Jon graduated from seminary today. Here are the last few days:
Thursday: I drove Jon down to Columbus to meet my father-in-law at $tarbuck$. He arrives and we go out to dinner while waiting for his bags to arrive from Chicago. We go back to Newark and Jon goes to work on his Approval essays while I do a Wal-Mart run and some light cleaning. We head to church to proofread things for Jon and get home at 11. I do three sinkfuls of dishes and clean the counters. At midmight, I poured straight bleach on the countertops. It made the house smell icky (and yes, I did ventilate the house [though not the kitchen — bad Jen] while doing it) but it got the stains off my counters. I get to bed around 2 a.m.
Friday: Up at 6:45 to get Ray (my father-in-law) and Jon and I out the door to Columbus for Jon’s class picture and meetings. I head to $tarbuck$ for a bagel and a Frappucino. (I needed the caffeine, OK?) Head back to the sem and meet up with a few people. Jon’s advisor takes us out to lunch and then Jon and his advisor meet. We get back to Newark at 3:45 and hurriedly do the last of the cleaning and dinner prep before Bill and Judy arrive at 5 for dinner. (I cooked much of it a few days ahead of time.) Dinner goes well (my first time entertaining, so nerve-wracking for me) and we chill and head back to Wal-mart to get bookcases. In bed at 11 and asleep at 11:45.
Saturday: Up at 6:30 (!!!!) and got Jon, Ray, and I dressed, pressed, and on the road by 8. We get to the sem at 9 and mill around and find seats for the Baccalaureate Eucharist. Eucharist was about the level worship normally is at Jon’s internship site — and this was *celebratory*. There was more prelude music (mostly to give the MACM students a chance to show off) but the worship formality and enthusiasm was about the same, which is a compliment to St. Paul’s because they worship with *GUSTO*. The sermon was hysterically funny — it was Dr. Croy preaching and he has a rather… interesting way of incorporating pop culture stuff into his sermons. His sermon last year on John 14:6 was related to “Wayne’s World” and this one was on the “you are the Son of God” passage in Matthew where Peter gets it and later rebukes Jesus for talking of His impending suffering. (The second the sermon gets posted, I’ll link it on here, OK?) For lunch, we went to the Golden Corral (buffet food — LOTS of it) and made our way to Mees Hall for Commencement. It was an OK ceremony and I got pictures of Jon getting his diploma. We milled around and socialized afterward. We then went to the apartments, got Sable (who was being worked on this weekend by a fellow student who was a Volvo mechanic and fixed her for about 1/3 of what it would have been otherwise), and bade Ray adieu. He had offered to take us to dinner (and I sort of wished we’d just gone for coffee) but we were tired and peopled out, so we returned home.