Category Archives: Boone FUMC

Biscuits & Gravy

June 10, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

All the way back in early March, the Methodist Men held their annual Biscuits and Gravy Breakfast. This wasn’t the last time that we had a worship service at Boone First United Methodist Church, but had to be pretty close to the last. Maybe one more or two more worship services at most. Everything is such a blur.

Here are a few pictures from the event:

I have to admit that we are starting to get pretty low on Methodist Men for a wide variety of reasons. We might have to start making some women honorary members just to have enough people!

Boone FUMC, Formal Portrait, Logan, Video

Senior Sunday – Garrett – Volume 3

May 31, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

On our Sunday worship service (on KWBG) we honored our graduating seniors with a video that is a compilation of the the seniors discussing their future and their favorite aspects of Boone First United Methodist Church.

I acted as something of a clearinghouse for the video. I collected all the videos, but I outsourced its creation to Logan, because I’m not great at video editing. Every time I have to edit a video I have to spend hours re-learning the video editing program. Logan was able to do the video in probably minutes, compared to the hours it would’ve taken me.

Here is the video:

We have a great class of seniors this year!

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This is the final collection of senior pictures we took with Garrett. There might not be that many Senior Sundays left, but still several I’m sure:

It was lots of fun getting to know Garrett and his friends and getting a glimpse into the cycling subculture!

9 Emotions Project, Alexis, Andy, Baby Got Rack, Bethany, Bill, Black & White, Blogging, Boone County Fair, Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Dory, Elainie, Formal Portrait, Iowa State, Jesse, Johnathan, Jorge, Kalista, Kelly, Mission Trip, Naima, Railroad, Road Trip, Saydie, Scottie D., Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait Project, State Fair, Taylan, Willy, Youth Group

An Artist’s Notebook Post #3751

May 19, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

We have hit another milestone in the history of “An Artist’s Notebook”. Post #3751. I would normally make these statistical look back at the past type posts on even numbers, but I felt you guys were probably chomping at the bit to see the entries for RULE OF THIRDS.

This blog/online journal burst onto the world on August 9, 2006. Nearly 14 years later, it is somehow still around. That is success of some kind. At least it is perseverance.

As you know, I like meaningless statistics. That is what these posts are usually about. That and to take stock as to how I’m doing with my original mission to:

#1. Write in it.
#2. To be truthful as possible towards my true thoughts and feelings.
#3. Produce something that makes me worthy of having a pretentious sounding journal title like: “An Artist’s Notebook”.

I’m going to say that I continue to manage all 3. You probably wouldn’t know if I was being honest with you on my thoughts and feelings anyways. You’ll just have to take my work for it.

The last time we looked at these stats in Post #3500 on October 4, 2019 these were the 10 most popular categories on “An Artist’s Notebook”:

10. Photography – 311 Posts
9. Teresa – 312 Posts
8. Carla – 314 Posts
7. Shannon -351 Posts
6. Black & White – 390 Posts
5. Weekly Photo Challenge – 394 Posts
4. Jesse – 404 Posts
3. Animals – 477 Posts
2. Portrait – 516 Posts
1. Flowers – 537 Posts

Here are the current “standings”:

#10 Miller Triplet 1st Birthday Party – 13751 Views

#9 Family Happenings – 14222 Views

#8 Iowa State Cyclones Football – 2019 – 15711 Views

#7Naima– 16108 Views

#6 Taylan Howard -2020– 21320 Views

#5 Autumn Sharp – 2020– 21852 Views

#4 Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 6– 29218 Views

#3 Selfie Project – 2019 – 40726 Views

#2 9 Emotions Project – 43867 Views

#1 Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 7 – 48433 Views

These are the 10 Most Popular Images (by Views):

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6. 1116 Views

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4. 1635 Views

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1283 Views

1. 2283 Views

I’m surprised that THE 9 EMOTIONS PROJECT is still so popular, since I haven’t touched it in over a year. But I do hope to get back to it. In fact, I have purchased a few things to make it possible to get back to THE 9 EMOTIONS PROJECT while safely physically distancing. So if you are interesting in being a victim… err… a subject. You know where to find me.

Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Scottie D.

A & P #1

April 29, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Tonight would have been the last youth group of the year. Late last week I had to officially cancel the mission trip because the organization we go with cancelled all mission trips before July 12. We would’ve had an opportunity to reschedule, but none of the potential dates really worked for us.

In honor of what could’ve been, below I’ve posted our church service from Sunday. I wrote part of the service. That part of the video starts around the 7:50 mark:

Of course, if you are subscribing to this blog via email, you will have to go to the website to watch the video.

Despite our governor deciding to “have a peeing section in the swimming pool”, the Bishop for our conference has decided not to open up churches until June 1. We will keep having our church services on KWBG and on the social medias.

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Scottie D. and I went out to McHose Park to do the annual Porter and Austin photo shoot. Here is a set of the pictures I like.

More pictures of them Degeneffe boys still to come!

Alexis, Black & White, Boone FUMC, Elainie, Formal Portrait, Johnathan, Sabas, Work

Elainie Homecoming Ch. 1

April 24, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

25 days working from home down. No clue how many are left, but I’m guessing it at least 2 more weeks. This week with my extra stay at home time, I mopped my floors. All of them. Not counting the basement. We don’t talk about the basement! I also cleaned all my blinds. Which was scarier that I thought it would be. But as it turns out, only the bathroom blinds were that scary. The kitchen blinds a little bit. I hope to do a wardrobe downsizing soon. Hopefully this weekend. We’ll see. Maybe, I’ll even start working on the basement. Maybe get a little more yard work done.

My work listening schedule didn’t change much. Streamed Life 107.1 FM from 7-9 in the morning. I had what I’m gong to consider a God Moment on Wednesday morning. I know that listening to a Christian radio station might always be a God Moment, but there is one in particular. After the Coronacat post on Tuesday night, I got my normal heat from “cat people”.

Then on Wednesday morning, Taylor and Jen (the morning hosts on Life 107.1) were interviewing the lead singer of Casting Crowns. He is was well studied theologian. For what may have seemed like no reason, he announced that “cats don’t have souls”. Then he went on to praise golden retrievers. Sorry, Alisa, them’s the facts.

I went to Amazon and immediately ordered “Thrive”, “Until the Whole World Hears”, “The Very Next Thing” and “Only Jesus”.(They will arrive promptly on May 15) I’m not a new Casting Crowns fan. “Nobody” is a flat out banger that I sometimes listen to on a loop.

Of course, this will be used to support the false narrative that I hate cats. Not true. I just report facts.

It is like Harry Truman said:

“I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”

Then from 9 to 2 I listen to the Master Playlist. This week I made it all the way to track #1002 – “I Don’t Want to Be” by Gavin DeGraw. Probably a good song for quarantine living:

“I don’t want to be anything
Other than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do is of me and I have peace of mind
I’m tired of looking around rooms wondering what I gotta do
Or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything other than me”

I didn’t eliminate any songs from the Master Playlist this week.

From 2-4 I still listen to Murph & Andy. Although this week I sprinkled in a podcast breaking down Iowa State’s 2020 football roster.

I don’t know if I’ve discovered any more positives with the work from home life. I recently purchased two air purifiers. I’m not sure it has kept the dust homes as much as I wanted, but I can definitely tell the air is cleaner because I could tell that Naima was really starting to get ripe. She got a bath on Wednesday night. She wasn’t a fan, but she is crazy soft right now.

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Pastor Dave reached out to me on Wednesday and wanted me to write up (or make a video) of how I’ve seen God working recently. I’m not sure how he is going to use it, but I think he will using during our church service on Sunday. Which you can hear live on KWBG at 9 AM. We still aren’t having worship services in person, obviously.

You can also stream KWBG from their website.

I went the written route because if I started making a video, it would take forever. Absolutely forever. I get too deep into those things.

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Time to start curating a collection of pictures that I’m just going to lump under the category of Elainie Homecoming. These were taken back in September when Elainie was home from San Diego. Some are family portrait type pictures. Some are more like Elainie-Sabas engagement photos.

