Deanna Doss Shrodes

We are still having a Christmas break except for dealing with Sunday services and emergencies. Today I slept in once again and rested most of the day. I have been so in need of this - my body is talking to me - and it's saying, "rest me, rest me..." and I'm complying no matter how much I want to be out there during the day using my Christmas gift certificates or whatever. I'm just saving that for evenings as really that's about all my body wants to do right now. I had come into this week very run down as I'm sure many people have. Last night I didn't get a lot of sleep. Larry and I had a wonderful evening together but for some reason I couldn't get to sleep although I was so exhausted. So during the day I ended up putting the "audio vision" channel (nature sounds, acoustic stuff - the kind of stuff they play in a spa) and laying down and resting and then taking a long "moonlight path" bath.

Larry took Dustin to get his blood w…

Yesterday I shared a video I put together in celebration of mine and Larry's 20 years together. Well, today finds me resting again during the day today with some time to do what I normally don't have a lot of time for, such as looking through my photos. I want to share "my three gems"...aside from my relationship with Larry, the greatest thing in my life - my three kids. I pulled some photos of them, a few old, a few new. Again, be sure to turn off the blog music down in the right hand corner before you watch the video or you'll have two songs playing! Enjoy watching my beautiful kiddos!

1) Flip to page 18, paragraph 4 - in the book closest to you right now, what does it say? "How is one made ready? First he must know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Second, he must be living an overcoming, holy life, expecting him to come. Is anyone perfect? No. but there is a difference between willfull disobedience and serving the Lord to the best of one's ability."(Enrichment Journal, Winter 2008)
2) If you stretch out your left arm as far as possible, what are you touching? My husband.
3) What’s the last program you watched on TV? The Investigators.
4) Without looking, guess what time it is. 11:00 5) Aside from the computer, what can you hear right now? The ceiling fan.
6) When was the last time you were outside and what did you do? I walked with Larrydowntown by the water.
7) What are you wearing? PJ's
8) Did you dream last night? If you did, what about? Yes I did but I could not remember the details when I woke up.
9) When was the last time you laughed? With Larr…

Tonight was an extra special date night...


Best of all it cost almost no money...

First we went to Carrabbas, compliments of a gift certificate given to us by Pastor Lindsay for Christmas. Mmmm...this is my favorite place, if you haven't been reading this blog for long and never realized it. Hint, hint: if you love this blog and want to support it financially (never mind that it costs me absolutely no money to do this) then send your gift certificates from Carrabbas to 16235 Lake Magdalene Blvd., Tampa, FL 33613. Thank you so much for your generous support. (GRIN)

So seriously - we went to Carrabbas and had a nice leisurely dinner, just taking our time. My favorite meal there is...salad with house dressing, their homemade bread with butter (I like the butter more than the oil), Spedino DiMare, and rigatoni with tomato cream sauce on the side. There is NO MEAL in the world better than this, I assure you. By the way, Spedino DiMare is lightly breaded shrimp and scallops with a light b…

It's Christmas break ~ I have time! And I'm enjoying it so much. As most of you readers know, Larry and I celebrated our 20 year anniversary on June 27th. Today I decided to put together a video of some photos, celebrating our great love... just for fun.

As you will notice, one of the biggest changes over the past 20 years is my ever changing hair color. Pastor Trinity has a joke he tells - when he invites newcomers to our newcomer's fellowships at Northside he says, "how can you folks tell if you're a newcomer? Well, if you've only seen one shade of Pastor Deanna's hair...you're probably a newcomer. So, come on out and join us at newcomer's night..." Fun!

Tonight, Teeby and I are going on an extra special date! I'll blog about it later and let you know all that we did. Well, not everything, but most of it... (GRIN)

Hint: Be sure to turn off my music first at the bottom right hand corner of the blog before you click the video, or you'l…

Today my babe brought me breakfast in bed. (Is there any better way to start a day?) Then he had to go to the store to get a few more wires for his new surround sound and I got in the tub and took my time there just soaking in a bath and body works "moonlight path" bubble bath. Ahhhhh...
Did some writing...some reading...and he came home and said, "let's go somewhere, just you and me..." Music to my ears.
So we put Dustin in charge of the household and went out for a few hours. We returned a few Christmas things that didn't fit, and then just had a quiet meal, just him and I. Ahhhhhh....is there any better way to spend an afternoon? No. Being with the Teeb is just wonderful.
We came home and we had a house full of kids...Dust was not only in charge of our kids but a few more. They had ordered pizza, played cards, and watched a movie. Upon arriving home they said, "Mr. Bernie and Mrs. Lisa called and they want to come over and watch a movie..." …

Thought this was a fun meme when I saw it, so here goes. These are to be answered with one word only...
Yourself: expressive
Your Partner: guarded
Your hair: thick
Your favorite item: computer
Your favorite drink: tea
Your dream car: Mustang
Dream home: Livingston
Room you are in: bedroom
Your ex: none
Your fear: water
Where you want to be in 10 years: healthy
Who you hung out with last night: staff
What you're not: lazy
Muffins: fattening
Something on your wish list: private
Time: slipping
Last thing you did: write
What are you wearing: dress
Favorite weather: crisp
Favorite book: Bible
Last thing you ate: pie
Your Life: rollercoaster
Your Friends: heroes
What are you thinking about right now? change
Your Car: heartbreak
What are you doing at the moment? resting
Your summer: hot
Relationship status: forever
What's on your TV? romance
What's the weather like? crisp
When's the last time you laughed? tonight

Always a special time for us. Here are some photos from this evening. The first few are just some of me being silly in between people coming in (nobody was in the sanctuary during those pics but our staff.)



