Money is just flying out the window

Do you ever get where it just feels like money is flying out the window? Every time you turn around you are encountering another unplanned expense? Well, that is where we are right now.

It started with a leaky sprinkler system. Since it is the middle of the busy season I still haven't been able to get someone out to look at it so I have no idea how much it is going to cost but I know it is more than I planned. (can't wait for the next water bill either)

Then yesterday I checked the mail and got the bill from the IRS for their audit. It was for $303. I know it could have been worse but it is still three hundred dollars.

Then yesterday I went into our playroom and noticed it was VERY HOT. Now the rest of the house is cool, just this room is hot. So, this morning I went into the attic and found that the duct work had broken into two pieces. The upside is the antic was nice and cool since we had been blowing cold air into it. (I can't wait for our next electric bill.) But, tomorrow we get to call the A/C man and find out how much it will cost to repair the duct work.

Then we have the obligatory unplanned medical expense.

I know we are blessed and these are really just minor inconveniences but I sure hope this stops soon.

Dallas Cowboys' New Stadium #2

The second in a series of my pictures of the progress of the construction of the new Dallas Cowboys' Stadium. Go here for picture 1.

Right now it is a big hole in the ground. Click here for an article on the construction.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Sleep, We all need sleep

Last night we or should I say I was watching The Lion King (for some reason I am the only one in the family that can sit still and watch an entire movie, but that is another post). There is a scene where Simba is trying to wake up his father, Mufasa. Mufasa turns to Simba's mother and says "he is your SON until the Sunrise". This struck me as so true that it is generally the responsibility of the mother to tend to the "fussy" child in the middle of the night.

Chase has been waking up a lot lately in the middle of the night and Shelley has been having to do a variety of things to get him back to sleep. During these times I can think of several excuses as why I'm not helping. Some of them are:

1. She's breastfeeding, I can't do anything to help. (I could get up and rub her shoulders or something. Now that we are past this stage and aren't having any more children I can make this bold claim.)
2. I have to get up early and go to work. (Oh, poor me, it's not like she doesn't do anything during the day).
3. She is better at it than me. (what a cop out that is)
4. The boys want their mother. (another cop out)

Am I terrible husband/father?

I do know I am married to an awesome woman.

So, what am I going to do? I am going to pray that Chase sleeps through the night so I don't have to worry about it. :-)

Time with Chase

The last few days Seth has been in Oklahoma so we have had an opportunity to spend a lot of time with Chase.

I am constantly amazed at our little boy and I'm not biased just because I am his father.

First, he is extremely smart. He is already talking and he even has phrases, not just single words. And when he can't communicate with words what he wants, he is very capable of getting his message across. Yesterday he wanted to ride in the car and he directed Shelley out to the garage to show what he wanted.

He also has very good hand eye coordination. He is already hitting a ball off of a tee with a bat and he is also able to replace the ball on the tee.

But, the most interesting part of his personality is his lack of fear. We really have to keep an eye on him because he does seem to lack that little voice that says "Chase, this might hurt you." This wasn't an issue with Seth so Shelley and I are having to adjust. The other day we were in two separate rooms and Chase left the room Shelley was in and headed to my room. Shelley didn't worn me though that "Chase Watch" had transferred from her to me and I didn't hear him come into the room (I was working on my laptop and I often don't know what is going on around me). Before I knew it he had managed to pull a potted plant and ceramic pot off of its stand and down on himself. It hurt him and scared him but I know if we were to put that plant back where it was, he would go right back to it again. I often say about Chase that he "doesn't have any quit in him."

Cowboys' Training Camp

It is just 1 day, 1 hour and 10 minutes until the official start of Cowboys' Training Camp.

Take Away my "Man Card"

I am feeling I need to have my "Man Card" taken away. For some reason I have become less and less handy around the house. I have never been Norm Abram but I could do a few things. But lately I am finding myself needing to hire someone to do a variety of things around the house. The most recent is a sprinkler leak in my back yard. I spent an hour this morning digging trying to find a leak in my spreakler system. After get up to my ankles in mud and not finding the leak, I finally decided to accept failure and call in a professional.

This isn't the first occurance but one on a growing list. To make it even worse, Shelley gave me a $50 gift card to Home Depot and I can't even think of anything I need and even worse anything I want!

