We keep hearing about the need for universal healthcare… that everyone should have full coverage available from the government. At our expense.

At first, it sounds like a good idea… but I think the real thing is not that the government should cover the huge and rising medical costs (using our tax money, so we are still paying for it). Rather, I think the government needs to step in and put HUGE limits on the medical malpractice lawsuits that are filed that keep the cost of practicing medicine extremely high and rising.

Wouldn’t that be better?

The reason for the large gap in blogging for me has been our amazing schedule the past week. We are always busy, but I guess this past week has been a different busy. Like, not at a computer busy. (I don’t prefer that kind of busy…) 🙂

Here’s a quick recap:

Starting last Thursday (well, a week ago Thursday), we prepped the attic and the house for my Dad & Grandparents to arrive and finish the trim work in the attic. So we worked most of the day on that (and other various things) until my family arrived later that night. When they got there, we shared a meal and had a little celebration of Alex’s birthday two days previous.

Friday we started early and worked ALL DAY in the attic… but we finished it! (Well, enough to start moving things in). Saturday we moved stuff all day. Sunday we did manage to go to Cross Creek in the morning, but the rest of the day was moving stuff… sorting stuff… organizing stuff.

You should have seen our front porch and front yard! HA! 🙂

Monday you can guess what we did… MORE SORTING MOVING AND ORGANIZING!!!! AHHHHH!!!!

There are 38 steps from the basement to the attic. 33 steps from the outside to the attic. There is approximately 2 TONS of STUFF in our house that got moved over those 38 steps. Some of it a few times both ways.

My muscles are STILL tired. 🙂

But we got everything in its place and were able to actually have a somewhat clean house before we left!

Tuesday was just spent packing stuff up, cleaning etc. I got to do a few things in my new office. That was nice.

Wednesday I got up at 6:00am EDT and began packing. (Well, also wrote a newsletter to our mailing list…) I had hoped to leave the area by 9:00… with some errand to do, if we were on the road by 11:00, we’d be doing well.

We left at 2:00pm.

That made for a long day, and a kinda messed up one, cause our kids are usually on a pretty good schedule, but not that day! So, travels were a bit rougher than normal… a great start! 🙂

We arrived at my parents house (that evening’s destination) at 12:30am. My parents live in a really cool house, a little bungalow in the woods at the top of a winding driveway up a nice big hill. As we pulled in, I joked with Jen about the time that we were at their house and they had snow during the night and we were leaving early in the morning, and even with only a few inches on the ground, their driveway was so steep that with a trailer behind us we slid down and off the road. (That is not a pleasant thing if you have seen their driveway… )

JUST as I mentioned that, our wheels spun. And again. They had leaves all over the driveway, and there was a light mist all night, making the driveway too slick for our poor van to pull such a heavy load. I stopped midway up, trying to think what to do, and to not slide off the edge again… we started rolling backwards… and ended up jack-knifing the trailer. 🙁

So, we walked up the 100 yds or so to my parents house… luggage and kids in tow. I was not so happy. 🙂

My dad got up and broke out the power garden tools (his super-power leaf blower and the John Deere) We were waging war on the fall foliage that covered the driveway before us. Shock and Awe, baby! 🙂

Well, we got it cleared, and my dad towed our van and trailer up off the edge of the driveway and up the hill and we finally got to sleep around 1:45 or so.

Ugh.

Thursday we spent trying to recover from all that I have just told you about, and preparing for the rest of the weekend to come! We went down to visit my sister and her newest family member (Zoe Eliza). Then from there, drove about 2 hours to our gig that evening.

That went great… LOTS of family was there, a couple aunts and uncles, cousins, my parents and my grandma. Nice. And, it seemed the music was quite well-received, and they asked us to please come back again next time we are in town. That was fun. We sang at the church where my Grandparents were married some 60 years ago almost, and it was just fun in general to sing in my birth-town. Very cool.

But we were still tired.

Went out to dinner with a bunch of family that night, and then stayed with my Grandma. Even though we were leaving early in the morning, we were enjoying time with family, so we did not hit the sack till at least midnight.

