Nana and I picked up the girls on Friday.

We liked the goslings.

Everly likes to hang out with me outside. Amen.

I let her dip her thumb in the sugar when I’m making the humming bird water. I saw two of them today. M and F.

Nana brought presents for the girl’s birthdays. We decorated an ice cream cake and ate it.

Flowers are always a part of my life with my greenroom.

We went around Walmart to get candy and toys.

Penelope loved her little kitty back pack.

The girls spent the night. I built the “Great Wall of Tim” with pillows between me and the grandgirls. I got a lot better sleep.

Nana and girls watched Frozen together. Such a great movie. Although honestly, Moana is my favorite.

My new computer seemed to be having a problem. My computer screen would show one thing and the Sony TV monitor would show me something else.

My computer screen looked like this.

Jesse said she thought that it was probably a setting for displays. I realized that sometimes my cursor would be on my computer screen and sometimes it wouldn’t be. Then I noticed that the cursor was on the TV screen. So I figured out how to go back to the display settings and change it to Mirror.

FIXED.

In my heart I knew it was user error.

This Apple stuff is just too good to be doing doing this weird a stuff. Anyway, I hope I don’t have any more problems with it.

Been talking with my buddy Ben Birdsong about doing some videos for him.

Spanish.

Got the groceries.

I ordered a refurbished iPad for my Mom. A 2018 6th generation iPad for $229 I thought was super cheap.

Español!

OYB!

Picked up the girls at Global Mall.

Fantastic to see my brother Tito and his son Sammy today!

I had a great DDay with my team from Prattville, AL! I went through the cultural religion of Mexico.

They sang twice at Plaza Fiesta.

They also did a drama.

I struck the set and put everything back in our closet. Took over two hours.

GREAT to hear that Miles landed his new job for the tree company! Amen!

I’ve had a fantastic yet exhausting few days. Sometimes I’m just too tired to even do my blog!

Sunday the 13th, I spent most of my day getting ready for the team coming to town on Monday. I took my big cart to FBC Doraville and was able to move all my things for The Show to the sanctuary. We have 74 people in town, that’s just too many for the Fellowship Hall.

Ashley also helped me get the projector for the slide show figured out which was a huge help.

I also spent a lot of time going to Walmart and the Dollar Tree to get the things I needed for the week.

About 6:30pm I headed to the airport to pick up my Mom. What a blessing she has been. She’s been a huge help watching and loving on the sweet grandgirls while I paid attention to the team.

Got to FBC Doraville with my Mom and met Ashley and the girls at the church. Ashley is always so great at the presentations and she is really missed. But you gotta do what you gotta do and I’m glad she’s following a career that can really help her family.

After our presentation, we took the team to the Buford Highway Farmers Market. We had a great lunch, toured the market and sang for the shoppers. It was awesome.

From the BHFM we went to four missions: Azalea Place, New Peachtree, Shallowford Pines and Pearl Lane. The kids loved having the teams there and they’ve really been doing a terrific job.

Monday night, the team did a fantastic job hosting a block party for the kids at Azalea and also put on a terrific concert. Awesome!

Tuesday morning I did The Show by myself. Although it wasn’t as good as with my Ashley angel, it was still me and my overwhelming humility keeps me from going on and on about how good it was. I covered Hinduism and Buddhism.

We had a terrific meal at Pho24 and sang at the restaurant.

Tuesday evening, the team did the concert and the block party at New Peachtree which is the sister property of Azalea. It was awesome again. I didn’t stay as long that night because I was just exhausted after two nights of not getting home till after 10 PM.

Wednesday morning I did my presentation on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the morning before the teams arrived, I edited the slide show to just have the critical elements that we needed so that the presentation was more streamlined and easier for me to do by myself.

After The Show, we went for a delicious meal at the Hibachi Grill. The team also sang a couple of songs for the people at the restaurant. They did a great job and everyone loved them.

From there we went to Al Madina and enjoyed seeing what it’s like to be in the Middle East and then also sang. Went over great!

Then to Global Mall to sing in the Hindu temple there as well as to the people eating at the food court. Everyone loved them!

Straight to the missions next to work with the kids. They went to the Braves Game that night so I had an earlier evening.

My Mom and I enjoyed being with the girls at Ashley’s house. My car has still been having overheating issues so we waited until the traffic died down before coming home.

I’m still trying to catch up on my sleep, but wanted to write the blog, even without the pictures. Everything that I shot is in these galleries: https://whirlwindmissions.smugmug.com/Teams-2021

Also released a new episode of Verbal Surgery called “No Ledge 2.” /a> It’s great!

Kathy and I drove to Duluth for our CPR Class this morning.

The place where we met was the fanciest day care we had ever seen in our lives. It looked like something out of Six Flags. Wow.

We couldn’t do the breathing piece because of Covid.

Lots of practical information.

I did so many compressions it actually made my hand sore.

Fascinating.

I am certified in First Aid and CPR now.

We practiced for infants, too.

Lots of info. And no test. Huh. They mainly just wanted to make sure that we knew how to do the compressions correctly. They said that it’s way more necessary to the the compressions than to breathe in their mouth.

