly confirmed member who has gone missing from both the pews and the youth group activities.
The church has attendance cards in the pews that members are asked to fill out at each service so they can keep track of who is attending church and not. I think they don't even look at those, I think they are more concerned with counting the collection plates offerings than anything.
If you remember the other ministers were made aware that there was some controversy back in late April about the youth minister wanting to read Blondie's paper because they had a meeting to discuss the potential fall out from that, you would think that her missing would have raised some eye brows by now.
So it will all depend on what that ministers wife's motivation was for asking, if she had genuine concern she'll say something; if she had only concern for finding a new volunteer to help with her projects around there than I don't know if she will even bring it up to her husband.
Blondie's troop now is discussing their gold award projects, and I need to find out but I am pretty sure that has to be an individual project and not a group effort.
The project they did for their silver award involved refurbishing a room at a homeless shelter in Houston. I asked her to send me the pictures so I could do a Daily Dose on it but she isn't to keen on that, she doesn't like being "spotlighted" in the Daily Dose. After a year of doing this she might just be thinking that I am serious about my future grandchildren being able to read the stories from here.
Shortie will be a total wreck today from her day yesterday, last year it took her almost three days to recover from that field day. That much physical activity in one day takes it toll on her little body. She isn't even awake yet and they need to leave for church in 45 minutes.
Their bronze award project just got in under the wire time wise, they had a project designed and built for the local school and then the school principal found out that it required approval from the school district in order to have it placed on the school property. So they had to scramble to get another project done and that is how the animal shelter came into play.
Your brother in law was a techie well in advance of others it sounds like, only gamblers had those it seems to me, he wasn't a bookie was he?
You have a good Sunday too, thanks.
Ahahahaha. I think he won it from a bookie! Yes, as a matter of fact, he was a gambler. That one wasn't even my longest marriage and the difficulty had started to arise while we were still married. Long story short, he ended up doing a little time and doesn't make too much money anymore.
Really pretty sad. He was junked up on gambling sure as I was on alcohol and dope. Mine was a hell of a lot easier to see and admit to. I always really liked the guy.
I'm really not convinced that saving souls is the primary purpose of most churches. It really hurts me to say that...
Those bookies were the only ones I can remember having those sorts of things back then, and when cell phones looked like bricks everyone of them had those too.
I tend to agree with your last statement as well, saving is in their agenda not so sure about the souls though.
Yeah, that "volunteer labor" is always a great thing to have. So is guilt as leverage. I need to get me a gig like that.
yes, it is all about leverage isn't it. I wish I could also get some volunteer labor for that tree I need to cut up this fall and winter.
FOR TSE: Ok ... just so I can get this straight. All this church boycott thingie is because the youth minister has Blondie's "confirmation paper" that she wrote -- that he hasn't returned. (Has she asked him for it?) And you think the reason he won't give it back is because that might confirm that he plagiarized a part of a sermon using her text? Does that about sum it up?
Do they publish the text of the sermons somewhere so you can compare them side by side? Otherwise, the longer he stalls, the more memories fade. I'm sure you've noted that.
(Does all this sound unbelievably petty to you?) You do realize this isn't apt to end well ... no matter how it goes from here. I'm betting if somebody (anybody!!) pushes the matter at this point that the paper will go mysteriously "missing."
So ... why isn't it a good idea for the minister to "reach out to you?" Is it because he might get an earful? (Does Mrs. Papper understand the reasoning behind all this?) Now if I were Mrs. Papper, I'd have told the minister's wife exactly what was going on and why -- and let the chips fall where they may. (Assuming I understand all this in the first place. But then, that's me. And I don't mind poking the hornet's nest.)
If they're looking for "volunteer labor," maybe they can cobble up some warm bodies to go searching for Blondie's paper.
This is better than a soap opera. (Did you hear the part about how it's not apt to end well? Just thought I'd underscore the point.)
You have it correct. She has asked for it, I have emailed him about it and the wife has asked in person. His excuse is that since the church cut out his administrative assistant (secretary) he has been swamped with things. Besides the being the youth minister he also oversees the Harvey relief teams and the food pantry.