Friday morning we got up early for our trip to Arkansas… the alarm went off at 6:00am EDT. Took a shower, and got ready, and then my awesome Grandma (who was also awake till midnight) said, let’s go get some DONUTS! Now, for those of you not from Springfield OH, you may THINK you have had a good donut… but you have NOT until you have had Schuler’s donuts. 🙂

So, with traffic (cars and people) we didnt’ get back till 7am… didn’t leave till 7:30 and didn’t leave the area till like 8:30 because we stopped by another aunt and uncle’s house to pick up some chairs to deliver to their daughter (with whom we are staying next week in Phoenix)

With our late start, the day was again slightly messed up, and really really long! So, we ended up staying at at hotel in Springfield, MO that night (about 2 hours short of our intended destination). Jen couldn’t go any further! It was a really nice hotel, and our 4th try at that exit due to the big Soccer and Swimming tournament in town that weekend. 🙂

So we finally made it to Arkansas yesterday and barely made it up my cousin’s driveway!!! (What is it with these country bumpkin driveways?!?) 🙂 It’s a long, steep, gravel driveway and our tires kept slipping as the van tried hard to pull the load up the hill. Crazy!

We settled in real quick, and got ready for the evening’s gig, and the next morning’s gig… and tried to figure out plans for the weekend… it was going to be busy!

We headed out for the coffee house gig. It was a really cool place. Kennedy Coffee was a cool looking coffee shop, with probably 15-20 folks inside when we got there. We set up and were expecting a normal coffee house night (fairly low-key, casual, intimate, interactive, fun, laid back, sparse… fun) BUT, we ended up having WAY over 100 people there! This place was rockin’! It was AMAZING!

So, a great night. Ian came with us and helped set up and was fun to have around. 🙂 The other two got to stay with my cousin’s family.

Well, are you tired of details yet?

This morning we led worship at my cousin’s church. That seemed to be well received, and was good to be there. Now everyone is sleeping, getting ready for some more singing tonight, at a church back in Bentonville, home of Wal-Mart. 🙂

(Did you know Wal-Mart is not a word in my spell checker? Probably will be soon…) 🙂

Well… I need to wrap this up… we just finished here at The Portico with our friend Shack. Using a bit of high speed internet to pay bills and check on some things online… (and post this blog)

Will update you on some more stuff soon…

But for now, I must sign off as tomorrow is our 7th anniversary! 🙂 Happy Anniversary Jen!

Whoa! Talk about Random & Wandering….

🙂

We sang at a coffee house tonight. We have done that plenty of times before. But this night there was an audience, and there was not an audience. That in itself was not extremely out of the ordinary, but it gave me something to think about.

At times tonight, I could sense that though the room was full of people, we did not have an audience. Yes, had we stopped, there would have been an absence of music that would have been missed… eventually… And in that way, we may have had an audience. But mostly, we were singing to the air.

And in general, that does not make for the best performances of songs.

My rhythm gets sloppy. My fingering of the chords is less than stellar. I start to forget words as my mind wanders from topic to topic. I don’t actually hit the note I intended to on occasion. 🙂

But, if for some reason, I catch a glimpse of a real audience – someone who is actually listening and even enjoying – the song improves a lot! Not just technically improved over the previous paragraph, but even better delivered. From the heart. For real.

Isn’t that weird???

Tonight, after lots and lots of singing – and varying levels of audience – I opened my eyes (sometimes I overcome a lack of audience by just singing the songs to God… HE is my audience) and I saw a couple girls waiting in line for their coffee… and they were paying attention! And smiling! And I actually noticed that the chorus of the song immediately following the discovery of that newfound audience was just better than many other tunes had been that night.

I think that is so odd.

BECAUSE, I do NOT do this because I want people to “look at me!” My personality is “DON’T look at me!” I have never been one to crave the lime light.

But I guess, since music is meant to be communicated, it needs an audience. And when one arrives, the level automatically is raised.

It is possible that something like that might occur in anything that is done for other people. Sometimes a thought of you crosses my mind here on the blog page, and the blog is better for it. The more people I know are reading, the more energy I have to share my thoughts? Again, that is not my motivation for writing, just adds gas to the fire?

And don’t you love to share something you have just created with the nearest person whom you think might care? Whether it’s a kitchen creation, or a craft, or a fine-crafted piece of furniture, or a website, or a model train, or a brand new attic… we love to share our creations, our accomplishments.

It is an innate need, a desire, for acknowledgment of me. Not selfish, not self-absorbed… not even unhealthy in any way. I think it’s who God made us to be. Something in us wants to be worth something… and in a way, the things that we produce make us worth something. Too much value can be placed on those things – rather than our value being derived from who our Creator has said we are. But they do give us value nonetheless.

