Category: personal

so here are the photos i have been promising. unfortunately you can’t see the foyer in these photos.

SIDE NOTE – i went back to the mall today and and bought monthly doo calendar i mentioned saturday.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – GEAUX TIGERS!

after finishing my weekday visit to the coffee shop, emy j’s, to try and meet people, pam and i started the painting of our home. we’ve started with the living room and the goal is to finish the living room and the foyer by the end of the weekend. pam and i are not big fans of houses that are full of rooms all painted with the same neutral color. both of the previous homes that we have owned have been full of color by the time we were through with them. houses should be full of color, baking, laughter, books, and conversations – that’s what makes them homes.

seven years ago pam came up with the idea of getting an interior decorator to come to our house just to pick out colors and help arrange our rooms. we’re too cheap and interested in doing things ourselves to actually want a decorator to do everything for us – from painting to getting new things. all we want is someone to help make sure the colors of our rooms and furniture go well and flow together. so we got a decorator for two hours to pick colors and give advice. we liked the results of this strategy in baton rouge and therefore we decided to do it again. we snagged a senior interior design uwsp student and bought a couple of hours of her time. she came back with great colors – ones that we probably wouldn’t have chosen on our own but once we saw them we really liked them.

now we have to finish everything we start. i’ll post a photo tomorrow.

SIDE NOTE – based on a discussion on postmodern interpretations of shakespeare i had with a uwsp grad student (he’s teaching me how to do this so that i can try it out when pam and i go to see julius caeser in february) i started to read dan delillo’s “white noise.” it’s great. i think it’s incredible. weird, but incredible.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – pam and i watched “the nanny diaries” last night and since it is based on a true story i have been reminded once again of how desperately some people need to be slapped to shake them out of their stupidity. i know i’ve said this once before but i really think i could do the world some serious good by walking around and slapping people when they are stupid. i would, of course, start with myself.

SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – the fam and i are going to see “spam-a-lot” in may. woohoo!

i guess i’m supposed to post the perfunctory “happy new year” post. of course, it’s a good bit easier to do this as i sit in the “man cave” in my home using the new “pieces parts” computer that my dad and CHRISTmas money provided (the 22″ widescreen monitor is a huge step up from the 15″ crt’s i’ve been using). so here’ it is.

i hope the very best for all of you for 2008. i believe that very best comes from being in a growing and challenging relationship with JESUS CHRIST so ultimately that’s what i wish for each of you, but if that does not turn out to be your thing i still wish the very best for you in all that you do and hope for in the year.

here’s what i’m hoping for in 2008:

to start a church that follows JESUS CHRIST as best as it can

to take my wife out on more dates than i did in 2007 – this probably won’t be that hard because the 2007 standard wasn’t the best i’ve ever set.

to take my boys fishing every other week during the season – i’m not sure they or i could handle ice fishing every other week.

to do a better job of staying in touch with my friends – specifically with hand written letters.

to read 26 books the audio book s i listen to when i run don’t count because that’s “listening” not “reading).

to drink 8 glasses of water a day

to post enough photos on flickr to keep my mom and dad happy (i’m not sure this is possible).

to finish at least one marathon.

to start work on a doctoral degree.

to finish painting the inside of my house

to rememorize psalm 22

i guess that’s it for now.

SIDE NOTE – if you have a few moments for prayer our friends the lees could use prayer for their son, isaac. CHRISTmas day they had to call an ambulance for their son, who was laboring to breath and spitting up a mixture of milk and blood. it turns out that isaac has a disease going on in his lungs and right now the lees are all in the hospital pumping isaac full of antiboitics and waiting for the doctors to figure out if the disease is viral or bacterial. the good news is that isaac has been getting a little better each day and should be out of picu by now. please for isaac and his parents, kevin & julie.

i hope you all have a wonderful CHRISTmas.

there was a time in my life when i could drive straight through the night on a 17 hour journey without any effect upon myself. that time has passed me by.

