Hobbies Cure Stress?!?

Well, this week is getting off to a great start! Last night, mere moments before the Wages' were set to show up to watch the Amazing Race, we had unexpected difficulties with our plumbing. I was doing laundry and when the rinse cycle started, dark blue water started draining into both of our toilets and bathtubs! It was not pretty. Anyway, Jennifer made plans for a plumber to visit us today while I was work, but this morning I woke up sick. I think it is mostly allergy related (head and body ache, scratchy throat, etc.), but I wasn't enjoying life.

It's a little ironic since my sermon yesterday was from Psalm 46 ("Be still and know that I am God"). My message was that we are built with the need to escape the business of our lives from time to time and just recharge our connection to God. So, apparently, I need to live what I preach and my body decided that it was time to do so.

As most of my sermons are, this one came from a personal place. I feel like I've been running 90 to nothing lately as I've been struggling to get kids ready for TAKS. Church is as busy as always if not busier as I have started to take over the coordination of worship. I am also coming to the realization that since Jennifer is the big time administrator, I am the one home early enough to wash clothes and dishes. Anyway, enough whining. My point is that life has been busy and I need to recharge.

There are a couple of ways to recharge, I guess. It suddenly occurs to me that I haven't used one of those ways since the summer. There has not been an addition to my custom Super Powers collection in six months. Altough the pictures are lousy, you can see that the collection is already large. Above are the heroes. Here are the villians. Those of you unaware, for the last few years I have been taking action figures from a childhood collection (The "Super Powers" line from Kenner), and reshaping them into new members of the DC universe. I'm not sure why, but this hobby keeps me sane, calming me and giving me a great sense of accomplishment when a new figure is born. Some of them are simple repaints, like taking a Flash, adding some yellow paint, and calling him Professor Zoom. Or I can add some red and blue to a Wonder Woman (and Jennifer's snazzy homemade skirt) and get Supergirl. See the picture below for those examples. Other times, I'm more like the creepy kid next door from Toy Story and take parts of different figures to make who is more than the sum of his parts. For example, the 70's era hero Black Lightning is made with Firestorm's arms, Martian Manhunter's body (including his bulky boots), and Hal Jordan's head. Alright, this was a pointless post, but I appreciate you reading. Have a great day!

A little paint makes Flash into Professor Zoom and Wonder Woman into Supergirl.

Firestorm, Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern all contribute to making Black Lightning the "flyest" Super Hero in my collection.