What is wrong with me?

Galveston

We just returned from a short family vacation to Galveston, Texas; we thought we could all use a trip to the beach. Seth had been to the ocean about a year and half ago and Chase had never been so we were both anxious to see what their reaction would be.

Enthusiasm was not lacking because when we were still about three hours out from Galveston, Seth started asking "where's the beach?" When we finally arrived at our condo we quickly put our swimsuits on and headed for the beach. I had visions of me and the boys walking hand and hand in the surf but alas it wasn't to be. The personality of each boy kicked in as we approached the ocean. Seth stopped suddenly about 10 feet from the ocean and refused to go any further and I basically had to tackle Chase (the 1 year old) as he ran ahead out into the ocean.

Despite minimal planning we managed to do several things in the short two days we were there and I imagine everyone had there favorite moments.

I had several myself. With Seth it would be the boat trip around Galveston we took. It was one of those tours that shows you some of the highlights and we even got to see Dolphins playing. This boat had 2 decks and we spent most of our time on the lower deck because experience told us that Seth, the ever so cautious one, probably wouldn't like the upper deck. But, toward the end of the trip he wanted to go to the top so up we went. He immediately went to the front of the boat, a la "Titantic", and just loved the view he had up there.

With Chase it was his first dip in a swimming pool. We took a brief swim in the pool and being one never to be left out Chase wanted to go. So, I swam him around the pool and he just delighted in it.

For Seth I know his favorite had to be the Railroad museum we went to and the model train exhibit he got a private tour of. It was amazing display with a lot of detail. The men who created let Seth go inside the exhibit and get a close up view of all of the trains.

For Chase I think it had to be getting to go swimming. He is a natural and was already kicking his legs and moving his arms.

For Shelley it might have been the fact that I didn't have my laptop or cell phone with me for two days, a new record for me.

All in all it was a nice vacation.

Israel Trip

I have gotten many inquiries or statements regarding our Israel trip. It is usually something like:

"So, I guess you aren't going to Israel now?" or "I sure hope you have cancelled your trip."

For the record our trip is still on and here is the email I recently received from the tour company.

We are aware of the situation in Israel and there is no concern right now to worry. Where the conflict is, it is further north than where we will be touring in Israel. We have traveled over to Israel for 25+ years and have never had to cancel any trip. We have your safety as top priority and if we see that we need to cancel any trip for any reason, then you would receive a full refund.

Armed Citizen #10

From www.nra.org

Dressed in black with socks on his hands and armed with a tire iron, a would-be robber certainly looked the part as he approached the southwest Houston home of 26-year-old Derriun Raney and knocked on the door. Police say that when Raney opened the door, the man struck him in the head repeatedly with the tire iron. Raney drew a pistol and fired several shots, striking his assailant in the stomach. The unidentified man died in the front yard. Raney suffered a cut on his head, but was otherwise uninjured. (Houston Chronicle, Houston, TX, 04/15/06)

An Unusual Smell

I don't have any brand loyalty regarding what shaving cream I use, I generally just grab whatever catches my eye. I have been using my current can for about a week and have noticed that it had an unusual smell but each morning I have lacked the energy to go to that extra step of reaching down, looking at the can and identifying what fragrance it is suppose to be. Well, this morning I did and when I turned the can around I saw, "Fragrance Free" splashed across the can.

So, is that why we inject everything with some sort of odor because no odor just smells so bad?

One Thing I Forgot

I forgot to mention in my previous post about Shelley's class reunion was that I married the prettiest girl in the Class of 1986 at Coleman High School.

Class Reunions

This weekend was Shelley's 20th high school class reunion. This was the first high school reunion I have ever attended. I know my class had a 5, 10 and a 20 year reunion (I never heard anything about 15) and I didn't attend any of them. My position has always been that I would keep in touch with anyone I wanted to so why go and see those that I didn't want to stay in touch with. I haven't kept in touch with anyone in my class so there has been zero reason for me to attend.

Shelley grew up in a small town and had a graduating class of 14. She had 8 from her class attend and I imagine of the 6 that didn't attend, a few of them probably shared the same thoughts that I do.

