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i like your yard

for about 4 years pam and i have been driving by a yard that we both love. we liked the house when we first started driving by it six years ago but we fell in love with it four years ago when the owners decided to change their landscaping. it’s wonderful. it’s pretty on it own but the best part is that is fits the house perfectly. the colors go well together, the shapes fit the structure perfectly, and the textures are spot on. every time i drive by the house (which is basically every day) i think to myself “dang, they did that right.”

today we had to get out of our house for yet another showing. this is a good thing. the only bad part of the whole situation was that the whole process went long. we disappeared from the house for an hour, as we were asked to, but when we go back the realtor and her client were still there (hopefully this is a good thing). so we drive around for a little while. after 15 minutes and our second trip by the house we decided to take a longer route. this longer route took us by the previously mentioned house. since we had to waste some time pam and i talked about stopping by and telling these random people how much we liked their landscaping. so we did. i walked up to these stranger’s home that live about a mile away from us and said “you don’t know me but i have been meaning to stop and tell you how much i like your landscaping for about four years. i just wanted to tell you that you did a great job on it.”

the homeowner was as surprised as you would think she was. she began to tell me how hard her husband had worked on the landscaping and how thankful she was that i stopped by to say that. it was all pretty fun.

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happy birthday arnold

it’s arnold’s birthday and i for one desire to wish him a happy one.

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contemplative youth ministry

last night i finished mark yaconelli’s “contemplative youth ministry“. i picked this book up a month ago thinking that even though starting a church plant will change how i approach youth ministry i assumed there would be some really good stuff in the book that would relate to all ministry. my guess was on target. the book is great. i especially loved two things from the book: 1) the liturgy of discernment as a meeting agenda, and 2) and the concept of noticing, naming, and nurturing being a model for ministry. it’s good stuff and a worthy read.

btw, len has a good interview with mark yaconelli here. it’s worth reading the whole article if for no other reason than the story of yac and mark at the world series.

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two weeks without a word

i haven’t blogged in two weeks and my wife has been reminding me that my parents need me to post. it’s an odd feeling having an audience of two but the good news is that they are very loyal readers. so in order to keep them loyal i am posting now.

the reason that i haven’t posted in two weeks is really good. it’s a two fold reason, 1) i was on a mission trip for eight of the days. the youth ministry was repairing houses in vicksburg, mississippi. it was a great week but i couldn’t post anything because i didn’t have any internet access. 2) i’ve had a summer cold since getting back from mississippi. i hate summer colds. there are simply not fun. i’ve felt pretty miserable all week. i think i’m finally pretty close to over it.

the only two things that have really happened within the past two weeks are 1) lots of showings of the house, and 2) some good financial news. the showings are in an attempt to sell our house so we can buy one up in stevens point. we’ve averaged about one and a half showings per day. supposedly this isn’t bad – in fact it’s pretty good. we’ve been on the market 16 days and we’ve had 22 showings. now we have to get an offer and ell our house.

the financial good news is from parkview. when we leave baton rouge we knew that it would involve us going without an income for eight weeks. because of this we saved up all of our vacation time so that we would each have 4 weeks of vacation and thus cut the eight weeks down to four weeks. we figured we would just live the remaining four weeks off of our savings, credit, and capital in our house. this all changed this week when the parkview personnel committee met. they decided that they wanted to pay me for eight weeks vacation instead of four. this means that we’ll be losing a little with pam’s income (right now my salary is the main source of income where as in stevens point pam’s salary will be the main source). it was a very nice surprise that took away the stress of trying to move a family of four and live for a month without any income. thank you parkview.