So the question I came to was, would I write and sing these songs, even with no audience (save God, of course)? Would I write these blogs if not a soul would ever read them? Would the quality of my cooking diminish if I knew that no one but me would ever enjoy it?

I think so. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.

We were made to serve others. God first, then other Servers. We actually improve our serve as there are Servers to be served. The audience does make a difference. The energy level does increase proportionate to the size or attention level of an audience.

So remember that next time you are invited to receive another Server’s creation. Be it musical or lyrical or other-cal…

Be an audience.

I am finally back in my (NEW!) office… so I can blog a bit. Have some thoughts roaming around in my head, but don’t have the time to flesh them out at the moment. We are trying to leave tomorrow for our 2 month tour of duty out west. Return home Dec 9.

So, quickly…

We are up to 0-4 and counting! The Bills managed to come back and take the LEAD with 5 min remaining… BUT, I told you… they are going to be the most exciting 0-16 team EVER! (Not to mention the first… 🙂 No one’s ever lost 16 games in one season!)

Counting from last season, the Bills have now lost 7 straight games. 🙂

Whoopee!

Just for fun, I thought I would respond to the comment below asking for photos of our apple equipment… 🙂

Click here for a slideshow

(Windows users, be prepared to salivate…)

🙂

BEFORE…

AFTER!!!

Alrighty folks… It’s done.

Mostly. 🙂

(When is a home improvement project ever DONE???.

Just wanted to share some photos with you from our adventure. They are Quicktime movies (a slideshow of photos complete with cool music behind them). IF you need Quicktime software, click here.

SHORTER

21 Photos – 1.9 MB – Click to View

LONGER

80 Photos – 7.5 MB – Click to View

Wow.

It’s 2:29am, and I am about to call it a night…

What a day!!!

My Dad and my grandparents came up to help finish the attic. They arrived yesterday and we worked ALL DAY today to put the finishing touches on it. (And, If you can believe it, we are STILL not done – though it’s just minor stuff now… mostly) 🙂

(I sound like John Kerry!)

IT IS SO AMAZING!

What a step up. 🙂 A room worthy of all the Apple equipment we own. 🙂

So, tomorrow, I will rise again early and begin moving my office up one floor, and then we will go get the stuff from the storage unit and move that all back into the storage area of the attic and the basement, and probably my old office here…

BUT… SOON… this will be KIRSTEN’S room.

And Jen & I get OUR room back!!!! Yippee!!!

So, I am just astounded by the transformation of a room. I’ll take some photos tomorrow morning and put up a slide show of them on the blog here.

Just wanted to share the wow. 🙂

Just wanted to honor a friend tonight.

Recently I offended a friend. My openness and forthrightness and opinion sharing can sometimes cross invisible boundaries without knowing it. Such is never my intention… the only boundaries I want to cross are comfort-zone borders which keep people from thinking or growing, or even keep us in negative patterns of behavior.

But I never want to use my words to intentionally harm people.

That said, with my best intentions at heart, I still hurt a friend.

Now, what happens when you hurt someone? If it’s in the heat of the moment, often you will get hurt back! A quick verbal reaction to your perceived verbal attack is a good first maneuver in hand-to-hand verbal combat.

Or, sometimes the recipient of the initial verbal lashing will be so hurt that nothing comes out… or perhaps the moment was so fast there was not time to react. However it happens, the feelings of hurt are allowed to fester, and to grow, and to morph into feelings of anger, bitterness, contempt… eventually hatred.

All over what might have just been a misunderstanding.

I think the words that hurt my friend may have been more than a misunderstanding. We see something that my friend holds very dear from very different angles… and there’s nothing wrong with that, until in my not so subtle ways, I speak so strongly FOR my opinion that it inherently attacks my friend’s deeply held opinion.

Even with that, my friend was able to do the unexpected.

The very next time we were together, there was no lingering awkwardness… no bitterness… no pretending nothing was wrong… just a frank, open, real confrontation of the issue. A crushing blow was not met by a return crushing blow, but a two-way, let’s understand what happened conversation.

I think that’s how it’s supposed to be, and yet, after it happened, I realized that it was unexpected. Not what would normally happen.

