Today was an amazing day in San Francisco! When we have weather like today, this city instantly transforms into a beach culture. People head to the beaches in droves. You put away you long pants, sweaters, and coats - and trade them in for shorts, t-shirt, and flip flops. It's a very cool dynamic. The weather was as good as it gets in this town. So after gathering with Clay House church for an early morning worship we invited our neighbors to join us at the tulip garden at Golden Gate Park. Marcia happens to REALLY like tulips and I had a feeling they would be in full bloom. (I think I won some brownie points). ;) We all had a great time running around, picnicking, and soaking in the ultraviolets in such an ideal setting. Our friends had to leave around 3 p.m. so we headed to the Upper Haight (an SF Neighborhood)and went shopping at the Good Will Thrift Store on Haight Street at Cole. I am often amazed at the quality items and great prices you can find at thrift stores. Here's the list of our take from today: 2 - Calvin Kline jeans for Marcia 1 - pair of retro 60's jeans for Jillian (you really should see these babies) 3 - Perry Ellis jeans for Conor 1 - overall for Conor 1 wooden chalice (I thought this would be cool for communion) 2 videos: Pay it Forward and Shiloh 2 1 toy Jafar's staff (from Disney's Aladdin) 4 children's books (also David picked up three Captain Underpants books for $.70 each. He get's an allowance so he pays for his own) (Don't get me started on why I didn't get any pants. I'll just say that it seems like manufacturers think that you can't be over 6 feet tall and have a 32" waist). Retail for Dave again... Everything was in good condition. And we paid $38 for it all. When we budget we have adjusted our output to what we actually spend, for example on clothing. And much of our clothing comes from thrift stores. We pay just a fraction of what we would pay by buying new and we regularly find name brands. And this it reminds me, I once met a homeless guy who told me that he lives well off of other people's garbage. It's diffucult to understand a statement like that unless you can put yourself in another person's shoes. But it says somethings about our level of consumption. I'm seeking to keep my consumption in check. We Americans consume a great deal. There are statisics out there about how much land fill is required to dispose of the garbage for the average American. Oh, is it scary. Even scarier, what if huge developing countries like China and India begin to consume like we do? Okay, I won't preach on stewardship now. I just wanted to share a bit of my day and now I'm getting carried away. So next, we went to dinner at Siam Thai restaurant. Great curry, tofu, veggies, beef, sweet and sour chicken. Oh, so good. The kids liked to fried bananas for dessert too. Great atmosphere. Clean facility. Good prices. A+ on the Lantow family scale. We ended the day by going to Amoeba records - a used record store. I've been wanting to pick up a Gipsy Kings CD. I found a live CD for $5. I saw the same one at Borders for $17. My son David picked up the soundtrack for the Rocky boxing movies for $6. We've been looking for it for his school's talent show. Were doing this family performance set to "The Eye of the Tiger" in mid-March. Fun stuff around here. We arrived and thank God we found a parking spot. Yes! You can't take that kind of thing for granted in SF. Okay, the kids are asleep and I think I need to head there too. Peace to you. Live well.
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