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father’s day bragging

on father’s day i bragged about my dad (and mom) for a second or two. today i would like to brag about my wife and kids. they are wonderfully challenging and cool in general but what i desire to brag about right now is how they made my father’s day great. since we were still getting the house ready to go on the market pam and the boys had been joking that this past sunday would be the least restful father’s day ever. the plan was that i would arrived back from church, eat a father’s day lunch, and then get back to work on the house until we had a college bible study at our house at 7 p.m. once the college kids left pam and i would start work on the house again. it was going to be a busy day. allot of stuff needed to be done around the house and i was just the guy to do it.

well i didn’t get to skip the house work but my wife and kids did make my lunch great. when i started to walk in from finishing our second church service i was stopped at the door by my kids with a present. they told me that i wasn’t allowed to enter the house until i had opened the present. i opened it and was greeted by some cool shorts and a pullover that my oldest son said would make me look almost as good as he does (high praise from a 13 year old). along with the clothes was a poem which said something like:

he stood up against the church
but was smashed by blaine (a reference to a kid in the youth who smashed my last francis statue – though the kids didn’t realize that it wasn’t actually blaine who killed frank)
you’ll find him in the garden
where your dogs have lane

i was then allowed to walk to our backyard porch where i was met with a wonderful st. frank statue (i am enamored with francis of assisi) and a poem underneath his 25 lbs. self. i don’t remember what it exactly said so i’ll have to repost it later but basically it was a hint combining a quilt (a blanket made of lots of different scraps) and the name of our future church “tapestry” (a community made of lots of different people). i walked to the bedroom to find a pencil cup that had been made for me with the name faux-logo of the church and tons of alantis pens and accent liquid highlighters (these pens and highlighters are the best in the world and everyone should go out and buy some). there was also another poem (that i will have to post later when i get home). the point of this poem pointed to our freezer where i had my very own pack of klondike bars. the fam even went so far as to make sure these were hersey and almond klondike bars because i am the only one in the family that likes almonds (there’s no way i can share even if i wanted to).

the day got even better when pam announced that the chocolate chip pound cake she was making for my father’s day lunch wouldn’t be ready till that afternoon so she was pushing my father’s day meal (fried chicken covered in broccoli and cheese with wildrice – a personal favorite) to dinner and she would bring home general tso’s chicken for lunch (another personal favorite). TWO FAVORITE MEALS IN ONE DAY.

even with all the work around the house it was an amazing day.

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ed stetzer on church planting

btw, if anyone has any old baseballs laying around that you no longer need or want i could use them for batting practice with my youngest son.

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i have great parents

yes it is father’s day but i thought i would praise both my parents. they are both great and have been wonderful examples for me for what it means to be a good parent. if i weren’t so stinking tired from getting the house in order i would type out a list of what has been great about them but i am really tired so i will limit it to generic bragging. they’re great.

i hope your parents are just as great and that you honored at least one of them today (whether they are still with you or not).

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rise of the silver surfer

the boys & i saw “fantastic four: rise of the silver surfer” today and we all agree that it was much better than the first one. my personal favorite scene was when stan lee couldn’t get into the wedding because the security guard wouldn’t believe that he was stan lee.

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it’s a little less painful

thanks to our insurance (gieco) we get a rental car while they are fixing our window. i went to pickup the rental car and on a whim i asked how much over the insurance amount it would be to have a mustang convertible. they told me it was a whooping $10. i figured we would only be out of our caravan for a day or two and therefore it would be fun to see pam drive around in a convertible. i’m not real big on the whole hot car thing but i do have a soft spot for mustangs. they are just cool (especially a cherry red 1967 convertible stang with a 289 in it). i was right. she looks even cuter than normal when seen in a red stang convertible. of course, the collision center called back and said it would take two to three business days to get one part so it now looks like we’ll have the mustang for six day but still $60 isn’t a bad deal for seeing my wife in a car that looks almost as hot as she does. 🙂

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what a pain

i took some of the youth to baton rouge laser tag last night and of course pam went with us (if you know pam then you probably know that she has this weird obsession with laser tag). while we were in the facility someone decided it would be a good idea to bust in our passenger side front window and steal pam’s purse. they didn’t take anything else, not the ipod that was right beside it, not the other girls’ purses that were in the back of the vehicle, nothing. they took pam’s purse which had a credit card, a debit card, 2 gas cards, her checkbook, cellphone, and $1.09. pam and i started calling all the card companies last night to make sure that they were canceled and we have continued today. it has been a real pain. according to the officer who worked up our case there have been a lot of such auto break ins recently, all of them looking for cash. i guess it sucks to risk getting caught and get $1.09. i hope it ticked those guys off.

it really stinks.