The Last Post of the Year!

Being that it is almost midnight, this is the last post of the year. 2007 has been incredible. I have enjoyed it. Here is some (no not all) of my highlights of the year:

• Isaiah -- so many good times with him
• Vacation -- my wife, my son, myself...what could be better
• Finding out about Mark Batterson
• Chase the Lion Series at Church
• Thanksgiving Eve service
• Christmas Eve service
• Samuel
• Melting Pot with Heather
• Edinboro Camp -- love those kids
• and of course, starting this blog where I can just think out loud
• And reading all my fellow bloggers' thoughts

Blogging is great. I love this forum to get my thoughts out. I love looking back to see what I blogged about. I love developing concepts that I get to fully use later.

So as 2008 will be here real soon, 2007 was well....legendary!

Random Reflections

Sorry that I haven't blogged much lately. We have had some crazy times. I think if I counted right I had about 5 Christmases. Crazy I know.
2 years old + 5 Christmas's = 1 Cranky kid, even though he still is the cutest kid I have ever seen in my life.

I have notiticed on TV all the ads for diets as always right before the new year. With that being said I thought I should make the title of this post "easy fast quick diet that is guarenteed to work." I thought a lot of people might google that.

You should have heard my voice yesterday. Well actually you couldn't hear much. My voice was mostly gone. It was so tough to get through everything, but I did :) So that was a good thing.

I have gotten to spend more than normal time with that my family lately because of Christmas and everything. I really like that. In fact I am trying to figure out how to do that more often.

I realized today is that last day of 2007. Boy has it been a quick one and, for the most part, a good one.

That reminds me I have to do my best of 2007 list.

I am begining to like tea. My wife started to drink it almost every night, so of course I decided to try some. I am really starting to like it.

It is becoming really easy to get Samuel to smile. Smiles are great.

I need to find a way to prevent my house from being overrun by toys!

Happy New Year

I got my Christmas Wish

Last night we put Samuel to bed at about 10. That is later then normal, but it was Christmas and you know how crazy that can get. Samuel did not wake up till 6:30, which is the time I had to get up anyways. My Christmas wish was for Samuel to sleep all night. I think I got that. :)

Nascar, God, and Cancer

I am a huge Nascar fan. I make sure I keep up with all the Nascar stories. By doing so, you develop a liking of this writer or that writer. One of my favorite writers is Bob Margolis. I just like his writing style/information. It just appealed to me.
Little did I know that this whole season he has been battling cancer. He wrote about his ordeal. It was just amazing. Check it out for yourself:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news;_ylt=AqeO92elavD.Ca2ZxEyqlzTov7YF?slug=bm-bobsstory122507&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Are you Hungry?

I know you read the title of that post, and the first thought in your head was "Hungry? How can I be hungry? I ate 50 lbs of cookies yesterday." Well fortunately for those of us who had more then a double helping of the "blessing" that is Christmas cookies, I am not talking about that type of hunger.

I am talking about spiritual hunger. I came across a quote today by Erwin McManus. "My job is not to feed Christians, but to make them hungry." Wow! I get it! I like it! I practice it. One of my desires is to make people want more. I am not smart enough or good enough to adequately feed people their entire spiritual meal. I don't want to be. In fact there is not one person that could. The reason is, it is not my job to feed people. It is impossible. The nourishment comes from God.

So if I can make people hungry, wanting more of God, they are going to go and look for it. They are going to ask God to fill them. Sometimes I will say stuff that will make people confused, upset, and having to search for the answers themselves. Good!

Love that quote. "My job is not to feed Christians, but to make them hungry"

4 hours after the Christmas Eve Service

Well it is 12:16 am. I guess that means "Merry Christmas" We just finished wrapping all the presents. Yeah! Now after we did all the work, I guess we can go to bed and wait for Santa to come.
The Christmas Eve Service...It was Legendary! I thought it was a huge success. I had a blast. I really enjoyed the felloweship with everyone. There is just something that seems right to celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve with a Candle.
Maybe I will tell you all later; but we had an amazing story come out of tonight. A God only Story. Amazing how he works. I would tell you all right now, but keep in mind that it is 12:20 and I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open.
What a day, what a night, what a Savior!

Merry Christmas!

1 Hour Before the Christmas Eve Service

Just to let you know this will be my last post until after the service sometime (maybe even tomorrow)
I'm all dressed up in my suit. I checked the PowerPoint, it worked, I have to tune the bass guitar, and a couple of other things
Now by the time it gets to be about 6:30 I will be thinking "No one is coming" and slowly but surely everyone will trickle in.
Man I'm I excited!
If you are sitting at home wondering what to do, you better come and join us a 7:00 p.m.

