After a very long summer of running everywhere, I finally have been able to have coffee Thursday. Coffee Thursday is when I take the morning to work in a coffee shop. It's a weekly tradition that summer schedule greatly hindered.

When I pastored a very small church several years ago, my office was block walled with two windows that were frosted so you couldn't see in (or out). It was like being in prison every day. I began calling it my sensory deprivation chamber. Once you walked in all contact with reality ceased to exist and creativity began to asphyxiate. It was a depressing place. In my time there, I probably only wrote a few messages in that office. Most were written at home with a window (clear) that gave me a view of the world outside. Prayer and planing were better accomplished by driving and finding a quiet spot by the lake.

That's why I love working in the coffee shop. There's people walking in and out. You see the gamut of emotions from happiness to sadness. You hear snippets of conversation that make you laugh and others that make you shake your head. I know everyone is different, but for me it sparks my creativity. Plus, having a nice dark roast of coffee doesn't hurt either.

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Continuing a thought from yesterday, I really believe that God wants to change things in our lives. In this, sometimes He points out the problem or the change He desires, and then we have to begin working on it. For me it’s my mornings. God wants them. The struggle resides in the fact that I’m a night owl. The hours after 10 PM are my wide awake time of the day. Yet, I’ve sensed for quite some time the need to be awake and spending time with Him early in the morning. I think it’s something that needs changed.

So I’ve prayed and asked the Lord to help me, resolved within myself to actually get up and do it, and finally I got someone to check on me. I’m a big believer in community. We were not created to be lone rangers of faith. We are to help and receive help from other believers. To that end, I decided to do something crazy. I asked for a student volunteer in my youth ministry to check on me, and one of my awesome young ladies said she would do it. For two mornings in a row now, she has called my cell phone as she gets ready for to school to make sure that I am awake. I know that she reads this and I want to say a big “thank you.” I was wondering if she would chicken out but she didn’t. I’m sure calling her youth pastor early in the morning isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but she’s doing it.

I’m no where near perfect, but I try to model authentic faith to my students. In this situation, I’m hoping that they will see two things. First, that there are always things that God wants to work on in our lives. Second, that we will always need other believers to help us and, in the same breath, we need to be willing to do the same in return.

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Well, the Super Bowl is over and congratulations go the New Orleans Saints for winning. The last few years have featured some decent games that haven’t been over by the second quarter and tonight’s actually held my interest.

The commercials were extremely lackluster. Where’s the creativity? Where’s the laugh out loud moment? The best commercial of the night appeared before the Super Bowl evan began. The McDonald’s remake of the Larry Bird and Michael Jordan shootout featuring Lebron James and Dwight Howard was the only one that even is worth mentioning. Other than that, not much.

The Tebow ad that had feminists up in arms was short, simple, and completely unoffensive. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does that they would gripe about a commercial that they hadn’t even seen simply because it supports life, yet at the same time they ignore the way GoDaddy treats women as nothing more than objects in their commercials. Crazy.

Anyway, the conclusion is a fair game and overall poor advertising.

First off I give major apologies for letting this blog be quiet for the month of July. I had my vacation and chose not to blog during it. Then, I had a week that was leading me up to being away for a week at a youth camp. I was doing various prep and just didn’t have time. Of course, the time wasn’t available while at the camp either. So, I finally find myself in a position to start being a regular on my own blog again. Thanks to any and all that read these words and hopefully you’ll stick around for what’s to come.

Just a perfectly pointless story to share. I grew a full beard on my vacation and kept. Just because I thought it would be crazy, I went to Camp X and shaved off a part of it every day. I went from full beard on Monday to a mustache goatee with long sideburns on Tuesday. Wednesday found me with the mustache gone. On Thursday I got rid of the sideburns and to wrap it up, on Friday I shaved down to just a small soul patch. I haven’t been without my goatee since I was a sophomore in college. That was over ten years ago. The best part, on the last day of camp I asked the tract I was working with which look of the week was the best. Everyone was talking at once, but the words I remember being the most clear were something to the effect of, “the other day you wore a brown shirt with jeans and some light brown shoes and that looked pretty good on you.” I can’t remember exactly who said it, but it was perfect timing. So in honor of that, I wore the same color scheme today. I mean, if it looks good, why mess with it?