last night the fam and i drove straight through the night from plover, wisconsin to saraland, alabama. it was 17 hours and therefore quite long. lots of sunflower seeds and audiobooks are the only way i am able to stay awake. the good side is that we are now at my parents house and we have the day to rest before heading over to baton rouge for pam’s graduation. we’ll spend a few days over in baton rouge seeing friends and then head back to saraland/mobile/daphne, alabama for CHRISTmas.

ah, the fun of holiday travel. one of the things that made last night’s journey more bearable was an audio book that i downloaded off itunes. it’s john krakauer’s “under heaven’s banner.” i really like krakauer’s writing style and i have enjoyed the audiobook thus far. it’s basically a detailing of a vicious double muder in utah and how mormon plural marriage lead to it. i have disagreed with a few of his assumptions of concerning faith. krakauer has made several statements to the fact that he apparently believe that faith is the suspension of reason. i would strongly disagree with this. while, i would never say that reason can prove faith, because faith always implies trust and trust implies a lack of visible finitude, i do believe with anslem in a mindset of “faith seeking understanding.” this does not imply a suspension of reason but admits that ultimately we come down to a “leap of faith” or an “act of trust.” still krakauer’s book is very entertaining though not very positive of any of the over 200 branches of the lds faith.

unfortunately i’m almost through with krakauer’s audio book (1/5 left to listen to). the positive side is that after i finish “under the banner of heaven” i have an abridged version of stephen colbert’s “i am america (and so can you).” pam and i can’t wait to listen to that. i just wish it was unabridged.

i curled tonight and once again we won. our record is 6 – 1. woohoo!

i wasn’t the greatest church planter today at walmart. i was trying to find a parking spot when these too “thugish” guys came walking down the middle of the lane. i drove up the lane a little bit and they kept walking up the middle of the lane. they walked right in the middle of the lane all the way of to my car. i have to tell you that i absolutely hate it when someone acts in such away that everyone else must accommodate them. it drives me crazy. so i said out loud in my car, “get off of the road”, where they could see it. that’s when they flipped me off.

i’ve always thought the appropriate response to someone shooting the bird at you was the blow a kiss at them. in my experience it just ticks people off. so i blew a kiss at the guys.

i was right it ticked the guys off.

one of them hit my car with his hand. i’m not real cool with that. i stopped my car, rolled down my window, and shouted “you better not have hurt my car” (which is pretty funny because my car is 1998 626 with 160,000 miles on it – there’s not much you could do to hurt it). his response was “pedestrians have the right of way ***hole.” i shouted back, “not when you walk down the middle of the road but i am impressed that you know a 4 syllable word.”

i guess that caught them off guard because they paused shouted “merry ******* CHRISTmas” and left.

probably not the best way to win friends and influence people but it drives me crazy when people acts like the whole world revolves around them.

i’m back from my weekend in chicago. it was a good weekend on a whole. i enjoyed spending time with the pierces and seeing matt’s show. other than that i pretty much just spent the weekend traveling back and forth on the “L“. the “blue line” was under reconstruction and that slowed everything down.

the surprise when i got home was that noah had been able to get his wii. my youngest son started saving up awhile back to buy a wii. a few weeks ago he finally had enough money but since the wii is now the “must have” CHRISTmas gift it was impossible for us to find a wii that noah could buy with his own money. i don’t really go for the whole driving around and stalking the “must have” CHRISTmas gift thing. I kind of think the whole thing is absurd. the difference here was that noah had been saving money for 6 months to get this thing. my boy had done his work and pam and i wanted to help him get it. while i was gone one of our neighbors who was in a similar situation called pam and said target had some wii’s come in. pam and noah rushed over to target and the child was rewards for his saving. it’s been a ton of fun. i can’t wait to take it to alabama with us and get the rest of the family to play.

this was the temperature this morning. oh yeah -8°. that was at our house at 8:25 a.m.