For me, my parents are coming to town this weekend. They celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary this week, and we’re heading out to the Sterling Renaissance Festival in Sterling, New York. It’s always a lot of fun, and this year Laura from Royal Rags is going to dress my wife and I up in Renaissance period cloths. If you’re interested in seeing pictures, and if you’re on Twitter, be sure to follow me on my Twitter Account. I will be posting pictures throughout the day via Twitter.

If you’re not near Sterling, New York, here’s a list of some other interesting things to do…

Today, Friday, August 8

• Happiness Happens Day
• Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbors’ Porch Night (This sounds fun!)

Saturday, August 9

• Elvis Week begins at Graceland in Memphis, TN
• National Garage Sale Day
• Perseid Meteor Showers

Sunday, August 10

• National Resurrect Romance Week
• Weird Contest Week in Ocean City, NJ. One contest daily. Contests include artistic pie eating, saltwater taffy sculpting, french fry sculpting, we T-shirt throwing, Little Miss and Little Mister Chaos and Miss Miscellaneous Contest
• National Duran Duran Appreciation Day

So, there’s a list of some possible things to do this weekend. As I mentioned above, I’m heading to the Renaissance Festival. What about you? What are you doing this weekend? Leave me a comment and let me know what’s on your agenda.

A Fellow Sojourner,
Dr. Rus

This will be a weekly feature where you the reader can get involved, and also invite others to join in the fun too. Usually Friday’s are known as TGIF and it’s simply a time to celebrate finally arriving at the end of another week, with little thought of what to do for the weekend. Frenzied Friday brings a slightly new twist to that old idea. Yes, it’s nice the weekend has finally arrived. But what about the weekend? What kinds of things are planned for the weekend to bring some order, peace and calm. That’s the kind of post we’re looking for here.

It’s really easy to join us and here’s how it works. Do a post about your week and then tell us how you plan to unwind during the weekend. What are you plans. Put a link in your post, to the Frenzied Friday post here. Please use a permalink directly to the weekly post page, not the general url for my website. The easiest way is to simply put a line in your post that says something like;

This post is taking part in Frenzied Friday!

Then make that line a permalink to the post here. At the end of this post you will find a Mr. Linky box. Fill in the information in the box, and put the permalink of your post, again, not your general url, in appropriate box field.

That’s it! Please spread the word about Frenzied Friday and lets have fun encouraging one another for making it to the end of another week and giving some great ideas for weekend plans!

Dr. Rus

Frenzied Friday Post for July 18, 2008
“A Weekend At The Movies”

The big movie news this weekend revolves around the new Batman flick, The Dark Knight. Early box office predictions have this latest installment in the Batman franchise pulling in about as much money as the Joker steals in the movie. I screened The Dark Knight earlier this week on an IMAX screen. You can find my review of the movie on my Frame by Frame Movie Review Blog. But, believe it or not, there are a couple other movies worthy of note opening this weekend too. With that in mind, what do I plan to do as a wind down for Frenzied Friday heading into another weekend? I’m going to check out those movies.

So, what’s on the also opened this weekend list? Aside from The Dark Knight, the hit Broadway musical packed with ABBA classics, Mamma Mia hits the big screen. Meryl Streep, who admitted she already knew some of the ABBA song lyrics by heart, is the mother of a soon-to-be-wed girl who’s on a mission to identify her biological father. Pierce Brosnan also appears in this musical to hit the big screen flick. Lastly, something for the kids, the rated G movie Space Chimps opens up this weekend too. In this animated flick a crew of chimps travel through space and attempt to defeat a dictator on a planet far, far away. Space Chimps sounds like my kind of a movie spoofing Star Trek.

Then, on a somewhat humorous note, former Batman Val Kilmer has an independent thriller called Felon opening today too. While Kilmer’s movie has a limited release, the superhero from the 1995 movie Batman Forever jokingly said he’s kind of sad for Christian Bale because his movie will be number one at the box office instead of the new Batman flick. Yeah, sure Val. Keep dreaming.