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I had a lot of plans for today. After being gone for a week with my youth on a missions trip, I had a lot of catching up to do. The start of my day had me driving to a nearby city to correct an order error that had been made on a batch of t-shirts we had made. About halfway there my car decided to die. Within an hour my car was in the shop and the early prognosis was a fuel pump.

That one event pretty much messed up my day. I’d like to be able to say that I was a triumphant Christian that didn’t let an expensive repair bring me down, but I did. Everything from that point on just seemed to be piling it on. The title of this post was what I kept telling myself, just add it to the day.

My emotions got the better of me when they really shouldn’t have. It wasn’t like life ended or anything. Looking back now, I see that the whole day moved rather smoothly for what happened. I had my cell phone on me so within minutes I had a tow truck coming for me and a repair shop waiting for the car. Within a half hour, I was sitting at the repair shop which conveniently is within walking distance from my apartment. I was able to get some work done before my mom picked me up and took me into the church (added bonus, she bought me a sandwich for lunch). Later, she allowed me to take her car until my car is fixed. The final thing is that I have most of the money for the repair. I’ve blogged before about the budget software that my wife and I use. Part of our budget sets aside money for repairs and thankfully it had been building up for a while.

So, at the end of the day I have to realize that God had things under control and I should have remained positive. Harder said than done, but it would have been worth the effort.

I write this blog because I enjoy doing it. However, I never want it to control me. So, instead of spending time tonight thinking of and then writing a post, I’m going to write these few words and then read a little bit of a book before going to bed. Good night.

I’m writing this Friday health update and to be honest, I’m a little depressed in writing it. As the graphic shows, I lost one pound. That’s success I know, but it’s a lot less than I wanted. I know the factors that played into it only being one pound.

1. We had a Valentine dinner at church. I worked it, but I also ate it.
2. Valentine’s Day itself was calorically bad.
3. The leftovers from Valentine’s Day were also calorically bad.

I have been overweight a long time, but last week I dropped four pounds. I’ve read enough to know that four pounds is an amazing amount to lose in one week, especially since I haven’t really started exercising yet (it’s beginning soon). Yet, I’m human and had mentally psyched myself up with thoughts of dropping below 220 in two weeks. Unrealistic I know, but that’s what I was thinking.

Another one of the struggles is summed up in two words, Auntie Anne’s. As yesterday’s post so eloquently states, I had to find a new pair of running shoes. The heel is falling off the pair I’m wearing now. Added craziness, I’m still wearing the old ones until the mud and melting snow dries up so I don’t get the new ones covered in mud. As I searched for a pair, I found myself at the mall still trying to find a basic shoe at a good price. The journey led me past Auntie Anne’s pretzels. I am a bread and pretzel lover and nothing screams to me like a hot pretzel dripping with melted butter. I whipped out my phone and checked online for calorie information. One pretzel was 370 calories. You could drop some calories by omitting the butter but that defeats the purpose of the pretzel. It was a battle supreme as I debated whether or not to get one. The fact is that I had enough calories in my budget to eat one. Yet, I didn’t get one. I don’t know what depressed me more, the fact that I’m overweight and I have to count calories or that I had enough calories left to get one but I didn’t.

On the exercise note, we just got Wii Fit and the balance board. Google Wii Fit if you have no clue what I’m talking about. Around here it’s been impossible to find. We’ve called Best Buy several times on Sunday afternoons after seeing their advertisement in the paper only to have the person on the phone basically laugh at us. Every time they were sold out within moments of the store opening. Even online it’s been difficult. The only places I could find them were selling them for over forty dollars more than the retail price. Sorry, I can wait. Anyway, Wednesday morning I got an email from Amazon.com stating that they had received a shipment of Wii game systems. I figured there was a good chance that they might have gotten the Wii Fit in stock too. I was right. I ordered and chose free shipping which means it was going to be a week or so until we got it. It came last night. Major shout out for Amazon and UPS for having it get to us in one day. Played with it last night. It can’t replace a gym, but it was fun and got me moving. It’s a good start.

Well, that’s enough for now. I try to limit myself to writing about my health and weight to once a week since this isn’t a diet blog. Yet, it is part of my journey.