Merry Christmas Eve!

2 Hours Before the Christmas Eve Service

Right now I am at home. Well I am here I had to get the PowerPoint that Heather did on her laptop, transfer it to my laptop. Get the MP3 all ready to go. Say "Hi" to my wife. Check my mail, eat supper, put on something called a suit. Then out the door again, back to church hopefully around 5:30 - 6:00, and then get everything else ready. 2 Hours...I am getting really excited

4 Hours To the Christmas Eve Service

I changed all the light bulbs and did not hurt myself! (although one did shatter, but that is besides the point). I set up some more chairs. I kept debating with myself, on how many chairs I should set up. I know the whole 70% full rule (if it is 70% then you are comfortably full). So I am tyring to do that math with the fact that the 70% doesn't really apply to Christmas Eve. All in all, I am having fun.
I just got to experience the joy of giving and receiving from a totally unexpected unplanned event. I tell you what, it is just a too good of a story. If you want to hear it, come tonight to Bakerstown Alliance at 7:00 p.m.

6 Hours Before the Christmas Eve Service

Now if you would look at a couple of posts before this one, you would find why this is even more funny. I have some light bulbs to replace. I told this to my wife, and my parents yesterday. They almost made me not do it. :) So, for the next while I will be changing light bulbs and setting everything up. I have to add a couple of more chairs and stuff. I also am pondering if there will be enough room inside to form a circle. The way we have it set up now there is no outside aisle. I think there will be enough room anyhow. Due to the wind advisory and just the overall coldness, I do not think we will be outside. Well, off to move and change.

9 Hours before Christmas Eve Service

It is weird. I am at the church on Monday, (I don't do Mondays) and I am actually feeling pretty good. I guess my body realized last night that it doesn't get to rest this time after Sunday. So it is ready to go tonight. I am getting excited about tonight. I am expecting great things. I am sure that it will be a really good time. Next on my to do list is to practice my message. Just to let you all know, typically, I practice twice before anyone hears it. I find it a huge help. I would like to be able to practice more, get to the point where I could do it without notes. I am just not there yet. Well enough blogging, on to practicing :)

Ironic, don't you think?

Right now as I type, my little one is sound asleep. He is upstairs, in his crib, sawing logs. This is amazing. He is finally starting to understand this sleep a long time at night concept.
Meanwhile my 2 1/2 year old who has been sleeping all night long since he was about 2 months old, is upstairs crying his head off. Ironic! Someday, hopefully soon, everyone will sleep all night long.

My Most Memorable Christmas Eve

Once upon a time, in a church not so far away, I was getting ready for our Christmas Eve service. Now this service is probably our best turn out of the year. So I get this mantra in my head, "Everything has to be perfect on Christmas Eve." So I noticed that one of the light bulbs way up in the bell tower was out. No problem. I will just go up there and change the bulb right? Well I was changing the bulb and it shattered in my hands. Ouch! I figured I would just run some water over it, and if it was really bad put on a band aid. Well that didn't work. It was still gushing. So I called Heather. She was like, "What did you do?" So we wrapped it up in a bunch of paper towels, then continued to get everything ready. Back downstairs, more paper towels, still bleeding. More paper towels. Begin the service, all wrapped with paper towels. Beth was singing a song, I went back down and wrapped more towels around me. Back up stairs. Preached with my hand up in the air. (maybe a little distracting). Got to the candle lighting part, lit one person's candle and my hand started gushing again. Grab some paper towels from my pocket. wrapped some more around my hand. Then finished the service. Talk to everyone on the way out. Then go to the ER on Christmas Eve. I was not the only one there. In fact I think we had to wait like 2 hours. They finally get to me. Looked around to see if there was any glass in there, ouch! Then stitched me up. Get out of the ER at like 11:30 and start heading to Connecticut, to spend Christmas at Heather's parents house. After all it was only 500 miles away. By the way it was snowing, and not just a little. Major snow! So after like 3 hours, we only made it like 60 miles. We found a hotel and went to bed. Got up on Christmas morning and once again headed on our way. Funny, none of the road crews were out on Christmas. We tried for over 4 hours to get somewhere, and we only got like another 60 miles. We heard that they were shutting down the interstate. So we gave up. Ate Christmas dinner at a truck stop, and spent Christmas day in a hotel room with no decorations. Finally on the 26th we were able to arrive at our destination. Exhausted, and with stitches.
I laugh at it now. I think back to it and can't stop laughing. On my pinkie, where I got the stitches, I touch it and it still tingles. Just thought I would share my story with all of you out there. I hope you got a laugh out of it.