What’s my weekend going to look like? I’m not going to see the Kilmer movie. But I think I’ll see Space Chimps tonight and then take my wife to see Mamma Mia tomorrow night.

A Fellow Sojourner,
Dr. Rus

This will be a weekly feature where you the reader can get involved, and also invite others to join in the fun too. Usually Friday’s are known as TGIF and it’s simply a time to celebrate finally arriving at the end of another week, with little thought of what to do for the weekend. Frenzied Friday brings a slightly new twist to that old idea. Yes, it’s nice the weekend has finally arrived. But what about the weekend? What kinds of things are planned for the weekend to bring some order, peace and calm. That’s the kind of post we’re looking for here.

It’s really easy to join us and here’s how it works. Do a post about your week and then tell us how you plan to unwind during the weekend. What are you plans. Put a link in your post, to the Frenzied Friday post here. Please use a permalink directly to the weekly post page, not the general url for my website. The easiest way is to simply put a line in your post that says something like;

This post is taking part in Frenzied Friday!

Then make that line a permalink to the post here. At the end of this post you will find a Mr. Linky box. Fill in the information in the box, and put the permalink of your post, again, not your general url, in appropriate box field.

That’s it! Please spread the word about Frenzied Friday and lets have fun encouraging one another for making it to the end of another week and giving some great ideas for weekend plans!

Dr. Rus

Frenzied Friday Post for July 11, 2008
“Catching Up On Sleep & Picking Son Up”

Okay, I know it’s been said that you can’t really catch up on sleep you’ve missed. But, that’s what I’ve been doing all week. As I’ve already mentioned in an earlier Frenzied Friday post, my wife has been in and out of the hospital lately. That of course made for a number of hospital runs, and missed naps along the way too. But, she is now home and on the road to recovery. She even went back to work this week! I had just one movie screening this week for the new Journey to the Center of the Earth flick. That meant, I was home most nights. It also meant I didn’t have a lot of running around to do during the afternoon either. So, I took longer naps, and went to bed early all week.

Now that I’m feeling pretty much rested, it’s time to welcome our middle son back home from his mission trip to Mexico. For the past two weeks Ryan has been on a trip with Global Expeditions. This is actually his second year for a mission trip to Mexico. As part of the trip they help build a house, and also do some street ministry. It’s always a life-changing time to go on any mission trip. Ryan arrives home Saturday afternoon and I’m sure he will have plenty of stories to tell as we pick him up at the airport.

That’s what my weekend is looking like, how about you? How will you wind down this weekend as we put another Frenzied Friday behind us.

A Fellow Sojourner,
Dr. Rus

This will be a weekly feature where you the reader can get involved, and also invite others to join in the fun too. Usually Friday’s are known as TGIF and it’s simply a time to celebrate finally arriving at the end of another week, with little thought of what to do for the weekend. Frenzied Friday brings a slightly new twist to that old idea. Yes, it’s nice the weekend has finally arrived. But what about the weekend? What kinds of things are planned for the weekend to bring some order, peace and calm. That’s the kind of post we’re looking for here.

It’s really easy to join us and here’s how it works. Do a post about your week and then tell us how you plan to unwind during the weekend. What are you plans. Put a link in your post, to the Frenzied Friday post here. Please use a permalink directly to the weekly post page, not the general url for my website. The easiest way is to simply put a line in your post that says something like;

This post is taking part in Frenzied Friday!

Then make that line a permalink to the post here. At the end of this post you will find a Mr. Linky box. Fill in the information in the box, and put the permalink of your post, again, not your general url, in appropriate box field.

That’s it! Please spread the word about Frenzied Friday and lets have fun encouraging one another for making it to the end of another week and giving some great ideas for weekend plans!

Dr. Rus

Frenzied Friday Post For June 27, 2008

Another Friday has arrived! Depending on which side of the border you live on in North America you’re either celebrating a long weekend, or getting ready to celebrate a long weekend next weekend. This is the July 1st long weekend in Canada, while the July 4th celebrations for the States hits next weekend. This of course leads to two of my favorite, tongue-in-check questions — Is there a July 1st in the United States? — and the corresponding question of — Is there a July 4th in Canada?

