Training

Yesterday I officially began my training as a shift supervisor. So far, so good. I kind of thought I knew what I needed to know. As it turns out, there's still a lot to learn. So back to school I go. But at least the pay is better.

Floors & More

Through one of my coworkers, Alan, I have hired her fiancee, Johnny to replace our floors & refinish our cabinets. Johnnie is a great guy who happens to also be highly talented. We are still waiting for the videos of his exploits on Extreme Home Makeover, but we trust he knows what he's doing. In fact he is replacing our floors for less money than our insurance company AAA gave us to have them refinished. God's hand is definitely in this. It is also giving us great opportunity to have Johnnie and Alan in our home. Natalie & Becca love them and can't wait for them to come over again!

Because I still hadn't finished a project from last November, I decided now was the time. We had redone our family room with paint, border, wainscoat, etc.... except for the area around our sliding glass door that I wanted to replace. Well, yesterday we bought a new door and it should get installed on Friday. Thank you Billy! This means that I can finish the wainscoat and when the floors get replaced next weekend, it will look like an entirely new home! This of course means that we will have to move into new rooms and make more and more changes....does it ever end?

Adoption Party

14 months ago tomorrow I received a call from my friend Roger, telling me he wasn't going to be able to make our gathering. Why? He had just gotten off the phone with a social worker who was calling to see if he and Cynthia were interested in adopting a baby girl who was now 2 days old and needed to be picked up from the hospital by 5:00 pm in Glendale. This began a long and arduous journey that landed by Marissa in their home. A little more than one year later and Marissa is officially a Newton. What a precious little gift to Roger and Cynthia and to all of us.

Last night we joined the Newtons and many of their friends in a wonderful celebration of Marissa's adoption and homecoming. There was joy, laughter and tons of photos. Like a bonehead, I didn't bring my camera, so here's a picture from Marissa's birthday party two months ago.

Kitchen Update

I met with the adjuster yesterday and she has agreed to pay for our wood floors to be sanded and refinished. Fantastic! However, she is refusing any work to the cabinets or to remove the mold citing previous damage as her reason. This could be quite expensive for us to remove the mold....and yet leaving it or removing it ourselves is not really an option I plan on considering. We can't have mold in our home especially with allergy issues & asthma for Mimi and Natalie. So we're going to try to see if we can negotiate anything else with the insurance company and if that doesn't work out, then we'll just have to bite the bullet. Fortunately I may have found someone to do the floor and cabinetry work that would be very reasonable.

We have had the dehumidifier removed and so our kitchen is usable. The cupboards are still taped up because of the mold, but we can at least use the space and the noise level has decreased significantly.

All of this to say our community242 gathering will be meeting at our house tomorrow.

Don't Dream It's Over

Well the dream season...the Cardiac Kids those Miracle workers wearing Bruin Uniforms finally ran out of magic. In fact they ran out of everything. UCLA was humilated by Arizona today 52-14! It was a complete blowout! The Bruins with today's loss probably worked there way out of a BCS game and top 10 finish. There only hope would be to beat both ASU and USC in the there next two games. While beating ASU is certainly attainable, USC is an entirely different story. And with Oregon beating Cal today, UCLA could fall to third place in the Pac 10. We can only hope...

A Very Bennet Halloween

Our five trick-or-treaters sportin' their fashions on Oct. 31! Not quite the Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, but never-the-less we had an adventure.

Halloween @ Starbucks

After stopping by a few homes on our street, we took the kids to Starbucks for trick-or-treating. We hooked up with Torrie, Christopher and Ashley for our tour of 6-8 shops. Also in the picture are fellow partners Heidi, Maggie & Erin.

Greenhouse Organic Church Event

My friend Paul Kaak just let me know about a fantastic event for those of us interested in being & doing church organically. He and Neil Cole will be leading this weekend seminar Nov. 11-13 in LA. If anyone is interested in being part of it, email me. You can check it out at the www.cmaresources.org website. We can get a group discount if there are five of us. Right now I have 4 including me that are considering it. We have until Sunday to decide.

The Paces of Halloween

In a flash Nathan aka the Red Power Ranger was gone. On his heals were Karissa and her neighbor friend dressed as a leopord and some kind of fairy. Hopelessly trying to keep up was Natalie dressed as Tigger. And lagging sometimes as far back as two or three houses, Becca (Blue from Blue's Clues) and Tyler (Ninja warrior) appeared to be quite content.

It was fascinating to see the various paces that the kids all took on Halloween. We, the adults, tried a couple of times to help the situation by suggesting to those who were faster to wait for their siblings and cousins. That didn't work. For many, many houses I carried Becca to help her keep up. That was somewhat effective. But mostly we just let them go their own pace. In the end they all ended up with 3-5 lbs of teeth-rotting goodness.

The very next morning I was having breakfast with a friend and author, Tim Smith. Tim was talking to me about how everyone has their own pace that they move through life at. He just published a book about this very thing, called, "Connecting with Your Kids." And he said that we never marry someone with our exact pace. Well that was certainly true of our Halloween experience and it has been true of our marriage as well.

What's your pace?