I am so excited

Sunday and Monday, December 23rd and 24th for me personally are going to be draining and then some. This week is crazy. It is Christmas go time. Now you can ask my wife. Every Christmas Eve there will be a phrase that I will repeat several times. "It's Christmas Eve. Everything has to be perfect on Christmas Eve." I know I put a lot of stress on myself. I know I do. But man I am excited. Sunday and especially Christmas eve are going to be off the charts. Christmas -- talking about the birth of the Savior, wow! This is one of the greatest things about my job.
For all of you within any distance of Bakerstown Alliance, you will want to be there 7:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve. It will be........well...........legendary.

P.S. Hopefully in the next day or two I will tell you about my embarrassing/painful/hilarious Christmas Eve stories (sorry if you heard it before) :)

My Big Ham

Today I just felt like cooking a ham. Now, I just didn't want a little ham or a ham steak. I wanted the bomb diggidy bomb. I want the mother ship. So I cooked an eighteen pound ham. Now you are thinking, what does a family of 4 with 1/2 of them being under 3 need with that big of a ham. Well that is a good question. Needless to say there will be a lot of leftovers. Hey that is ok. It is ham! I like ham. And yes as I sit here, my house has a very strong smell of ham.

The unexpected best part of my day

Today I had a ministerium meeting. I must admit I thought about skipping. I have a lot of stuff to get ready between now and Christmas. This time of the year is always hectic. So it was just one more thing on my to do list. But I decided I should go. After all, I am the treasurer of the ministerium. So I show up. It turns out I was 50% of all the people there. Now at first that seemed like a colossal waste of time. But in reality it was the greatest time. I got to spend one hour with a person that I deeply respect, talking about life and ministry. That was incredible. Finding one hour to sit down and just talk without an agenda is difficult. That is something that we all could use a little more of. Maybe we should be more intentional about it. I know you are all busy. I know you all have a huge to do list. But why not find that one hour to talk to someone about life in general. You will be encouraged and re-energized just like I was today.

How I Spent My Morining

I just wanted to let all of you out there in the blogsphere know that I have been a little under the weather. Sick? Nah not me. I never (admit to) getting sick. Frustrates Heather. She will ask me if I am sick and of course I will tell her "no." Ok so maybe I am a little bit more then "under the weather."
With that in mind, allow me to tell you about my morning. I drag myself out of bed at 6:30, get ready, out the door at like 7. Look at the car. Why is the one tire "not so round?" Hmm, not completely flat. So I look for my air tank and it is not there. I remembered that I let my dad borrow it. He is right up the road. I will just drive carefully. So I did put some air in it. And it looked round. But I knew I should put more air in it. I dove to GetGo, got some gas, and sure enough the air was out of order. By this time the tire is not so round any more. I did not want to ruin the wheel, so I parked it and went to change the tire. Somehow the jack and the lug wrench were missing. So I called my dad. Bribed him with a coffee (always works between the 2 of us). He brought me a jack and lug wrench. Got the nuts off, went to pull the tire off. It would not budge. Argh. So I had to take Isaiah to school. I had my dad take me to my house, grabbed the minivan (and Isaiah). Take him to School. Heather calls AAA. They tell her that she has to be at the car. So she takes her mom's car, heads down the road, and gets a call saying "it is all changed no problem." So then Heather takes the car to Walmart to get the tire fixed. Of course they are backed up and Samuel and Heather have to get home, so I drive to Walmart, pick those 2 cute ones up. Then I had them drop me of at GetGo picked up Heather's mom's car, picked up Isaiah from school. Then we had Walmart tell us that we can't fix the tire and in fact we need 4 new tires. Argh. Ohh well had to do it. Went home, ate lunch, went back to work. And picked up the car after a big night out at Eat-N-Park. Well that is how my morning/day went. I don't know. Just felt like I would share with all of you

Top 10 Signs I am not spending enough time with God

Here you go. Here is a list of the top 10 signs you are not spending with God. I am not saying these are the only ones. Also these are in no particular order. I have to give credit where credit is due. A lot of the items on this list are from Bil Cornelius.

1. Little things begin to bother me.
2. I become irritable.
3. I find worry creeping up in my mind.
4. Temptations become stronger.
5. Discouragement becomes too regular.
6. I find that I am not only tired, but emotionally tired.
7. Complacency is accepted.
8. I'm not day dreaming about what God can do.
9. I'm lonely.
10. The fun factor is down.

What do you think? Are there any you would like to add? Are there any you would like to take away?

