Category: personal

[AC] advent conspiracy from jon jollins on Vimeo.

this is amazing. it’s advent conspiracy and pam and i are talking about doing it. i also believe i’m going to talk to tapestry about being a part of it. basically the idea is that the birth of CHRIST was a revolutionary event. therefore, our celebration of that revolutionary event should some how be revolutionary and counter cultural in it’s manner. advent conspiracy suggests we do this by:

1. worshipping more
2. spending less
3. giving more
4. loving all

those are just the bullet points. the website does a great job of explaining it all.

this cute little guy made his appearance in our house last night. we know this because oreo, our cat, was chasing him around all night. i caught him this morning and i released him at jack’s park. pam freaked out.

of course, he’s only cute if he is the only little guy in our house. which, of course, he is. there are no other little rodents in our house. except for adam and noah that is.

noah caught his first wisconsin fish this evening. the plover veteran’s memorial pond is two miles from our home we found out that there are a decent number of little largemouth bass in it. adam almost caught a monster cat.

perhaps the best street name ever.

i finally got the chance to do a little bit of wisconsin trout fishing. i didn’t have much time today but i wanted to spend a little of that time on the tomorrow river, thankfully the tomorrow is only about 15 minutes away from our home. so i went there and spent a little time looking over the river (which is gorgeous) and immediately saw a few small brookies. i love brookies. i know they aren’t ever really big but they are very pretty little fish who really pop a dry fly. therefore, i was pretty excited when i saw them. i tied on an elks hair caddis and cast to the nearest brookie. BAM. he popped it. he wasn’t very big, about 8 inches, but he was still my first wisconsin trout and that was exciting. oh brookies are so much fun. i started wading up the creek and ran into a school of HUGE brookies. huge for a brook trout is anything over a pound and several of these fish where probably pushing two pounds. i tried casting a few different nymphs to them. after a few trial and error casts (they were in a very tight spot) and several false raises, one of the large brookies rose to the nymph i was fishing with. i was ready for a huge fight. it was going to be great. so i quickly lifted my rod to set the hook and my leader broke off. snap. the fish and my leader, the only one i had with me, were out of my life. it wasn’t very exciting after all.

still, it was fun and i now know where they are.

SIDE NOTE – on a lark i decided to search for fly fishing and wisconsin fishing podcasts. i found quite a few that i went ahead and subscribed too. my favorite thus far is the fly fishing rabbi. he talks about fly fishing and faith. ironically enough he picked up fly fishing after watching a river runs through it. i say “ironically” because it was reading the book that inspired me to learn how to fly fish. i really liked the first of the rabbi’s podcasts that i have listened to. he is right on target when he describes fly fishing as a spiritual moment. for me it’s not so much a way that i connect to GOD through fly fishing, as it is that the concentration and focusing skills that are a part of fly fishing also relate well to the spiritual nature of our existence. learning how to perceive fish in a stream has truly helped me learn how to perceive the works of GOD.

my run for the day

distance – 9.0 miles
time – 1:39:56
pace – 11:07/mile
weather – 70º

after nearly 17 years keebler has passed away. keebs was the first addition to the terrell household and therefore thought pam and i a little of what to expect when we had human additions. he was also the first cat i ever liked, let alone loved (the jury is still out on oreo). he’s been sick for awhile and he finally just reached the point that it was simply too much for him. i never thought that i would miss a cat but i will miss keebs (of course, i think part of that is because he had much of the personality of a dog). pam has expressed her thoughts on this much better than i ever could. you should probably read her thoughts.

just a quick list of things i have learned from my dad thus far:

• fishing is better than hunting because it doesn’t do much good to practice “catch and release” with an animal you have just shot.
• if you work at it you can have an enjoyable conversation with most anybody.
• outside of abuse and the complete disregard of the promises made within marriage divorce is NEVER an option, though murder might be. 🙂
• you can fix every problem in the world with 4 things: a band-aid, a pocket knife, a pen, and a quarter (the new list changes the quarter to a cell phone or calling card)
• you should never pay someone to do what you can do around your own home unless they do it much better – i.e. fix and build everything you can and you’ll have a sense of pride about it
• you’re never to old to learn something new (i.e. picking up computers when you’re in your mid-40s and becoming an expert on them or learning and practicing moped repair when your in your mid-60s)
• always call your mother
• if your oldest son accidentally looses 4 anchors in one day you should NEVER EVER let him forget it. 🙂
• if you are going to spend time grilling a good piece of meat then you should do so over charcoal.
• shorts and suspenders may look awful but they work well (i may have learned this but i’m not practicing it).
• treat everyone fairly.
• despite the fact that there are some people who give the profession a bad name, being a sales person is an honorable profession.

there are many more things that i could post but that list will do for now. happy father’s day dad.

 

SIDE NOTE – my father’s day present from pam and the boys was an eye-fi card. woohoo!

 

i love this. it’s a article on the new york times website concerning an architect (eric clough) who redesigned a client’s apartment and without the client knowing about it placed a scavenger hunt within the contents of the apartment. a year after the redesign the architect sent the owners a poem that was the clue for the beginning of the scavenger hunt. it’s amazing and not particularly easy.

ht (john m via kottke)

for me the scariest part of moving to wisconsin to plant tapestry was how my kids would react. i’ve seen too many ministers move to new areas with little regard for their kids and as a result having their kids grow to hate the bride of CHRIST (i.e. the church). when pam and i prayed about moving we probably prayed the most about our kids adjusting to the new area and making connection with new friends. in fact, if you receive the tapestry prayer email that i send out each month then you probably remember me asking quite often for you to pray for my kids in regard to this matter. anyhow it’s summer vacation and we presently have 7 kids hanging out at our house (2 of which are ours) after a night of 3 additional kids sleeping over at our house. to some of you this may not seem like a good thing but i promise you pam and i are celebrating. it’s a huge answer to prayer and we are celebrating.

if your children spend most of their time in other people’s houses, you’re lucky; if they all congregate at your house, you’re blessed. ~mignon mclaughlin

SIDE NOTE – if you don’t presently receive the monthly prayer email and would like to, just email me (there’s a link in the sidebar) and i will add you to the list for next month.