Continuing my "creature of habit" weekend I went to The Oriental Restaurant in Woodbury. Here's how the conversation went with the waitress (who also I don't know by name but who is always there to serve me)

(Also - the place was super crowded -- it's NEVER CROWDED so I had to wait almost 10 minutes for her to notice me.)

Waitress: AH, what would you like - the special?
Tina: Yes, please - Sesame Chicken, 1, Hot Mustard with my egg roll and a hot tea please.

to which she says - "You look very nice today, have a hot date"?

Now, I can take this one of a few ways: A) I must look like crap most every other time I'm in there B) The fact I was eating alone on a saturday night might have been a HUGE tipoff that I did not have a date, let alone a HOT one or C) She was just trying to be nice in her somewhat abrupt way.

I always wonder about the high schoolers that work the front desk. She always seems like she's yelling at them and yet, what a cool job would that be - most of the time when I stop in during the week they are sitting at a table doing their homework.

Went to a church seminar on "servant" volunteering this morning. While interesting, I can't say it wasn't anything I was overly not on-board with already. (My english stylistics professor is probably just groaning at that last sentence!) I did feel bad for one of the women at my table because she seemed to be in the same boat I was back during my FLC days. SO really wanting a church to progress and move forward but not exactly having the right support to do so. I was glad that I sat there (even if I may have alientated the WLC people at other tables) because she was by herself and the other four people were "couples" and just whispered to each other pretty much the entire time, so while I didn't talk all that much it at least rounded out the table and didn't leave her the odd person out.

I also was proud of myself that I didn't get out my rant about contemporary worship services. Why why do people think by adding a worship service that that is the BOLD step they need to take to help connect to young people or people who don't know God? Sure it's fine and dandy and actually a pretty high list of my "Worship style" wants however some sort of checklist "check" on contemporary worship does not make your church contemporary.

So most of the morning was about appreciating teams and equiping them. While there are some practices that I plan to adjust in my own teams I think the thing that made the biggest impression was a continuing development of the idea that this life is not meant to be about me. And again, I do appreciate the idea of thanking people for serving and making them feel appreciated however I've really got to get a better attitude when people make comments about me. Really, I just like to help and as my Oma Arlington Heights used to say " viele Hände bilden helle Arbeit"- truthfully it's better to be out among the people than in my empty apartment. And so, "you're welcome" will become my mantra because it's just so much better than "no really, I WANT to help.