Here is the first collection:

There is a ton more photos from Elainie’s homecoming on the way. A veritable ton!

Boone FUMC, Event, Formal Portrait, Jaxon, Kio

Band Festival

March 4, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The last two years my church has manned the food stand at the Municipal Band Festival. The first year it was pretty successful, but maybe slightly unethical. Last year, it wasn’t very successful from a financial standpoint, but people that worked it had a good time.

Here are some pictures from last year:

I imagine we won’t have a hand in it this year for a wide variety of reasons. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the food stand replaced by a couple food trucks. But what do I know.

Animals, Boone FUMC, Event, Flowers, Macro, Naima, Town Sign Project

Slapdash

February 11, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Today’s collection of images are cleaning up a couple of days worth of images from back in July that were taken, but weren’t the main theme of my photo aspirations for that day.

One of the pictures is from when my people took me to Kamrar for a birthday dinner. Some are from the cluster that was our church’s presentation of the scholarships to our 2019 high school graduates. However, that is a topic that I problem won’t discuss on these pages. It is sufficient to say a wrong was created and a wrong was righted. Some of us got to be filled with righteous indignation, which is a powerful drug. Then there are a couple pictures of my gazanias. Finally, some pictures of Naima in the Dickcissel pond.

Kamrar, Iowa

I now have 93 pictures in THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT album. I need to make one of those sign hunting trips again. Maybe next time Iowa State has a road night game, I could dedicate a Saturday to that.

Boone FUMC, Bowling, Jaxon, Jodie Cue, Logan, Mom

Roman Bellic

January 29, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

This collection of images wraps up the April section of the 2019 backlog. These are pictures from the annual Methodist Bowling Outing at Tiger Bowl in Madrid.

There are also some pictures here of the Outreach Committee putting together May Baskets.

Have a looksie:

I wonder if that was the last bowling outing for the church. Tiger Lanes is really falling apart, but Perfect Games is crazy expensive. I guess we’ll see what happens when it happens.

Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Event, Flowers, Jodie Cue, Macro

Purpose and Potential

January 28, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Hitting up the old 2019 backlog. The pictures I share today are from the graduation church service for our church’s seniors. The other pictures are pictures I took on the same day.

I have seen some of those kids, ahem, young adults since they moved on to their next adventures. I’ve seen Casey and Anna and Mackenzie and Megan and Halle. They are all doing great things!

Art, Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Flowers, Holidays, Jason, Johnathan, Logan, Macro

The Ultimate Triumph

January 23, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I took a few pictures on Easter of last year that seems like a good time to share.

I think the pictures of the Easter Egg Hunt were taken by Jaxon. In fact I’m positive they were taken by Jaxon.

We are a little more than a month away from Lent now and I’ve been thinking on what I’m going to do for Lent. I would say that traditionally Methodists don’t really give up something for Lent. Instead they add something for Lent.

I’ve been playing with the idea of going pescatarian for Lent.

Why pescatarian?

#1. Eating less meat is the best thing you can do to help the planet:

Industrialized agriculture and the onset of the worst species extinction crisis since the demise of the dinosaurs means that livestock and humans now make up 96% of all mammals. But despite consuming the vast majority of farmland, meat and dairy accounts for just 18% of all food calories and around a third of protein.

The mighty hoofprint of farmed meat isn’t just inefficient. Deforestation to make way for livestock, along with methane emissions from cows and fertilizer use, creates as much greenhouse gas emissions as all the world’s cars, trucks and airplanes. Meat rearing practices risk mass extinctions of other animals, as well as spawn significant pollution of streams, rivers and, ultimately, the ocean.

#2. Goals should be realistic and attainable. While going pescatarian will vastly reduce the amount of meat I eat, it is a realistic goal, because I know there is no way I could pull off going full vegetarian and let’s not talk about going vegan.

#3. A pescatarian diet is healthier. It is healthy for the heart, reduces the risks of some cancer, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

#4. The prophet Kurt Cobain taught us that “it’s okay to eat fish, ’cause they don’t have any feelings.”

This means that I need to get that road trip to Corning with Shannon to tenderloin it up on the books before February 26.

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