He claims that all the papers that the confirmation kids wrote have to be scanned and put into the permanent record for each member and he just has not had time to do any of them, at least that is what he told the wife about a month ago.
I don't even care that he has used bits and pieces of her text, Blondie doesn't either. It would have been ethically right to mention it when he was using it, but she just wants to be able to read it to me and I damn sure would like for her to be able to do that.
I am pissed off at the church for some other reasons too, but this is right at the top of the list. I don't like the way the church has been running for the last several years and this group of ministers were all hired in here from over in California. I am not really impressed or do I care how things are run in California, "this is Texas so act like it", is what I will them and my wife knows it.
My wife has already found out that two of the ministers will probably be looking to move in the summer when their kids will just be graduated from high school. Neither of those are the one with Blondie's paper though. The management of the church is a wreck right now and it isn't getting any better from what the wife is telling me now that she is seeing stuff from being an employee there.
It may very well not end well. I'll just give you an example of how the management thinks.
My father in law turned 88 last month, he has been a member of that church since he married my wife's mother back over 63 years ago. His wife passed away the week after Blondie was born, so 13 years ago. He doesn't go to church regularly, it is just to hard on him physically, he has had both knees replaced and needs a hip replacement but the VA says differently, so he only goes Christmas and Easter.
Last year he got a letter from the church telling him that they had deleted him from the membership role of the church. My wife went up there and raised hell with them. She was told that the Lutheran church requires each church send X amount of money to the diocese for each member enrolled and since they weren't getting money from him in the collection plate that they needed to remove him, the church did this to about 15 people.
My wife explained his situation and that for 50 years he was in church every Sunday with his wife. The response was "we didn't know" , my wife responded with, 'so instead of being concerned for the welfare of a member and checking on them to see if they need some assistance, you just kick them out of the church?
Needless to say he has been reinstated but that is the mentality of how they are operating the place. It isn't about the people it is all about the money. My wife organized a group of women who have a list of the shut inn members and they take turns calling and visiting the older member each week just to make sure that they are doing okay and if they need any help. If my wife hadn't raised hell and then organized that they would have just been ousted.
Those are the kinds of the things that have me PO'ed with them, Blondie's paper is just the icing on the cake.
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Great story about Blondie's troupe! That is wonderful that grandma and her parents kept her friend involved. Congrats to both girls on their medals. weeks churchless and counting...it will be interesting to see if things change because of the boycott. I noticed that they asked about the guy with the wallet and not the girl that should get her paperback and a heartfelt apology too. Better luck next week in the poker games...
Yes, I don't think that she was interested in the wallet , more looking for some free labor to help with her church projects. I'll pass those congrats along to the girls. I have to get the TV on now and listen to Joel. I think I am late for my church services.
Mmm... people are starting to ask questions about your absence? The penny is starting to drop, maybe.
Well done to your girls! When I was a girl guide (as they're called in the UK), a long long time ago, we got into the Guinness Book of Records for making the longest daisy chain ever. I don't remember if we achieved awards for it, but I do have a surreal memory of sitting on the church lawn late at night, threading daisies.
I think you may be the first person that I have ever known to be in the world records book. Like me and wife think, she seemed to be looking for some volunteer help for her projects and not so much concerned with why I wasn't attending.
I don't know if we still hold that record - probably not.
Well done to the girls mr Papper!
I take it your luck ran out not only at poker but also with that lottery ticket you had!
Well looks like something is changing with the church boikot at least, I'm sure the minister's wife is going to do something to try and change that!
Yea, Lizelle no winner on the lottery, but there is always next time. I hope she does try at least there is a start there.
i pray for you. heathen boycotter. 😂 and congrats to blondie.
Thanks man. I need all the prayers I can get. I'll pass those congrats along in the morning to her , she is asleep right now.
howdy sir sultnpapper! I hope that church situation irons out but now it might as well be after football season is over! lol. Joel Osteen is great, he gets alot of heat from people but he's speaking to a world-wide audience so he doesn't preach hard, he wants non-Believers to hear and not be turned off.
Also, the Girl Scouts story was wonderful!