I miss my friend!!!

I am hurting today. I have had a friendship with one of the greatest people I know for 14 years. We have been through it all. We almost hated each other when we first met, but then we got to know each other and decided that the other wasn't as bad as we thought. We struggled with maintaining a close relationship while we were hundreds of miles apart. We were there for each other during difficult times in our other relationships. We laughed with each other and we cried with each other. We saved our friendship after it almost fell apart because of my stupidity a couple of times. We rejoiced with each other as we found the ones we would marry. We rejoiced together with the announcement of my becoming a father and cried together when the struggles for her to become a mother. We rejoiced together again when she bore her first child and fulfilled a dream. We have shared almost everything over the past 14 years, and we have been there for each other. Today, I feel like we are slipping apart. We have not spoken in several weeks and reading each other's blogs seems to be where we learn everything that used to be first hand. I know that life moves forward, but I don't want to lose this friend. I miss her so much!!! I miss my friend!!!

Heading home....

I am writing this blog from the 14th floor balcony of Surfside Resort in Destin, Florida. In less than eight hours, I will be waking up to begin the drive back home. I had forgotten, since last year, just how much I really love this part of the country. There is just something about the feeling of being here. The feeling that life is so much simpler and the pace of life is at one's own leisure. I am sure that there are people here who feel the same about their favorite vacation spots, but I can't image a place more peaceful and more beautiful than this. Hearing the waves lap against the shore, and the roar of the Gulf as it pushes another round of waves to their end. It brings a peacefulness that I miss out of my everyday life. For the last eight days, I have negotiated around the desires of my kids, wife and parents to provide a great vacation experience. I told my wife that I have done everything that everyone else wanted to do and have not done anything just for myself. As I look back, I find that I lied and told the truth both in that statement. I did do everything everyone else wanted. I juggled the concerns of everyone and made sure that we all had a great experience. That is what I did for myself. I like to make people happy and I like to make sure everyone has a good time. For me, in making sure that everyone else was satisfied, I was doing what I wanted the most. I guess at some point I will have to tell her that I did do what I wanted. Tonight, though, is all about me. I am sitting here on this balcony just for myself. I have spent the majority of the last eight days away from my computer. I was almost completely unplugged from work, with one minor slip on Thursday. I wanted to get back to a life that did not revolve around my job, and give myself back to my family. I had planned to check my e-mail every morning, but I was instructed by my manager not to even think about work, as I was heading out of the office last week. All of that is about to change. I will be plugged back in and working hard to catch up on Tuesday. The rat race will begin again and I will let my love of this place slip back from the front of my memory. Tonight, I celebrate my last night in paradise, for tomorrow I am heading home.

It's been too long

I was just realizing that it has been over 20 days since the last time that I blogged. It might seem like nothing is going on in my life, but really there is stuff. I am just too lazy to blog all the time. Really, I am too busy playing pointless games on Facebook. So, this blog is going to be a catch up on what has been going on. I know that I have previously promised pictures, and I will try to get to that sometime. I just have to make myself a list and get it done.

So, I believe that I mentioned that I accepted the preaching position at Mission church of Christ. It has been a great experience and I really love being able to share my knowledge and understanding of the Bible with others. It is really hard to gauge how well people like my preaching, because no one walks up and tells the preacher, "That was a horrible lesson this morning. Why don't you get a new job and quit preaching." No, everyone always says, "That was a great lesson. It was just what we needed." I think the worst part of preaching is being able to see the faces of the people in the audience. It doesn't bother me to know that they are looking at me, but I wish I could read their minds. Sometimes I think they are wondering if I am going to finish my lesson anytime soon. I also think they are wondering what the point is. I think these are just my self conscience side working on me, but I will never know. I have really enjoyed getting into the scriptures and bringing out the true meaning in context with what was going on in the first century and how it still applies to us today.

My parents are in town visiting. They spent the last week staying with my sister and her husband. They are staying with us this week and traveling to Florida with us on Friday for a week at the beach. It is nice to have them visit. The kids really love seeing them. They brought two of my nieces and one of my nephews with them for a few days last week. That was not as pleasant of an experience. Don't get me wrong, I love my nephews and nieces, but some of them are starved for attention. I have enough trouble making sure my kids feel like they are getting enough attention without having others in my face wanting me to poof my cheeks out so they can push the air out with their hands. It is annoying.

I am looking forward to my trip this weekend. As I mentioned we are going to Florida for a week. We will be in the Destin area, staying in the same condo building we stayed in last year. I am ready for a break.

I got my schedule problems worked out with my school. I start a new class on September 7. I have two scheduled for this fall and that will leave two for next spring. I am scheduled to take my comprehensive exam starting the morning of May 16. I will have seven days to complete the three question exam. It sounds pretty easy, but considering each question will require 15-20 pages of an answer, it is going to be very time consuming.

Since my last blog, we celebrated my daughters second birthday. It was great to be able to mark that milestone in her life. It was a Strawberry Shortcake party, which she refers to as Cake Cake. I love that girl!!!

Well, I am going to be stopping here. As I say every time, I am going to try to be a little better about blogging in the future. I was going to comment on the New Coney at Sonic, which is great, but I will save that for another day. That would just be in response to a friends blog. I will try to do better in the future. I realize it's been too long.