It was interesting to be able to attend a reunion and just listen to the stories. Since Shelley's class was small they seemed to be a very close group who spent a lot of time together, maybe too much time. They also all seemed to more geniune than I would imagine some of my classmates would be. I don't think I heard anyone trying to brag about their accomplishments since they graduated. Now, this might have been because except for Shelley, those that attended had stayed in the area and there probably weren't any lies that could be told. It seemed that everyone at the table either worked or went to church with a cousin, brother, or some other relative of everyone else at the table.

But, I think this might be the last high school renunion I attend because I still hav e no plans to attend any of mine, unless I win the lottery and then I will have something to go and brag about. Yes, I'm no different than anyone else.

Wishing Your Life Away

When I was a kid I would often say something like; "I can't wait until Christmas." or "I wish it was summer vacation." or "I wish it was the weekend."

My mom would often reply, "Don't wish you life away." This has always stuck with me. Anytime I find myself looking forward to something or just wishing it wasn't today, I will hear my mom's voice.

The other day I was looking at photos of Chase from the past year and just marveling at how he has grown and wondering where the time has gone. It is true that once you have kids, then time just seems to fly by, but this is the time I want to savor the most so I am trying to quit "wishing my life away".

This is very hard to do though, because right now I wish it was the weekend.

Happy Birthday Shelley

Today is my wonderful wife's birthday.

Happy Birthday and I love you.

50 Most Influential Churches

The Church Report has released its 2006 list of the 50 Most Influential Churches. They surveyed the leaders of over 2000 non-Catholic churches and had them vote on the churches they thought were most influential.

My Church made it at #4. Here is the top 10:

1. Willow Creek Community Church - South Barrington, IL
2. Saddleback Church - Lake Forest, CA
3. North Point Community Church - Alpharetta, GA
4. Fellowship Church - Grapevine, TX
5. Lakewood Church - Houston, TX
6. Southeast Christian Church - Louisville, KY
7. Life Church - Edmond, OK
8. Potter's House - Dallas, TX
9. Brooklyn Tabernacle - Brooklyn, NY
10. North Coast Church - Vista, CA

Rocky Balboa

Here is the new trailer to the new Rocky movie Rocky Balboa. Watch it here.

I know this will be the 5th one and the last few have not been very good, but I can't help and get excited when I hear that music start up.

It comes to theaters December 22nd.

July 11th and the All-Star Game

This morning when I got in the car and started listening to my favorite sports talk radio station, The Ticket, I heard them talking about The All-Star Game. This instantly took me back to a day I will never forget and that was July 11, 1995. I then looked at my watch and noticed that today was July 11th and I thought, "uh, how things have changed in 11 years."

The morning of July 11th started off to be a beautiful day but was forecasted to be hot, approaching 100. But, I didn't care because I had tickets to the All-Star Game that was being played in the new Ballpark at Arlington. I was only going to work a half day at my job as a credit analyst for Pitney Bowes Credit Corporation and then we were going to head out to the ballpark and enjoy the pre-game and eventually the game. This was possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity and I didn't know if I would ever get to go to another All-Star Game so I was excited.

But, first I had to go to work and first on the agenda was an all office "breakfast meeting" where some honcho from headquarters was going to talk to us about the future direction of the company. What I didn't know at the time was that future didn't include me.

As I was going into this big theater style meeting room they had a table with bagels, orange juice, donuts, etc. and as I was loading my plate I heard one of my co-workers say "at least they are feeding us our last meal." Unusual comment I thought.

What I didn't know was that all of the department managers had met at a hotel the night before and then were suppose to meet with their staffs prior to the meeting to give everyone a heads up but mine was still stuck in traffic. So, I walked in, chose my seat and some guy walked up to the center of the stage and said "so I guess you all know why you are here?" Everyone in my department slowly raised our hands and said we didn't and that is when he hit us "Oh, we are closing the office in September."

It initially didn't dawn on me that this meant I was losing my job (that I had for 5 months) but I quickly realized it. All of the excitement of the All-Star game went out of me. I then went back to my desk to call my wife and tell her I was losing my job and that we might not be able to buy the new house we had just started building. I then got to meet with an HR person to talk about that I could possibly relocate to Chicago for a lower paying job or they would provide me career search assistance. We were having a good time then.