Sometimes you want to talk to a human

Have you ever tried to call somewhere and get a real human? It is getting tough these days. The automated processes are good sometimes, but there are those situations where you just have to talk to a human. Fortunately for me, I have a brother (literally my brother) Phil who likes to hook me up. Check out this website. gethuman.com On the site there are about 500 corporate numbers and how to get a human. Quite impressive. So there you go. Just a little help for you. Thanks to the coolest brother in the world.

Sleep or the lack there of

Someday I know that I will sleep through the night again, where I will not be woken up by a little one crying. Boy do I miss those days. I often walk around like a zombie (and I will be the first to admit Heather has it even worse) just because of the lack of a decent night's sleep. Sometimes I try to think I and will just about have an intelligent thought, and my mind will just go blank. Man that is kinda frustrating at times. Now the amazing part is that God has given me enough sustained brain power to get the things done that I need to get done. So I am really grateful for that.

Now let me make something very clear here; I would not trade it for the world. As I sit here and type, feeling sleepy, and Samuel's crying, I would not trade it for the world. No it doesn't make sense to me. 3 years ago I would tell you that it would be impossible.

Sleep, yeah that is nice. 2 little gifts from God, even nicer. 1 loving wife, amazing!

No More Mr. Bahumbug

Christmas is a very busy time for me. Things really get crazy. However, I made a choice the last couple of years and I am going to make that same choice this year. I will not succumb to being Mr. Bahumbug. You ask "how is that possible?" I tell you the truth, you can choose your attitude. I am choosing to enjoy the season. To enjoy the craziness. To enjoy the excitement of my 2 year old son. To go outside in the snow build a snowman and go sled riding. To stand in line at Wal-mart for 35 minutes talk to the clerk in a friendly tone and make sure that I wish them a Merry Christmas. Your attitude is what you want it to be. So if I seem Bahumbugish to you, please tell me. I will need to change it.

How Rich Are You?

We all like to complain we are poor, but are you really doing that bad?

I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 569,942,529 richest person on earth! How rich are you? >>

Update just for my Dad :)

If you click towards the bottom of the picture you will get linked to a site that you can find out how rich you are. The site is global rich list. Which clicking on that title back there will get you there, or you could click here, or here, or here, or here. :) (By the way, make sure you switch from the euro to the $$, unless you are in Europe)

Apples and Isaiah

Turns out my son really likes apples. Isaiah and I love to cut up an apple and just eat it. I'm not quite sure why he likes it so much. But I really don't care. I just like that fact that he likes it. And if it gives me an opportunity to hang out with him, hey what could be better than that? I will never claim to know what I am doing as far as being a dad. I have a good example from my dad. You know what he did? He was just hung out with me. He asked questions that were basically just normal questions. So that's what I am attempting to do with Isaiah. Basically I guess that might mean that we have a higher apple expenditure then the normal family. Oh well! :)
By the way, let me help you out in your quest for a good juicy apple. Fugi apples are by far the best. Hey, what can I say. I am here for you guys.

mmmmmm.....doughnuts....

On Sunday I received a wonderful gift. A gift that I rarely get to enjoy. A peanut butter angel doughnut. For those who do not know what these are, it is like a vanilla angel except with peanut butter filling. WOW! Those things are wonderful. Now the only place close to us that sells this little slice of heaven is in Butler. Now that is about 1/2 hr to 45 minutes from our church. A great guy (yes ladies he is single) drove the 1 hour round trip to get me these delicious delicacies. Man....they were great. I think I almost shed a tear.

My Migraines

I feel a little uncomfortable talking about my migraines. It is just not something I share freely with everybody. I am getting better at telling my wife when I have one. It is just something I don't like to talk about. But I going to open up and share with all you out there in the blogsphere.

Since I was in like third or fourth grade I have been getting migraines. Pretty bad ones. Back then I would get about one every other week. Basically, I would end up getting such a bad headache I would throw up. Boy did that stink. I took a bunch of tests and such and we never did figure anything out.

Through high school they were not that bad. I think I just got smart about dealing with them (i.e. go to bed when they would come). In college I learned about something that I could only learn about in the South: Goodies Headache Powder. Boy does that stuff work.

Now the coolest thing about my migraines is other than one time, every morning when I wake up after having a headache, I feel fine. Now I will say the last time I threw up it took my stomach a little bit longer than it used to to get back to normal. But other than that, I am usually good to go.

Sometimes, I have those days when I get a headache and it actually goes away. I had one of them today. Man I tell you. It is incredible. When it goes away you have this whole new outlook on life. You can see things without pain. You read without wanting to throw up. It is incredible. So that is how I feel right now. It also makes me extremely grateful to God, the Giver of Life.