As we head into another weekend it’s time for Frenzied Friday here. What did your week look like, and what does the weekend hold for you as you try to wind down.

For me, this week was a little more relaxed than the week before. It’s nice to have my wife home and on the mend so I didn’t have all of those hospital runs every day after work. I did sleep a lot this week though.

What does this weekend hold for me? At this point I’m not exactly sure. I was pondering a quick trip to Ontario, Canada to remember a friend. Earlier this week I received a phone call from my mother telling me that a former parishioner of ours from a church we were Pastors of in Ontario, Canada was killed in a motorcycle accident. It’s very sad, he was just 54 years old. In an effort to save gas money, John bought himself a motorcycle this year. He’d only had it a couple months, and as he drove to work Wednesday morning, someone pulled out of a driveway into his path. The driver of the car said he waited for one car to pass, but he didn’t see the motorcycle.

The Atkinson family were one of the first we meet when we moved to Warkworth. Our first night there, after moving our furniture and other belongings into the house, we stayed the night with John’s parents, Ambrose and Joanne. We quickly met the rest of the family and discovered John’s sister-in-law, Karen, went to the same high school I attended. I played in an over 30′s hockey league with John and his brother Sid and that was a lot of fun too. One of the most memorable moments was when a player from another team was standing in the middle of the ice cursing me out. As I stood there saying nothing, John skated by, slowed down and said, “Hey there Pastor, it’s probably been awhile since you’ve heard all of those words together in a sentence.” He then skated off laughing, with the other player turned quite red-faced.

If I don’t make it up to Canada, I do know this, my thoughts and prayers are with the Atkinson family. I wrote this in an earlier post this week, but it’s worth writing here again in this short tribute to John Atkinson — John, you had many ups and downs and curves and corners in this journey we call life. May you rest in peace now that your journey has passed from this place we call earth, to the heavenly realm above.

A Fellow Sojourner,
Dr. Rus

This will be a weekly feature where you the reader can get involved, and also invite others to join in the fun too. Usually Friday’s are known as TGIF and it’s simply a time to celebrate finally arriving at the end of another week, with little thought of what to do for the weekend. Frenzied Friday brings a slightly new twist to that old idea. Yes, it’s nice the weekend has finally arrived. But what about the weekend? What kinds of things are planned for the weekend to bring some order, peace and calm. That’s the kind of post we’re looking for here.

It’s really easy to join us and here’s how it works. Do a post about your week and then tell us how you plan to unwind during the weekend. What are you plans. Put a link in your post, to the Frenzied Friday post here. Please use a permalink directly to the weekly post page, not the general url for my website. The easiest way is to simply put a line in your post that says something like;

This post is taking part in Frenzied Friday!

Then make that line a permalink to the post here. At the end of this post you will find a Mr. Linky box. Fill in the information in the box, and put the permalink of your post, again, not your general url, in appropriate box field.

That’s it! Please spread the word about Frenzied Friday and lets have fun encouraging one another for making it to the end of another week and giving some great ideas for weekend plans!

Dr. Rus

Frenzied Friday Post for June 20, 2008
A Week of Hospital Runs

Wow! What a week! My wife landed in the hospital a week ago Wednesday, and she finally arrived back home one week later. It all started about two months ago with a pair of shoes that have since been thrown out.

The main reason the above Crocs have been thrown out revolves around the fact that on slippery surfaces they are not safe. So, the above pictured Crocs resulted in this…

The above sprained ankle led to bruises, a blood clot behind the knee, and then ultimately blood clots in the lungs. That of course led to an extended stay in the hospital. So, to say the least, there’s been a lot of frenzied activity in the Jeffrey household.

What does the weekend hold? Lots of rest, spending time with my family, and of course my wife. We’ll probably watch some movies together and just be thankful for the fact that in the midst of this fragile world, we can unwind this weekend just by being together.

A Fellow Sojourner,
Dr. Rus