Well that didn't go as planned....

Well this weekend didn't go along exactly as planned.  

Friday night I suddenly started feeling ill.  I had such nasty abdominal pain that I almost couldn't stand it.  No matter what position I sat or laid in there was no finding any comfort.  Unfortunately the symptoms didn't begin to diminish until about 6pm on Saturday.  Finally by about 9pm I was able to finally eat and actually drink something.  From Friday morning to Saturday night I lost exactly five pounds no doubt mostly being dehydrated but still not good.

Saturday I was so sick that it caused me to have to miss work (something that I have not done in years) and that meant not being able to work on the large painting that I have to have ready to install by Wednesday morning.  Obviously losing a day put me a bit behind the eight ball.

This morning I woke up early and rushed into the shop to put some final texture on the back panel for the painting.  I needed to get that done so it would have time to dry so I could paint it later on today.

After finishing that I drove back home to pick up Madeline and then we both drove to Papillion to pick up her boyfriend Joe.  We then proceeded downtown to attend services at First Baptist Church.  This weekend Pastor Ron has started a new Sunday School class for adults and Doug and I decided to take a break from teaching our class in order to allow the individuals who regularly attend our classes to take the class from Ron.  While this class is going on I've decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go and visit some other congregations in order to observe and take notes on how others are organizing their worship services.  Since American Baptists can and do worship in a number of different ways I feel it is to my benefit to experience a few other church's worship services.

Today First Baptist was having a joint service with their Karen congregation so the service was different in a couple regards.  But minus the Karen doing some special music and the Karen Pastor giving the sermon in Karen (which his daughter translated into English) the only major difference from First Baptist's and our services at Sunset Hills was that all their songs were from the hymnals and we tend to do more praise music.

Next Sunday we are planning on going to Nebraska City for the Apple Festival down there and I'm trying to talk everyone into going to the UCC Church in Nebraska City.  We'll see as this will mean waking up pretty early and my girls aren't too excited about the idea.  I need to pull out all my charms to convince them I suppose. LOL

After getting home from the services at First Baptist I had a protein shake and a cup of coffee.  Then after sitting for a bit I headed to the gym to get in a Chest/Back/Shoulder workout.

So less than 18 hours from being so sick that I couldn't even keep 7-up down I was in the gym getting ready to workout.  A wise and prudent person would likely have decided to go with a light workout, but wise and prudent aren't terms often used to describe me in the weight room.  LOL.  Instead knowing myself and realizing fully well that my undernourished and dehydrated body would mean that my endurance would be far more compromised than my strength, I went heavy.  By going as heavy as I could handle today for reps of doubles or triples on my first few sets on each body part, I was able to stimulate as much muscle as I could but I was also employing an old "jedi-weightlifter" trick.  Going heavy meant that I was smacking my muscles with a ball peen hammer but it also meant that I was slapping my central nervous system up along side the head.  Now that my central nervous system was wide awake and ramped up for heavy weights I was able to drop back on the weight and actually complete more repetitions on my last sets and my supplement movements than I could have if I'd have just gone to the same weights straight away.  This trick will work in a normal workout but was doubly advantageous in my depleted condition.  So by no small amount of determination, experience and a bit of guile I was able to pull off a good workout in spite of being under the weather.

After the workout I ran home had a quick bite to eat and went back to the shop and spent the rest of the day working on the painting.  Fortunately, I was able to make up for most of the time I lost yesterday to being home sick in bed.  I have a little more work to do on the back panels and then it will just be a matter of assembling all of the pieces.  

Tomorrow I'll line up a truck for Wednesday morning to haul the painting out to the house and the project will be finished and the painting will be part of the Street of Dreams.  Hopefully the couple that are purchasing the house where the painting is hanging will like it and purchase it from me.  I'm also hoping that it will bring in a few more commissioned pieces.

Tuesday morning I'm planning on going down to Lincoln and taking in a program on Suicide Prevention.  It's only an hour and a half long but I'm told it's well worth taking in.  Next Friday and Saturday are also our monthly ELM training and I still have a little bit to read before then so it's going to be a busy week.

You all have a blessed week and remember to be a blessing to somebody as well.

In His grace,
Roy