How many of these can I remember?

The training lasted about two hours.

Here’s an example of how high speed this Creme de la Creme place was.

K and I went to the Buford Highway Farmers Market to eat. Then to Walmart to get the food for the teams on Monday night and the missions for Mon/Tues nights. We will have hotdogs as well as popsicles.

Then took all the food to our kitchen at FBC Doraville.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to get all the stuff I need over to the sanctuary. We decided it was safer to have more room to spread out with the big team.

Español!

That’s never good.

Indeed.

Seems reasonable.

Wow!

This always surprises me.

Mas Español!

Love my girls!

Back to Waffle House!

I took the girls outside while K finished eating.

Getting ready to buy the food for the team for Monday night. Double checking on some of the items.

Ay, no!

Cloudy and rainy from time to time. Interfered with our plans for Stone Mountain.

OYB!

Girls have been so sweet this week.

I’ve been looking forward to getting the Orba in!

We ate Thai food for lunch.

The study of music production is far and wide. I’m just starting to get into it. I’ve wanted to for a long time, but now all the gear seems to be coming together. The Orba, Mac Air, Midi keyboards . . . and of course my guitars and mics! This is just part of a thread of a Facebook group I’m learning from.

Kathy got off from work about 2pm. She ate the Thai food I brought home, then we went to Stone Mountain. We were planning to see the Dinosaurs. Sadly, both that and the train was closed because of the weather. We still had fun eating some ice cream and watching the 4D movie called Mowgli.

Big thunderstorms rolled through again.

Lotsa flags out!

On a neighbor’s door.

After the girls left with Miles, around 4:45 PM, I vacuumed the house.

Blew off the garage and part of the driveway. It was still sprinkling.

Wandering out in the rain with a blower would be el estupido.
Gassed up my car. Checked the levels. I buy my gas at Walmart. I get a discount after I’ve bought enough gallons. Kathy gets a .10c off discount when we reach that level.

Bought some new short pants. I needed some with deeper pockets. Stuff kept falling out, like my glasses and my knife. Hate that!

Today I noticed that they put different groups of sizes with different colored tags. That really helped speed up looking for things. I got three new pair.

Glad to hear this!

Duolingo en Español!

Morning light!

Picked up the girls then went to Waffle House. Kathy was with us too.

Hard for me to get fired up about memorizing this word. Not like I use it every day.

We saw another traveling fair near Global Mall. We stopped to check it out.

OYB!

Ordered groceries.

Now these phrases I might use.

I spotted these tiny white balls on the leaves and sweet gum balls. I think it’s tiny mycelium that will produce mushrooms.

Who else do you know would’ve noticed something like that?

Package for Ashley. She said it’s outfits for the girls.

The sheets of Tyvek for my map jacket project came in today! I hope my tailor can work with it. It certainly isn’t cheap! But that map jacket is one of my trademark looks. It is exactly what my jackets are made of.

I’m always getting the girls to help me with projects.

They enjoyed practicing with the wobble board.

I do a little touch up when they get bored.

I went back to the Liriope project. Planted about 25 plants.

I dug 51 holes.

I try not to do it for too long, makes my back start hurting.

I added the fourth row. Eventually, the whole front area will be covered with it. I’ll leave it till maybe next Spring, then start mowing it.

I’m doing the curves so it always looks kind of finished.

Everly brought her dolls outside for camping.

I filled up the blue pool and they had a pool party with the Barbies.

Some big thunderstorms blew through this afternoon.

I had to wait outside the apartment at Azalea for a few minutes to let it blow over. The girls were sleeping.

Went to the office to check the mail, processed a check, then deposited it on the way home.

My car had a bad time with the traffic and started overheating. I pulled off the road to restart it several times. In the past, that has always fixed the problem. This time, no. Scary. And right before the team comes. Spiritual warfare.

Picked up groceries.

I love stuff like this.

Seth Godin.

Fantastic! And these are only getting more powerful.

Spanish brain.

Hazy! It turned out nice some of the time. Cool morning plus damp air.

The sun looked like the moon through the clouds.

Never too much Ashley!

I saw this bird on the wire on the way home. I actually put the car in reverse and backed up about thirty yards just so I could take this picture. I get pretty excited when I see a bird I don’t know!

I finally figured out it was and Eastern Towhee. It’s a bird that I’ve seen tons of times, but never from beneath!

Me gusta ropa holgada.

I’ve been working on this word. I’m thinking of the word “anklet” to help me remember it.

We got home and I let the girls play for a while.

OYB!

Cleaned and scrubbed the bird baths and water bowl.

The girls have been doing better about putting their shoes up.

We went to Walmart to get some new shoes, socks and flip flops. It was a pretty big job but the girls did great.

I was pretty excited about opening this package from Apple!

I set up the basics. I still need to fine tune it to my preferences but overall it was a simple procedure.

Went from my old Mac to my new Mac.

I had to make sure they were both on the same wifi system and then they started talking to each other wirelessly. Living in the future, baby! I always thought the MacBook Air looked like it came straight out of Star Trek.