This is always a nostalgic time for us - we've been doing this so many years - and have so many memories.


Our staff serves communion from 5-8 pm, to each individual/family. We have stations set up for each of us pastors (and spouse if they have one) and we serve the people as they come in. We have a ton of candles lit in the sanctuary and it's just beautiful, and Christmas music is playing. After we serve communion, we pray a blessing over them for the new year.


Tonight the most touching moment for me was when we served Michele and Marcus. We were praying for them after the took communion and Larry said, "Jesus, thank you for going to the cross and dying for us...that our sins might be forgiven..." and Marcus burst out crying and buried his face in Michele's leg…

I got no sleep last night. I was up all night not feeling well. I probably got about 20 minutes sleep. This morning I had Jeanne Barta (our director of prayer at NS) pray for me as well as having my husband pray for me a few times both last night and today. I think I'm just "fried" quite literally. Larry looked up some things on line this morning to get some ideas of what to get me at the store as well and we went and picked up some vitamins and special foods this afternoon and I do feel somewhat better. I am believing for a great night's sleep tonight and have a few people praying that way for me.

We had our Northside "home for Christmas" service today - with special music numbers, Christmas carols, drama, puppets, etc. I think it went well. Let's put it this way - anytime I have a morning where I'm not stressed is good! And this morning I wasn't real stressed, just tired. Things went rolling along pretty well.

After church the staff quickly set …

Today I haven't been feeling well (I think I'm just bearing the consequences of some stress the past few weeks). But despite feeling this way I've pressed through to get a lot of work done today, just at a slow pace. I fold a load of laundry, put it away and sit down a while. Then I get up, do a load of dishes, and sit down a while. And I have just kept repeating that basic pattern all day and have gotten quite a lot done despite feeling not so well.
I did sleep in, then got up and took a long hot bath and used my new "grape" spa products that Susan got me for an early Christmas gift. Hmmm...it was so nice. Then I got out, and put my new little spa flip flops that Susan also got me. (See here, they are, pictured with my new pedicure...and I stuck my hand in so you can see the mani too.)

All day I've been doing laundry - about 4 loads so far, and ironing for tomorrow, and also a lot of extra ironing like Larry's dockers, the boy's shirts, etc. Also gett…

Yesterday Larry and I didn't leave the church office until 6 pm. We had to tie up all the loose ends of work so we could enjoy some down time next week. On the way home we stopped to get groceries and then came home and I made dinner. Thursday nights are always a time for me to decompress because I have been wound up all week and on Thursday night I know a respite is coming. Just thought as I begin my blog tonight I'd take some photos of a few things at our house tonight. Here are some photos of my two trees...one in the living room, one in the family room. The one in the family room, below, is my little sugared fruit tree. The other one is our "family tree" with the ornaments the kids have made over the years, and gift ornaments people have given us. It's our "tapestry tree" as I call it. I slept in this morning a little bit because when my alarm went off, I could hear Savanna already up in the other room, getting something to eat and gettin…

Today I was driving to Staples for some work supplies, and listening to 94.9 radio with some delightful Christmas music. I stopped at a light at Dale Mabry and Bearss and was momentarily distracted getting my sunglasses out of my purse when I suddenly jerked my head up when I heard a man shout, "YOU GOT b____? Get out and prove it!" Upon looking up I could see this coming out of the mouth of a driver of a huge truck (I wanna say it was an 18 wheeler), while he suddenly opened the door, hopped off the seat of his truck and was hanging off of the door, aiming his fist at the driver and passenger (they looked like two "twenty something's) directly over in a little silver car in next lane over. They were exchanging many fighting words and threatening to basically annihilate each other while at this red light. In the moment, it seemed to last forever even thought it was only a minute or two. I don't know what happened prior to this because I was too busy singing, &qu…

My brain is getting back into gear spiritually after waking up yesterday and reading my devotional passages. I said yesterday I'd blog about it, and here are a few highlights:
First I began reading I Corinthians 10 where it was talking about the Israelites and learning from the mistakes they made. Well interestingly enough I'm teaching on this in my Sunday School class and have been on this now for several months. Just when you think you know just about everything on a subject...
God was once again reminding me of the importance of learning from all of their hard learned life lessons. Here are several excerpts from chapter 10:
"Remember our history, friends, and be warned..."
"The same thing could happen to us...we must be on guard so that we never get caught up in wanting our own way as they did..."
"These are all warning markers - DANGER! - in our history books, written down so that we don't repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are para…