Life in a Church

The life of a PK (Preacher or Priest take your pick) is always an interesting one. They generally end up spending a good deal of time at their father's church...
I've always found that that statement didn't quite fit me. No, from the time I was born I've found myself actually living in the church. Seriously, when I was born my parents were living above the church my father was serving at, so when I was brought home from the hospital it was to a church.
Over the years, since my dad hasn't had a church to pastor, I found myself not in churches that much, until NCCC that is. I quickly discovered that I did "live" at NCCC for the majority of my time there. In fact, I agree with my friend who said: "This is home [NCCC], I just sleep at my house."
Now, I find myself being a PK again. Granted I've always been one, but I realized that everyone would again recognize me as the PK when I hear them refer to my dad as "Father". The first couple of times threw me for a minute, but now I've gotten used to it.
Also, I find myself living in a church... again Yes, I'm living in the Dodd Cottage behind the church, but it's only six feet from the back door of the church. And since we're still settling in, I find myself over at SMA (Saint Mary of the Angels) more often then not. They have a fully equipped kitchen (including professional ice maker, and washer and dryer), where we find ourselves when we need to bake things, since our oven doesn't work. We jokingly call the Parish Hall our formal dinning room. Being in a ranch style one-bedroom cottage, we make up for the lack of stairs, by daily walking to the church office for our dose(s) of internet.
SMA rents out the parish hall during the week, since we aren't using it. So we have a variety of people who we see that don't go to our church. On Sunday nights, we have a choral group, who are spectacular; on Mondays we have an actors group; and on Wednesdays and Fridays there are AA groups that meet. It makes getting into the church interesting at times, I don't have all the keys I'm supposed to have yet, so I can't go through the less noticeable passages, but hopefully I will be able to get them soon. Often times, these groups will leave goodies and such for us, the actors regularly give us fruits such as watermelons.
Last Saturday, I found myself up on the roof of the cottage cleaning out the gutters that hadn't been cleaned in some time. I was the subject of attention by the parishioners (church members) who came. The choir director saw me up there when he arrived to practice the organ, and said: "The auditions for Peter Pan have been delayed." The treasurer came out and commented on the mess I was making... though when he first came out I had gone to the other side of the house, and Drew was there trying to sweep up the mess I had made. So when the treasurer said: "Look, at the mess you've made." and Drew replied: "She did it!" and pointed to the roof, I wasn't seen. It was a rather humorous day.

Anyway... that's life in church.