Here they are down stairs in my room. I still need my hub and some cables to fully hookup my system, in particular my big Sony TV. It has really served me well.

The girls really enjoyed playing with the toys I bought. Although Penelope confessed to me, “I really don’t like dolls.” She does, just not nearly as much as Everly.

.5″ of rain yesterday.

I’ve got about three hours left in this trilogy. I think I’m going back to Harry Potter. I’ll be interested to see if I can understand it better now.

Watered my ficus. I’m concerned I may be watering it too much, but overall she looks happy.

Picked up checks from my office, processed them, and deposited them on the way home.

I’m not sure if these are blooming because we fertilized them or not.

These queen ants were swarming when I was putting up the garbage cans from the street.

Good one!

One of my heroes!

Called Plaza Fiesta to make sure that it was cool for our choir team to sing there. We got the green light!

I got this email first thing in the morning.

I’ve been doing research on recording music. It’s been fun learning new skills and listening with different ears.

I may take some of these courses. Could be very interesting.

Español! Cada dia!

Had to take another way to work this morning. My normal route would have really put me late for Ashley.

Always great to see my girls!

We ate at Waffle House.

This is my Orba on the way. I’m looking forward to using this with different programs on my new Mac.

Saw the pair of Black Faced Nonday parakeets this morning.

Cool little word.

Deposited checks this morning.

Gassed up my car. Checked the fluids and cleaned the windshield.

There were these big granite boulders that were put by the Walmart gas station as a retaining wall. The girls had a blast climbing around on them.

The girls are very fit. I’m constantly challenging them with physical things.

I’m not sure what type of tree this is, but I love the bark.

Literally “to the best” means “maybe.”

Cloudy, sprinkles from time to time.

I ordered an AC unit for Kathy’s bedroom. It’s way cheaper to cool one room than the whole house.

While I was recording yesterday, I heard the train whistle. I realized that Stone Mountain was back to daily events not just the weekends. Awesome.

OYB!

Took the girls to Stone Mountain up the southern road to where we call Campsite One.
So much beauty!

The girls were playing happily. Eventually, I asked them if they noticed the bones. They hadn’t.

I love the stains on the rocks.

We saw a buck and two does on our hike!

This is at our campsite.

The ATL!

We watched the train come around several times.

Got an update on the dinner situation for Monday and Tuesday evenings at the church.

After our hike, the girls and I ate lunch at Metro Cafe. Excellent. The lime cake was good, but should have gone chocolate.

Penelope’s pants tore. I stitched them up when I got home.

I also sewed a button on my shirt. It got caught on the edge of the table at the restaurant and tore it off. Weird.

Staple-gunned the curtain going into my bedroom.

Listened to Radio Garden, specifically Cadena Ser from Madrid.

Went by my office to check the mail. Processed checks.

I hear this word a lot in Spanish.

Deposited checks on the way home. Twice today!

Released Verbal Surgery -859-“I am the Medicine.” /a>

Powerful stuff!

Probably went over great back then.

I’ve learned so much by observing nature.

Ha.

Necesitas una sudadera?

My new computer is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I wanted to make sure the Apple ID was up to date for a seamless transfer. I hope.

Keep Duolingo going.

Cloudy and rainy.

Had a good chat with my buddy, Anthony. He always cracks me up.

Always fun to talk with Mom.

I went over to my sister-in-law’s house. I fixed Ann’s phone charger. Helped her get into my car. Then I drove Kathy’s car home.

Transported another squirrel.

Just got this note from Apple. It’s on the way!

Joseph Campbell has had a big influence on me.

Que divertido!

I can almost see myself there. Evergreen Marriot.

Wow.

I had fun playing with one of my synthesizer apps. I’m looking forward to doing more with this stuff. I think it could be a lot of fun.

Estoy tratando hablar mas en Español. I’m trying to speak more in Spanish.

OYB!

Cooler day.

Looks like rain in the forecast.

I have four gardenia plants. They are two different types. These I’ve had for at least ten years. They are almost like bonsai.

Duolingo motivates me to keep going.

I’m working on getting some new jackets made by a tailor at Global Mall. I’m pretty sure I can use this material.

I just ordered three of them. Amazon is good about taking things back. I figure if the tailor does a good job, which I’m sure he will, It’ll be worth getting some extras made.

Went to Stone Mountain to record a podcast and make calls. I tried to call my Mom but she was busy. Tomorrow!

I’m getting better at understanding this all the time.

My favorite.

I was back on the Liriope project. I took clumps of the plant from my back yard around some of my trees.

Used the Gorilla cart to haul things around.

Made the pattern where I’ll put the plants. I’m making curvy lines so it looks more natural.

I put the plant in and tamp the soil down after I’ve broken the clumps up.

The project is coming along.

The thing about this plant is I know what it can and will do. When I was trying to grow grass seed, I always felt in my heart that it was doomed to failure because there just wasn’t enough sun. Liriope grows just fine in deep shade, so I’m joining in with nature and helping spread the plants.

Transported a squirrel. I keep them covered because it helps them settle down.