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Major life update today. I bought a new pair of shoes. Yeah, that’s the excitement of my week.

I survived all day Wednesday and I thought I was going to survive this round of sickness. After church, I didn’t feel right but I chalked that up to still being tired from the previous days. Thursday morning proved that my thoughts were wrong. After spending six hours alternating between bed and kissing my toilet, I was finally able to move to my chair. The rest of the day was a combination of back pain, nausea, and a monster headache. Good day.

It ended up being a rather long day. Little sleep mixed with trying to keep everything at our house running. The kids are doing better while Kelly is slowly recovering. The greatest thing right now is that the clock reads 9:37 PM and I know I will be asleep before 10:30. Hopefully that is. As long as I don’t wake up sick.

I am on vacation this week. If I feel like it, I might blog. However, I think I’m more interested in relaxing. Check back and we’ll all see.

I need to write a blog entry. I should write a blog entry. I even have a great thought for an entry. But, I’m tired. Blog entry will wait.

The past few days have seemed to fly by. Youth pepperoni sale at the same time a youth bake sale occurred. Not a good idea and it will be avoided in the future. Hectic schedule limited my time to write. I’m writing this tonight to get me back into the rhythm.

Just so people are aware, I’ll be having another book give away within a few weeks. To be honest, it’s not a book that interests me per se, but Kelly is reading it and will be writing the review.

On Sunday night, we arrived home from church in the midst of the storm. We bundled our kids inside as fast as we could. Taco Bell after service is our tradition, so the stupid man that I am I headed back into the storm to get us some tacos. Just before I reached town the call came from my wife that our power had just gone out. Having discovered that Taco Bell was closed (no power can do that), I headed home. By candlelight, we got the kids ready for bed. After Silas was tucked in, Kelly, Havilah, and I went out on the porch. The wind had settled down. The moon was brighter than I can remember. With no lights on anywhere, the earth was awash in the glow of moonlight.

We grabbed a blanket and all snuggled together on our bench. We spent a long time just watching the moon and enjoying the clouds racing across the sky. In a daredevil move, we opened the fridge and swiped some cheese out. A little while later, we were munching grilled cheese sandwiches hot off the grill.

While I don’t want the frustration and trouble that comes with the power going off, there was something so wonderful about sitting in the stillness under God’s moon.

One of my youth called us Tuesday night while they were on their way home to let us know that there were lights on in the apartment below us. Yes! The power company had been saying Saturday for our area. Smart strategy. Under promise so it seems that you over deliver. I don’t want to be too snarky though, since they really have had a lot of work cleaning up from this mess.

Tuesday night we tucked our kids into bed at Grammy and Papa’s, then Kelly and I headed home to scrub down the fridge and to make sure everything was good. One of the benefits of emptying the fridge was that it presented the ideal opportunity to give it a good clean. Must admit it looks good. It made it a late night by the time we got back to my parent’s house to sleep, but it was nice to have the house ready. Wednesday morning we packed up the kids and we moved back home. The old adage “be it ever so humble there’s no place like home” has new meaning for me.

Overall my family was very blessed. We were able to store our fridge and freezer contents at our church and only lost a few items, most of which were almost empty anyway. The ice cream still breaks my heart though. I’m very grateful though because there are still many in our area without power.

It is Tuesday afternoon and we have been without power since Sunday night. Thanks Hurricane Ike. Anyway, this blog will get the updates it deserves once we have the opportunity to move back home.

I’m sitting in an extremely hot classroom substitute teaching today. That’s about it.

I was scouting out the local park to see what it provided for an upcoming outreach when I felt the Spirit prompt me to check out the local fire station. It’s a small volunteer station. I knew where it was at, had glanced its way once some time in the past, and that was about it. It sits hidden on the edge of town.

I made a pass by and noticed what looked like some bleachers sitting behind it. That was interesting. Maybe they use them at certain events or training exercises. I decided to investigate. As I drew near, I discovered that the bleachers were permanent, and that they faced a small arena situated down below. There’s even a press box with loudspeakers. I really have no clue what the place is. My best guess is horses and maybe rodeo. It’s all overgrown and hasn’t been used for some time, but it got my mind rolling and my spirit wondering. What could God use a location like that for?