So many of us are relationally unhealthy, that we would bottle it up, or fight fire with fire, and BLAST our loose-tongued friend for the hurt they have inflicted upon us.

But open, honest relationships need to always be that. Open and honest. Only in that can there be true friendship and freedom.

Very cool.

So, do the unexpected. Live a little like Jesus. Go out on a limb. You will amaze the target of your kindness and perhaps God will do something unexpected in you.

Just a quick recap of some craziness last night…

Yesterday being Alex’s birthday, we had lots of fun planned… and for our part, it went pretty well.

He wanted a red cake, so that morning, I baked him a red velvet cake with vanilla icing topped with M & Ms! (his favorite!) Mom made him a pancake breakfast (his favorite!) and for lunch we had spaghetti (his favorite!) and opened presents, ate cake and ice cream (all his favorite!)

(He likes a lot of stuff…) 🙂

Then I went back to work, and we all looked forward to the evening activity… MINI GOLF! (his favorite!)

We left at about 6:30 or so, and go to the golf place just before 7. There were cars there, but no one golfing. Perfect! We have the place to ourselves, since the temp was around 45ºF! 🙂

BUT, they were closed. 🙁

Alex was SO SAD!!!!

I convinced the guy there to let the poor little birthday boy play ONE HOLE of golf… and Alex couldn’t have been happier. (Later, recounting the day to Grammy and Grandpa Tom on the phone, the first thing he mentioned he did was golf! How cool!) 🙂

But, we had planned to spend an evening (and some money!) celebrating Alex’s bday… so… what could we do instead…

We had planned to go to McDonald’s (his favorite!) for dinner, and there was one in a town nearby with a HUGE play place! And right across the street is a bowling alley… so, we thought we’d try that. Even called ahead and found out that there was open bowling (WITH bumpers!) till 10pm! Great!

Off we went!

We arrived to the sounds of gleeful children playing happily in the Play Place… so it was working! The night was going better! The boys got happy meals, and all was good. McDonald’s even gave Alex a balloon and some McD’s pencils! 🙂 Awesome!!!

So, we finished dinner, and went to play…

AND IT WAS CLOSED!!!!!!!!! ARRGGGHHHH!!!! 🙂

Another sad face from Alex… but we convinced him we’d actually be able to do the next fun thing we try…

🙂

We did, and he did great… and found out that Tuesday nights are $1/game! So, it was great! The boys (including me) got to bowl and then even got to sit in the big arcade car and pretend to drive at the end (his favorite!) 🙂

All in all a good night… but…

What’s the deal with everyone closing??!?!

I think we need to move to Vegas. The 24-hour city. That’s more on our schedule…

🙂

Happy Birthday Alex! Check out this page for more photos if you’d like.

OK, I said this is not a political blog, and it is not. But at the moment, that is what we are watching, and perhaps you are as well.

And, well… last night, I just lost some more respect for politics. Not as much for Cheney, though he did his share of tearing down the opponent. John Edwards said the EXACT same thing that John Kerry did… same points, same things, same way… and they are all twistings of truth, only to make people think that the current leaders of our country are incredibly stupid, corrupt, and any other negative thing you could think.

What happened to making this a united country?? That’s what Kerry and company are trying to say… that we are two countries, and that they can unite us into one. How? By destroying the current Prez and VPrez and their “administration”? It seems to me that the words coming from the democrats are the divisive words. (They contend the ideas coming from the GOP are divisive.)

The whole thing just makes me sad. I wanted to say to Kerry, “You’re standing on stage with THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!! Give him some RESPECT!!!!” And last night, I wanted to say to Edwards, “This dude has done WAY more than you, he’s WAY more experienced, and he’s the VICE-PRESIDENT!!!! Give him some RESPECT!!!”

But, that is really the way we operate these days… there is not much respect giving. Most people even balk at our kids calling the Mr. or Mrs… a sign of respect… It’s just not important to most people anymore… it’s not even in the picture.

It’s all about me. Not you.

That’s all about wrong.

Jesus showed us the best way. In Phil 2 it says we should consider others better than ourselves, and that our attitude should be like Jesus’ attitude… who being deserving of everthing (He was God) took on the role of a servant and even gave his life for the people who should be serving him.

That’s not politics. Win at all costs. Destroy your opponent any way you can. On both sides.

I really wish we’d just work together, for the country, instead of for “Me”.

Maybe I’ll run for office some day…