I then went to the All-Star game and watched the National League beat the American League 3 to 2 and the All-Star game would always be burned into my memory as the day I lost my job.

Another Roller Coaster Accident

Here is another roller coaster accident. This sent 20 people to the hospital.

Story

Why do people ride these things?

I love Lisa Whelchel

Yes, I love Lisa Whelchel and I'm not talking about the crush I had on Blair Warner.

Shelley is currently reading Lisa's latest book



Something she read in the book yesterday prompted her to get organized. She started cleaning out closets and drawers. I also had a complete grocery list waiting for me this morning when I went to the store. Finally, she was ready for church well over an hour before we needed to leave and she was even wearing ear rings. Also, both boys were also ready for church and we ended up being at church thirty minutes before it was scheduled to start.

Who knew she had this in her..

Mid-Life Crisis cont..

I haven't used my Blog in the past for my own personal therapy but instead have chosen to limit my post to things not quite so personal. But, as I wrote in this post I think I might be going through a mid-life crisis.

Actually, I don't know what it is but since I am about to turn 40 I know everyone will assume that it is a mid-life crisis so that is what I am choosing to call it. Also, a crisis might be the wrong term because that implies some level of unhappiness and I am not really unhappy but I am really feeling out of sync.

Being "out of sync" is the best way I can describe how I am feeling. I feel like I am moving at a different speed than everyone else or sometimes that everything is moving either faster or slower around me. That sounds very odd, doesn't it?

I have been turning to God, reading my Bible a lot, praying all in an effort to try and understand this state I am in but I haven't received any enlightenment yet. I am starting to believe that the reason is that God is making me feel uncomfortable in order to initiate change in me. Well, it is working because I am very uncomfortable.

One of my strongest feelings right now is one of inadequacy. I feel I am not living up to anyone's expectation at this point. I feel I am not living up to expectations of being a husband, a father, a servant of God, or even expectations at work. I feel I am failing to give everyone what they are needing from me and I am letting everyone down or disappointing them.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July! America is 230 years old and is still the greatest country on Earth.

Israel

Shelley and I have made the decision to go to Israel with our church. We are both very excited because this is something we have both wanted to do for a long time. In fact, it is one of my "7 Things to do before I die." We will leave December 28th and be gone for 10 days and the itinerary looks packed.

I will be blogging more about this as we prepare for the trip and then obviously after the trip.

Asking for Prayers

I want to ask for prayers for my Aunt Anita who has been diagnosed with liver cancer. The cancer is in her liver and pancreas and she isn't well. She is in a lot of pain and is very weak. She starts chemo on Monday. Just lift her, my uncle and their son up in your prayers.

Haircut Day

Today was a first for me, I took both boys at the same time to get a haircut. Shelley had worked last night and needed some quiet time so I figured this would be a good way to get us all out of her hair (excuse the pun) but I was secretly a little concerned. Chase has only had one other haircut so this is a relatively new experience for him so you never know how he might react. Seth generally does really well but if we have to wait extra long (it is first come first serve, no appointments) then his patience can run thin.

So, I packed the bags with drinks, cheerios and toys and headed out on our little adventure. Fortunately it wasn't very crowded and we only had 1 person in front of us. Seth kept everyone entertained with a little song and dance number and everyone thought Chase was the cutest thing they had seen.

I opted to have Seth go first because he was in the most need of a haircut and if things went bad, we could just leave and bring Chase back another day. But, they didn't go bad. Seth sat in the chair and had excellent behavior during his haircut and it allowed Steve (our barber) to cut it even shorter and straighter than ever before. And Chase was equally pleasant. He sat on my lap during his and never put up a fuss.

Now we all or sporting our new haircuts and I think Mommy enjoyed the little time to herself.

Big Companies Just Don't Get It

I work for a small company that is owned by a big company and I can tell you our parent company just doesn't get it sometimes. I also know most big companies just don't get it most of the time. For example, I have a friend who works for AT&T and I sent him an email with a link to this, a post about pricing for AT&T's new service U-Verse which is an IPTV and Internet Service. In my email I said "looks like pretty good pricing." He happened to print it out and have it with him when he went into a meeting where they passed out a corporate memo instructing them not to talk about the pricing for U-Verse.

He said, "we better tell the bloggers then."

I don't get it, don't you want people talking about your products?