I’ve been praying for Divine appointments and doing my best to “chase the goose,” Now I’m seriously asking “Lord do have something for that old arena in our small town? Did you lead me there for a reason?” No answers yet, bet the journey will hopefully prove interesting.

As I was finishing up my previous post, I heard the familiar clop clop of horses out my office window. My church is definitely in a rural area, but it’s not Amish country. Yet, as I looked out a large wagon with two horses pulling it marched down the road. I remember seeing them last week too. They weren’t Amish so I really don’t know what they were doing. Maybe they found a way around high gas prices.

The best part was the horses across the street. Yes, once again this is a rural church. Seven horses in the field realized that something strange was happening because they all gathered in a group and just stared at the horses pulling the wagon. After the wagon passed, the horses gave chase as far as the fence would allow them.

When following Christ, we should expect the unexpected. Just didn’t think it would be something like this.

I can honestly say this has been the worst vacation of my life. An entire week spent recuperating from a back injury, and the process isn’t even completed yet. Just so things are updated, I am moving much better. Getting out of a chair and off the couch are no longer a battle between desire and pain. Yes, to get off the couch I had to roll onto the floor and land on my knees. After that, I would slowly use my hands to walk up the wall. Feels really good just to stand normally. I still have some knots in my back that are causing some pain, but usually only after I stand for awhile. So I’m moving around a lot better, I just can’t do it for long periods of time.

I’ve been talking about how I wanted to relax on my vacation, and this forced me to do it to the extreme. I was able to read a novel just for the pleasure of reading. I was able to clean up and organize a ton of family recipes on my computer. And, today, I was able to leave my children with their grandparents and take my wife out to lunch at a great little Hungarian cafe. By the time we got home my back drove me to my chair, but it was worth it to have some time just to talk with my wife.

It’s hard to realize my vacation is over when it feels like it never began, but so goes life.

Spending the morning at Caribou Coffee. Gas prices are making me limit my visits to every other week or so, but today I have the pleasure of drinking coffee and reading. Working through Andy Stanley's "Communicating For a Change." Good read so far. Nothing like a book that forces self-examination and makes you question your current methods. Anyway, I just wanted to relate that there are still kind people in this world. I have a Caribou gift card that I refill periodically and use to get my coffee. Today, I ordered my coffee and after swiping my gift card, I was informed I owed 65¢. I don't carry cash and sheepishly pulled out my debit card to pay for that large amount of money. A lady behind me slapped down a five and told the worker to just take it out of that. So, thanks to that lady for covering part of my coffee.

Of course, now that I think about it, maybe she just didn't want to wait for the time it would take for them to run my card. Anyway, she saved me some change which I can put to other good use like lunch.

This has been an insane week. From Monday on we have had something going on every night. Tonight and tomorrow are no different. At least, for a moment, I am sitting in a quiet place of peace. My wife and children are at the store and I'm sitting in my house waiting for them to return the car to me. It's quiet. Well, relatively quiet I guess. The birds outside are chirping away. Cars are driving by. So, it's not really quiet, but it does feel very peaceful. With the events of the past week I appreciate this moment from God.

Mondays are just blah. Since I didn't know the definition of the word blah, I thought I would look it up and let you all see for yourself.

Blah - used to refer to something that is boring or without meaningful content.

Doesn't that just seem to describe Mondays to you?

Today is Saturday and my day off. I like my day off. I have time with my family, a nap isn't something to be ashamed of or avoided, and I can relax. One way we relax is to throw on some old television shoes (season DVD's are a great thing). I had on an Andy Griffith show and there was a line were Andy comments on the only way he can get his son's attention his to take out a commercial on the radio. This is in response to Opie walking down the sidewalk listening to a baseball game on his radio. I laughed at the fact that things haven't changed. From radios to Walkmans and from CD's to iPods we have a thousand things to keep our ears occupied.

With so much noise it's hard to listen to God. The most important thing we need to hear is drowned out by a multitude of other noises. The thing is, we choose to allow those other noises to crowd God out. No one every has ever forcibly made me listen to my iPod. It's my choice. As Jesus took time away from the crowds, maybe we need to take time away from our crowds. I like the thought. I need a look at my calendar, but I think some days of chosen quiet are in order.